I went over to the Page One bookstore in Taipei 101 this afternoon, or rather what’s left of it. When Page One opened in the new mall complex that formed the base of what was then the world’s tallest building, it filled an entire floor with rows upon towering rows of books on every subject, featuring vast literature and fiction sections, a healthy art and photography selection, and the whole place was filled with that wonderful new-book smell. There was a huge Sony Store opposite with all kinds of cool gadgets, and the Jason’s supermarket downstairs was filled with tasty treats from all over the world, including Keebler Fudge Sticks.

Over the years, however, things have changed in the area. More buildings have gone up, mostly luxury apartments no normal person could ever hope to afford. More useful stores, such as electronics outlets and interesting restaurants, gave way to more and more top-end fashion accessory brands. The supermarket was left mostly devoid of Western goodies, settling down into more of a large-ish Wellcome grocery at three times the price. As this happened, Page One closed off one section after another, slowly shrinking until it could only be entered through an exit stairway door.

Now it’s scheduled to close in the near future. Most of the unsold books have been brought to the front of the store, including the children’s book section, which I found kind of sad. The whole thing is kind of sad, not just Page One but the entire area, although Page One seems like an apt metaphor for what’s happened, i.e. money chasing out culture. But I suppose it’s better to build that area up than to simply tear the old parts of the city down, which is happening, but not at the rate it might have had no land been available out at the east edge of the city.

After purchasing, somewhat out of a sense of guilt, a Star Wars notebook, I walked around the area a bit, remembering when it was mostly empty, and how happy I’d been when the Warner Village theaters were built. They’re still there, of course, along with a long series of expensive Mitsukoshi Department Stores. I stopped in the Gogoro Scooter shop and was impressed with the electric scooters dotting the showroom floor, though for me a city scooter is solving a problem that has been solved effectively with the arrival of the MRT and the YouBike system. If I were to buy another two-wheeler, it would an electric motorcycle with enough range to get me into and back out of the mountains for a day or so.

But the area around 101 has become markedly less interesting. The real action is happening, as it seems to always have done, in the alleys of Taipei as young entrepreneurs open up more interesting shops with their own vibe and audience. Perhaps the vacuous culture-suck that surrounds 101 is a useful lightning rod, drawing clueless rich tourists and spoiled rich locals away from places where they could do a lot more harm. The real soul of this city still lies elsewhere.

I took the big movie poster over to the new DV8 the other night. I figure that that is the most suitable place for it, rather than just sitting amid the clutter of the Water Curtain Cave. For one thing, the first scene we shot was at the original DV8, and Gary, who runs the place these days, also acted in the film (in a scene shot at Peshawar, which has long since been torn down). I’d never been to the new DV8, which is now on Fuxing South Road near the rear entrance to NTU, not far from one of my former haunts, actually. I should get a DVD to Gary, I suppose, though Dean said he would work on a Blu-ray version.

In other news, Maoman, Taffy et al are setting up a book party/signing for me on July 18th, a Saturday. They’re looking at Vinyl Decisions, which is near the old Bob’s (My, there are a lot of old/new places in that area). I imagine it will be a small affair, but I’ll post the details either here or on Facebook when I know more. Hopefully the print version will be available on amazon soon; they require a certain amount of time, but it’s been a while, so hopefully by that time it will be up. Currently the print version is available at Camphor Press’s site. If you buy one and somehow randomly encounter me on the street when I’m not in too foul a mood, I’ll probably even agree to sign it for you.

Hanoi seems to be in the middle of replacing the entirety of its considerable airborne wiring. Every few streets we saw a bevy of repairmen balancing precariously on the black masses of wiring in between poles.

We got a rather later start than we’d intended to, but we were out on the streets by 8 a.m., after a mediocre breakfast downstairs. At first we tried to follow the purple path suggested by the tourist map, but other streets were too tempting. We found one of the old city gates, and some interesting markets once we left the tourist district. Chenbl spent a good 15 minutes chasing chickens in an alley while I photographed scooters piled high with plastic bottles edging through the narrow entrance. Walking north, we passed underneath the railway and, quite thirsty, looked for something to drink. When we approached a coconut stand as we’d done last night quite easily, the woman selling the coconuts demanded that we pay first. This was a bad sign, and we should have left then and there, but we were thirsty. Of course once she had our money, she pulled out her very worst coconut, the one she’d been saving for fools just as us, with a moldy black exterior and exactly one metric mouthful of juice. We should have made a bigger fuss than we did, but again, we were thirsty, and we had no idea that a Lotteria was just around the corner. Heated up with anger rather than cooled down by the coconut juice, we sat and drank lemon juice to cool off.

We spotted another lake nearby, Truc Bach lake, so we walked over to check it out. It turned out to be uninteresting, but the trip did serve one purpose: Chenbl finally found a way to cut his fingernails: He approached a trio of Vietnamese fellows on the bank of the lake and asked if he could borrow their nail clippers. They said ok, Chenbl’s nails were clipped, and we were on our merry way around the small promontory, separated from land by a truly awful canal.

We were wandering around without purpose, and this suited me fine. We passed by the luxurious Army Hotel, with bored Army guards outside, and walked down broad streets to a long park where I nearly fell on my face when I tripped on a fractured curb. I fell on Chenbl instead, who had the presence of mind not to fall over himself.

We walked around a round building in the middle of a roundabout that turned out to be Old, and then over to where the train tracks crossed over the street, following the tracks until we were hungry enough for lunch of beef pho sitting on the street. I haven’t had any pho here so far that hasn’t been  delicious.

We walked south, out of the tourist district completely this time, and our exodus engendered a sense of relief. People seemed like regular people, touts weren’t constantly approaching me, there were actual sidewalks and street crossings, and prices were half of what they were in the old district. It was like returning to civilization. We even saw a traffic accident where the drivers got out, glared at each other, got back into their cars and drove off, both completely ignoring the traffic cop at the intersection, who ignored them right back.

Further south, we came upon another lake, this one looking man-made, probably to cool off the neighborhood. After sitting and resting while a small boy slid down the stairs over and over again, we decided to walk west. Inside a nearby alley, an old barber was striking camp in the light of the sunset as a boy threatened me with a tree branch. Both lived just down the alley, near a small temple on the lake.

We walked to the railway tracks, where we were surprised to see far more people camped out on the tracks than we’d expected. I guess it must be cooler, and they all seem to know the train schedule, but it was still a bit unnerving considering how easily trains can slip up on one. We talked with one young bespectacled fellow who enquired about our cameras. I got his flickr handle so I can look at his work.

Continuing through long alleys punctuated with LED signs and little old shops, my spirits lifted even more. This was actual Vietnam, actual Hanoi. People were friendly and open, traffic moved smoothly. We had some delicious dry beef noodles at some random shop patronized by heavy, shirtless men and one very old woman. In the corner by the TV was a large glass bottle of something straight out of Severus Snape’s pantry.

We continued up the alley, which turned out to be very, very long, but it was interesting and the most fun we’ve had in Hanoi so far. We made attempts to chat with various people along the way, some older men smoking water cigars, some women cutting hair, some construction workers eating dinner, etc. We passed empty lots where the houses had been torn down, and eventually ended up on a major road, where we asked directions back to the old district. Everyone we asked said it was too far to walk, but when we pointed out that we had just walked from there, they just shrugged. Crazy foreigners, I guess. What can you do?

As we made our way back towards the hotel, showers of leaves would occasionally float down from the trees. We had some fresh juice at an intersection, but some air conditioning was in order, so we stopped in at a KFC. Chenbl noted that the chicken there was much thinner than it is in Taiwan. The women in front of us were apparently applying for several foreign visas along with their meal, as they had filled out several forms and provided bank statements with phone confirmations. Then every school in the vicinity let out, and the place was suddenly filled with screaming children. This prompted our escape.

Now we’re back at the hotel, where the broken fridge has been fixed. In order to compensate for this commendable act, neither the TV nor Internet is working, most likely due to the cutting of a few wrong wires today.

Today is the beginning of Proper Work, after the Chinese New Year and 2/28 Holidays. I spent the break with the flu, drunk on medicine, half in a dream state. I spent last night battling desperate nightmares, the kind that last until you’re convinced they are real, more real than the life you’re actually living. Now it’s cold and windy, and the streets are deserted, as though nobody’s really in the mood to start up again. I know I’m not.

Friday morning, however, the sun was out, and I thought it would be a good idea to take the crazy bike out for a spin, though the wind was taking things seriously. I went down to the basement, took the dust covers off the seat, and hauled my red ride up to street level to pump the tires before setting off, north as always (there are no paths south, not really). Riding was nice, though tinged with an eerie feeling that comes when the wind is at one’s back; I was pedaling but I didn’t feel any real motion. The riverside parks were crowded with holiday-makers enjoying the fine weather, so I wasn’t going that fast anyway.

At one point I swerved onto a divergent path to avoid crashing into another bicycle, and found myself looking at a massive array of men with cameras sporting huge lenses, spread out in a u-shape in front of an oddly shaped log and a bunch of grass. There must have been 50 or 100 of them, all staring intently through their finders, their motors whirring away at dizzying frames-per-second speeds. Many were decked out in full camouflage, including their huge 600mm lenses. It was quite the spectacle, and I really wanted a photo of them all, but when I edged towards the front of them on the side, several of them waved me off, even though I was dozens of meters away from the log they were photographing. I crept behind the trees behind the log, and even more of them shouted at me to get the hell out of their shots, even though there was no physically possible way I could have been in any of their shots.

“Didn’t you see the bird?” One of them asked me as I returned to the group, most of whom were glaring at me with the utmost distaste, this yokel who was RUINING THEIR WORK. I managed not to wonder aloud how, after spending untold fortunes on equipment, anyone could possibly remain so ignorant of the concept of depth of focus. Instead I managed to grin like an idiot and ask them about the bird. What kind of bird was it? “It’s an Angry Bird!” I was told, i.e. one of those little red birds made famous by the game.

“But how did it get here?” I asked.

“It, uh…escaped!” one of the photographers said.

“Really.” I stared at him. He looked nervous.

“Yes.”

“It just ‘escaped’ on its own, eh?” Without having its wings clipped and tossed out onto a log in the park so that all of these frauds could “discover” it in a “natural state” so they could sell the prints to magazines for vast sums they could use to buy even longer lenses, no doubt. Amazing, but not surprising.

I left them to their fun and continued riding up the river, eventually passing the “Water Taxi” docks that proclaimed that the three times the boats left were all in the late afternoon due to the holidays, and up to the Dahan River, where I explored the new Crescent Moon pedestrian bridge, which is very nice, providing access to the old street and temples near Xinzhuang MRT station, a historic area that has witnessed a great deal of inter-tribal strife over the years.

I’d forgotten to bring lights for the crazy bike for night-time riding, so I decided to head back, against the wind to the comfort of home. I’d also forgotten sunscreen, which was unbeknownst to me etching a tan line where I wore my do-rag across my forehead. The wind and clouds made the trip back a low-key affair. The crowds of photographers were still snapping away at their “prize”, several hours later when I passed them on my way home.

Back at the Water Curtain Cave, I quailed at the idea of another night at home. So I called up Chenbl, who was spending the day in Gongguan, to meet up for dinner at the steak house on the second floor of Taipei train station. We’ve gone there many times, and while the service level goes up and down, the streak’s usually good. Also, they have the best creme brule this side of Paris. People staring (more than usual) at me on the subway alerted me to the dual-toned nature of my face after the day’s riding in the sun.

That was Friday. On Saturday, I met up with Xiao Guo and Chenbl at Dapinglin to take the bus to Longtan, the town where Chenbl’s mother grew up. Traffic was bad, as a cold front was threatening the last day of the holiday, and everyone was on the road trying to take advantage of the remaining hours of sun. But eventually we disembarked in downtown Longtan, which Chenbl says looks nothing like it did when he was little and the place was an idyllic farming town with potable water and buildings still not covered with billboards. One of these building’s outrageously awful design was apparently despite the billboards. When I wondered what the hell was up with it, Chenbl said, “Oh, that was designed by children on a whim.”

“Really? Isn’t that somewhat…irresponsible?” I said.

“How so?”

“I mean, aren’t there construction regulations, safety…uh, things?”

“Oh, well…that was a long time ago.”

We walked over and noted the awful construction techniques, the rotting wooden beams encased in concrete, the purposeless minarets and turrets, the trees growing through the structure. It was amazing it hadn’t collapsed yet. Nobody officially lived there, though there were signs of a previous restaurant and some farmers still using it.

We walked through abandoned fields and up old streets, Chenbl talking about How Things Used To Be when he was a little kid exploring the alleys four decades ago. As he told the tragic story of one of his neighbors being hit by a train, a man walked up who turned out to be the unfortunate neighbor’s father. “Geez, I hope he didn’t hear me talking about his son,” Chenbl whispered after we escaped the awkward conversation.

We ended up buying lottery tickets next door to the temple, which is now protected from the elements by a giant white sail contraption that looks as if the whole thing is about to take flight. The old parts of the town looked like they might have been nice places to live back in the day, or at least they did in my drug-addled imagination.

A very good lunch was had at a traditional Hakka restaurant while the staff gossiped about us at the next table. We then made our way out to the park surrounding the town’s eponymous water feature, where Chenbl’s aunt sings for passersby as a professional street performer. She’s very good. Chenbl is a very good singer himself, but his aunt is in another league altogether. We sat and listened for a bit as the sun warmed the lake and everyone around it. Chenbl’s aunt kept trying to get us to come down and sing something, and eventually Chenbl got me on stage to sing a Taiwanese song, Hai-bo-long, in a duo with his aunt. It was a lot of fun.

The weather had other plans, however, wiping the sun away just as we decided to take a walk around the lake. The sun vanished, the temperature dropping several degrees. By the time we arrived back at the stage, a lovely summer day had become dark and cold. Chenbl’s aunt bravely kept the crowd warm with music, and even got Chenbl up to sing. She also got a couple to come up and perform, the woman singing and the man playing a copper-colored trumpet with some decent amount of skill considering the plummeting temperatures. But rain was falling now, and we abandoned the show to board a bus to Xinpu. Chenbl and Xiao Guo had going on all day about getting some bantiao noodles there, but we were too late; everyone was trying to get back home now that the good weather was gone. The bus driver informed us that traffic was backed up to an incredible degree; we’d never make Xinpu. He let us off in Guanxi, where we were turned away from one popular restaurant before we managed to have some decent noodles (“Though not as good as Xinpu,” Chenbl kept saying). Mist was falling, and most of the stores were resolutely closed. Aided by friendly Hakka residents who let us dash into their bathroom for a quick piss, we managed to board another bus back to Taipei. Fortunately by that time traffic wasn’t too bad, with only a few red streaks on Google Traffic marring the route on my iPad, and in only a couple of hours we were marveling once again at the towering high-rises of New Taipei City (I still can’t stand that name; it is the cause of endless confusion in headlines to this day). Xiao Guo jumped off in the middle of Banqiao for some reason, and we caught the subway from the West Gate.

The trip made me feel I should spend more time exploring the area around Guanxi and Xinpu. Some other time, I suppose. There’s nothing like exploring a new place to jump start flagging dream states.

I spent most of our short new year holiday down south this year, as we only had six days off; a trip abroad wouldn’t have worked, especially as airfare prices tend to skyrocket. I’ve also made a couple of purchases lately that make me a bit hesitant to spend any more. One of these was an iPad Air, purportedly to use for writing but really to read comics on, and the other was the first camera I’ve purchased in many years (The last one I bought was the GF1…the Invincible Rabbit and the Oly EM5 are going back to their owners, who had graciously let me use them for long periods of time at a stretch).

Chenbl and I took the bullet train to Kaohsiung at noon on Friday, the second day of the holiday. We checked into the same hotel I stayed at the last time I was there. The weather was fine, and it was good to be in a different city -a port city no less!- for a time. We met some old friends, had tea and cake by the Love River, rode some of the rickety one-speed rental bicycles, took the ferry to Qijin, and had some seafood. We took side trips to Gangshan and Qishan. We spent Monday, the last day of our trip, in Tainan, which is where Chenbl’s family in from. We even bumped into one of his relatives at a local temple.

Tainan is famous for the density of its temples. There are temples everywhere, big and small. When I visit such places, I usually have little conversations in my head with the local gods, and I continued this practice at one small temple on a side street. One of the door gods, the dark-skinned one that is always on the left side as you face the temple, was looking sternly at my camera, almost as if in alarm. I walked over to the main alter and asked the main gods what was up.

“Just what do you think you’re doing with that camera?” they asked.

“I take photographs, mostly of people,” I said.

“Why?”

“Uh, I like the compositions?”

“You can see good compositions any time you like. Why do you take photos?”

“Because I like to.”

“That’s a cop-out. You like to? Ha! Forget about that. What gets you? Think!”

I thought for a while. They weren’t going anywhere anyway. Eventually I said, “What gets me…is showing people how they are. Everything moves so quickly, these moments of clarity, where everything just fits, come and go and they’re gone. Not just the moments, but the people as well.”

“What about them?”

“Their environments, their characters…”

“So?”

“So I want to show them.”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“That they’re beautiful!”

“Ah! But how do you know what they know and what they don’t know? Who are you to say?”

“That’s true. Who am I to say? They’re the ones to say. They’re the ones who do say. But I’d like to think I’m giving them another option, another angle, another choice.” Their painted expressions softened. At least they did in my head.

“It’s ok. Just remember that it’s not about you. It’s about them. Remember that, and only then will your work show who you really are.”

Chenbl had just finished talking with one of the temple employees, and came over to where I stood in front of the altar. Always concerned about my finances, he said, “Ask them about your job.” I did.

“Your job? Weren’t we just talking about your job?”

“No, my day job. My office job.”

Silence. They had nothing to say. I walked back to the door god, who was still staring at my camera. But this time, it was no longer a warning, it was a beacon. At least in my head.

“Where should we go today?” Chenbl asked me on the phone. I’d just finished a nice lunch at Sababa, helped by the fact that they’ve gone back to their crispy pitas, though the prevalence of cilantro was still disturbing. I had to have a slice of their delicious lemon pie to rid my mouth of the taste.

“I dunno, let’s go west somewhere…lessee, Banqiao?”

“How about Youth Park?”

“Ok.” I was walking up Hsinhai, to the Youbike stand where three girls hovered around the single bicycle left in the racks. They yielded to my onerous presence, and I pedaled up to Heping East Road, turning left and westwards into the sun, but on the shady south side of the street.

The ride, while nice, didn’t take long. Some of the shops on Nanhai Road seemed to be in the process of clearing out, and I wondered if the area is scheduled for demolition. I looked at the moldy old bags filled with the detritus of years of living, and wondered what kinds of stories they held.

Wandering back through more alleys, I passed old wooden two-story houses shrouded in vines, through early apartment blocks straight out of a Hong Kong movie, past old women and their Filipina caretakers. Chenbl showed up over an hour later, and the sun was low in the sky as we walked through the park, being warned by the Indonesian hairdressers on the sidewalk not to take their photos as they clipped the grey hair of old veterans. We walked through an ugly concrete community and out the other side, along a side street where a portly man in blue was repainting the statue of a goddess with real gold paint, past old buildings and new skyscraper apartments.

On our way back towards the park, we heard firecrackers and drums, and presently came upon a religious procession, with palanquins and tall god costumes with swinging arms, and devotees dressed in yellow and red. It was the birthday of one of the gods. We followed them into one of the old Hong Kong-style apartment buildings, to find a small temple in the courtyard. Piles of ghost money burned on the floor, and the palanquins were carried over the flames. A god medium, stripped to the waist, took various weapons from an assistant to brandish amid the firecrackers. I found myself between the palanquins, the medium and the alter, but when I tried to get out of the way, one of the men in red ushered me into the alter room, where the medium, in a trance, instructed the followers what he needed: some paper and ink to sign it. Then he read a woman’s fortune, all in a high falsetto that somehow didn’t contradict his bare-chested authority. “Do you want him to ask him anything?” Chenbl asked. I thought that perhaps one had to make an appointment or something, and demurred, but then I decided, why not?

“So…” I began, while the medium listened, ashes and other firecracker-related materials dusting his bare shoulders. A couple of days’s stubble adorned his face. I asked a few questions about a few things, and the response was cautiously positive.

“You should come with us down to Xinying,” the short man who had invited me into the alter room said, as the medium came out of his trance, collapsing into the arms of a burly assistant, seemingly chosen just for this duty. Back in the normal world, he seemed smaller, almost mousey.

Dinner took the form of vegetable rolls at the Southern Airport Night Market. Of course there hasn’t been an airport there since Japanese times, but the name persists, which I find rather cool. The old public housing persists as well, with winding stairways leading up from betelnut stands.

I’ve always liked Wanhua. It’s another world.

I didn’t know what to do with myself after lunch today. I have lunch almost every day at the same buffet place of Guanqian Road. I’ve taken every possible route there over the years, and every possible route back to my afternoon job.

Today I couldn’t face the walk south on Guanqian Road again. It’s been too long, and I’m numb and lost from insufficient wandering. I walked north and ducked into a stale electronics store, the kind where boxes are piling up and the staff wander aimlessly or stare at their phones while the merchandise beeps and flashes automatically. The new Microsoft Surface tablets held the center spot, but nobody was interested.

When I walked out the doors, the rain had started, hard and uncompromising, but it felt right to me. There should be rain right now, I thought. I walked up to the intersection of Guanqian and Zhongxiao, where the big yellow tiled building used to look out over the old train station back in the day when it was the tallest building around.

I walked a block over, wondering who lived behind the curtained windows lining the upper stories, and stopped at the intersection of Huaining and Kaifeng. There I stood, watching people cross the streets, some running, some limping, most with umbrellas. An umbrella vendor called out “Buy an umbrella!” every so often, in Taiwanese. I stood under the eaves of the least interesting building on the intersection and looked at the scene. The brightly lit office windows of the bank building towering over Chongqing South Road, the old, worn cafe where, one night years ago, I was convinced to buy my first digital camcorder. The faces of girls staring out of the second floor of Starbucks. A black-and-white cat eating leftovers from a Korean restaurant. Travelers, from places like Europe and Japan and Singapore, striding to and from the nearby hostels. An albino woman with long white hair lit up the scene like a beacon as she strode across in her bright pink dress and white umbrella, smiling at everyone she saw.

I’m not sure how long I stood there. Maybe 15 minutes or half an hour. My camera was around my neck but I didn’t take a single shot. I was just looking, at the people, at the details, at the rain in the puddles, and listening, to the bits of conversation, the cars and scooters. That intersection has seen things. I stood there so long I felt I was looking at a webcam, before I realized I could move.

The wet walk to my office didn’t take long, unfortunately.

I gave a talk on photography last Thursday at the Chenghuang Temple in Taipei. I was expecting few people to show up, as it was the first day of a four-day weekend, and it was raining. I was wrong; the place was packed. I didn’t promote the talk at all, so I can’t explain how so many people came. I had too much material to get through, so I didn’t get to a lot of what I wanted to say, but it seemed to go well. Nonetheless, I needed to get away afterwards, and Spring Scream, where the Muddy Basin Ramblers were schedule this year, was just the ticket.

Sandman and I took the bullet train south at noon on Friday, the second day of the Tomb-sweeping holiday. Sandman had had his doubts about the trip, but was feeling better once we were rolling and drinking and commenting on the scenery. Kaohsiung appeared in a flash of conversation, and the other Ramblers, sans Thumper, were waiting for us in a restaurant downstairs from the station. We were going to take a bus, but a man was hawking his van, which seemed reasonable at NT$2,500 until we realized that his “van” was actually a Toyota Wish. Somehow, we managed to cram all of our gear and all six of us into the small station wagon, David crammed in the back and me with the tub in my lap, before we set off.

It’s a couple of hours from Kaohsiung to Kenting, where Spring Scream was being held for the 19th year. I’d never been to Spring Scream, as it has always existed in that realm of older foreigners that I never partook of, along with old bars and other expat joints that I’d heard of but never visited. The Ramblers had never played at Spring Scream either, and we felt this was the year to change all that. I hadn’t been in Kenting for years, and I was surprised at all the new development: Hotels, b&bs, restaurants, go-kart tracks, etc. We spilled out of the Wish at the Uni-President Hotel, the only real hotel in walking distance of Oluanpi Lighthouse Park, where the music festival was being held. It was hot and muggy, and though the hotel pool beckoned, we had to trek down to the festival to check in. This involved showing ID, signing our names, and getting a forearm tattoo as well as a chip on a bracelet to pay for things with. This chip had to be bought, and adding money cost money, as well as refunding money. There’s nothing about this that doesn’t indicate it’s a racket.

Spring Scream consisted of two main areas, separated by a winding path lit with LED lights. The first area had a couple of stages and long rows of food/drink/tattoo/handicraft stands, a big screen for Urban Nomad films, etc., and the second area held several stages and a few stands for handicrafts and tattoos and beer. Most of the bands sounded the same, so I spent a bit of time in one area before getting bored and going to the other area. I had some pizza from the Alleycats Stand, and talked with some people. The beer was apparently supplied by Bear Beer, but I have to say the place was a bit bear-deficient. I only saw a handful of actual bears, one of them limping. At night our friend Louis got on the big screen with a Skype session and played some music at us, which was cool and tech-y. David and I trekked back up the path to the road to find a long line of taxis well after midnight, while Conor and Slim came back much later. Our room was a split-level affair, so everyone had a place to sleep, even if it was the floor in Slim’s case. A thunderstorm arose in the night, heavy rain and lightning pounding the window. I was grateful that I wasn’t one of those poor souls camping out in a tent.

It was still raining on Saturday morning, and I bought some sandals to wear as I was afraid of ruining my shoes in the inevitable sea of mud that was the festival grounds by this point. The hotel’s breakfast wasn’t bad, though they were closing down by the time we straggled down to the basement to partake of what was left. A small girl at the next table stared at Slim with an expression of utmost disappointment on her little face. She didn’t look at Conor or me, just at Slim, as if he was far from meeting her expectations. Conor and Slim returned to their slumbering, but we got up for an impromptu practice behind the hotel, bringing several staff members out, not to complain, but to say how much they liked the music. I can understand how desperate they are for good music, as the hotel tends to play elevator music in the halls all the time. Thumper showed up as we ground through the pieces, having rented a car and driven down from Kaohsiung with his wife. The thunderstorm had brought cooler weather, and the pool didn’t seem so inviting now.

But we had to be back down at the festival, with our instruments this time, as we were scheduled to play at five. There was no lying about on the grass this time, as everything was wet, and the path between the two areas was a river of mud. Our well-traveled friend Alita, who wrote so enthusiastically about our appearance at SS this year in the TT last weekend, was wearing her signature wings, which were rather damp. Everything was rather damp, but when we finally got on stage after the previous two bands went long, we made everyone forget it was raining. Or, at least until a large gust of storm reminded us. It was a great, high-energy show, and the audience was really into it, even dancing in the mud, somehow. Thumper was recording everything on the Go-pro camera mounted on his head.

The management signaled that we had five minutes, and everyone looked at their watches, puzzled, as we still had much more than that. However, they were apparently trying to get back on schedule by cutting down our time, even though we had more people listening to us than any other band had up to that point. It was not a little reminiscent of our last appearance at Peacefest, and there was a reason it was our last appearance. That was also a very muddy experience.

Still, it was a great show while it lasted. We were mobbed by people wanting to buy our album when we got off the stage, which was nice, and we all walked around in a little glow until we realized that it was still raining and colder still. David lent me a jacket, but I was still chilled and rather bored with walking back and forth between the two areas in my now-muddy sandals. I sat and watched a documentary on Jimmy Carter and the Oil Crisis until another deluge forced everyone to take cover. By around 10:30 I’d had enough and decided to go back to the hotel for a nap and a warm shower, taking the tub and stick with me. I intended to come back for a midnight jam, so I left my trumpet there, but after a nap and talking with Thumper in his room for a couple of hours, I decided I didn’t feel like facing that muddy path again that night. Apparently cops shut everything down at midnight, but that didn’t stop Conor and Slim from staying until 5 a.m.

Breakfast on Sunday morning was good, and though Slim was able, thanks to the magic of electrolytes, to come eat breakfast, Conor was unable to rouse himself to such lofty ambitions. Thumper had already eaten, so it was just David, Sandman, Slim and myself. The disappointed girl was not present; perhaps she’d seen the show and changed her mind.

We had all heard the horror tales of traffic back to Kaohsiung following Spring Scream, so we tried to get a somewhat early start. I rode in the back of Thumper’s rental, while the rest took a taxi. A gaggle of expensive sports cars was blocking traffic on the road north, driving very slowly so as to clear out traffic ahead of them for some miles, whereupon they would drive very fast on the empty roads they had created. It was an incredible display of asshattery, proving that it’s ok to crap on other people as long as you’re 1) rich and 2) together with other rich people.

Traffic richtrolling aside, the drive was smooth, and Thumper dropped me off in front of Pingtung Train Station. From there I walked around town a bit, having lunch at Mos Burger, visiting a few temples and chatting with an elderly couple about an old Japanese-era ruin that had once been a luxury residence by the river. Oddly enough, there was a pile of ten-NT coins on the ledge of one of the windows, and they couldn’t explain this, saying that it definitely wasn’t haunted, as couples often went there for wedding photos. I walked around the neighborhood behind the train station and back around to the front, where I bought a ticket to Xin Zuoying. I was glad to rest my tired feet while watching the scenery roll by as the daylight faded.

At Zuoying, I consulted my schedule and decided I had enough time for another stroll, so I walked down to the nearby lake and sat watching the lights of the city reflected on the water. It was very pleasant, and I was surprised at how low-rent the undoubtedly convenient area between the train/HSR/Metro station and the lake still seemed. Hardly anyone was about on the streets as I walked back to the massive station complex, which resembles a space station compared to the modest neighborhood around it. I had a sandwich and salad while charging my phone, and then headed upstairs and then down again to board my 8:30 train. The trip was spent dozing, mostly, and Thumper was waiting downstairs from the Water Curtain Cave with my instruments, which he had graciously offered to bring up in the car so I wouldn’t be burdened with them between trains.

The Ramblers are working on our second album these days, and it’s a project that will take us most of the summer, most likely, but we’ll have a few shows here and there as well. It was great to get out of town and get a change of scenery, especially after working hard on preparing and giving the photography talk last week, but it’s also good to be back.

I was re-reading what I consider Kirk Tuck’s best post ever today, in which he gets to the meat of things in a way few people have the guts to utter:

“I had always traveled with, first my parents, then my college girl friend and finally, with my wife. And in all those scenarios photography takes a back seat to the social appeasement of travelling with people and spending time with them. You might want to wander aimlessly but the other person or people you are travelling with might have an agenda. A list of museums to visit and stores to shop in. Try as they might they don’t really understand your desire to walk around, stop, turnaround, click the shutter, walk ten feet and then do it all over again. Friction arises.

If you want to do photography at a level that really satisfies your soul and your ego you’ll need to do it alone. Forget having the spouse or girlfriend or best friend or camera buddy tagging along. Forget the whole sorry concept of the “photo walk” which does nothing but engender homogenization and “group think.” Learn what makes your brain salivate and why. Make your decisions based on what your inner curator wants you to say.

None of your non-photographer friends will understand, and that’s okay. Your real photographer friends will either be jealous or nodding their heads in appreciative approval because they’ve been there. When you see the world unfold in front of you, unencumbered by the social construct of the group, you become freed to see differently and make different decisions about what you’ll photograph and why. In the end you’ll come home with intensely personal photographs.

Many of you will throw your hands up and complain that you have kids and obligations and can’t possibly get away by yourself. Others will whine that “their spouse would never let me go to Paris without them.” But you only get one life. If you have a spouse like that you might think about a quick divorce.”

Lately, as the group of (six!) people with whom I am going to be traveling next month make their plans and itineraries for the trip, I’ve been recalling vacations I’ve taken. Inevitably, the best parts have been stolen moments, little stretches of time when I managed somehow to get away from everyone else, to just Be. To look, without the weight of a schedule or obligations or the incessant “What’s next?”, “Wait up!”, “Hurry up!”, “Where’s so-and-so?”, “Where are we going?”, “What are we going to eat?” etc. To not have to act and interact and guess about niceties and other people’s expectations. To just Be:

1. Walking the streets of Sydney around the harbour and along the Yarra River in Melbourne in 2002.

2. Doing the same in Shanghai in 2006 before boarding an overnight train to Beijing. Eating breakfast in the dining car as the outskirts of the city flashed by.

3. On my Okinawa trip in 2007, getting off the ship and into town on my own, just wandering amongst the alleys and streams. Even when it started to rain, everything just shined, as if electricity were running through it.

4. Pretty much my entire trip to Tokyo in early 2008, still my best trip in memory. 12 days on my own in a completely unfamiliar city, knowing none of the language, even dealing with rain, sleet, and snow at times. My follow-up trip to Osaka and Kyoto later that year was also good, but somewhat lessened by personal issues.

3. In Paris, when my traveling companions decided to go into the Louvre, and I walked out along the Seine.

4. In Spain, driving from Madrid to Granada as they slept, and then in Sitges when we wandered independently for a time.

5. Taking a train from Tokyo to Yokohama in late 2009, a brilliant day, just as the leaves were turning.

6. In Malaysia, when I somehow managed to leave everyone else behind on a winding road in the highlands where the hills are covered with tea plants, on a brilliant afternoon. I stood alone on the empty road, just drinking in the sight, smell and feel of the place.

7. During my trip on Xiamen, going up on deck by myself as the ship left the port and watching the city slide by.

8. On my trip to the US, wandering around downtown San Francisco just after sunset, and also renting a car and driving from Lexington, Kentucky to Lexington, Virginia.

When I read my accounts of my travels, it seems that when I am with a group, my writing become even more boring (if that’s possible), full of “…and then we went____ and then we had____ and then we went…”, because I wasn’t open to what was going on around me. You could say it’s horribly self-centered of me, but in my defense, I think it’s because it wasn’t really me experiencing those things.

Let me explain: Though I get frustrated at not being able to be as open as I can to photographs when I am with a group (“like being guided through paradise with a blindfold on,” as Tuck says), I should note that this isn’t necessarily about photography; it’s less about how many pictures I get or meals I enjoy than it is about what satisfies me to the very core of my being. I don’t particularly like going somewhere specifically “to shoot”; I find it terribly limiting. And it isn’t even about exotic locations either; I had a similarly enjoyable walk just the other day after our company’s end-of-year dinner. I walked out of the Westin Hotel and took a series of alleys I’d never traversed, just a few blocks over to where David Chen was playing in a bar off Linsen North Road, but it was still a great walk.

I’m not sure exactly what it is inside me, that urge to go a certain way, to turn a certain corner, to explore certain places over other places, but it’s deep and strong and old. Are we not, after all, defined by our choices? It’s as if that path is me, a la the songlines of the Australian aborigines, a relic of the millions of years of walking that our ancestors did. Or perhaps it was simply a largely friendless childhood or having moved so many times that drove me towards such things, or even common frustration with being in an office all day. But this isn’t about denying myself such pleasures as the occasional donut; denying these compulsions feels like denying my own self, i.e., I’m not me when I don’t do those things, if that makes any sense. I’m not anyone. Paul Theroux hints at the same, though coming from the other direction: “You go away for a long time and return a different person – you never come all the way back,” he writes in Dark Star Safari.

“Go this way,” this mysterious authority whispers, but only when I am alone does it enunciate; when I am with others it is most often silent or confusing in its signals, and at any rate I would be unable to explain it to anyone else’s satisfaction. “What are you looking for?” others may ask, but it’s not what I’m looking for, it’s that I am looking. It is as satisfying to follow it as it is frustrating to deny, or worse yet, to be deaf to. There is no logic to it. I may find myself taking photos, or not; it doesn’t matter. For as long as it lasts, I am there.

The weather was greyer and cooler yet again this morning. Apparently we hit a really nice bit of luck with the weather this time, as it had been raining constantly before we arrived, but like our visit, the nice weather is supposed to be coming to an end soon.

The morning hours were spent at the British Museum, breezing through centuries of art and artifacts from across the ages, noting with some degree of satisfaction that even such a world-renowned institution can misspell the names of Chinese dynasties on their labels. Outside, we cooled our overheated brains with ice cream from a truck as a well-dressed businessman in a red tie stared off into space from the museum’s porch.

I was meeting the other BME members at the gallery at noon for a frank roundtable discussion of various issues, followed by a Thai lunch around the corner. It was great to finally match faces with the photography and writing of the other members, and I hope that we created a basis for better communication in the future.

We walked back to Kings Cross and loitered a bit in front of the big station hotel before going back to our rather more modest accommodations for a nap, waking up just in time to get back to the gallery at 6ish.

Lots of people showed up, many of them individuals I’d known on Flickr but never met in real life, which was odd but fun. Charlie had a flash make out session going in the back yard in no time flat. We drank and talked and even shot a bit, and a wonderful time was had by all. Afterwards there was talk of going to a nearby pub, but I didn’t catch the place’s name and ended up walking with Jack and Fabrizio  back to King’s Cross, where Chenbl and I said goodbye to them and had dinner at a kebab place.

Tomorrow we’re going to walk around as much as the weather and the crowds permit, before hopping on a flight back to Shanghai in the evening. It’s been a great time here and I’m a bit sorry to go, but I should also make time for another trip in the future.

The Polish women were playing midget rap at breakfast this morning as I chowed down on Chenbl’s special rendition of toast, jam, ham, tomato and butter. We stepped outside to a gray sky and a cool wind, and walked to some more markets where Chenbl was yelled at by a workman, not for taking his picture, but for not getting all his co-workers in the shot and waving at the camera. It’s as if they’ve been instructed on how to ruin a shot without being violent about it.

We passed an olde Shakespeare-era building that reminded me of those 70’s renditions that were popular in Seabrook when I was growing up, and then through a legal campus with a members-only church, and on to Piccadilly where we bought tickets to The Phanton of the Opera. I’d never seen  a show before and thought it would most likely be a fair representative of the medium.

We then walked towards the Thames, passing through the banking district and the Royal Court, which looks more like Hogwarts than an official law centre. Churches along the way were for the most part constructed in the middle of the road, for visibility I suppose, and one elderly priest told us he had visited Taiwan in the early 1960s. We were then told by a large black man guarding the Royal Exchange that I couldn’t take photos of the interior. I nodded and said confidentially, “Your secret is safe with me.”

We had various bites to eat along the way, but nothing really approaching a meal. But it was time to head back to Kings Cross to meet up with some fellow photographers from the show, so we took the underground and walked a few blocks to a gallery of photos from 1970’s South Africa. There I met Charlie, JB, Jack, Andy and some other people. I hung back a bit as we walked to some of the other parts of the exhibition. I don’t usually like shooting with other people, and especially not in their wake, but it was interesting to see how each photographer reacted when seeing something to shoot, as well as what drew their attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone wasn’t a bit self-conscious about shooting in sight of the others.

We  took the metro back to Piccadilly for the show, and, with insufficient time for dinner, we had to resort to some dodgy kebabs and cold fried urgh. I don’t know what it was, so I’ll just say it was urgh, because that was the sound I made when contemplating it afterwards.

Her Majesty’s Theater was nice, though Her Majesty’s Seats were rather small, and I was again told that the entire place was copyrighted when I tried to take a photo of the seats. The show itself was nicely done, nice singing and impressive props.

Tomorrow is the show’s official opening. We’re leaving the next day. Just when I was getting used to the place.