Autumn is settling in after a really hot summer. T…
Autumn is settling in after a really hot summer. The people in the building next door decided it was time to burn a metric shitload of ghost money on their roof, i.e. just outside my apartment, and the smell was seeping inside. I can’t stand staying indoors in weather like this in any case, so rather than do one of the many things on my to-do list on Sunday, I decided to go explore the ;latest and greatest MRT line, the one out to Tucheng.
I took the MRT all the way to Yongning Station, at the end of the line. Only a couple of blocks after exiting the station, I was in the countryside, with old abandoned brick houses and forest roads. I walked down a street lined by silent factories, their sides papered with ads, and happened across a shattered car windshield on the sidewalk, which occupied me for several minutes as I took macro shots of the glass. Then I visited a temple that featured a huge black dog statue, as well as the empty factory behind it.
Then back to Jincheng road and up to Tucheng Station, where city hall and several other government buildings are located, as well as a couple of temples. I passed by a blond foreigner smoking a cigarette out on the street and nodded to him. No doubt we were both thinking to ourselves, “Damn, I just can’t get away from these frellin’ foreigners!”
After touring the more interesting of the two temples (one looked too new and boring), I walked past the abandoned KMT HQ to a major intersection that was downtown Tucheng, where I found via a realtor shop that house prices weren’t any cheaper than Xindian, and then back to the station, where I took the train to Haishan Station. I’d noticed on my way down that most of the passengers got off the train at this station. After an abnormally long escalator ride to the surface, I found that the station is located in the middle of a park, itself sandwiched between various schools. I walked around the neighborhood and liked what I saw: tree-lined streets, a good amount of newish apartment buildings, and just a general good feeling to the place. If I had to live in that part of town it wouldn’t be a bad choice.
By this point I was feeling a bit tired, though, so I took the train to the Far Eastern Hospital Station, in the hope of finding a bench by the river (it’s next to a river on the map) and watching the sun go down, but by the time I arrived the sun was already gone, and there was no obvious way to get to the river (referred to as a “ditch” on the station map), so I just set out towards Fuzhong Station, taking pictures of intersections and neon signs as I proceeded. After stopping to ask directions once at a motorcycle helmet shop, I found myself at the Lin Family Garden, which I visited once many years ago. I took pictures of a red neon cross I saw before, though it was kind of ruined by the blue sign underneath. Then it was around the busy streets across the square. It reminded me of Taichung in my student days; lots of young people and various foods available on a stick (the food, that is, not the young people).
So that’s all the stations; I’ve been to each and every one and explored the areas around them, and now the MRT system can resume it’s boring, known reality once again. Until the next line opens, that is.
you dog! You’re way ahead of me. Visiting every MRT station is on my list of things to do.
David
Comment by David — September 26, 2006 @ 2:34 am
Well, I’ll probably go back and explore some more; some of those places seemed pretty interesting.
Comment by TC — September 26, 2006 @ 7:19 am
for some reason my comment didn’t take hold. I think it would be cool to make an MRT station website to document every stop.
Comment by Prince Roy — September 28, 2006 @ 7:17 am
Yeah, Blogger’s comments are kind of strange, sometimes they don’t work so well for me.
I think that would be a good idea, with a map interface maybe and a way for anyone to submit photos of the area.
Comment by TC — September 28, 2006 @ 7:21 am