The weather was brilliant in San Francisco today. Not a cloud, and wonderful direct light from the absurdly deep-blue sky. I caught a cab, with a Vietnamese driver this time, to the Caltrain station. There I purchased a ticket to Redwood City, where I had arranged to meet my best friend from High School, Shawn Lewis. Shawn and I made a short film together called “Time Travellin’ Teddy” in which we played Libyan terrorists. We filmed the kidnapping of Roosevelt, who had accidentally been teleported to 1986, at the airport, fake guns and all. Try pulling that off today.

It was good to be on a train again, even if the shiny double-decker cars exuded a certain unsettling oder, and the windows were fairly dirty. We bumped and jostled our way out of town, heading south down the peninsula towards San Jose, passing small houses, some with junkyards and others immaculately kept, and fields of complicated, rusty machinery.

Shawn met me at the station, looking roughly the same as the last time I’d seen him, which was in 1987. No mean feat, that. I doubt he would have recognized me without the aid of pictures. He drove me out to his place of employment, aka Dreamworks, and gave me a tour of the place.

It was fascinating. The offices are all warmy lit and well appointed, with posters they made “just for fun” as well as stands from various films. Shawn explained the animation process, and I found that the animators also refer to shots by focal length and aperture.

We had lunch at the company canteen, which was well-appointed, and the other employees sitting around the table chatted about various projects. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, though, and can’t elaborate on much of what I heard, but it was an interesting look into the culture at Dreamworks, which has made some of my favorite films.

Shawn had a meeting at 1, though, so he drove me back to the station, and I got on the next train with the wrong ticket. The machine had asked whether I wanted a zone 2 ticket, and I misinterpreted it as asking if I wanted a 2-zone ticket, so I was short. Nobody had inspected my ticket on the way out, but this time the conductors, very official and very fat men in sunglasses, swept into the cabin to check out tickets. Luckily we were still in the same zone at the time, or the fine would have been hundreds of dollars. I decided to get off at the next stop to add the required amount to my ticket, but the train left before I could do this, and the next one was an hour away.

So I walked around the town of San Mateo, which seemed an uneventful place. Lots of Chinese and Japanese restaurants, and one gigantic Chinese laundry facility. There’s been a slight aura of anxiety to all the places I’ve visited so far, but I have to attribute it to my unease at being in a new place, as the only area it doesn’t appear to weigh on me so heavily is Chinatown.

Back in San Francisco, I walked from the Caltrain station towards the bay, aimless switching street. I took a few photos, but I don’t really have a feel for this city, when to take what shots, how  people will react, etc. Therefore many of my shots are more abstract, landscape and architecture shots. I walked to the bay bridge and down past the piers to where a huge cruiseliner, the Coral Sea Princess or something, was docked, tourists streaming through the gates. I stopped to rest my feet, taking off my shoes and watching the planes and boats on the water. I wondered where the liner had come from and what it would be like to arrive in SF after a long sea voyage.

The sun was beginning to lower in the sky as I walked inland through affluent communities, skirting Nob Hill. “Nice shadows, mate,” a man told me as I shot some reflected light on a wall. The sun was glaring off the many windows by the time I reached my hotel, whereupon Ernie messaged me and said to meet him at The Hub, which is located at 5th and Mission. Ernie belongs to The Hub, and I imagine it to be some kind of consortion, a loosely affiliated group of super bloggers.

We walked through the dusk to a MUNI station and waited for a small, two-car train to stop at a seemingly random part of the platform, causing would-be passengers to have to guess the spot and run for it if they guessed wrong.

Dinner was at Chow’s in the Castro. When Ernie said the name I thought he was talking about a Chinese place, but then I remembered that Chow is also an English term related to eating. I had some pasta, which was good, and we shared a dessert of ginger cake and pumpkin ice cream, which was just wrong it was so good, and talked about things under the heaters protecting us from the evening chill as if they had a grudge against it.

After dinner we walked back to Ernie’s where we got in his car and drove out to the Golden Gate Bridge, parking on the outlook on the other side and taking pictures. In addition to us were gaggles of photographers with tripods, laughing Latino families, worried businessmen on their mobile phones, and a few kissing couples ignoring the sparkling cityscape across the bay.

Ernie had wanted to show me some other stuff, but he took a wrong turn and we ended up going through the Presidio and down Geary in the Sunset before he dropped me off at the North Beach Hotel, where I am typing this. Tomorrow I have to somehow manage the feat of getting up, checking out, getting to the airport, flying to Chicago, changing planes, and then flying to Lexington, Kentuckly. Oi.

I woke up this morning feeling discombobulated after sleeping late; it was almost noon and Ernie had left a message that he was having brunch with a friend at a place called BrunchDrunkLove. Apparently it’s quite a popular restaurant, as just before I set out Ernie said they’d had to switch to another spot: Future Cinema on Mission and 21st. As I was already late, I decided to hail a cab, a feat Ernie had assured me was quite simple. The problem was, I soon discovered as I walked down Keary in the drizzle, that I couldn’t tell which cabs were full, and each one I hailed just declined. Eventually I got one to stop for me; the driver was from Shanghai, and we chatted in Mandarin as he drove. He’d been in the US for 20 years, along with his siblings, while their parents were still in Shanghai. “The cost of living in Shanghai is outrageous these days!” he said.

Future Cinema turned out to be, predictably, an old movie house converted into a swank restaurant. I found Ernie involved in animated conversation with a tall, handsome woman. I tried to draw up a chair, but apparently Future Cinema is too nice a place for such backwards behavior, and we had to arrange things with the highly efficient and rather nervous staff. I had an excellent omelette as well as a few bites of a pastry ordered by Ernie’s friend, who turned out to be Denise Jacobs. Denise is a professional speaker, author, web designer and more, but the thing that impressed me the most was the resounding echoes of her laughter startling several tables around us after Ernie explained to me the term “See Tarzan, Hear Jane”.

Denise had to go somewhere after lunch, and Ernie and I took the subway to Folsom Street for the fair. The train’s seats and floors were carpeted, which I felt was a poor decision lacking in foresight. We were planning on following the leather to the fair, but even before we exited the station Ernie encountered a couple of people he knew, and he introduced us.

The sun was strong and bright as we passed through the barrier into the fair, over which hung thick smoke from the barbeques. Several stages had been set up, on which various acts were being hailed by the prodigious crowds, mostly men, some clothed in leather and quite a few not really clothed at all. I think I saw more silicon than clothing, and it really wasn’t as interesting as it sounds. Ernie and I forced our way through the dense crowd until it all got a bit much, whereupon we stationed ourselves on the sidewalk and watched people going by. A great majority of the Caucasian men seemed to have a certain facial expression, a kind of tight-lipped grimace and thousand-yard stare as they strode along at a set, slow pace. Ernie called it “the pout” and apparently it’s A Thing. A couple of girls were giving out free kisses to all the guys, making me wonder if they truly had a handle on the major demographic there. We saw some animal costumes, plastic rather than the furry kind, apart from Pedobear, who was so hot that he kept taking his head off. Ernie said there were quite a few gawkers, and many people had cameras. I didn’t take many photos, as it all seemed a bit easy.

We met up with Ernie’s friend from yesterday, Claudio, and walked down the street some more until Claudio went into a dark, cavernous bar filled with thumping music. But I was loathe to stay while the weather outside was no nice. The slanting rays were lovely but fleeting as the sun dropped along with the temperature. We met another group of Ernie’s friends (my but that boy’s popular), one of them with the Chinese characters for “destiny” on his shoulder and “Live for Today” on his meaty calf. He said I was the only one to ever have recognized them.

Claudio had bought tickets to the post-fair block party, so he and Ernie continued up Folsom while I turned back as the fair packed up. I walked in the deepening dusk down Folsom, taking 7th over to Market and walking down past all of the fine triangular buildings, the homeless people and the rattling streetcars. I walked into a Walgreens at a whim, just to catch a whiff of that peculiar combination of plastic and produce. At the end of the street I could see the port building’s tower. I was wandering the streets of San Francisco in the afterglow of the spent day, in fine spirits.

Dinner was at a Subway next to what turned out to be the Hearst Building. I turned onto Keary and walked back to the hotel, putting everything away except for the Rabbit and a small 50mm lens, and then I went out again, walking through Chinatown, which seemed more familiar and less forbidding than the empty financial district.

At one point a Scandanavian couple asked me where Union Square was, but I had no idea. The only other people around were a group of Chinese people, so I asked them, and they told me, and I told the couple, who immediately set off. “Are you a foreigner?” one of the Chinese people asked me.

I continued walking around the area, up and down hills, past wonderful buildings, many empty. Fog was rolling in, obscuring the tops of the taller buildings. I walked back through Chinatown and had some pizza before coming back to the hotel. Just now some Russians were chatting in the hallway before a woman stuck her head out and told them to shut up as she was trying to sleep.

Tomorrow’s my last day in San Francisco.

I got a benz to the airport to the airport this morning. An old car, early 90′s vintage, but it still had enough class to get the job done. It had been a hectic couple of days since I finished reserve training in Danshui, which is another post altogether, and I hadn’t yet caught up on my sleep.

I got to the airport in plenty of time for my flight, but the check in staff told me that, as United had switched aircraft in the middle of the night, just to mix things up, they decided to reassign all of the seating, resulting in both of my window seats being turned into middle seats. I told them that was really screwed up, and they said they’d put in a request for window seats.

I proceeded through immigration, enjoying no line in the Taiwan Nationals section and even getting the new sped-up checkout setup they have there that uses biometrics to flash yourself through. Then I retired to the lounge for some breakfast and massage chair therapy.

The flight to Tokyo was pleasant. I’d gotten my window seat and was able to observe out plane’ shadow flitting over the shiny rice fields on the way in, and I felt an urge to just stay there instead of flying on to San Francisco. This urge grew stronger when I’d passed through the strange deplaning inspections and while waiting in the bright departure lounge admiring a certain bear, beheld the aging (though shiny and well-kempt) 747 that was to bear us across the Pacific. The exposed layers of paint on its nose betrayed a long history of many repaintings, and unlike most planes these days, the entertainment system consisted of tiny CRT screens hanging from the ceiling, and no choice of what to watch. In addition to that, I was stuck in the middle seat. It was at least an exit row seat, so I could get up and move around fairly easily, but the air on the plane was some of the driest I’d ever encountered, and my throat began to bother me even though I had convinced the rather surly staff to give me some water. Being in the middle seat meant nowhere to lay my head and sleep, but I think I did pass out a couple of time in the course of the flight.

Morning on the other side of the planet flashed into the windows, and it was the same time that I’d left Taipei, only now I was in San Francisco, setting foot in the US for the first time in over a decade. Some minor changes were immediately apparent, in the form of increased airport security, but I was treated nicely and even got a Taiwanese-American immigration officer who appreciated my situation. I was asked a lot of questions, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

We’d arrived early thanks to a strong tailwind, so my friend Ernie, whom I’ve never actually met IRL before, was there just as I walked out of the door. I’m afraid he didn’t exactly catch me at my best, disheveled and jetlagged and somehow froze-shrunk on the plane. Also, I’d shaved for training and my beard hasn’t really had a chance to grow back.

We drove out onto the freeway, and I was struck by simple sights that I hadn’t seen in a dog’s age, things like white speed limit signs and nervous drivers. While the airport was experiencing lovely sunny weather, we drove into the low, wet clouds hugging the city, through newly developed districts that weren’t here that last time I visited, to downtown, which looks exactly the same. The last time I was in San Francisco was also the last time I was in the US. It was early 2001, and I was visiting my friend Mindcrime, who was then working for e*trade, just before the dot-com bust. I would take the ferry over from his Oakland apartment where he spent a great deal of time playing Everquest, to his game-filled office near the Bay Bridge, and I would walk around. E*trade made noises about hiring me for some kind of Chinese-language content position, but though I was tempted, I’m glad I didn’t make that move. Everything went pieces not long after that. Today, SF is experiencing a new dot-com boom of sorts, and I hope that this one ends better, if it has to end at all. My visit last time inspired me to begin this blog, actually.

My hotel didn’t have checkins until 3pm, so we drove down to the waterfront and walked around the markets there. One of the first things I saw was a jug band on the dock. Called the Bakersfield Dozen, it was a three-piece group consisting of a national guitar/lead singer, a washboard player and a washtub player. He was using a metal tub, wire, and a stick with an armrest. He wore gloves and hit the wire with a stick. I almost squealed like a schoolgirl, and rushed up to chat with them. He let me try out the washtub, and I have to say I really prefer the plastic version for getting notes. Still, nice setup.

Ernie and I walked the docks, sipping fresh Apple-Cucumber juice (interesting combination, but too many seeds), until we ended up at Bubba Gump Shrimp. Ernie covered up his embassassment at being seen at such a touristy location by feigning interest in visiting the bathroom, but I could tell he actually liked the kitchy feel of the place. Vintage streetcars ran along the road, painted in wonderful shades of aqua and yellow, accompanied by tri-wheeled pedicabs similar to the kind that used to be common in Taipei before scooters became popular. I was surprised at how many people sported DSLR cameras hanging around their necks. I had the Rabbit on a sling, but I didn’t take many shots. I was too busy just Being Back to take photos.

We walked back to the car and drove to Ernie’s neighborhood, i.e. The Mission, “where working-class Latinos and techy hipsters largely ignore each other” as the sign says. We walked down the streets, looking at interesting shops like the place affiliated with McSweeneys, where they tutor kids on writing and sell parrot supplies. Wait, sorry, I heard that wrong, Ernie said it’s actually “pirate supplies”, which makes slightly less sense. When I held up my little camera to take a video, the young girl behind the counter protested, pleading that keep my account of the shop strickly non-photographic. The shop next door, a taxidermist/unsettling bookshop that featured odd noises coming from upstairs, as if there were some taxidermy/unsettling writing going on, also forbade photos. I wonder what the reason for this could be; surely they’re not afraid of another taxidermy shop, perhaps a large national taxidermy chain, to set up shop across the street?

Everything felt slightly off to me at this point, like I was in a play. We saw a really cool 50′s/60′s furniture shop (“midmod”, Ernie calls it), an ok mariachi band, and had a donut and juice. Ernie and I stood outside a taqueria waiting for his friend to show up, chatting and watching people walk by, mostly Latinos, some older fellows in big old 70′s Caddies. Lunch was real taco, slightly spicy.

I was feeling drained as we walked back to Ernie’s pad, which is very nice, though a bit smaller than the Water Curtain Cave. But it’s in a vintage wooden building, has high ceilings and lots of light, and is more nicely appointed (he has a real kitchen, something I wouldn’t know how to use even if I had one). His neighbor is having a party tonight and I’m invited, but I suspect I’ll probably just stay at the hotel.

Oh, the hotel. It’s the Hotel North Beach, across from the famous Zoetrope building, and it’s essentially just a really old hotel, just rows and rows of small, simple rooms with bed, sink and TV. Could be out of the 1930′s, a la Barton Fink, though the interiors have been refurbished so recently that I can still smell the new carpet and paint (which is why I have the window open, letting the air and sounds of the city inside). I love it so far, or at least the feel of it. By a strange coincidence, the Folsom Street Fair/Parade or something is tomorrow, which explains why all the rooms in town were booked this weekend. I’m not entirely sure I want to go, but I’ve got no real plans for tomorrow, so I’ll probably just see what happens.

I was walking up Bo-ai Road around noon yesterday when I came across an unusual scene: Squatting on the pavement right in front of me was a naked individual, using the fruit store’s hose to take an impromptu shower on the street. My instincts had me taking photos before my brain mumbled something about this possibly not being the best idea. I walked past and around the front to get a better view, and saw that the bathing individual was actually a middle-aged woman who seemed completely oblivious to the stares she was receiving.

A man collecting recycling rode up to the bathing woman on his bicycle and began shouting at her. “Seriously?” He yelled. “You are actually taking a bath, stark naked on the streets? This is the kind of impression you want to make?” He spied me watching and addressed me. “Oh, this is hilarious, ” he said, disgusted.

Just as I was wondering if the police at the station across the street would notice the spectacle, a policewoman wearing a uniform a couple of sizes too big for her came over. “What’s going on here?” She demanded, though it was pretty obvious what was going on. She began haranguing the naked woman, who began to don her clothes; it seemed that she was not quite all there, mentally. Although I wanted to shoot more, I figured not becoming involved in the situation was fairly high on my list of things to do that day, so I moved on. A couple of blocks away, I could still hear the derisive shouts of the recycling man.

I’d thought that the Muddy Basin Ramblers were meeting up at the Red House Theater in the West Gate District at 1:30 in the afternoon before our 2:05 show at a benefit concert for Japanese tsunami orphans, and I therefore proceeded to enjoy a leisurely morning at home, slowly getting my things together, before realizing that we’d actually arranged to meet at 12:30. One mad dash and a NT$300 taxi ride later, I was behind the theater going through a quick practice with the band, minus Conor who was already on stage with another band.

The show went well, but it was over too quickly. It seemed like we’d barely started before we were playing our last song as the hosts came up on stage. I was taking apart the washtub bass when one of the hosts, a woman, grabbed the tub and held it up for the audience to see. “This is what he’s been playing, if you didn’t notice!” she said. She then asked for a quick demonstration. Now there’s a sentence to boost my search ratings.

We were going out to celebrate David’s birthday that night, so I hung around and listened to the other bands, which included a Japanese family of ukulele players who performed some hits from Miyazaki movie themes like Spirited Away and Totoro. Adorable, if somewhat out of tune. One of the younger kids lost the beat halfway through one song, and within two measures the rest of the family switched to accommodate him. We had planned to find a spot near the Chungshan Hall for a little street performance, but Sandy and Thumper bailed early. A South American group got on stage and played such wonderful mariachi-style tunes I wanted to jump on stage and play along, but I refrained.

Eventually I tired of the booming sound, however, and walked out to the square where the old roundabout and park used to be before they made a boring intersection out of it, and stood in the same spot for about half an hour, just looking at people and things. Everyone had a camera, everyone was taking photos except me. The Golden Melody Awards, which I attended with Chalaw a few years ago (we didn’t win, but he won the next year), were taking place that evening, and one of my favorite bands as well as a friend, Matzka, was up for several awards. I knew from previous experience that he and his band were probably walking down the red carpet at the venue as I stood watching people in the square. Matzka would win the best group award that night. Not bad.

Night fell over the Red House Theater as all the bars and clubs fired up and filled with bears and other demographics. We walked over to the Calcutta. Slim was sloshedly vociferous the whole way. The food wasn’t bad, better than Tandoor, I felt, though I’m not a particular connoisseur of Indian food. David and Robin told tales of their recent honeymoon in Paris, of all the wonderful sights and sounds I missed when I was there, such as Belleville and the bars where Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grapelli played. The Leica Forum is going on there at the moment, attended by many a wealthy photographer (and probably some good ones, too, he said, trying not to sound too bitter).

The others were heading to Bobwundaye after dinner for some jamming, but I had an early start coming up on Sunday, so I reluctantly declined even though I was itching to play some more.

I was awake at 7:20 a.m. the next morning, grabbing the Invincible Rabbit and heading out into the already-brilliant sunshine, across the bridge and onto the subway to Taipei Train Station, where I met up with Chenbl, Terry, Lulu, Sean, his girlfriend Lily and her cousin, who were visiting from Hong Kong. Sean just got his master’s degree from Qinghua University in Disney Studies.

We caught the train to Keelung, traveling along the various construction sites and through the industry, through the mountain range and into the port city in about 40 minutes. Chenbl just failed to catch the bus out to Peace Island, so we waited in the hot sun, shooting irritated-looking passengers. Terry had an even more formidable beast than the Rabbit, a 1Ds, while Lulu, I think, had a 50D. A new liner was docked in the harbor, the Star Aquarius, bigger and nicer than the Star Libra I took to Okinawa. I wondered where it was bound for..Singapore? Hong Kong? Across from it was the Cosco Star that we took to Xiamen a few months ago. It looked small and dirty next to the Aquarius.

We caught the next bus out to Peace Island, which is located across a short bridge up near the mouth of the river. The area by the entrance is still under construction, as it was this time last year when I last saw it. The sun was glaring off the newly laid concrete, and a guard languished deep inside the shade of his shelter at the gate of a military base. We walked out to the rocky coast, where some messy picnickers were lighting fires and consuming bottles of tea. I climbed up on the rocks to get close to the sea, delighted to hear the wonderful sound of the water sluicing through the various crevices.

We walked up the coast and inland to a small group of houses whose occupants no doubt rely on hot, sweaty tourists for their livelihood. A group of aboriginal children surrounded us, trying and failing to guess who among us was Taiwanese and who wasn’t. “You’re the only real Taiwanese here,” I told them. The kids were apparently big fans of the hit TV show Rookie’s Diary, and weren’t entirely convinced that I knew Ye Da-tong, Lai Hu, Luo Gang, and Yang Hai-sheng, and I thought it was a shame that my friend Fu Zi-cun, who played Yang Hai-sheng and who is not a bad photographer himself, didn’t come along this time. He’s busy filming a new series down south though, and couldn’t make it.

The kids were playing around on a laundry rack comprised of a bamboo stick on two poles as we talked to them, and suddenly the bamboo stick, which was obviously quite old and moldy, broke. Almost immediately an old man in a white shirt came rushing up, yelling at this travesty, and the kids scattered. The old man took off his shoe and threw it at the kids several times, cursing them. At one point he actually got his hand on one of them and raised a heavy club to hit him with, but Terry stopped him, saying, “There’s no need for that.” I wondered if we would see that old man in the Apple Daily some day.

We walked down to the nearest bus stop and, 15 sweaty minutes later, caught a bus back to the train station, where we’d arranged to meet up with the Taiwan Photo Club, or at least part of it. Craig and Selina were there, of course, as well as Josh Ellis, Gillian Benjamin and a few others. They were waiting at the Starbucks on the harbor, and we had a quick lunch at the Burger King next door, enticed by the free ice cream sundaes, before boarding another bus out to the Fairy Cave.

I don’t think I’d ever been to the Fairy Cave before. Flocks of birds swarmed around the cliff face above the cave’s entrance, which was accompanied by ever-shy monks and a great deal of religious paraphernalia as the cave contains several temples. It was cool and misty inside, and several side caves branched out from the main one. One of the side branches became quite narrow, and some people came back claiming it was impossible to get through. I tried it, and though I had to crouch over and turn sideways, both the rabbit and I managed to get through fairly unscathed, though my shoulders were scrapped and muddy. Inside was another altar enveloped in a heavy mix of mist and incense that an ancient fan in the corner failed to alleviate.

We explored the neighborhood around the cave, waking up dogs and cats and a strange kind of wasp that attacked Josh because it really didn’t want to be on Facebook. Then Chenbl led us on a long trek across the valley and up another hill to a nice view of the sea right next to a power plant. As we recovered from the climb, which included the toxic fumes of a house painted entirely in tar the owner probably won in a game of majhong and didn’t want to waste, a lone paraglider sailed over the smokestacks of the powerplant, his shadow flitting across the field overlooking the sea.

The walk back down was much easier, and we luxuriated in the air conditioning of the rickety bus back downtown. Terry, Lulu, Sean, Lily and Lily’s cousin had to leave; the rest of us crossed the bridge over the other side of the tracks. A couple of aesthetic homeless men populated the bridge, lit by the late-afternoon sun in a way that even I couldn’t resist taking a shot, though I generally don’t like to take too many such shots. Craig was taking phone pictures the whole time, unburdened by a heavy DSLR. Probably a smart move considering the heat and all the hills we were climbing that day.

We wound our way through the steep alleys and stairs, passing and occasionally photographing the local residents. One man sitting on his scooter smoking glared at me as I took his shot. “Sorry,” he said, pointing to his cigarette. I refrained from pointing out that he would look just as thuggish without the cigarette, and walked on.

The whole of Keelung was laid out in the light of the approaching sunset as we reached the big KEELUNG sign, whereupon the mosquitoes decided that Chenbl was the only really delicious person on the site. Everyone except Craig and Selina climbed up to the top of the hill for an even better view. Josh and I stood atop the summit, on a circle of an old structure, noting the approaching clouds and thunder that meant it was surely raining in Taipei. The Aquarius had departed, off to wherever it was headed, a voyage of good food, swimming pools and gambling. The Cosco Star would be heading out later that evening.

Rain began to fall as we descended the hill, often going in circles as Chenbl tried to make the walk more interesting. We recrossed the bridge, noting that the homeless men had changed positions, and walked over to the Miaokou Night Market, which was mostly closed due to construction work. I didn’t see anything I liked. The harbor city was taking on its nocturnal form, its nights darker than those of other cities, its streets and alleys closer, wetter. I was game for more exploration, but I could feel the group’s gravitation towards the train station and our comfortable homes, so I went along, telling myself, another time: Keelung will still be there.

My good friends David and Robyn got married on Saturday. They’ve been together for as long as I’ve known them, but they decided to make it official with a touching ceremony held at the Taipei Artists Village, the site of many a late-night jam over the years. Jason presided over an impressive and apparently endless spread of delicious food and tents were set up, under which friends from all over the world mixed and mingled. Hakka singer Lo Sirong as well as Chalaw & Passiwali provided great tunes over the course of the afternoon, and I got on stage to play trumpet for a few songs while rings of guests joined David and Robyn in aboriginal-style dancing. The weather was brilliant, specially arrange, David told us, by Jason, who apparently has an in with the weather gods.

The highlight of the afternoon was definitely the vows the happy couple had written to each other. I always find myself abashed and slightly in awe of such genuine displays of mutual affection, especially between two of the nicest people I know. Then a woman asked everyone to hold hands in a giant circle and close their eyes while she gave her bilingual blessing.

Things were winding down by 7 p.m. Chenbl and I walked over to Q-Square to meet Steve and Masaharu, a friend from Osaka, who was in town for just one day. Something to do with frequent flyer miles, I gathered. Masaharu speaks almost no Chinese and very little English, and our Japanese is in its infant stages to say the least. After dinner we walked to New Park to meet one of Steve’s friends who is into Mongolian Throat Singing. He’s putting on a show early next month that I’m looking forward to attending.

Sunday morning was spent rather frantically trying to make the Water Curtain Cave somewhat presentable, as my friend Professor Wu from Kaohsiung was paying a visit. An art professor who is responsible for sending waves of students adding me on Flickr each time he uses my photos as teaching materials, Professor Wu had never been to Bitan before, despite a professed familiarity with Taipei.

When he arrived, he was amazed.”I had no idea all this was here!” he exclaimed when we went up to the roof to survey the area*. As the weather was fine once again, crowds of swanboats filled the lake, and tourists were crowding the bridge, stopping on the other side when confronted with the shabby illegal shacks surrounding the group of high-rises where I live. We had a nice lunch at the blue-roofed riverside cafe overlooking the river before retiring to the Cave to talk photography. I’m looking at publishing a photobook, but I need some direction on the direction, so to speak, and needed a fresh opinion. Professor Wu gave me some interesting views, and his advice made certain thorny issues quite a bit clearer.

As the afternoon progressed we walked down to the dock and took the ferry across to the unofficial temple, where I took photos of some gangsteresque fellows while pretending I was actually shooting Professor Wu. As the ferry glided across the sunlit water, I noticed, far above the people diving into the lake from the cliff, suspended walkways built into the mountainside. I’ll have to go explore those someday soon.

Professor Wu had never been to Dihua Street either, so we took the subway over and walked down the silent avenue among the old buildings in various states of repair. Chenbl had to remind him to ask the local gods before taking photos at a minor roadside temple, the kind where the ghosts of accident victims are pressed into service for various local duties.

Dinner was a lavish affair downstairs at Taobanwu…well, lavish for me anyway, in that it included little cups of vinegary drink in between the courses. Professor Wu had to get back to Kaohsiung on the bullet train, so we parted ways at the station. Hopefully he’ll be able to make it up next weekend to see some accoustic Muddy Basin Rambling at Huashan after Urban Nomad on Friday night.

*I should note that I am by no means recommending Bitan as a good place to live or that you should consider moving here. It’s colder and wetter than Taipei, the bridge swings in the wind, and the crowds of tourists on the weekends are truly wearing. Try Muzha; I hear they’ve still got a few spots left over there, with their fancy gondola and all that.

For the first time on the trip, we were greeted by cold wind and rain after a nice hotel breakfast the next morning. Mr. Cai was waiting for us, no doubt wondering what we could possibly be up to in such weather, but he gamely drove us out towards the coast, past massive construction sites, half-finished resorts and an extremely long bridge that extended so far out into the mist the other end was invisible. Our destination was a fishing village where the women wore colorful scarves and generally ran the show. On the way we had to thread our way through a roadside funeral procession. Dank paper objects lay at the group’s feet.

The continued as we reached our destination, so we bought some cheap umbrellas. Chenbl and the others were intent on photographing the colorfully-scarved women, but I was just there to see what was what, so as they prowled a small fish market I holed up in a middle-aged fishmonger’s stall and chatted with him about the place. He said he used to work in Shanghai but moved to the Hui-an village to seek a simpler life. The buildings reminded me of Taiwanese fishing villages. Eventually I wandered over to the market and took some shots. The men whose photos I took seemed shocked and surprised, even pleased that I chose them as subjects; no doubt they were used to every single photographer that came by always zooming in on the women and their scarves.

I realized at one point that Chenbl and the girls were playing the role of people from Xiamen for Mr. Cai’s benefit. Whether this was planned or whether it just happened due to false assumptions I had no idea, but it didn’t matter; I’d been playing the part of a Westerner the whole trip. But I suspected that Chenbl was going to try to get away with paying local fares.

We drove through the rain and wind on roads lined with discarded stonework to a larger fish market, where I was yelled at several times for taking photos. It was lunchtime by now, and we drove a little ways towards another part of town to find a restaurant. We had just parked and were walking down the street when a curious sight greeted us; an electric pole, tied up to bundles of wires leading off in several directions, had been mounted by over a dozen workers. Apparently the pole, located in the center of the two main streets, had been hit by a truck and was about to collapse. It looked more like an elaborate circus act than a repair job, and most of the town had turned out to stare intently at the job, while I envisioned sprung electrical wires snapping through the crowd.

We had a mediocre lunch of beef noodles nearby, safely out of the reach of the wires. While we waited for the food, I trekked up the hill to take photos of a dog that had been spray painted pink, rolling around in the dust. The rain had stopped. Back at the restaurant, while the first few bowls contained actual meat, by the time I got mine it was just meat droppings and undercooked noodles. It seemed the restaurant never had more than three costumers at a time, as they only had three bowls. The rest of us used plastic bags.

After we finished, the pole had been successfully replaced. The town was saved! But something told me that such incidents weren’t all that uncommon. We walked up the street, taking pictures as we went, stopping at a construction site where a team of colorfully scarved women were making cement. They shot us dirty looks, picked up rocks, and threw them at us, just missing our feet. I suppose they knew they might get a reaction if they actually hit us, but after it happened a few times, the rocks getting closer and closer, I was wondering at the efficiency with which these people were driving away any potential tourist dollars. They others quickly retreated, but I took a few steps towards them, pointedly took out my notebook and wrote in it, glaring back at them as I did so. That’ll show ‘em!

Back in Quanzhou, Mr. Cai dropped us off near an old temple complex with a pair of pagodas there were, say it with me, over a thousand years old. We strolled through the grounds past groups of old men concentrating on chess and qi-gong, and managed to catch a glimpse of some beautiful golden statues inside before a couple of smarmy, brusk monks shut the doors. “We’re closed! Go away! Shoo!” they told us. After reading a poster describing how Chinese President Hu Jin-tao had deigned to visit them, I understood; the likes of us could never compare to such an exalted presence. Back outside, I discovered that punks on electric scooters lose quite a bit of their punch without the sound of revving engines; all they could manage was a high-pitched whine.

We walked through more alleys are night fell. The alleys of Quanzhou are quite nice, interesting and dense. Dinner was had another little hole-in-the-wall place, where I had some good, if salty fried rice. The owner was from Quanzhou but his wife was from another province, it seemed from their accents. After dinner we walked along broad, tree-lined avenues back to the hotel, dodging electric scooters and passing empty lots of land that had surely been old neighborhoods before being razed; one building that looked as if it had been split down the middle by a giant axe.

It’s been a long slog through this winter in Taipei, so when I realized that a three-day weekend was coming up, I decided to go as far south as the bullet train would take me. Of course, on the Saturday morning of my departure, the weather in Taipei was actually brilliant and warm. But I’d already gotten tickets, and I needed to get out of town in any case.

I picked up my ticket at the main station, pleased to find myself upgraded to business class for the first time due to a shortage of regular seats, around noon, and a few minutes later I was ensconced in my purple velvet seat next to a woman who was toilet training her child with a cute book of photos of various animals pooping in a non-threatening manner. We departed, and the faster the train went, the better I felt. Faster! Faster! I thought as we sped away south. As usual, it was a smooth, solid ride. Shortly after departure a foreigner approached the lunchcart lady looking for a vegan lunch. Halfway through a bite of Yoshinoya pork rice, I looked up to discover that it was my friend Maurice, famed thespian and advertiser of air fresheners extraordinaire. “Maumph!” I called, my mouth full. As we were chatting about what a coincidence this was, a thickset, black-clad Aborigine man with dreads and sunglasses came stomping up the aisle. Of course, this was none other than my friend Matzka, followed by the other members of his band. They, it turned out, were playing a gig in K-town that night, at the new performance space near the Fisherman’s Wharf district.

As we passed Taoyuan and Hsinchu, the scenery outside was obscured by fog. This wasn’t right, I thought. The weather’s supposed to be good all around the island all weekend. An hour and a half later, we’d reached Kaohsiung, where the sun fought its way through the haze that covered the city. I accompanied Maurice and his friend to Central Park Station, from which we walked towards their hotel, the Ambassador. Maurice was voicing his concern that I didn’t have a hotel booked as I snapped pictures of people’s houses and the dogs that defended them.

I left Maurice at the hotel and headed towards the Yancheng district, stopping to be interviewed by a student about Kaohsiung’s tourism infrastructure, and then wandering towards the harbor, where I lounged around until I noticed that my phone, which had been charged on the train coming down (one of the perks of business class is electrical outlets in the seats), was rapidly losing power. I found a cafe to charge it, but it seemed to take forever. I read a book and pushed thoughts of the iPhone4′s expanded power capacity aside.

The sun had set by the time I’d gotten the phone charged to a quarter of its capacity. I walked towards the harbor mouth, taking the subway to the Sanduo Shopping District, where I met a friend, John Lin. We had dinner at a cafe, Donutes or something, where I could charge my depleted phone once again. After we left, I saw a man unloading stuff from a van, and, as is my wont, I tried to grab my camera before realizing that I’d left it at the cafe. Fortunately, everyone in the place was waiting for the 5D mark III and didn’t want to bother nicking the old version. We went out to the wharves to catch Matzka’s show, which was brilliant as usual, passing the fireworks display on our way back downtown. I found a business hotel near the Sanduo district and checked into a swank room for NT$1800 a night, luxuriating in the clean sheets and towels and large-screen TV. Sleep that night was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

On Sunday I met Chenbl and Ray, who had come down on separate trains that morning, as well as Professor Wu and his friend Ah-he. Professor Wu teaches art and is responsible for the slew or contacts adding me on Flickr whenever he uses one of my photos in his classes, and Ah-he is a budding photographer from Tainan. His Minnan is classic Tainan style, effortless in a way most Taipei people have a hard time emulating. We piled into the professor’s van and headed out to the sandy landscapes of Moon World (“For all your lunar needs!”). Moon World is a bit less stark these days, thanks to encroaching vegetation growth, but it was entertaining nonetheless. We wandered amidst the formations, taking photos and chatting. The dust was bothersome, however, very fine and unfortunately very breathable.

On the road back we told ghost stories and laughed at the remote positioning of the metro stations in the middle of empty fields, obvious plots by land speculators with connections to the city government. So far the MRT had been packed whenever I’d been on it, but I was told that it was usually rather empty. A shame it had to be so poorly designed. We had lunch at a mutton shop, and then headed back into town to Lotus Lake, near Zuoying, where we walked around the edge of the lake. Then we headed out to Xiziwan to watch the sunset from atop the pier. The temperatures dropped rapidly, and the ocean wind made me wish I’d brought a jacket. Still, the sight of the great ocean-plying freighters moving majestically into and out of the harbor were worth the trouble.

After the sun disappeared into the darkening sea, we piled into the van and joined a long cavalcade of cars heading back to the city. Escaping meant heading through the campus, up the mountain to a vista just below the Martyr’s Shrine. A large group of Japanese tourists were waiting for the fireworks at 7 p.m., but aside from a few aaaah and ooooh-provoking pops, none were forthcoming. It turned out that the fireworks were at 9, and the group left, disappointed.

Dinner was fried noodles with special sauce. A-he had to go back to Tainan. The rest of us went up to Professor Wu’s creatively messy apartment to view some of his amazing artwork. By this time I was tired from the cold and the dust.

Monday we went back to Lotus Lake, where we met John at the Confucius Temple, which was closed, before walking around the lake a bit more, exploring some of the ancient houses in nearby alleys. Chenbl was caught photographing a strangely acting carrot vendor, and we struck up an awkward conversation. Later we skirted the navy base where Chenbl had done most of his military service, before heading back to the Yancheng District, where we hiked up to the old British Consulate overlooking the harbor mouth. It was probably hell there at times, I mused as I examined the old structure, its verandas and wooden plank interior, but sometimes it must have been a really cool posting.

We descended the hill again to talk with some residents of the old buildings. One old woman was heating bathwater with a wood-burning stove while her middle-aged daughter tended plants on the roof. Nearby, we talked with two old men, obviously friends. One was from mainland China, while the other’s family has been in Taiwan for generations. They sat outside an old warehouse that had been converted into small but usable living quarters. It smelled of cat piss.

Walking up the road, we settled on a deck right by the edge of the harbor mouth to watch the ships again as the sunset before walking back to the docks filled with private yachts. John had to leave, so Ray, Chenbl and I caught a bus to one of the bridges across the Love River, where we watched the fireworks. It was an impressive display, far better than the ones I’d caught glimpses of through the clouds in Taipei.

The Hanshin Department Store shuttle took us back to the Sanduo District, where we had a delicious dinner of sushi and other Japanese food under the few stars that remained visible amidst the glare from the lights of downtown. Our train (regular class this time) was at 9:30 p.m., so dinner was a leisurely affair, though the waiter kept messing up our orders.

I slept most of the trip back. It was good to get out of town.

Our friend Marquis took us to a Hong Kong breakfast place on the second floor of a building on the same alley as the Bottoms Up club from the Man with the Golden Gun. I like breakfast in booths. There’s just something attractive about the idea, especially in a Bond-film related alley. And the food wasn’t bad either.

The weather was still nice, murky air but cooler than yesterday. As we walked across an intersection I donated HK$5 to a charity; the girl wouldn’t take the money directly and pointed mutely at a slot in her bag. Clever. A block later, just after I’d taken a photo of a newsstand, I turned down one of her charity co-workers. Just as I walked away I heard someone behind cursing me. It wasn’t the charity worker, however; it was the newsstand lady. Over on the docks, an American family, all dressed in the same plaid, was taking family photos and having a miserable time getting everyone just so for a photographer who seemed to be a relative.

The Star Ferry over to Central was wonderful as usual. As we crossed, a large ocean liner sidled into the harbor. We then spent an hour or so stalking the many overpasses. One security guard came out and said we could only photograph from half of the overpass, as apparently his company owned the other half. I watched a beautiful photo opportunity pass from the wrong vantage point as a bicycle rider slipped in between two trams. Hoping Chenbl had been in the right place, I asked him if he got the shot, but he hadn’t seen it. Oh, well.

We took the series of escalators up the hill past the trendy shops and slick restaurants filled with blonde people, and then walked back down through the various alleys. Other than the 84-year-old umbrella-maker who was in the Guinness Book of World Records, just about everyone resisted having their photo taken. I was shouted at several times, and was on the receiving end of more glares than I could count. More than once I actually wished I had a Leica with me, just for the quieter shutter.

The weather turned overcast and cool as we prowled the alleys, and we took the subway to Mongkok to meet up with Sean, Lily, Miao-miao and my old W&L classmate Victor Cheung, who runs a photo workshop in Kowloon these days. We had a table full of dim sum, but I forgot to eat most of it as the conversation was so interesting.

After lunch we took the MTR on our way to Tai-O. The subway, as always was crowded. One thing I’ve learned during this trip is that Hong Kong feels a lot more crowded than it used to. Whereever you want to be, someone’s already there. Wherever you are, you’re in someone’s way. Also, the escalators are really fast. I guess they have to be in order to keep up with the demand without playing human dominoes.

Tai-O, an old fishing village, was interesting once we got past all the touristy bits. Most of the houses are metal structures on stilts, and everyone was having dinner as we walked through the bridges and alleys. I got yelled at a few more times. I suppose one gets used to it. Also, Cantonese does sound a bit harsh even in normal conversation. One woman was doing a pretty good Louis Armstrong impression while shouting at her husband.

The moon rose over the nearby hill as Shawn, Lily and I checked out a monastery that turned out to be closed. The water pipes over the canals next to bridges had little barbed wire webs on them, but I couldn’t figure out what for. The gaps were too large to stop rats, and a cat could jump over them easily. Some other animal I’m not aware of, no doubt.

The bus ride back to the MTR station was wild, more like a fighter jet simulation than a bus ride, and we were all feeling ill afterwards as we had dinner in Sham Shui Po. Then it was farewells for the night, though Tsim Sha Tsui is still rocking as I type this at 1:08 a.m.

The backs of the buildings facing our room were bathed in a hazy yet unmistakable tinge of sunshine when I drew back the curtains this morning. Breakfast at a nearby place was an egg sandwich and almost undrinkably bitter milk tea from the steamy kitchen that faced the street.

We wandered through some alleys, to the still-closed shops downstairs at the Mirador Mansions where I used to stay. Nobody offered to sell me any suits or watches or anything else, which happened quite a lot the last I was in Hong Kong with Dean.

I grew quite familiar with Kowloon Park during my time in Hong Kong, and walking through it kept bringing back little memories of various corners of the park I used to haunt during the days I was off work in mainland China, and later as a stateless person. The empty pools, children in uniforms, old men sleeping on benches, a plethora of pigeons.

We walked across the bridge to the Royal Pacific, my home during my time at ES Originals. It had seemed to utterly luxurious when I first stayed there upon entering employment there, less so when I was recuperating (unsuccessfully) from knee surgery. We walked through the complex, stopping to take photos of workers throwing boxes at each other, and out onto the dock, where I took some shots of myself in the mirror. That is the tradition. Hopefully they’ll come out. It wasn’t difficult to trick myself into thinking it was 1993 again, that I was off for another weekend in Hong Kong after working the Kaiping factory for a month. The ferries bustled in and out of port below, and one of the Star cuiseliners lay at a nearby berth. Hong Kong island seemed further away in the mist. I have to say I don’t like the new tall building, whatever it is. It interrupts the classical skyline.

We took the MTR to Sham Shui Po, where we met Shawn and the others under the overhanging signs amid the cloth shops. Lunch was at a street-side noodle shop and would have been delicious if I hadn’t accidentally ordered the ammonia-flavored noodles. Sean made up for this however, with an extremely sweet and delicious French toast-like confectionery.

Walking around some more brought to an old apartment building whose headstone read 1932. We hung around the front door until an elderly resident approached, and we conned him into letting us in. The inside looked as if nothing had been replaced since 1932. We climbed the steep wooden steps, the original tile floors covered with dust, to the oddly slanted rooftop, where, inexplicably, various old action movie VCDs lay tossed around. I imagine there’s a story behind this phenomenon, but I can’t think of what it might be.

The old gentleman who let us in came up and was chatting quite happily with Sean’s girlfriend Lily until I stuck the Invincible Rabbit in his face and took a picture. That was the end of that interview. Oh, well.

We took the MTR to Tin Hou, as I wanted to see the old hostel I stayed there when I became stateless. I spent the days then in Victoria Park, exercising and eating under trees while reading old sci-fi books I’d gotten at the used bookstore. We then walked over to Times Square and passed the Sogo where I’d caught my first glimpse of a DVD, playing A League of Their Own clips over and over again on a large screen. I remember being quite impressed with the 720×480 quality.

None of this had really changed. Not much has changed in Hong Kong, it seems upon a cursory inspection. It does seem markedly less British and more Chinese, more like Kuala Lumpur than before. The wifi in the park was spotty.

It was around then that I concluded it was no good trying to walk around reminiscing with a gang of bored friends in tow, and gave up on the whole thing. We passed a selection of mid-level gods under the overpass, all ready to do battle with various annoying individuals people wanted “taken care of” for a small fee. Among them was a small Monkey King statue. Figures.

We caught one of the double-decker trams headed west. What a neat way to travel, or it would be if we weren’t stuck behind a smoke-belching truck. Apparently you can rent them out for parties.

Pacific Place was just where I’d left it, though looking a bit more careworn, especially in light of malls like the one in Taipei 101. We took the escalator up to Hong Kong park, where Chenbl found fountain of fortune and made everyone look like idiots as we sat in front of it, scooping imaginary money into our laps.

I went on ahead a bit and sat down on the edge of the stairs leading out of the park, stairs that, one evening many years ago, witnessed a handsome young Hong Kong man seated on them having his photo taken with a disposable camera.

We wanted to go to the peak, but the tram line seemed much too long, so we spent half an hour trying to find a bus, and another half hour waiting for it to come, and another half hour getting up the hill. Much to Chenbl’s dismay, I used his shirt to wipe the window clean enough to see out of. It was night by the time we made it there, and the peak was cold and crowded.

After taking the usual shots, I tried to photograph one of the “professional” photographers, one of the guys who lines tourists up against the railing and shoots them with his D200s, but he wasn’t having any of it.

I was cold by dinner, served in a nearby restaurant. We decided to line up for the peak tram back down the mountain, though it was standing-room only and at times seemed almost vertical. Then we boarded one of the tourist buses that wound through downtown, and then a ferry back across the harbor to Kowloon. There nothing about any of that I don’t love.

Tomorrow afternoon we are thinking of going out to Da Ao, but we’ll just have to see what happens.