January 4th

January 4, 2022

another sofa hunt

Google Maps shows a bamboo furniture store located across town, in what looks like a warehouse in an industrial zone. There's scant info' about its stock, so I decide the best bet is to cycle over to see what they have.

It'll likely be more than a 30-odd-minute trip there and a good chunk of that will be urban riding. There are some lanes that I once used in the past to get to that area, so I'll revisit those.

Instead of riding along the 114, my route into town is slightly different from usual, as the sun's out and I want to take some photos of spots recently visited. I'm considering making calendars in 2023 - planning well ahead - of either walls or windows as the topic.

The first window has a metal grill and you can't really see the window frame or glass due to the metalwork - thin steel strips are welded into elongated hexagons and its all been painted mauve, enhancing its 1960's style. The position of sun is about right at this time of day, with a stark shadow forming across the unevenly rendered wall of the house.

Across the 112 and down a lane is an older house that has a mural of a shop window painted on a wall and the sun is lighting it up, but maybe in an hour there'll be more direct sunshine. My mind is unsure if the photo is one of a wall or a window. Nevertheless, I take a snap, then ride into town along the busy but narrow urban artery that's the 112.

It's all very slightly down and my speed is decent as I generally keep up with the scooters and cars that are also heading into town. The bamboo furniture place is off the 112, which veers west at the ring road, but I carry on straight, soon going past the apartment where I lived when I first arrived. It's close to the train station. Heading through town will be busy, but appeals more than sticking to the frantic 112.

Nearly 20 years ago I taught elementary school children at a remote cram school located to the north of town and I retrace the route out of the city centre and make a turn at a Hi-Life store, which casts my mind back to riding home from the rural school in the heat of summer. I'd stop at the shop to get a cold drink with my sweaty shirt stuck to my chest.

Just a minute after riding under the flyover carrying Highway 1, I make a left and the side road is pretty narrow and much quieter and leads to fields that are empty. It's a more pleasant ride now.

My memory of where to turn is pretty good considering I've only cycled this way once and I make decent progress and get to where I collected a wage packet a few months ago. From here it's just a matter of going a short distance to get back to the 112 and where the bamboo furniture warehouse is. Google Maps made it look easy.

I make a turn and follow a bending lane past more fields and reach a wider road and reckon this must be it, but nothing looks like it did on Street View. I keep riding and ask a man cleaning his truck if this is route 112, but he's not sure.

There are no road signs and this doesn't seem busy enough to be the 112 and it seems best to go left - west - and I turn onto a lane and follow it and get to small junctions where I make guesses of where to go.

A large green sign at a intersection tells me I've found the 112 and I turn right but wonder if I this is already too far from town and the furniture place is to the left. My eye is open for a 7-Eleven, as it's lunch time and I could do with a drink. One soon appears.

The clerk points me back when I ask for directions and thankfully it's only a few minutes back to where I just came from.

The warehouse is just as shown on Google Maps and a wicker chair pictured on Street View is still outside the place. I take a snap and ask a man loading a truck about sofas and he says they only have chairs. It seems hard to believe and I walk inside the open door of the place and see he's right.

He senses my disappointment and takes me up a metal ladder to a storage space where among a jumble of furniture is a small two-seater, but it doesn't seem big enough and he quotes me a price that I get him to write down as it seems too expensive and the NT$16,000 he writes confirms it. That's close to US$600. That's that.

I strip down to my T-shirt the heat is getting to me with it being sunny and the temperature likely in the low 20s.

At least I now have my bearings and it's pretty easy to find the quiet route back towards town and it doesn't take very long to reach the busy outskirts.

With time on my hands, it seems like a good idea to venture along the riverside bike path to look at an abandoned house that has old wooden windows I like. I've managed to salvage one pair already, that are now fixed onto a wall on the balcony.

The bike path kind of ends at the old, single-floor house.

The brickwork has been covered over with cement. The original clay tiles still cover a lot of the roof, but some of it has collapsed and no doubt the rest won't last very long. The are are a few rectangular holes where windows once were and who knows how much longer the house will remain standing.

A man in a digger is moving soil around nearby, but I just give him a wave and walk inside the house to see if any of the wooden windows can fit inside my pannier. They won't. It's surprising how much bigger they are.

There's one pair that are small, but getting to them is hard as the roof has completely fallen down and bits of timber block easy access to the interior room, which must have once been an exterior wall. The place is a bit of a warren, with extra rooms being added over the years.

Another worker has arrived in a car and he and the digger driver come and see where I am. We chat a little and he says he's not the house owner. I call it a day and ride home.

Today's ride: 15 km (9 miles)
Total: 1,186 km (737 miles)

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