November 7th
My 9:30 one-to-one class has been terminated because the student is just too busy. This means I now have more free time before my Sunday afternoon class starts at 2:00 and Debbie suggests we ride into town again, which sounds good to me.
It's certainly a great day for it, with a clear sky and the temperature being in the high twenties. While we don't have a fixed plan, it will involve coffee: Debbie still has some of those 7-Eleven vouchers on her phone to use up, so it'll be lattes again.
Last week we cycled beside the rivers, but we skip them and instead head towards the nearby university via a few back lanes and soon enough a shopper bike by a house gets my attention. When I pause to take a photo I notice a metal sink with a tap fixed to an outside wall which has been given a Heath-Robinson addition. Its stark shadow cast on the white wall makes it more photogenic than the shopper.
We pedal for under 10 minutes towards the campus and just before getting there a wooden chair that's been sat on the edge of a narrow lane is something I've wanted to take a photo of for a while. It's usually in shade, but now at this early time there's morning sunshine on it so I stop to take a snap.
After making our way through the leafy campus, we get on a straight road leading from the university to the back of the train station. It's one that I often ride along and it's always busy.
The sun feels hot as we pause at some red lights. There's very little breeze.
The charity shop I sometimes look in is closed today, because it's run by a Christian organisation, but there's a second-hand place just near the train station and that's where we ride to.
The prices here are much less than the charity shop: most stuff is only about NT$10 - which is roughly 30 US cents. I find a new Ikea photo frame and a pack of greetings cards that will get sent out before Christmas, while Debbie buys a set of dice in a domed shaker that she can use to play games with her young students. It comes to NT$30 - basically a buck.
It's coffee time and I lead Debbie under the rail tracks and through the busy Sunday market where factory workers from Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are taking over a back street as they search for clothing among the racks and stalls. I suggest going to a 7-Eleven we've never been in as I think it has an outside area that may be nice. It's just a minute away.
Unfortunately the few outside tables are in the hot sun and one of them has a guy smoking, so we get the lattes to go and walk across the road to a large park to find a shaded spot to sit down. Our bikes stay locked outside 7-Eleven.
We sit under a tree on a concrete bench and watch a woman just across from us give an elderly man a massage. She looks too young to be his wife. he is sat on a bench and she's wearing thin plastic gloves that reduce friction and she's working on his shoulder, then his ears and ribs. We wonder if this is her regular job and once she'd done the man gets up and gets out a wad of money and peels off a NT$500 note and hands it to her and we're a bit surprised by his generosity. It's less than US$20, but we had guessed she would have asked for half that sum.
Young guys in groups of four or five are playing basketball on the few courts just 20 metres away from our bench. They're just shooting hoops.
We walk around the park and soon get the feeling it's where a lot of homeless people live. On an elevated concrete area are a row of sleeping bags and various cardboard boxes. Nearby a group of about 20 men dressed in black martial arts gear and doing hand movements.
As we stroll around a winding path, there are elderly men carrying bags with what appear to be their belongings. Others are sat at low concrete tables playing board games. It's quite a community, but there's a definite sense of isolation and deprivation to it all. We feel a bit uncomfortable being here.
It's getting on for lunch time and we head across the city center to the river.
The bike path takes us towards where we ate last Sunday and we opt to go back and have another sandwich. We're the only customers and get the one table placed outside that gives us a clear view of four, red fire trucks parked in the station across the road. The prices have gone up 10 percent since last week.
A bike shop is on a corner nearby and it's a place I've not noticed before. It looks chaotic, with a stack of used tyres outside and a selection of cheap bikes propped against them. Rather than go over to have a look, I just take a snap and we then ride back home as my class will be in less than an hour and I need to take a shower. The heat has got me feeling clammy.
Today's ride: 8 km (5 miles)
Total: 797 km (495 miles)
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