In Continuum.

On The Portside

Day Two of my little adventure out into the wild alone,and i was already getting used to the times alone with my own pair of feet,wandering the streets of Taipei,keen on discovering more of this home town I neglected over the years.I've decided to see this country with my own eyes,walk the roads with my own two feet.And wherever the road decides to take me,i was ready to take on any challenges that i might face.Of course,when i had that inspiring thought in my head,with the mini-me standing upon a podium giving the speech to a whole lot of other mini-mes,i certainly did not take the complexities of Taipei Central Station into consideration.Hell,stupid is as stupid does,and i was off with my shoelaces undone and onward into the world with nothing but cash in my wallet and music blasting in my ears.Part two of my adventure out into the wild,and so it began.

My parents dropped me off at the same station again.YuanShan station stood before me,with that day's wind particularly colder than the previous days'.The weather report was right,i thought to myself.It was getting colder,and i felt it with each step i took towards the entrance,with the card ready in hand and the music turned a notch louder to distract myself from the blistering cold.I was doubting if three layers of clothes were enough,that paranoid side of me.But on the other hand,i just didnt care too much about the consequences.It was an adventure,it was supposed to be dangerous!What sort of adventure would it be,if it is not spiced up with the harshness of Mother Nature?Grow some balls!I yelled to myself,as i scanned the card and entered the station.

DanShui was my first stop,and i have no idea what to expect.Sure i have heard of the places to go in DanShui,but i dont ever remember actually being there.I mean,if you tell me the things there i might have heard of it,but i dont remember myself being there,seeing those things.So i decided that day,to take a stroll down the harbor and check out the place myself.The old train station where my mother's school was at passed by swiftly,as the city deteriorated into a nice countryside setting.It was still very much in the urban setting sure,but the buildings got lower and lower,and soon enough i was at the last stop of the line: DanShui Station.

DanShui was kind enough to greet me with a blast of cold wind as the double doors opened and i stepped out with my hands buried deep into the pockets.It was blistering cold i must repeat once more,and i almost stepped back into the train,hoping that it would take me back to the city centre.No turning back you wimp!That sergeant side of me yelled with the crack of a whip,and that shut me up real well,as i took careful steps down the escalators and through the entrance.

I made my way around to the port where the sea stretched out before me.On the opposite shore about two kilometres away was another port,and it had GuanYin Mountain as the backdrop,which was awe inspiring in it's entirety,though the mist that encircled the whole town sort of saddened the mood a lot.DanShui is the coldest city in Taiwan,it usually gets the lowest record in winter for everything,and this year was no different.2007 was proving to be a harsh year in terms of the weather already,but that did not dampen my spirit one bit.

I took a stroll down the uneven tiles along the shore,the smell of barbeque squids filled my nostrils.All along the shore,venders with carts pushed along with their beautiful arrays of giant sausages,barbequed squids,fishballs and other mouth-watering delicacies.The smoke curled and swirled into twisting fingers,tempting me with the tips of them to their shops.But i resisted,all the time concentrating on the way the boats heaved to the waves upon the calm waters,or the way the distance advertisement balloon hovered and spinned in the cold sea breeze.

The shops along the sea were about the same though.I mean,there were a lot of different shops sure,but let's say the sequence of the shops goes A,B,C,D,E,then the combination will repeat itself all over again.There were the souvenior shops selling identical things(Thankfully,at the same prices so i wasnt cheated),the games shops allowing tourists to shoot water balloons with fake M-16 rifles or darts,the shops with neo-print machines and a whole bunch of soft-toys squeezed against one another in a small glass tank.Then there are the food,all kinds of food but repetitive once i moved down the beach itself.Of course,amidst the shops there were the invasion of giants like 7-11 and Starbucks,but other than that the place pretty much remained that very rural feel,which was to me,beautiful.

The crowd was amazing there,with street artists making balloons,the same wire-arts i saw in Malaysia as well as a lot of cartoonists drawing couples in under ten minutes,and of course the fake nude pictures of SHE and other celebrities.Sure he was a pervert,but even perverts can be brilliant as well.He was brilliant with his strokes,using only plain black marker and other pens of various thickness he was about to paint the couple in less than ten minutes.And that feat alone attracted a horde of tourists with ice-cream cones reaching above their heads,threatening to collapse into the hair of the passerby in front.But it didnt and remained,with the man next to the kids eating from a stick with a giant sausage on top.Around the man were the older pictures that he painted,and mainly of female artists.I wonder if the Audrey Hepburn pictures are for sale?

There was even this aquarium,boasting a prehistoric monster for the hungry eyes of the public.At the front of the shop,the owners placed giant lizards and a parrot,with herself wrapped in a giant python.That freaked a lot of kids out,but most of the tourists - like myself - were fascinated.In fact,through the corridors i could see the giant turtle waddling in the tank.Amazingly,the goldfishes were living in harmony with the so-called prehistoric monster.Whatever happened to the "monster"?

I didnt finish the whole stretch of DanShui though,with the rest of the port stretching too far off into the North.And besides,it was getting dark and i had other places to go by myself as well.A trade off if you decide to travel alone: You travel slow.That's really the problem,but at the same time you get to absorb better,so i guess it is up to you guys to decide a tour-orientated journey or a backpacked one.

All along the coast,with the cold winter wind blasting against our faces mercilessly,couples hugged close to one another as they chewed on fishballs from sticks.They took pictures of themselves,and one of them even asked for my assistance.I wonder which part of my face spelled "friendliness",but i did it anyway.Because i was in a pleasant mood,for i have bought all the little presents i intended and so much more.They even had Audrey Hepburn matchsticks,how amazing is that?And dont ask me why i bought the harmonica,i have no idea why i did it.It was probably due to this impulse i guess,right after seeing Beck's performance of "Everybody Gotta Learn Sometime" live.Anyway,i managed to play a few tunes on the harmonica,with breaks in between of course.I am practising,still practising.And cut me some slack,i used to have asthma!

It was a place that i like the most on my trips around Taiwan.Of course,it cant be compared to the view from the 89th floor of Taipei 101.But it was a place,more than the others,where i missed her more.But i was happy,and i was glad,that less than twenty-four hours from then I'd be walking with her down some road in Singapore,hand in hand and hopefully at the end of the night,a warm kiss amidst the lingering December breeze.I missed her then,i really did.But i counted the hours as i counted the steps,the steps i took towards the metro and away from the coast.The hours that were left,the time that i would eventually take back to you...