Despite the fact that I managed to hold out until a decent hour before going to bed, I still woke up around 2 a.m. I managed to get back to sleep, waking up at another decent hour in my hotel room. The Park Hotel is an old building that puts me in mind of something out of an old detective story, with all of the old, painted-over fittings, the rounded ceiling corners, the bathtub with feet, the sink in the room, the weighted wooden frame of the window. No need for air conditioning, the weather is cool, almost wintery by Taiwanese standards; fortunately I brought a jacket. From what I gather, some people basically live there. I can understand that as rents in SF were already ridiculous years ago, and they’re still skyrocketing, especially in gentrificating neighborhoods like the Tenderloin.

After a quick breakfast a la Walgreens, I walked down Market Street to the bay and along the waterfront to Pier 24, where I met my friend and fellow BME member Jack Simon. Jack used his considerable influence to get me into the exclusive photography gallery there, and we spent the next hour or so looking and wondering about a Paul Graham exhibit that included three of his photographic series. The space was excellent and the staff supremely knowlegable. My only concern was that the deep frames in combination with the lack of ambient light made for deep shadows across the tops of many of the photos, influening the sense of composition. Graham apparently had o problem with it, I was told when I mentioned it to the staff. Jack didn’t notice it until I told him, and then he said he couldn’t unnotice it. Sorry, Jack.

Afterwards, we walked up Mission to the Tenderloin and lunch with two other photographers, Joe Aguirre and Ben Molina. It was great to exchange and discuss our various work and ideas over delicious chicken and rice, washed down with mate full of lovely, lovely caffeine. We ate out on the red brick sidewalk, cracked with use. Ben possesses encylopedic knowlege of photographic history and artists, which added a lot to the discussion.

Joe had to go start work at his coffee/wine shop at 1:30, so Ben, Jack and I walked through the Mission, taking in a modest Todd Hido exhibition, and also tea at a coffeehouse with a wooden boat in front of it, startling a young white woman from Austin who was wearing dog-themed pantyhose. As we walked towards a grafitti-themed alley, a young black man shouted from his car, “Respect the arts! Y’all got cameras in your hands…” I looked back and nodded my agreement at him.

The grey coolness of the morning evaporated into solid blue skies as we walked, and I saw a handful of potentially wonderful photos, but I have a hard time photographing when I’m engaged in conversation with other people, and the conversation was on point. Perhaps it’s just as well, as I would need to spend a bit more time getting a grasp on the local photographic mores.

The sky clouded over again as we walked back to Joe’s work, where we sat and talked while he served us drinks and occasional tasty pastries . Jack had to leave after a while, and Ben took me to a place called the Super Duper Burger Joint or something like that, and the burgers were indeed Super. The bathrooms had combination locks on them, and the codes were on the receipts, which I found clever. Strange, but clever.

Joe had gotten off work at 9:30 and met us outside the restaurant, but Ben had to go home. Joe took me through Chinatown to a bar where Jack Kerouak apparently hung out, now full of people Kerouak would probably spit on. We sat and talked and drank until around midnight, after which we parted ways, Joe on a bus home and me back to my hotel.

I was already awake this morning when Chenbl Lined me, and pretty much packed, so I was checked out and picking up some convenience-store snacks in half an hour, and on the BART to the airport ten minutes after that. Public transit in San Francisco works pretty well, and now they even have rental bicycles now.

Now I’m sitting in the departure lounge at SFO, having sped through check-in and the TSA circus smoothly, only to find that my flight to Oklahoma City has been delayed until after noon. Fortunately they have wifi, so I’ve been spending the time here to write this account.

I’ve had a great time this time in San Francisco, meeting a lot of great people and seeing a bit of the city. I wish I could stay longer. Perhaps I will do that some other time.

The Ibis Hotel staff told me that the free breakfast would go until 10 a.m. So imagine my surprise when I got down to the lobby a little after 9 to find that they were actually not only indicating that the free breakfast was at the other hotel where I was supposed to be staying, but it had ended at 9.

I trudged over to the other hotel to find that they indeed had stopped serving breakfast. “Trainee employees,” the man at the desk scoffed, and offered the remains of the breakfast buffet in compensation. It was rather awful, but breakfast is breakfast.

I didn’t want to take a chance on a trip downtown, so I spent the rest of the morning walking around the industrial desolation surrounding the airport. Most people smoked, and with good reason; the  place stank. It was difficult to imagine food being prepared in such an environment, but it was. Planes flew low over the scene as I approached and then turned back from a guarded  gate, walking out to the edge of the walled complexes. I chatted with a man whose car was being repaired by a trio of young mechanics. “This isn’t regular business,” he said. “This is a grey area.” He was right about that, in oh so many ways.

I walked back towards the hotel, coming across a utility pole repairmant hoisted aloft to switch out new plates. For  some reason I felt I should follow him, but I quickly lost his trail. I was tired of the place anyway. It depressed me.

Back at the hotel for a shower, and then downstairs to check out and wait for the airport bus, which turned out to be another creaking old bus driven by a middle-aged man who complained at how many passengers there were. I couldn’t think of why he would care until I saw that he was planning on parking illegally in front of the airport and more time would increase his odds of getting a ticket.

I strode under the huge canopy that is Beijing Airport, had some lunch upstairs with a view over the whole thing, and then proceeded on the light rail to the gates. There, I was confronted with a huge mass of people as the immigration staff continued to stamp the passports of more and more people, cramming them all into the inspection lines, creating an insufferable blockage of people. I managed to get into one of the shorter lines, but I soon regretted it.

“Is this your battery?” the customs inspection man asked. I nodded. Actually, it was Chenbl’s, but he didn’t need to know that. “What’s the rating?”

“12,000,” I said. He held up the battery of a Western woman and pointed at a sticker that read “10,000”.

“This one says it’s 10,000,” he said. Then, getting no reply, he pointed at mine. “You’re doesn’t say how much it is.”

“It’s 12,000,” I repeated, but he shook his head.

“Without a label, we’ll have to confiscate this,” he said, as if this was the end of the discussion, which it was for all intents and purposes. Chenbl’s backup battery went on the Chinese inspector’s table.

“Well, I’m sure you need it more than I do,” I said sarcastically, but the man wasn’t listening; he had my battery and that was it. I felt like a five-year-old on a playground watching older kids take my lunch money.

But I had a flight to catch. My mood was not improved by the fact that the 747 waiting to take me to San Francisco was parked at the furthest gate. I sat and waited while hundreds of other passengers stood in line to get on board. As usual, I was the last one, but there was one more inspection of luggage in the hallway before the plane could be boarded. I wondered what else they were going to steal, but thankfully nobody there seemed to have sticky fingers.

So I wasn’t feeling too charitable about China as the huge plane hefted itself up into the turbulent dirt Beijing calls air. For one thing we were late leaving the gate, and for another we had waited for over and hour on the tarmac due to a “traffic jam,” as if a bunch of planes had just shown up out of nowhere, uninvited, but knowing how things work in China, that wouldn’t have been a huge surprise.

The flight itself, other than occasional turbulence that made me wonder why the hell we were flying so low, was ok. I watched a bunch of Sean the Sheep and am now a Sean the Sheep Fan. The plane was clean, the meals decent. I tried and failed to sleep, as usual. 10 hours later we were wafting over San Francisco Bay, itself surrounding by brown fields. I could see two or three other aircraft in our flight pattern; traffic was heavy in the skies.

The immigration line stretched over a few football fields, but the real fun didn’t begin until I met with the officials. The immigration fellows were quite interested in my background and chatted with me in a mostly pleasant fashion for a good long time. I didn’t have any particular place to be, so I just went along. Eventually they realized I wasn’t up to any funny business and let me go through. I thought that was it, walking towards customs, where a bored official was taking customs forms from passing travellers. He took my form as I passed, but I’d only taken a few steps when I heard him call harshly, “Hey you! Passport!” I returned and handed him my passport. He scrutinized it for a moment as other travellers passed by. Eventually he said, “You don’t have U.S. citizenship?” He knew I didn’t; it says in my passport that I renounced it.

“No,” I said, explaining that I’d had to renounce to obtain Taiwanese citizenship.

“So, ” he said in a strange tone, “You don’t feel like enjoying the many obvious advantages of U.S. citizenship, huh?” The …you ungrateful son of a bitch went unspoken, but I heard it just as clearly. I didn’t know how to answer that one, so he made a little mark on my customs form and pointed me over to another officer, this one wearing a holstered pistol at his side. Both were white. The last time I’d gone through customs in San Francisco I’d been lucky enough to encounter an Asian officer who immediately understood my situation and let me though without a problem. Before that, in LA on the way to film school in New York, the customs official, a black man, had simply muttered “Now I’ve seen everything,” before waving me through.

But not this time. I spent the next half hour or so answering questions about my background, my life, my work, etc. before the armed officer finally went back to consult with the form-taking official, who was looking at me with apparent dislike. Officer Pistol explained something to him, but what it was I couldn’t say as they were out of earshot. Eventually the form-taker relented, and the man with the pistol came back and said I could go.

I  got the BART to Montgomery Street, found my hotel, and put my things away. After a refreshing shower in the four-footed tub, I headed out to meet my friend Ernie for dinner at a pseudo-Mexican place nearby. San Francisco is surprisingly chilly in the middle of August. We waited, chatting, outside for about 45 minutes until we were seated. The meal was delicious, and we took a Lyft ride out to the Mission for ice cream. It was my first Lyft, and it was interesting. Ernie and I talked about its implications over some tasty desserts. Then it was another Lyft back to the hotel.

What a day.

I packed badly this time around. Instead of taking things out and getting ready well beforehand, I left it til the last minute and spent the morning dumping things into my suitcase and backpack before hauling ass over the bridge and onto the train to catch a bus to the airport, constantly feeling like I must have forgotten half of the things I was supposed to remember.

I didn’t feel much of the excitement that ordinarily accompanies travel; there was no feeling of departure. With luck, that trip on the airport bus will be my last, as the airport MRT line is supposed to be up and running soon-ish. It was supposed to be done this year, but yet another delay puts it into next year. We’ll see. Our bus was full of mainlanders, but they behaved for the most part. I did get a good check-in at the Air China counter in Terminal 2, formerly the Good Terminal and now the one relegated to mainland flights before they redid Terminal 1 into a swank 70’s Lounge. The automatic passport control machines had trouble identifying me, which is a first. How quickly they forget. Fortunately my fingerprints still matched.

When I looked out at the plane we were to take to Beijing, I was in for a disappointment. I have nothing against wear and tear, but the Airbus that waltzed lazily into the gate 20 minutes late was smeared with grime, and the departing crew looked like they needed a hug. What had happened? Nobody was saying. Taoyuan Airport apparently treats Air China like crap, because we waited for 27 planes to land on our strip before we could take off. That was meant to be hyperbole when I wrote it in my notebook, but it soon became the literal truth. Finally, after a big lumbering 747 cargo conversion floated down in front of us, we were able to take off. I began to suspect severe turbulence had been the reason the previous crew had been so glum when the plane started to shake as we flew north. Nothing terrible, but I suppose it could have been worse on the way down. The interior was as grungy as the exterior, but the lunch wasn’t bad. Then again, I’ve always been partial to airplane meals, just because I like the novelty of eating anything mid-flight.

My spirits lifted somewhat at the sight of the clear blue sky, but soon we were flying inside a featureless grayness. Why so low? Why were we zigzagging? No idea. The woman in the seat behind me pointed out that a ticket was on the floor under my seat. Was it mine? No, it was from the day before. In Beijing, I got into the Chinese line, was told to go to the foreigners line, but I was tired and didn’t want to line up, so I showed them my taibaozheng and they let me through. The airline was putting me up in a hotel for the night before my connecting flight to San Francisco the next day, but when I got to the service counter all I got was a card and the command “Wait over there.” I did, for quite a while. Nearby a group of what looked like a wrestling team made jokes as I sat down next to a platinum blonde girl. When a man came by and they all got up to follow him, I asked him which hotel he was going to. He looked me up and down and said, “Believe me, the hotel we’re going to isn’t the one you’re going to.”

Eventually we were told to follow another fellow to a white van, which took us to a nearby hotel that was completely not the one I was told had been booked. “Look, I was told to drop you off here,” the driver insisted, though the remaining people in the van were also staying at the hotel I was supposedly staying at. So instead of the Hoya, I’m at the Ibis. After looking at the Hoya, I really think it doesn’t matter.

After putting my luggage in my room, I set out, thinking I would stroll over to the subway stop, take a train into downtown Beijing. But I grossly underestimated the distances involved, and ended up eating a club sandwich at a bakery, reminiscent of the club sandwiches I used to eat at the Kaiping Hotel back in the day. I was told the subway takes an hour and a half just to get downtown, so it would have been a wash anyway.

I walked back, taking photos of overgrown billboards featuring happily standard Chinese families. As I approached one shop, a man outside saw me and ran inside. As I passed in front, a middle-aged woman rushed out, calling on me to partake of their “massages”. Further on, a dump truck’s cab was up in the air as it unloaded something in a dark lot. Landing airplanes periodically loomed overhead.

We get breakfast tomorrow, but I’m not sure what I’ll do after. My flight’s not until after 3 in the afternoon. Perhaps more walking around. I don’t like the air here, though; it irritates my throat.

Typhoon Soudelor crossed Taiwan on Saturday. Some were hoping for a day off on Friday, but aside from a bit of wind and rain it wasn’t too bad that day. I bought a big bottle of water as well as some bread, fruit and sandwiches on my way home from work to prepare. The typhoons in recent years, aside from Morakot a few years back, haven’t been much to talk about. Nari also caused a lot of flooding with massive rainfall, but those two storms were particularly damaging due to the length of time they stalled over Taiwan rather than outright fierceness.

Soudelor, however, was projected to pass over the island quickly, and although it was strong, it was supposed to be over quickly, and the central mountain range tends to scrape the bottom from under such systems quickly enough to render them fairly toothless by the time they reach the more populated west coast of the island. I figured we’d get some interesting weather on Saturday and that would be it.

The wind and rain picked up on Friday night, and the storm’s eye made landfall early Saturday morning. The rainfall was impressive, but the wind was truly alarming. Though the Water Curtain Cave is located in a relatively wind-free part of the building, my balcony was still a mess, and my ears were popping when the gusts shook the building. We’re talking about a large, 19-story concrete building, so that’s not a small thing. I went up to the top floor to get a view of the river, which was as high as I’ve seen it in years, but fortunately not threatening to spill over the flood walls or threaten the restaurants on the other side. I spent most of the day finishing up my Vietnam photos and uploading them, but I did venture out in the afternoon. It was still raining, but I knew an umbrella would be useless due to the wind, so I wore my trusty TVBS raingear that has proven to keep my dry in the fiercest of storms.

The wind, I must say, was impressive. I had to duck into the fruit shop to avoid being blown down the street by a particularly strong gust, but I made it over to the bridge, which was not only bucking, as it tends to do in high winds, but actually bending sideways, which I hadn’t really seen it do before. I ventured out onto the bridge for a short time, but the wind was just crazy strong, tree branches were flying around in a manner completely unbecoming for such large pieces of wood, so I retreated.

And the wind did not die down, but kept its intensity as the storm took a slanted path southwest across the island. The Central Mountain Range was apparently slacking off, because Souledor emerged into the Taiwan Strait nearly as strong as it had been when it landed, and then turned promptly north again, as if it missed us and wanted to come back. The wind blew on and on, into the night, hours and hours. We lost electricity for a couple of fractions of seconds, resetting everything in the apartment, but the building’s backup power systems kept everything going for the most part. When I went back out in search of something hot for dinner, I noticed that besides my building and the two other high-rises next to it, the entire area was blacked out. Fortunately the vegetarian place downstairs was open for business.

I went to sleep on Saturday night to the sound of the shrieking wind, but it had died down by Sunday morning, though the weather was still grey. The state of the park downtown where I usually go to practice tai-chi was no doubt unsuitable for practice, so I headed out along the riverside, taking pictures as I went. Just north of the highway bridge, a man in a blue poncho was grabbing tiny fish from underneath a devastated cable TV box, despite warnings from a security guard. Other men fished in the muddy, torrential waters of the river. The paths were covered with mud and dead fish. The dead fish stank, but the aroma of freshly broken foliage was able to overcome most of the stench.

I walked northwards to the Xizhou Community, home to many aborigine residents. The upper part of the little village was ok, but the lower part had been completely inundated. Trucks and other earth-moving equipment were digging out metric tons of mud, and stacks of ruined furniture and other things were piled on corners. “Careful walking in the mud!” One of them called to me. I was treading carefully, mindful that the mud could be hiding anything from broken glass to snakes. My sandals made sucking noises as I pulled them out of the ankle-deep muck with each step with an effort, but they held up as I made my way across the village, avoiding the places where the mud was soft enough to really sink into.

The bathtub-ring-like line of detritus on the shores showed clearly how far the water had risen, below which the grass was swept and brown. Older people in ponchos and straw hats combed the banks for things they could salvage. I was becoming very hot and thirsty from trudging through the mud, berating myself for not bringing any water with me.

I passed the failed temple by the highway, blocked up by parked buses, and through another sea of mud to the Yangguang Sports Park, or rather, the large field of mud where the Yangguang Sports Park used to be. Thankfully I was able to buy some water there while I was waiting for an elderly gentleman to wash the mud off his bicycle. I then washed as much of the mud off my feet and sandals as I could before continuing over the pedestrian bridge. Helicopters were flying constantly back and forth from Xindian to Wulai, airlifting supplies to stranded communities there.

As I crossed the bridge, I noticed a man in a yellow shirt with a white bag, from which he was dumping something into the river. He then trudged back towards some puddles along the riverside and bent down, grabbing something from them. I watched him for a while, curious as to what he was doing. Eventually I realized that he was rescuing fish that had been trapped in the puddles during the flooding, putting them in the bag and releasing them back into the river.

The sight warmed my heart. What a contrast to those supposed “Buddhists” who buy fish and fowl that have been trapped just for that purpose to “release” in order to “do good deeds.” This man, I figured, was the real deal.

On the other side of the river, hardcore cyclists were struggling to push their bikes through the mud. I walked through the neighborhood of Xiao Bitan, circling downed trees that had crushed the occasional parked car. Men with chainsaws were out, reducing each felled tree to a pile of wood stacked neatly on the corner. Shops and restaurants were already back in business. One in particular smelled very good, but the prices on the menu stopped me at the door.

The glass doors to the smoking room outside the Xiao Bitan MRT station had been blown in, but fortunately remained unshattered. I took the subway to Gongguan, where I had a nice lunch at Sababa as I usually do on Sundays. Then I took a bus out to Banqiao to meet Chenbl, who is taking a summer massage course out there. I’ve taken that bus, no. 311, twice, and each time it has impressed me with how reckless and unprofessional the driver has been. Sudden starts and stops, breathtaking acceleration, rapid lane changes, and a refusal, every. single. time. to stop at the stop where I want to get off. No matter when I push the button, the bus just sails on to the next stop. I hate buses in general, give me a train or a boat any day, but the 311 gives me cause to hate them even more.

On my way to the school I took a wrong turn and found myself in a dead-end alley that reminded me not a little of Nocture Alley from Harry Potter. A woman who apparently worked in the area asked me in a rude tone, “Who are you here to see?”

“I’m just looking for a place, not a person,” I replied to her accusing stare.

Chenbl had just gotten out of class, and the assistant teacher gave me a nice head massage as I had the beginnings of a headache, probably from dehydration. Though it was cloudy, the day was hot and muggy. We walked west from the school, crossing though a mean, lonely industrial area, then under an overpass and into an interesting neighborhood around an old restaurant in front of a temple. The place felt friendly and open compared to the sooty darkness under the overpass, where I imagined dwelt all kinds of shady characters, even though rats ran up and down behind the restaurant. Beyond the temple were hillside cemeteries, but we didn’t proceed that way as Chenbl felt dizzy from all the ghosts there.

The sun was setting as we walked by a school, getting directions from some of the students playing basketball there, and then up Minxiang Street to the Global Mall. Which was packed. The day before, 8/8, was supposed to be Father’s Day, but due to the typhoon nobody had gone out. They were now making up for it and how; every restaurant in the place was packed. We managed to find a table in the food court to partake of some mediocre Japanese fare, but my head was throbbing and I just wanted to get home. Fortunately there was a shuttle bus from the mall to Banqiao Station, from which we took the subway back, Chenbl to his home downtown, and me back to Xindian.