It's times like this that I wish I had an illuminated keyboard (mental note - get money and buy a prettypretty macbook pro...) I'm wishing this as a result of insomnia...for those of you who are familiar with my sleep patterns, you'll know that I pass out at the drop of a hat usually. A hard time falling asleep means that I've had the time to think "gee, I'm never going to fall asl-" before becoming entirely immobile. Unfortunately, either caffeine (which I usually drink a very moderate amount of) or hard exercise late in the day can cause this kind of peppyness. Today, I carried Ingrid up the mountain. Enough said.

The mountain. To explain, the area of Taibei that I live in (as I've said) is an older part. You walk down the winding back alleys (some of which lead to nowhere) and you'll see laundry hanging off of any area which might catch a breeze (it's well-neigh impossible to get things dry here. The best you can hope for after a full day of hanging is a kind of clammy stiffness. It's actually kind of charming, and a damp sort of way). You'll see endless manga shops and haircutting salons (I saw one named "Chia hair" today that made me smile), holes in the wall selling house paint, yarn for knitting, really anything you could imagine anyone needing. But where was I again? Right, the mountain.

Anyways, you walk through these amazing back alleys (which I will try to do justice to later) and all of a sudden you see a wall, with a mountain covered in green rising behind it. This isn't a big wall, nothing "great" or "china"-y about it. just a simple wall with gardens set behind it, and clotheslines, the usual sorts of things one sees behind walls. Then you come to a series of temples. The first one is big and run down, the paint peeling and faded. The second - like everything else in our part of the city - is covered by corrugated plastic layered into a ceiling. You walk up the stairs and you see two rows of gods, sitting there at the base of their mountain. There are offerings of incense always burning, a kettle of tea and some glasses set beside a couch and chairs (vinyl so they don't get mouldy) and beyond that, another set of stairs. These wind up through a temperate rain forest, slowly at first, then sharply, with a hand railing to help those who find the unevenness of these stairs slightly unnerving given the space between you and the road below. This is the mountain that I have been slowly training myself to run up every other day. Granted, I can't do a full out run up yet, I still need to stop at intervals. However the views are so beautiful, and the altitude increases rapidly enough that I'm perfectly OK with my set rest areas.

At the top of the first plateau, you can see the city below you (often set into clouds that look like fog. from below at the city's eye-level you can't see anything. It's just that humid.) and 101 (the rainbow building as Ingrid likes to call it) rising up far above you. This is (or was?) the tallest building in the world. Most importantly (if you are a 2 year old) it lights up every night, with bands of neon color that change depending on what day of the week it is. It also explodes with fireworks on new years) You might see anything on this hike up, continuing toward that top of the summit. Little old men trotting past in their bare feet, whole retirement-communities laboring up to the first pass every friday afternoon, families in polo shirts with cameras and hiking poles (the entire mountain is stairs btw. No dirt trails here, it's all rock steps) laughing at the crazy white girl who is running up the freeking mountain.

It gets better when I have Ingrid on my back in the backpack. Cause then, I have the child-star of Taibei with me on my back. Now, not only is it odd to see such a beautiful blonde child going up the mountain, but seeing a young woman carrying her? Now that's just crazy-talk! I get a lot of thumbs ups, and chuckles. A couple people have taken our pictures. It's pretty funny. I have also decided that outside of pregnancy I am NOT going to spontaneously gain about 20 pounds overnight. Cause carrying that around is hard work. I have also decided to train prior to and during pregnancy so that when the time comes to carry around a baby every second of the day for the following 5+ years, I will be ready, and not die. Moral: Children are heavy, the end.

I was going to talk more about the city and some of the awesome people who run these teeny shops and feed me the best food ever, but I'm kind of tired now, which was the goal. So I will save it for another more awake time of day.

zaijian, byebye.