Winter is coming. Despite this, I made the journey to the north.

Blah blah Taiwan sucks at being cold, damn this hot weather, where's snow, etc. At night it gets to be around 70 degrees here. Shocking, I know. But I have already seen people wearing jackets and gloves. It's like a bizzaro world where the laws of physics are reversed, and more clothes make you cooler. Anyway since I live in a city who literally has "North" in its name, it's not possible to get much more north. Something I wanted to see though, were the ports of Guandu and Bali. For no reason other than I see boats go to them.

Guandu is a park and Bali is an industrial area. Well, moving on.

During the trip the bus stopped at some museum so I hopped off. It was a bit small, but free, so that's good. Some ROC pilot back in the 60s was flying over Taipei when he noticed his compass go crazy. It turns out there was a huge deposit of iron in the ground, which revealed some sort of ancient burial site. The museum was mostly boring, with your standard assortment of old things. All in all it was a pretty dull day, but at least I took the mystery out of the boat destinations. At the industrial park, I did stop at a beef noodle restaurant though. They had a sign outside saying they won some sort of award, and I believe it. This was hands down the best beef noodle I've had in the city. That one in Taipei Main Station? Move over chumps, you suck. Some mom and pop place in the middle of nowhere is better. I'd go there more often if it wasn't so far away.


For more exciting news, I also made a journey to the east. I don't really have a command of Game of Thrones geography to know what is east, so... where the Dolthraki are, I guess?

Tiffany and I went to Jiufen, and I went again by myself to climb some mountain I thought looked cool. Jiufen is really awesome. Taiwan had a gold rush back in the day, which the Japanese were all too busy to get their hands on. Jiufen became a mini El Dorado for a while, and brought in a lot of cash. Then the gold dried up. A lot of people did pack up and move. But the one's that stayed said "Actually, this town is pretty cool, let's turn it into a tourist thingy." And that they did, but again - totally worth it. It's basically ripped out of a movie, sitting on the side of a mountain up in the clouds. The old street was really cool, a narrow corridor of alleys twisting through the city leading to god knows where, jam packed with people and vendors. I bought a reasonably priced ocarina, and the food - oh god, so much food. Wash it all down with a Coke Tea (it tasted very weird) for a good time. They have an old movie theatre there playing movies from the 70s for free, so we caught one of those as well. As I said I went back to hike a mountain I saw there, which was definitely up in the clouds. I did manage to squeeze one pic of the city down below during a cloud break, though.

Anyway after Jiufen it was a dash back to Jilong to get some dinner. On the way we walked through a park that was completely filled with cats. So many cats, it gave me paws. But they were being fed by the locals, so it wasn't a complete catastrophe. Anyway I'm going to stop milking these cat puns meow.

Just a bit of housekeeping here.

Something I did not mention before the crew arrived is that I went to a Taiwanese baseball game. Taiwanese baseball has an odd history, in that its history is odd. It started out back in 1989, and there were 2 separate leagues. Eventually they merged together, and at its peak, had 7 teams. Then in 1996, some players were approached by some shady types for game fixing, which was rejected and immediately reported to the authorities. They patted each other on the backs, said "That's some good policin', Lou." and went about their day. Exceeeept it happened again next year, and this time, they admitted to game fixing. And then in 2005. And 2008. And 2009. As a result, people don't really have a lot of faith in the fairness of these games.

However, I was coming in with 0 knowledge whatsoever. Game fixed or not, it's going to end with someone winning and I'm okay with that. I had no stake in any of the teams, I was there to see some guys run around a diamond and drink beer. I realize that last sentence was ambiguous, I mean I am drinking beer, not them. Although that would make for a better game. Anyway getting back on track I knew that the teams were actually corporate owned and operated, but what I didn't know is that they were still representatives of particular cities. It turns out my very own neighborhood has the privilege of hosting the Taipei Elephants. They were playing the Rhinos, which come from Kaohsiung. I know nothing about either of these guys except that I need to represent - therefore, my home team is awesome and that the away team is a bunch of talentless jackasses.

They had vendors there, and I did want to try Taiwanese baseball fare as well as find a hotdog. One was selling burritos, which turned out to be duck and vegetables - America, seriously, get on this idea. Another was selling pig blood cake so... nah. Anyway I had my beer, burrito, and hot dog, so I consider it a success. During the game I made up Rhino "facts" to entertain myself and bore Tiffany. Did you know, Rhino players pee on the seat, and never clean it up? They also are those guys who always push to get on the train before everyone else gets off. And here's the big taboo - after using the plastic chopsticks at a restaurant, they stick them back in the box. Terrible people, let me tell ya. They also lost 4-0, so they can take their sorry asses back to Kaohsiung. But I'd be glad to have them back for another game.

And right, that brings us to today. I wanted a "Travel around Taipei" day for myself, and set out to find the 4 gates of Taipei. I don't think this is on any travel guide, and honestly it's not terribly exciting - but there is a popular area called Ximen, which literally means "West Gate". I thought that it would make sense that there is a north, south, and east gates as well. It turns out yes, but they are certainly not marked well. They were the entrances to the city from a long time ago, when it was surrounded by walls and much much smaller. Now they're each about 1 subway stop away from each other, more or less. Except there often is no subway stop, so that requires a lot of walking. They do all exist except the aforementioned West Gate. It was demolished when they put up the subway station there, although I did find a plaque commemorating it's location. Anywho it was a fun mystery to find all these, since as there are areas named "North Gate" for example, the location of the actual gate itself is not mentioned on any site I could find. They were usually plopped down in the middle of an intersection, but really, how many intersections do you think there are in Taipei? Along the way I discovered there are actually 2 south gates, and the east gate is nowhere near the East Gate area of Taipei. So here ya go, photos of these darn things. Seeya next time, internet / future me.

The former location of the West Gate

The Auxiliary South Gate

The South Gate

The East Gate

The North Gate, the only one that has not been rebuilt.