11 May 2023
Modernity
Exploring Taichung city hall area
Taichung reminds me of a new large mainland Chinese city. Well the city hall area of the city does, I expect the old station area still looks like Keelung.
The buildings are tall and very modern ancient looking, that's a new aesthetic I just made up. The streets are wide. The infrastructure is overtly grandiose. The only thing that makes it Taiwan and non Nanjing or Hangzhou is that it is about 1/10th the size, and there are millions of scooters. Mainlanders all have cars these days.
Also, there are food courts, I could not find any in Keelung, tonight I had my choice of at least 4, so basically its all over as far as searching for food goes, I could stay here for a month and not run out of food court options. The theme of this trip is food court.
Tomorrow is a hiking day, bus shenanigans permitting. I hope to go back to a place that provided a photo that was my phone background for many years. This time I will remember to take water...
First up, bonus hotel pic. The hallways are lined with plane windows, with embedded video screens showing footage shot out of a plane window.
Modern tree lined streets. Actually it is a bit of a grey polluted day, I doubt that will change any time soon.
Here is a funky cafe street, where everyone has added plants to the footpath, but they have at least left a bit wide enough for pedestrians.
I stopped to do some kung fu. I lost to stick man.
Yeah, it's just another temple, but wait, who is that creepy golden dude perched on the top? Also the horse on the right has a detailed pink asshole painted on. Nice work.
Here is the above ground subway the crane fell on that I rode on earlier. It is a driverless system.
Running down the main road is the former BRT (bus rapid transport). The middle lanes used to be only for buses. There was talk of making every intersection an overpass but it never happened. Originally there were very long 3 section bendy buses, now it is just normal buses. They still come very often, but most intersections have count down timers for a minimum of 90 seconds, so it is not a particularly rapid bus transit system. I rode on it back to my hotel to practice for tomorrow when I need to ride it to get to my hiking trail.
I stood in this spot last time I was here, at that time Taichung city hall was still under construction.
The best I could do for for a photo of this branch of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, I did not eat my dinner here, I went to a nearby larger shopping mall, but Shin Kong had the usual basement food court options.
The upper levels have a Japan themed eating street. Might be worth a visit on another night for some ramen.
However, I went to Food Republic, the greatest Republic of all. Lots of choices and lots of spare seats.
Beef noodle! I was in two minds, but the plate full of spinach I saw them serving up swayed me. My food safety tip, whenever you get soup and other things with it, put everything in the soup to kill anything living in it. The fatty bits in the meat are the best bits.
Here is the best I could do to show how Taichung looks like a mainland Chinese city. The tops of the buildings in particular.
The rainbow lighting building is where I had my dinner. I think it is called Top City.
I love road overpasses, not only can I take photos from them, here I can take photos of them, thanks to some purple LED lights.
Back near my hotel, this is a more typical Taiwan street, only wider.
And for my final pic tonight, A themed 7-eleven, snoopy themed. Both Taiwan and China love snoopy for some reason, I read about why once but forgot the reason.