The guy who ran the hostel knocked on my door at 8 a.m. with a bag of fried things and soymilk for breakfast. I was gathering my stuff together and stuffing it into my backpack, which fortunately can be expanded to accommodate the…wait a minute, I didn’t buy anything. Hmm….accommodate the instant noodles I was taking on the boat, then. Prince Roy was busy watching a black-and-white, blurry version of a baseball game in his room. The world outside was white with fog even thicker than the day before, and we heard the Taima ferry’s foghorn repeatedly as it tried to make its way into the area.

After settling our bills, we were driven down to the port, where a fairly large group of people, mostly soldiers, waited for the ferry, still making its presence known via foghorn. PR and I sat on the waterfront and watched it appear out of the fog and sidle up to the dock. Back inside, a short, bespectacled MP checked the soldiers’ papers as we lined up. MP’s are allowed to arrest up to three ranks above their own, so everyone from sergeant on down was at the mercy of the little private.

Once on board, we put our things away in our cabin, the very cabin we’d had on the trip out (this time sans interlopers), and went up top to watch the departure. I struck up a conversation with a soldier who turned out to be one of the few volunteers in the new experimental program. He told me that he makes NT$37,000 a month, and gets nine days’ leave in Taiwan every three months. He is in for five years and will be discharged at the rank of sergeant-major. Now, a year and a half in, he is a corporal. He was also born the year I arrived in Taiwan.

Fuao Port disappeared into the mist, and we slid along the surprisingly smooth seas with only a slight rocking. Perfect sleeping weather, so that’s what we did, getting up for a lunch of gooey microwaved curry rice in the restaurant. Then we went out and stood just below the bridge watching the ocean and wondering where all the garbage we saw on the water came from. PR thought there might be a wreck somewhere ahead.

The sun came out; we were making good time. Keelung came into view before 4 p.m., though it took us a while to weed our way through the harbor and dock. For a while, PR and I stood stupidly by the upper-deck exit, wondering when they were going to extend the gangway, before we realized that everyone was headed below to the car gate at the rear of the ship.

Keelung, and Taiwan, were pretty much as we’d left them, albeit about 15 degrees warmer. Summer came while we were away. Keelung, of course, is a depressing place to arrive, even from as undeveloped a place as Matsu, but my spirits were lifted somewhat by the atmosphere of the soldiers just starting their 9-day leave. We walked to the train station and caught a train back to Taipei. At each stop more and more students would crowd onto the train, and it struck me how different they seemed from the soldiers only a few years’ older.

An hour of cell-phone-related chatter later, PR and I parted ways in the MRT station, him to sort through the 478 photos he took, and me to sift through the 609 pictures I ended up with after deleting the obvious duds every night to save CF card space. Not that we were competing, but it will be interesting not only to read his version of the events I’ve described here, but to see the pictures he took as well.

And now, over 6,000 words later, we return to life as we know it. Just 15 degrees warmer.

I was woken up this morning not by the washing machine, but rather two loud blasts from the Taima ferry’s foghorn. Pulling back my curtains, I was met with a white wall of solid mist. “Someone stole my view,” I texted Prince Roy downstairs.

Over the next couple of hours, however, the fog gradually lifted to reveal a sunny, warm day. PR and I took a short walk down to the village to look at a particularly interesting little house we’d seen the night before. On the way, we stopped to chat with a woman who was watering the plants in her yard. She told us that nobody was selling land or houses in Matsu, for various reasons.

Back at the hostel, we rented a couple of scooters and set out to explore Nangan island. We rode the curving white road through the hills of the center of the island to the highest point, Mt. Yuntai, but although there was a helpful concrete map telling us where to look for other islands and mainland China, the view was shrouded in mist. A military situation center was located at the peak, decorated with black murals of Chiang Kai-shek in Dirty Harry poses. The KMT emblem part of the flag had fallen off the mural, and Chiang had bird droppings on his shoulder. Soldiers peeked out of the gunslits, the emblem painted on the ceiling of their little room.

We rode back down and on to Jinsha Village. At first it appeared much like a Chinese city, with a group of people sitting on the curb. It turned out, however, that the group were all tourists. We visited the local temple and helped a frog caught in the sun to a shady spot. Then we walked through the alleys and by a local hostel constructed with traditional materials. At one point we ran into a couple from Canada, who were staying there with their dog. They said their flight had been canceled and that there was no ferry on Monday, which was alarming news. We still held out hope that our flight, at 5:30, wouldn’t be canceled as the sun burned the fog away.

Along the waterfront was a bomb shelter decorated in the blue and white of the KMT, featuring small pieces of art inside. The old stone houses reached up the side of the mountain, and more were being built near the village’s mail road.

We rode on to Matsu Village, where The Matsu Temple was located, along the beach where Matsu’s body washed ashore. She is supposedly buried under a concrete slab in the temple, though some say it is just some of her clothes, or her father? I take it nobody’s thought of exhuming the remains to check. A pavilion next door features lovely chairs in the shape of upturned hands. Mine was wet. Monkey! I thought.

Some WWII-era military transport ships were beached along the shore, as well as a supply ship. PR and I walked along the edge of the bay, examining the various fortifications and their decreptitude, and I explored part of a tunnel that appeared to be abandoned, but still features two 80’s-era video games. Unfortunately, they weren’t plugged in.

Matsu Village was full of soldiers, the main street positively hopping in comparison with the other parts of the island we’d seen so far. It also features an ATM and a 7-Eleven. We had lunch at a local restaurant that smelled like barracks due to all the soldiers there; a bank of small fans were no match for their numbers. I had egg rice covered in barbecue sauce, which was better than it sounds. PR had soup with a side of soup.

It was around this point that PR discovered that, for some strange reason, his travel agent had booked our flights out of Beigan Island, instead of the island where we actually arrived and where we were staying. In a desperate bid to change this situation, we raced back across the island to the airport, breaking speed records and cameras along the way. Once PR ran into the curb and nearly crashed.

When we arrived at the airport, we were told that all the flights had been canceled. This was bad, as we both have to work tomorrow. What was worse, all the flights on Monday were booked solid, as well as standby. The ferry, however, was running, so we rode back to the port and booked two tickets for tomorrow morning back to Taiwan. It will only arrive at Keelung at 4pm, effectively ruining any chances of work that day, but it’s our only option at this point, other than just settling down here for good.

Our dilemma resolved, after a fashion, we continued our tour by riding to Siwei Village, at the northwest corner of the island. There we found temples with interesting carved figures, one apparently wearing skiing goggles, and another I thought looked uncannily like me, and elaborate chandeliers overlooking the sea.

One temple, the White Horse God Temple, marked the spot where the bodies of two Chinese generals washed up on the shore. The local people buried them, and then a light would shine out at sea warning fishermen of inclement weather. At another village we visited later, Qingshui, another body had washed up on shore, yet another Chinese general, and when the villagers buried it, they found the fishing quite good for the next few seasons. So they erected a temple on the spot. It seems that Matsu is quite The Place for washed-up generals.

The afternoon was wearing on when we reached Renai Village, which is located on a steep hill rising from a nice little bay. We parked at the top and walked down the main street to the harbor, where some residents had made great efforts to restore their buildings to their former glory. It was the first place I’d seen here that rivaled Fuxing Village, where we’re staying. We toured the local temple, the interior of which was ancient despite the exterior being touched up in 1984. The tables were scarred with decades, if not centuries, of daily temple use.

Next stop was the Stone Fortress, which meant riding through an army base gate and along the coast to a place where a stone outcropping had been hollowed out and made into an impregnable fortress. Inside was a long, dark hallway, lined with shelves for soldiers to sleep and machine gun holes, two toilets, water tanks, a sentry post and a room for the dog, which apparently not only had a rank, but was an officer. I’ll bet the guys who served there have stories to tell.

Westwards, the sun was settling into the haze, so after figuring that we liked Matsu Village best, we rode back there on the winding coast road, past a reservoir adorned with a cool wooden pavilion, though to the village, where we bought some snacks and sat in front of the temple watching the day come to a close. The supply ship was completely beached by this point, but apparently men live on it, as it was lit up. Soldiers finishing up their weekend leave milled around on the main street and at the bus station.

After dark, PR insisted on trying the nearby Pizza King, so we barged in on what was obviously a boistrous family meeting and ordered two small pizzas. When they came, approximately 27 seconds later, they looked pretty much like regular pizzas, but tasted almost nothing like any such thing. The bread, for one thing, was sweet and soft. The sauce was barbeque sauce, and although we managed to stop them from putting raisins on our pizzas, they did feature carrots and quite a lot of pepper. It was sort of like Teppanyaki in pizza form, and it actually wasn’t bad once you got over the fact that it looked like pizza.

When we left the restaurant, the streets were almost deserted; all the soldiers had gone back to their bases. The ride back across the island was nice and cool in the night. The harbor lights flashed as we descended and then climbed again on the way back to Fuxing Village to the hostel. After handing in the keys, however, I didn’t quite feel like turning in just yet, so PR and I went for one last tour of the village, including the temple by the bay, the broiling water a symphony of gurgles and crashes I would love to record and play back at home.

Tomorrow we have to get up by 8 a.m. or so to catch the ferry. We snagged another cabin this time, but PR called window bunk already. It will be interesting to see how the trip is experienced in real time, without sleeping through most of it.

I was awoken this morning by the clotheswashing machine churning away in the next room at around 6 a.m. So, it being quite cold in my room, I turned on the heater to drown out the intermediate noise with constant noise. A while later I was again woken by a phone call from the front desk. “Can you turn off your heater?” she asked. “The dripping water is keeping the guest downstairs awake.”

“By ‘the guest downstairs’, do you mean Prince Roy?” I asked.

“Yes, and he wants you to cut it out,” she said. So I turned it off. It was almost 7 by this point, so I gave up on sleep and just got dressed. Outside, the Taima ferry plowed through the waters on its way from Dongyin to the port here. It looked like the makings of a beautiful day outside, a little cloudy but dry. PR was watching the Yankees game on TV, but we had to catch the boat to Beigan for the day.

Despite waiting forever for the people in front of us to buy tickets down at the port, we just made the 9:00 a.m. boat, along with a dozen other passengers. The boat was about the size and shape of the USS Minnow, and the pilot drove it like a bus. PR had the window open and was told to shut it, a wise decision as it was sprayed with water once we got out into open ocean.

The port at Beigan seems to be in the middle of nowhere, and you have to take a taxi to the main village by the airport, or so we’d been informed. Actually there were scooter rental places right there, but we didn’t see them. We shared a taxi with a couple instead.

The main village of Tongxi isn’t much to look at. It’s basically two streets, once perpendicular to the other. I took pictures of a KMT emblem while PR rented a pair of scooters, and then we were off. We rode up steep, curving roads past military base after military base to the top of Bishan, where an observation platform was located right in front of yet another military base and a sign saying “No pictures.” Gunfire and shouts echoed clearly up from below where soldiers were training. I asked the guard at the gate when the planes usually landed, and he said one was due in a few minutes, so we waited. Powerful strobe lights began to flash on the tops of all the nearby mountains, and we heard the sound of a small propellor plane approach, and then disappear. We saw no plane. The weather wasn’t bad, so I can’t believe they cancelled the landing because of that.

Disappointed, we got back on our scooters and rode down to the coast to look at a series of temples along the coast. Temples in Matsu look different from their counterparts in Taiwan, with more reds and yellows and whites involved. We saw one temple just for female gods, with a phoenix motif and two female lions out front. We looked for the Thunder God temple, which I pictures as a kind of superhero god, hopefully wearing a cape of some kind, but we didn’t find it. Nobody knew what we were talking about when we asked them.

We continued down the coast to the Chinbi village, which is inordinately cool. For one thing, it’s been preserved, and all new buildings have to be built like the old ones. The community of stone houses faces a small beach with a turtle-shaped island not far off shore, and is apparently home to visiting artists who live there to “create”. We parked our scooters and walked into the complex, noting the many old signs harking back decades, with slogans like “Retake the Mainland” and “Look Out for Commie Spies!” The place was filled with interesting little nooks and crannies, sunny verandas and shady courtyards. One interesting motif was the use of frogs in the design. We even found a room full of various frog-related statuary. It seems that long ago, the village was besieged by drought and disease, and after praying to Matsu, relief appeared in the form of rainfall, and frogs, so frogs here are kind of like cows in India, i.e. not on the menu.

At the local Matsu temple, another surprise awaited us. In addition to all the flowers and notes wishing Matsu a happy birthday, on the altar lay the latest Pizza Hut pizza with all the toppings, a bucket of KFC and a bottle of Pepsi. Matsu is living it up this year, it seems.

We had lunch at the Chinbi Cafe, sitting out on the patio while a stray cat begged loudly for scraps. I wondered if it had eaten any frogs. We met the people who had donated the fast food at the altar; they had originally planned to take the plane the day before, but it was canceled (probably the same flight Mark was supposed to be on), so they took the ferry over, carrying the delicacies with them at great inconvenience. Now that’s dedication.

The food at the Chinbi Cafe was delicious and the view unsurpassed as the sun came out, the blue sky showing through the clouds. I asked the owner what renting places there was like in the summer, and was told it was very difficult. “It’s full of tourists during the high season,” he said. After lunch we walked around a bit more, exploring the place before getting back on the scooters and continuing on our way.

We stopped at a few more temples, including an old Matsu temple painted in a striking shade of yellow on a large, nice beach. In front of it was a field covered with yellow flowers, and next door was a small military unit. The soldiers were out in the courtyard polishing or painting things, but otherwise there was nobody around. The crash of the waves on the beach and birdsong were the only sounds. It was extremely peaceful and would be a good place to meditate. Another temple down the road had scenes from “Journey to the West” carved on its elaborate facade and a flashy ceiling inside.

We rode down to the ferry port and back, stopping at a couple of statues of late President Chiang Kai-shek, one with a jaunty hat, and then back to the airport and across a sand spit to Hou-ao village. We then waited at an intersection-free stoplight counting down to zero as a soldier on guard gave his comrades across the street the finger from his post atop a small building. When the inexplicable light turned green, we rode up into the hills, past some military displays to an observation deck at the edge of a sea cliff. Not content to merely tempt fate by standing too close to the edge, I went to get closer pictures to a bunch of “Danger: Landmines” signs nearby while PR climbed across a small rocky bridge and up to an outcrop of stone high above the waves. There was also a military museum with, ironically and suitably depending on your point of view, an alternative serviceman sitting at the reception desk overlooking the old guns and other military paraphernalia on display. The mannequins were all tall, thin and white Caucasian models that looked extremely odd wearing the green slickers and face paint.

The afternoon was wearing on as we rode back down to Hou-ao Village to have a look around. The community is located just at the edge of the hillside, in front of the channel of water between it and the airport. We happened upon a row of plastic bags hung out to dry, as well as several Beijing 2008 Olympic mascot figures in a pile, on bases that read, “Courtesy of The People’s Government of Gulou District.” Curious. In fact, we had already noted that many of the offerings at the temples were in fact Chinese goods. Another curiosity: an electricity bill stuck in the doorway of a building that looked as if it hadn’t seen any improvements since the Qing dynasty.

We rode back across the sand spit and under the airport runway to the scooter place to return our rides, stocked up on water at 7-Eleven, and walked along the street looking for a taxi. As we did so, we passed an old lady carrying fish noodle ingredients. She said hello, and PR noted that he had read about her in his guidebook.

Eventually we caught a tattered cab back to the port to catch the ferry. Unfortunately, we just missed the 4:30 p.m. boat, and had to wait an hour for the last boat back to Nangan. In the meantime, we sat at a nearby temple and talked about what we had seen so far, as a fishing boat docking up confused the two young coast guard members entrusted with registering the vessel. The tide was out and the water level was about two stories lower than it had been when we arrived.

The ride back was as uneventful as the ride there. PR nodded off while I waited impatiently for a wave to slap a woman across the cabin who had left her window open. Unfortunately, no such thing happened, and I had to content myself with capturing blurry photos of the mountains of Nangan across the sea.

The sun was setting when we arrived back at Nangan port. We caught a cab back to our hostel; the cabbie thought it strange that we would choose a place with a view over somewhere “in the middle of everything.” Yes, I came to Matsu for its urban sophistication and cosmopolitan nature; what was I thinking?

We walked down the hill to Yi-ma’s Shop, but found it awash with people, including a couple of shrieking children who thought I was a pirate. We decided to head instead to the temple by the bay instead, where we sat and ate garlic peanuts and cookies while catching glimpses of the stars overhead through the clouds. One of the temple doors was open, and we took a look at the spookily empty interior. The “guards” painted on the side gates were women, which is unusual. The ones on the main gates were done in 3D and looked unnaturally real in the night, as if they could step out and throttle you at any moment.

By the time we got back to the restaurant a bit after 8 p.m., the crowds had left, and sat down to another delicious meal prepared by Mrs. Chen and her crew. PR got a huge glass of laojiu, but I declined. Just like yesterday, the atmosphere was most relaxing. As we ate, we heard Taichung Mayor Jason Hu pimping out his city on the radio to Chinese tourists, and then an official from Miaoli did the same. “It has begun,” PR said. Mrs. Chen gave us some nice fried peanuts for dessert, and we made our slow, stuffed way back up the hill to the hostel, exhausted from all the sun, wind, riding and food. It was a full day and an interesting one.

Tomorrow afternoon we will have to board a plane back to Taipei and the relatively normal world. But before that we hope to explore this island of Nangan a little more via scooter.

It was about 11 a.m. by the time I got a text message from Prince Roy that he was awake and ready for lunch. In the intervening time it had started to rain outside, with my hotel room doing a decent impression of the Water Curtain Cave, complete with a small waterfall running down one window. Downstairs, the hotel owner said Mark’s flight would surely be canceled. “We can’t see Beigan island,” he said, pointing out the window. “When we can’t see Beigan, the planes can’t land.”

We set out for the cultural, commercial and economic center of all of Matsu: Jieshou Village, the county seat. The County Government building overlooks a large field full of small gardens that used to be the local harbor before it was silted in, making for very fertile soil. Indeed, it seems that all the flat land here is used for planting something or another. The one main street that makes up the town was lined with mostly closed shops, some KTVs, a pool hall full of soldiers, and the huge old KMT headquarters, covered with ROC flags, a large banner of Ma Ying-jeou and Vincent Siew holding hands, and the blue-and-white party symbol on the front facade.

Most of the restaurants were closed, but we found a place down by the current former harbor, also silted in and being made into a park, that sold beef noodles and the like. It was also mostly full of soldiers, but we got a table by the kitchen. At one point an MP officer came in, and the place got very quiet until he left. The dumplings I got weren’t anything special, but enough to fill me up. PR had beef noodles, adorned with the magic sauce he’d brought along courtesy of his mother-in-law. I tried some and kind of liked it, even though I usually don’t like spicy food.

As we ate, Mark called and said his flight had indeed been canceled. He didn’t seem interested in taking the ferry, either, so it was just me and PR. After lunch we walked around the neighborhood, visiting a local temple that was completely empty inside except for a large population of birds, and then walking up the hill behind to some fields and huge grave sites. PR spent several minutes in an Iwo-Jima-esque effort to unravel a political flag planted in a garden, apparently to scare away the crows. Our shoes sunk into the dirt, loosened by the rain. The grass under the wind-bent trees was bright green.

We walked down to the village again, stopping by an interesting little red temple by the soon-to-be park, and then back to main street to visit the 7-Eleven, which was doing an extremely brisk business. While waiting to use one of the two ATMs, I chatted with a soldier. I could tell from his rank and his disposition that he had not arrived long ago, and he confirmed this was true. Although the government buildings proclaimed that we were in Fujian Province, none of the cars’ license plates reflected this, and just read “Lianjiang County”.

Fortified with snacks and water, we walked back to Fuxing Village, where our hostel is located, and down to the waterfront, where a brand-new Taoist temple with bright red walls flanked the small harbor. The light inside was very nice, illuminating all of the religious figures inside. We kept walking up the hill to a guard post, posing with the cacti for PR’s camera, which was wrapped around a dead plant. Around the corner was an empty military emplacement that looked like a seaside villa painted dark green. Though the door was locked, the windows were not, and we spied yesterday’s menu taped on the wall inside. It was deserted, though, and half of the wall looked like it was ready to tumble into the sea below. We looked at the surrounding defenses and the views of Beigan to the north as we reminisced about our own experiences in the military. Across the water, China lay shrouded in clouds, invisible.

It had stopped raining by this point, but it was still cool and cloudy. We headed back towards the village, passing a military fueling point whose camouflage efforts, being pink, were dismally inappropriate, and ended up at a century-old restaurant called Yi-ma’s Old Shop, run by Mrs. Chen, a woman with a bubbling personality and a love of telling stories. We sat down for some tea after getting a tour of the place as a couple of girls came in looking for accommodation advice. Mrs. Chen helped them find rooms at the same hostel where we were staying. Soon after a group of soldiers came in for dinner. Mrs. Chen provides social services for soldiers, helping the ones that have trouble dealing with military life here.

It was getting dark outside, and after seeing the sumptuous dishes coming out of the kitchen, we ordered mostly what the soldiers had. The food was really good, and not just because it was different than Taiwanese food. Mrs. Chen brought out a couple of glasses of Laojiu, which to me tastes just like Shaoxing wine, i.e. sweetened spit, but PR seemed to like it.

After dinner, Mrs. Chen told us at great length how the other place just across the street had come to have basically the same name as her place. Everything Mrs. Chen says is pretty much at great length, but it’s interesting nonetheless. She’s full of advice and good cheer, and if she doesn’t have an answer to your question, she’ll make some calls to find out for you.

It was night, and PR and I wandered around the alleys of the village, past empty houses and closed doors and the sounds of families eating and watching TV, while I tried to find interesting angles. We came across one barking dog as well as one dog that had lost its voice, a Westie that sounded more like a squeak toy than a dog, before we arrived back at our hostel at the top of the hill.

We have no idea what we’re going to do tomorrow; I suppose it depends on the weather.

I met Prince Roy last night after work at the train station, which was packed full of people wanting to get home for the three-day tomb-sweeping holiday. It was cold and rainy, not very appealing for travel. We caught an electric train to Keelung and walked down the rainy street by the terminal to a port building, by which was docked the Taima ferry, a mid-sized ship painted orange and white. Only a handful of people milled around the departure lobby when we picked up our tickets. Fortunately we were able to switch out the 4-person cabin PR had reserved for a two-person stateroom in first class. “You should tweet this triumph,” PR said.

“I’ll wait until we’re actually in the room and sure that it’s ours,” I replied, skeptical of our good luck. After dinner, we came back to find the waiting room packed with people, a good half of them soldiers dressed in their warm winter fatigues. A group next to us was being introduced to each other.

“She’s American,” one said, about one of the group. “I mean, she’s half American.”

“Oh, I didn’t know whether or not to speak English with her!” another replied, adding the customary “My English is very poor!”

Boarding was announced, and a crude line formed. We went through security, including X-ray machines and the like. Thankfully we didn’t have to take off our shoes or get rid of liquids. A walk across the gangway later we were shown to our stateroom, which was full of another person’s stuff.

Of course it is, I thought, while PR fumed at, among other things, the apparent lack of organization. The stewards took his ticket and went to find the other party. They were sure that there was a mix up with the tickets, and I wondered where they would stick us. Eventually, however, the other party, a young couple, returned, surprised to find us lounging in their chairs amid their luggage watching their TV. It turned out that they had misread the cabin number. The place was ours, and I promptly tweeted the fact.

The boat’s engines ramped up, and we slid out of port, past huge container ships and Navy vessels, accompanied only halfway by the lackadaisical harbor pilot out into the open ocean. We watched the yellow lights of Keelung recede along with Turtle Island, which was silhouetted by a huge, single light behind it, a way to say, I suppose, “This is a huge island that you really shouldn’t run into.”

It was raining a little, so we went forward to the lounge, where they were selling instant noodles and beer. Groups sat around playing cards. Later on we went up top to the helipad to look at the waves. My phone could get a GPS position, but Google Maps needs a phone signal to download actual maps, and there was no phone signal, though PR had one.

It was good to be on a boat again. I always enjoy such trips, even more than plane travel. It just seems more real and substantial to me, making the trip mean something different than just a small jaunt.

The lounge closed at 11pm, so we retired to the cabin and watched the same news cycle repeat itself a few times over on the one channel offered on the TV. The ride was smooth, with just a little gentle rocking, perfect for sleeping.

We were awoken this morning by a loudspeaker in the room playing a song about how wonderful Matsu is. I opened the curtain to find it just outside, along with a Coast Guard vessel guiding us into the harbor. His Highness was still asleep and didn’t seem to want to get up, and I considered leaving him there for the trip to Dongyin, where the ship was headed next.

“What a desolate place this is,” I said as I looked through the mist at the mountainous landscape beyond the port. I couldn’t help it. It’s one of those Star Wars lines that just comes up sometimes. We gathered up our things and went below to the carpark area and out onto the dock. The crew let us off the boat despite the fact that PR’s ticket had never been returned to us after the cabin mix-up.

Out on the dock all I could feel was the atmosphere of getting off leave, emanating in thick clouds from all the soldiers who had just disembarked and were being shuttled off to their respected bases. I called the hotel where we’d reserved rooms, and they said they’d send someone over. PR went to sit by the dock while I waited at the gas station.

We were picked up by a friendly taxi driver. “Please excuse the dirt on the car’s floor,” he said. “Soldiers, you know.” He took up a winding road to our hostel, which overlooks a nice little bay. I was surprised to find that my room came with a computer and Internet, so while PR finishes his night’s rent downstairs, I am writing this before I take a nap, as the room seems to be rocking a little; I either haven’t gotten used to land yet, or I’m really tired. Mark is due to arrive this afternoon by plane, as he couldn’t make the ship’s departure time. It’s cloudy and cool but dry outside, and completely quiet except for bird calls and the occasional barking dog.

“Let’s take a drive around the north coast,” Chenbl texted on Sunday morning.

“Ok,” I texted back, still in bed. I’d spent the previous night at the predictably stressful and disappointing Tiger Mountain Ramble, (the ninth one I think? I’ve lost count). Don’t get me wrong, the other Ramblers seem to really enjoy it, as does the crowd in general, but the creepy abandoned temple and relentless expat vibe never fails to put me on edge. I usually arrive late, spend my time there trying to disappear, and leave as soon as I can. Oh, and not get electrocuted on stage.

So I was in the mood to get out of town. I reserved a Toyota sedan from i-rent on my phone, retrieved it from a nearby parking lot, and picked up Chenbl and his parents before driving north. Chenbl’s navigation efforts somehow resulted in us going the opposite direction than we had intended, but this actually later turned out to be a good idea. We drove out of the city and up to the coast, the brilliant blue skies becoming abruptly cloudy after we passed Danshui, and on to the late Lee Teng-hui’s hometown of Sanzhi for a lunch of some of the most delicious noodles I have ever had, at the Yue Lai Ting, a traditional restaurant with photos of various famous people on the walls. The lunch crowd, including the birthday party of an elderly woman who was feeding cake to one of her grandchildren, was just finishing up, so the staff were quite happy to chat with Chenbl’s parents about all sorts of things, including engineering projects and Hakka accents.

We paid our respects at the golden-faced Matsu temple nearby and then explored an open-air clothes-washing canal and veggie garden that featured not only two working water wheels but an enthusiastic older man who was eager to explain the history of the area. By this time I was sensing a theme of the people in Sanzhi being rather talkative, and when I commented on it, Chenbl’s mother joked, “Well, of course they’re chatty; what else are they going to do around here?”

I think it’s nice; I should go back and make a more thorough exploration of Sanzhi. But we had to be getting on, and the sun had come out again in time for us to enjoy the beach a ways up the coast at the Shihmen Arch Bridge. I chatted with some of the Indonesian fishermen on a boat docked at the harbor as elderly black dogs sniffed at us with greying muzzles. Children splashed each other out in the tide pools while tourists took pictures of the green algae on the rocks.

We realized how fortuitous our previous navigation error was as we continued to drive east, the setting sun blasting the drivers coming the opposite direction but lighting the views along the coast in a surreal fashion due to the ocean haze, the amber light illuminating the cliffs and islets in the distance with a glow like something out of a Miyazaki film. The sun had set by the time we reached Keelung, and finding a parking spot in that amazingly mismanaged traffic was a feat we thought nigh impossible until we somehow managed to dip into an underground parking lot without having to line up. “The car ahead was a VIP,” Chenbl’s father surmised. “That’s how we got in. We got lucky.”

It being a weekend, the night market was thronged with crowds. Back-alley sesame dumplings were enough to satisfy Chenbl’s parents, but we also got some tasty sandwiches before getting back on the road and returning to Taipei, Chenbl’s father telling us tales of the construction of the tunnel making highway travel to the port city possible back in the early 70’s. Sinotech, the company where both Chenbl and his father have made their engineering careers, has done (and is still doing) some truly amazing projects that have benefitted Taiwan in many ways.

Thankfully traffic on the way back wasn’t too heavy, as I don’t really enjoy driving at night. I’d reserved the car until 8:30; we got it back just in time. The i-rent system is actually a nifty idea for those of us who don’t really need a car most of the time.

The next day after work I went to the Xinyi Eslite Bookstore, which is set to close for good on Christmas Eve. I had been rather ambivalent about it after the legendary Dunnan Eslite was torn down years ago; I had spent many a late night there all through the 90’s and aughts wandering the creaky wooden stacks to the sound of soothing cello music, looking at photography books, graphic novels, sci-fi, Chinese sword dramas, you name it, so it was a bit distressing to see it demolished. And now, because we’re just getting dumber as a society, the Xinyi 24-hour bookstore is going away as well, to be replaced by yet another vapid mall full of empty shops populated only by fashion items that cost more than most people’s yearly salary. Wandering around perusing the actual paper books, I felt an even greater sense of impending loss; there’s just nothing to compare with an actual, physical bookshop. It’s more than the books themselves; it’s a whole vibe, an atmosphere of people all engaged in the act of wanting to know more, among the dedicated works of people who want others to know more. I can’t help but wonder if anyone will even be able to calculate what we’re losing. Then again, when was the last time I purchased a physical book? Don’t I read books mostly on my aging Kindle Voyage, or, god help me, on my phone? So perhaps I am just as much at fault for this distressing trend as anyone else.

On my way home I found the usually empty Bitan suspension bridge swarming with reporters, police and security personnel. A bearded Western dude with a tricked-out camera glared at me as I passed, as if I wasn’t supposed to be there. “What’s going on?” I asked one of the security dudes, who sported a tactical vest with a badge and an automatic pistol on his hip.

“Nothing, just our routine inspection route,” he lied. I pointed at the gaggle of reporters.

“Why all the press then?”

“It’s Bitan,” he continued with what I wondered was a badly rehearsed prevarication. “There’s always people around taking photos.”

I looked down at his badge and gun. “Uh-huh. Well, good luck with all that,” I said before continuing back to the Water Curtain Cave. I suspected that it might be an executive inspection of the ongoing bridge repair work, and I didn’t want another awkward encounter with the president (though who knows,  perhaps the third time’s the charm?). But it turned out, as my journalist friend Chang Liang-i informed me, that it was actually Vice President/Presidential candidate Lai Ching-te visiting, along with his VP candidate Hsiao Bi-khim.

In other news, we recently wrapped up a semester of instructing a course on street photography at Shih Hsin University, which is known for its journalism program. The final exhibition and event was fun, with Chenbl as the MC and attended by several high-level university officials and other professors. Alas, there really wasn’t enough time to do much more than a glossed-over introduction to the art and practice of street photography this time, but it’s been hinted that we might be able to take a real crack at it at some point in the future. We’ll see.

While waiting for lunch at Kyomachi No. 8, I noticed an elderly man in a pink shirt, two ancient cameras (Minolta and Praktica for those playing at home) hanging from his shoulders, staring intently at the closing notice posted on what had been the camera store next door. Taipei’s “Camera Street” has been decimated by the public move to phone cameras, with store after store closing up, and only a few left to represent dedicated photographic devices. I wondered what his story was, so I went out and started up a conversation. He said he was more of a painter than a photographer despite the heavy SLRs, which tracked seeing that the lens caps were firmly in place. I invited him in for lunch, and we probably disturbed all of the other patrons for the next half hour as I had to speak loudly enough to overcome his poor hearing. We exchanged cards, and he turned out to be the artist Ma Ying-cheh, who studied under the famous Lang Jing-shan and has exhibited all over Taiwan. He also teaches oil painting at his residence in Shilin. We had a nice conversation about our respective styles, approaches, images and what makes them compelling, etc. After lunch he offered to drive me to Songshan Station where I was meeting Chenbl and his parents later, but I demurred, as I like to walk places, plus I didn’t want to impose.

We were meeting at Songshan Station to take a train out to Keelung, which is now included in the monthly T-pass scheme. As we exited Keelung Station, Chenbl’s father, who like my own was a career engineer before he retired, observed that the roof of the new station was constructed like a big tree so that it wouldn’t fly away in a storm, with intricate branch columns, wood beams and holes to let the wind through. Also like a tree, it attracts a great many birds, which unfortunately poop quite generously on the plaza below.  “Bet the designers didn’t see that coming,” Chenbl said sardonically. Across the harbor the oddly named Resorts World One cruise ship was docked, but I could find no mention of Taiwan on their website as a destination so I guess it must have been traveling incognito.

We waited quite a long time to get onto a very crowded bus that involved an argument every time it stopped as the driver tried to convince people that it was actually full. Eventually we reached the large green monolith that is the harbor-side Evergreen Hotel, where Chenbl and I were taking advantage of a coupon he got from his company before it expired (the coupon, not his company) in December. After the setting sun brought a brief but brilliant bit of color to the otherwise dreary skies, we set out for the Miaokou night market, where we had some Ah-Hua noodles under the ministrations of a very forthright young waiter who told us in no uncertain terms where to sit and when to look at our phones (basically just don’t). Chenbl’s father said that the emissions of the powerplant located nearby had reduced the amount of rain in the city, probably the only upside as Keelung is notorious for its excessive precipitation.

After dinner we walked Chenbl’s parents back to the train station and saw them off, and then wandered around a bit more before going back to the hotel to rest up. The reason we’d chosen the Keelung Evergreen over other, superior Evergreens was that I wanted to take a look at the Kanziding Fish Market that takes place in the early hours of the morning. It’s the focus of several city walking tours for tourists, and some of my students have done it as well. My friend Xander (Happy Birthday btw) made an excellent piece on it as well. Fortunately the weather was still nice as we set out again from the hotel around midnight; rain was forecast for later. The night market was wrapping up, the vendors taking everything down and hauling it back to whatever little alley space they normally kept their stalls during non-market hours. The fish market, however, was just getting started; we walked around as trucks pulled up and people unloaded box after box of fresh fish. Fish of all shapes, sizes and colors were on display as buyers gathered and haggled over purchases. For someone like me who is as bothered by the sound of Styrofoam as fingernails on a chalkboard, it was not the most pleasant of soundscapes.

To be honest, photographically speaking, it was kind of just another market. I’m sure there are many interesting stories amid the various nooks and crannies that I’d like love to explore had I the time and stamina to basically turn my sleep schedule upside-down, but after looking at the photos others had taken of it before online, and then seeing it for myself, well…aside from the obvious challenge of exposing photos with blinding white boxes and various interesting color temperatures, it just wasn’t terribly compelling in of itself, at least at first brush; I’d have to go back a few times to really get the feel of the place. I mean, Keelung is cool in general, but Kanziding is rather standard market fare. I maintain my belief that photography can and does happen anywhere, independent of supposed “interesting” events/people/places, so none of this actually makes a difference in any case.

We’d had our fill of the scene by around 2 a.m. or so, so we sat down for a snack of tasty noodles and dumplings sold out the back of a motorized tricycle parked between the market and the neighboring temple, across from the police station. I don’t know if it was the late hour or what, but I don’t remember the last time I had such delicious noodles.

It was beginning to drizzle as we traversed the series of up-and-down arcade levels (even sidewalks are more of a Taipei thing) back to the hotel, passing groups of young revelers along the Renai Market’s veranda while a man unloaded giant pig carcasses onto the counters inside. Across the odiferous Tianliao river, the streets were deserted, the only sounds the thumping music issuing from some late-night cruiser.

The next morning we consumed the complimentary breakfast on the 18th floor overlooking the harbor accompanied by a small boy yelling in English, “NO I DON’T WANNA!” over and over while the ladies at the next table tut-tutted about the manners of foreign children. The 30-year-old Cosco Star ferry, which we took to Xiamen in 2011, was docked up the harbor a ways, looking rather decrepit, and the much smaller new Matsu Ferry directly across the harbor. After checking out we headed back through downtown once again, noting that the area of the market had been cleaned up fairly well.

I have always been intrigued by Keelung, it being an old port city surrounded by mountains, so full of history and potential yet suffering from decades of opaque urban and social mismanagement. My friend Cheng Kai-hsiang, also a painter, has been observing the city through his art for a while now; I probably wouldn’t say no if someone wanted to subsidize a sabbatical there to explore what makes that city tick…even though I’ve been visiting Keelung over the course of the last few decades, I feel I’d have to actually live there to get a better grasp of what life there is really like.

Still stuffed from breakfast, we skipped lunch in favor of some snacks at the café in one of the old port buildings before passing back across the harbor square (now unfortunately devoid of those delightful Ju Ming umbrella sculptures), by the media center in shell of the ugly old KMT-era train station, now featuring various AR and VR experiences (I wish they’d reconstructed the lovely old Japanese-era train station and made it into a cultural display arts space overlooking the harbor), up to the shiny new station, and back to Taipei and home.

So I’ve been going through my YouTube channel and adding better thumbnail/title images to help with legibility. Before now I just let the app choose them, resulting in random images with no information, but I figured some housekeeping was in order, so I’ve been selecting appropriate photos I took during whatever trip it was, or barring that, appropriate stills from the actual footage of the videos, and adding big, bright text with the video title to them.

I started using YouTube in 2006, not long after it started up the year before. I’d only started my blog five years prior. Back then the resolution was awful, and videos were limited to just a few minutes until I managed to convince them to let me upload longer ones – everyone was amazed when I started uploading nearly hour-long videos, before just anyone could do it. The resolution was still crap though.

Back in those days I could slap whatever music I liked onto the videos; this was long before the idea of “copyright strikes” became a thing and we were all forced to start using “free” music, i.e. music someone worked hard on and got virtually nothing for (this does not necessarily strike me as much of an improvement). As a result, many of my earlier videos are now inaccessible, and others only partially accessible. Sometimes YouTube would straight out strip all the sound from my videos, because some CEO in a corner office somewhere was worried he might not be able to swing a third yacht or whatever when someone heard a snippet of a song on my video and didn’t pay to listen to it. Being a musician myself (though I don’t rely on it exclusively to subsist), I do know that most artists who sell through producers see very little of the actual money their work makes.

As the years passed I went through a series of pocketable cameras with ever-larger and more capable sensors, and the quality of my videos gradually improved. One-inch sensors with image stabilization seem to be the sweet spot these days for portability and image quality, and I need to have a device that is pocketable if I’m going to use it on trips abroad. I am much more hesitant to add music now, for obvious reasons, and as screens get larger I also need to work on keeping the camera steady so people don’t get seasick.

It’s been ages since I went anywhere, however, whereas in pre-Covidian times I would generally take a couple trips abroad each year, sometimes more (I think my record is four videos in 2018). Eventually I will travel again, I suppose, and start making more of these things. Post-covidian Poagao is likely a bit slower (and greyer) than antecovidian Poagao (then again you can expect roughly twice the cynicism). I don’t have any particular travel plans just yet; Chenbl has been extremely busy this year with work, but you never know what might pop up; just the other day I was taking advantage of trains between Keelung and Taoyuan being covered by the monthly T-pass, and I felt that old travel itch when I spotted the new Matsu ferry docked at Keelung port, right where Prince Roy and I embarked on the rickety old one back in 2008.

As to the future of YouTube, I can see some kind of AI-driven uprezzing/stabilization/content-fill bot feature for older videos being implemented at some point (for a fee, of course), and indeed most if not all new videos being created by AI in the future (including product placement, of course). Just input a few keywords and your likeness and BOOM: instant vacation video of you being all adventurous and world-travelling and stuff. Sure, at first it will look weird and cringe, but soon enough the algorithm will fine-tune itself so that nobody will be able to tear themselves away from watching themselves doing things they never imagined doing, or even did, all to a generic “free” soundtrack that we’ve heard a million times. It might even be better for the environment if nobody actually flies anywhere, but that might be over-extrapolating the situation.

Til then, anyway, I plan on continuing to record actual things that I actually do, and I hope y’all keep watching (but it’s ok if you don’t).

We caught the high-speed rail to Taichung on the night of the 30th. There the four of us, myself, Chenbl and two female co-workers of his, caught a taxi out to Taichung Port, speeding along the highway skirting Mount Dadu and through the neon-betelnut-signed valleys and empty parking lots. Taichung Port is a lonely, out of the way place. I’m not sure why anyone decided to put a tourist port there, so far away from anything interesting. Surely Keelung and Kaohsiung ports are much more suitable. But the timing of the Taichung run fit with our tomb-sweeping holiday schedule, so Taichung it was. I was toting the Invincible Rabbit with my usual two lenses and a Canon S95 for video, but decided to leave my ancient Thinkpad at home, as it’s just too heavy to be hauling around Fujian Province for a week. Instead I wrote down notes by hand so I could compose these journal entries later (I have to admit an iPad 2 or 11″ Macbook Air would have come in handy, though).

Inside the port building, the shouts of Chinese tourists rang through the smoke of their cigarettes. “This one’s taken!” one of them shouted as we moved towards an empty seat. There were plenty of empty seats further away from the gate, however, so we sat there while the mainlanders crowded around the exit, afraid the ship might leave without them, I guess. But they were all in tour groups, so we, as individual tourists, got to go in first in any case. The shops selling local paraphernalia shut down, the employees taking down the signs for cheap liquor and snacks and rushing off home as we were called to go through customs and immigration.

The ship, the Cosco Star, built in 1993, is refreshingly old and grungy for those used to glittery cruise ships, with most of the lower parts for cargo and vehicles and a few decks on top for passenger cabins. Though the registry lists it as a Hong Kong vessel, I suspect it used to be Japanese, as all the original signage is in Japanese, Korean and English, with Chinese additions pasted over. It used to run from Taizhou, but nobody apparently wanted to go there, so now it goes to Xiamen from Taichung and Keelung, and occasionally Kaohsiung. We were welcomed by uniformed crew, all mainlanders. A tugboat on the other side of the ship pressed it to the dock as the lines were cast off. We put our luggage in our foreward-facing cabin, the porthole providing a fine view of a winch, and then went out on deck to watch the cargo ships and docks slip by as we headed out to sea.

As soon as we hit open ocean it was obvious that this was a much smaller ship than the likes of the Star Cruise variety I took to Okinawa; the waves pummeled the hull and sent small shakes through the cabin, and there was quite a bit of motion, even more than the Taima Ferry to Matsu. As our cabin had no facilities, we had to use the common bathroom and showers, whose hot pools looked out through windows on the dark ocean, the water sloshing about with the ship’s motion. The shouts of the mainlanders came from the cheaper inside bunks, which only cost about NT$1500 or so I think. We got more motion in the front of the ship than the other parts, I think, but I didn’t mind. Though the air conditioning was giving me a headache, I always enjoy the rocking motion, the creaking and swaying sensation of sleeping on ships. One of Chenbl’s co-workers was distinctly uncomfortable with the situation, however.

I got up at 7 a.m. the next morning, as we passed a series of small islands on our approach to Amoy, known in Mandarin as Xiamen. The breakfast servers yelled at Chenbl to only take his own breakfast when he tried to get both of ours. Breakfast consisted of some steamed buns, porridge and a curious piece of meat product involving corn and wrapped in plastic. Huge freighters passed us on our way into the harbor, and the sun was doing a poor job of warming up the chill sea air. The view was shrouded in haze, but I could make out the tall buildings of downtown and traces of an impressively long bridge in the distance. The mainlanders seemed excited at the sight of the new port facilities, a huge, half-built complex, as we sidled up and docked.

We took a taxi to our hotel, the “Best 8” or something like that, a cheap affair that did the job, more or less. Already I liked Xiamen much more than Shenzhen, which isn’t hard as I dislike Shenzhen intensely. Xiamen lacked the air of desperate new money and accompanying thievery present in Shenzhen, which isn’t even a real city in my book. Our taxi driver wasn’t happy about having too many people in his cab, however. “You’ll have to pay the fine if I get caught!” he shouted, and indeed, he made several attempts to get caught just to prove his point, driving the wrong way up one-way streets and passing police cars illegally. The police didn’t care, and we got another cabbie with the interesting name of Fang Zheng, who took us out to the giant “One Country Two Systems” facing Kinmen. We could just barely make out the outline of Little Kinmen in the haze. I remember being in Kinmen many many years ago and looking across that same body of water at Xiamen. People strolled on the beach; it was too cold to swim.

Traffic in Xiamen, as well as in most of the areas I’ve visited in China, involves a kind of slow meandering amongst the lanes, between groups of pedestrians and stones that have fallen from trucks. Everyone assumes everyone else is an idiot, and everyone is right.

We drove to the Nanputuo Temple, the gates an obstacle course of beggars, and entered on the opposite side as you’re supposed to. Chenbl said this was just China “trying to be different” after the cultural revolution. Inside, people threw money at small holes in little pagodas and monks strode into the main hall to do some quick prayers before lunch. We had our meal in an adjacent vegetarian restaurant. Chenbl kept calling the waitresses “Xiaojie” and getting the sharp reply, “There are no ‘xiaojies’ here, thank you very much!” The food wasn’t bad, though. The dishes smelled like an old motel (I mean that in a good way.) Outside the temple, a group of boys rehearsed Journey to the West with puppets, and a young woman enticed a small white dog to emerge from beneath a pipe-covered building.

That afternoon we crowded onto the ferry to Gulangyu, a voyage even shorter than crossing over to Ba-li from Danshui. The lower level of the ferry is free, but the upstairs deck costs money. This was where groups of Nikon-toting birders shot photos of various waterfowl for the entire 30-second ride.

Gulangyu (“Drum Wave Islet”), as an old international settlement with cooler weather in the summer, is home to many old colonial buildings, as well as some of the most hideous wedding attire I’ve encountered. Groups roamed the streets, even on a weekday, loudspeakers blaring away at each other. We escaped the cacophony through mazes of alleys, talking with some of the elderly residents. We had the advantage of being able to communicate in Minnan, giving us a step up over Chinese people from other provinces, though only one of Chenbl’s co-workers speaks it really well; the rest of us don’t speak it that well, but we can get by. The old derelict buildings, many home to multiple families, reminded me of Qingdao or even Penang’s Georgetown, if it were left to rot for a century. Some of the buildings are nicely restored, however, including some interesting-looking hostels and restaurants. Many others were being worked on, stones being hauled up and down the narrow streets by men in overloaded carts. Above us, empty cable cars’ open doors swung freely, and an expert whistler accompanied his own guitar. We passed a military base inside which female soldiers were learning taijiquan. A unit of soldiers marched nervously past.

There’s a lot of walking to be done on Gulangyu, lot of interesting architecture and various nooks and crannies. We followed the coastline along beaches and through tunnels as the sun set over the silhouettes of factories on the other side of the harbor, only to find we were on the wrong side of the island from the ferry back, and temperatures were dropping rapidly. The electric tour cars that had been so ubiquitous during the daylight hours had disappeared, and I didn’t look forward to the long walk back in the cold and dark. Fortunately we found another ferry in front of a resort that was bound for Xiamen, boarded via a precipitous dock high above the actual boat. Inside, the passengers watched a blurry TV image instead of the brilliantly lit skyline outside.

Back in the city, I was reminded of Shanghai’s Bund, on a smaller scale and with fewer annoying touts. Dinner was a mediocre affair of overcooked dry noodles followed by a search for fruit juice to wash away the salty taste. We then strolled up the ritzy Zhongshan Road, lined with well-lit old-style new buildings and swank shops. The road was closed to vehicle traffic, fortunately. “All this opulence stops one alley in,” Chenbl commented wryly. I didn’t doubt it, but I also didn’t tell him this was just as well as the really interesting bits are back there. I couldn’t help but wonder, if Japan hadn’t colonized Taiwan from 1895 to 1945, if Taipei might end up resembling modern-day Xiamen.

Yes, it’s been a whole month since my last entry here, though I’ve written a few times in my other blogs since then. Just not in the mood for writing lately, though things are still going on. Promptly on the first of the month, the weather became very Fall-ish, with cloudy skies and cool breezes. I’m sure this won’t last, though.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers had a great gig at Center Stage, aka the former Living Room, a couple of weeks ago before it closed down for good. It was short notice after a potentially well-paying gig in Kaohsiung was canceled at the last minute, and I was afraid nobody would come. Just before 10pm, when we were setting up, hardly anyone had shown up, but a short time later the place was packed, and we played two riotous sets, pounding away until 2am. Sandman and Conor had to split early, but David, Slim, Thumper and I made our way over to the 24-hour bagel place on Anhe Road for some early breakfast. Sitting there chatting about the show and other things over eggs and toast felt like we were on some tour somewhere. I wouldn’t mind doing that, actually.

In other news, a while ago I borrowed a couple of vintage film cameras from Thumper. I haven’t shot film since I sold my Nikon FM2 years ago, so it was an interesting experience. Thumper owns an old Zeiss Icon and a Leica M3, both with 50mm lenses, f2.8 and f2.0 respectively. I tried out the Leica first and shot two rolls with it. The camera has no light meter, so I was back to guessing the aperture and shutter speed based on long-ago experience after not having to worry about that kind of thing for years. Still, after I got the hang of the double wind and the various controls, the Leica turned out to be very nice. As for being more natural and unobtrusive, it’s better than a big DSLR, but about the same as using my compact DP1. I have to admit feeling a bit more trendy than usual, as if I should be sitting in a cafe writing travel notes in my Moleskine notebook before jumping into a vintage Mini to go hang out with people wearing berets. When I got the prints back from the 5 Color photo shop in Gongguan, I was surprised to see that I got the exposure and focus more or less right, most of the time. The guy at the photo shop has a collection of vintage cameras of his own, some of which he took out to show me.

After my positive experience with the Leica, I was looking forward to the Zeiss Icon, as it has an actual light meter as well as a clever aperture/shutter speed mechanism on the lens. I might have loaded the film wrong, however, because most of the film came out blank. I’m not really sure I like the feel of that camera or the sound of the shutter as much as the M3 in any case.

Speaking of pictures, an article of mine on Matsu, based on my trip there with Prince Roy a few months back and accompanied by pictures, is in the October issue of the Taiwan Review. One of my photos made the cover, but not before being mauled within an inch of its life by a designer using Photoshop to jam a fake sky into it. I told them that I not only could have done that myself, I would have done a better job if they’d just told me beforehand.