Taichung Downtown on Lunar New Year Day

On the corner of Ziyou Road Sec. 2 and Gongyuan Road in what used to be the
third floor of a McDonald's lies the church with my favorite group's name.

Go straight on Ziyou and turn left on Chengong Rd.
to Green Wash's oldest Japanese built bridge.

A holdout in the Ghost Building

This mostly abandoned building notoriously called the "Ghost Building" looks like it made moldy the sky and the bank of the wash. 

See the original bridge ornamental motif 

Painted relief of this manhole cover;
 the wash looks more like an ocean

Here's another owner who refuses to sell 
and let the city tear this eyesore down. 

The original lemon cake in 1964 copied but never equaled in taste and texture

The pipes lead Han River water under streets a mile and a half
at the start the re-exposed and refurbished wash.

Good looking open waffle sandwiches in Gong-yuan Yuan-ke, a former bank
 associated with it's sister fancy snack and chocolate place, a former doctor's office 

Choose your toppings on the ice cream sundae

Two beauties

Leona in the ice-cream store's third floor European room 

Stick-em up! 

Please don't shoot!

The old city hall still used by city government agencies

A trendy restaurant and art gallery, Rose Garden, built in 1911,
 the first built with steel girders in Taichung  across from the old city hall.

Let's hope this is the beginning of a complete downtown restoration.

Books at a Taipei Exposition

     On Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018, I went to the Taipei International Book Exhibition near the 101 Building. I met Garrow at the ticket booth after waiting fifteen minutes after our one o’clock appointment. He saw me and went in together. We had met on Facebook last July when he liked a poem I had posted on the Taipei Writers Group page. Garrow is interested in creative writing and often goes to their "Critique Meet".
      I suggested we go eat lunch, as I had indicated in text messages, but Garrow said he had eaten already; the food at 101 was overpriced. We went straight in, forgoing lunch, and marched around for four hours. Afterwards we stood outside talking on the corner noticing a neon light a block away. I suggested we walk towards it and we discovered a convenience store and local restaurants on older city streets; we went in and got pork chop rice and continued chatting until it was time to leave to go back to Taipei Station for the HSR connection.

      The Book Expo was fun for 100 NT and not that crowded, especially in the non-Chinese section. The Israeli exhibit looked exciting stumbling upon its entrance of bazaar-type fruit and nut stands but the fruit and nut was not for sale, if it was real at all. The selection of books in the thirty-foot gallery was meager and mostly in Hebrew. Rabbi Shlomi, Taiwan's resident Lubavitcher, must have placed  the Schneerson volume on the display rack. I would have liked to have seen a volume or two on the Jews of China or at least how Chang Kai-Shek welcomed Jewish refugees from Europe during WW II. Nothing. There had been on Wednesday, “Jews in China”, a talk by Mark O’Neill was given at Red Salon. I found more interesting books about Judaea on a rack in an English-language booth stall and almost bought one about treatment of

Jewish characters in movies; another volume comparing Jewish and Palestinian aspirations and history; I purchased neither. Nor did I purchase two simplified adaptations of Hardy Novels Tess and Mayor. Garrow and I walked and talked and had a great time. After passing by a large book stocked with French literature, we ambled over to the Taipei Writers Group (TWR) booth meeting Chad and Curtis in addition to the facilitator of the Critique Meet, Pat Wood. He remembered me from one had I attended. I had read the group's collection of short stories on Kindle and had met some authors. 

     At the Book Expo, I was looking around and spotted a bilingual book I had seen recently in Eslite, The Mapping of Taiwan (1500NT) I looked at the empty stand and saw a sign that said the author, Jerome F. Keating, Ph.D., would autograph the book purchased. I lamented to Garrow that the books were sold out when a white-haired elder turned and said it was he who authored the book and would find another copy in the booth for me to buy that he'd sign. We walked to the cashier talking about my interest in the book and then about how I was looking for a publisher to publish manuscripts I had. He handed me his card and suggested I get in touch about it. He also mentioned that he would be speaking at the Tainan Library where I had first seen a collection of maps about Taiwan in Chinese; he would speak about Esperanto there on March 14^th. I’ll be back in time from Pittsburgh to go. Meanwhile, back at the TWG booth, Pat Woods was gone but I spoke with Josh and Curtis who, under the pen name, Connor Bixby, self-published a collection of his own short stories called Under the Neurotic Hood. A dozen lay flat on what otherwise would have been empty display stands in the booth. As a fellow Taiwan writer, I purchased a copy from him for 250 NT and he signed it. In my mind, if I had been a regular at the TWG’s Critique Meet, my books could have been displayed there, too, but I wouldn’t have been able to be in Taipei for five days to help out at the booth and hawk them, or am I just being neurotic? I may start going to Critique Meet again when I get back from Pittsburgh, so I must start thinking about what I'm going to say when I get there.

Michael Bolton in Taipei

On November 8, 2017, my wife and I were in Taipei for the Michael Bolton Concert at the Taiwan University Sports Center. We were only in town for a day; we would go back to Taichung in the morning. We stayed at the Puri Hotel, the hotel with the best mattresses in Taipei; exit 13Y from the Taipei Terminal Station. 

Leona and I hopped on a HSR and headed up in the morning to meet Anita, a college friend of hers who was visiting from Germany; we were supposed to attend the Michael Bolton concert together at the same place we had seen Generation Axe and The Scorpions  earlier in the year; this time we’d be seated. Unfortunately, Anita had a fever and pain in her back from a stone and another of my wife's college friends, William, went as our guest in her place. He met us outside the venue at 7:30 pm.

It was the second time we had seen Michael Bolton, the first being at Jones Beach Theater on Long Island near the entertainment capital of the world: New York City. There is not much of a choice of western acts coming to Taiwan so we went for it despite the 3500 NT ($116 us) charge per ticket.    

The Michael Bolton concert was fun; low key between songs and high energy when he opened his mouth; he still has his vox. He even did rock ‘n’ roll numbers ("Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll," "Sweet Home Chicago") accompanying himself on electric guitar with surprisingly tasteful lead breaks. He came into the audience just behind us to sing the Percy Sledge song “When a Man Loves a Woman.” I must be a magnet because Zak Wilde in Generation Axe settled near me, too as if to say,‘Let’s go to the only guy who’s dancing and get into it with him,’ they must think, and it is so. William, who replaced ill Anita, took a video of him singing (see below). It was William's first western concert; he said he loved it. 

I stood to dance for a minute in one song and sat down, glad I did, because a lousy usher came over to tell one other woman who continued gyrating to sit down; a typically lame Taiwan crowd. By the finale, "Georgia on My Mind," Bolton looked tired; he’s 64 years old. The concert should have been longer; he came out late after some dork who won a talent contest he judged, and too many breaks to catch his breath.

Video: Bolton Singing Up Close

     We hit our stride after sleeping past 8 am with a down home Brooklyn breakfast at New York Bagel’s restaurant in the main terminal station; I made a fat bastard on a Kaiser roll with a buttered onion bagel and some kinky hash browns. Leona had eggs Benedict. We got back to Taichung from our Michael Bolton trip in enough time to rest before riding in the warm sunshine up to the make-up class in Shengang from yesterday’s postponement. 

    I’m enjoying leftovers from yesterday’s lunch at our favorite Thai place in Gung Guan behind Tai Da. We were shocked when we saw that, after 35 years, they had finally refurbished the joint.

Anita returned to Germany without seeing Leona, William, or their other classmates because of her kidney stone. She definitely got the wrong fever, backed out of Michael Bolton concert ticket we got for her, got on the plane, and left. Leona and William were not happy about it; they wish she had stayed longer. Anita has a lot of baggage, some of it German. She missed a great concert.

The New Building on Shuijing Street

A Horse Farm of Different Colors

On Tuesday, January 23, the weather was perfect for a long bike ride; sunny, cool, and not windy. I would go to my favorite spot on the abandoned grandstand at the Houli Horse Farm near Taichung in front of the disused racetrack. I was shocked when I saw what they had done since summer while I was gone.                                                                                                                                On the way to the farm, I rode along the Han River. I hadn't ridden the bike past my favorite benches between Tan-Zih and Feng-Yuan in quite a while, but by car on way to class at Shengang Middle School, I had noticed some construction off the Han River East Road where it narrows. I assumed they were making a new storm drain there. I was wrong; they are building another bridge over the Han River. It will reach over between the horse stable and Taoist Temple and a road from the bridge will join Feng-Xing Rd. Sec. 3 to the west. It will take stress off the Han River East Road one-lane cutoff  before the Feng-Xing makes its big turn across the Han River to Fengyuan. It would make it faster for me to drive to class in Shengang. For now, I'd take the shortcut going straight at the bridge turn onto Fengyuan Blvd. Sec. 3 through 5 and then right at Fengshi Rd Sec. 1-2, left on highway 4 a short way to the path.

The Houfeng Bike Path was more crowded                                                                                 than I thought. I figured there would be few pleasure seekers on a weekday and no school children  with two days of school left before the Lunar New Year holiday but some wise teachers had brought their whole class for an outing on those useless days after exams. I made my way through the congregations, across the old railroad bridge over The Dajia River and through tunnel #9. I heard machinery at work and smelled the dusty air as I reached the end of the bike path, turned right and had a surprise. The  racetrack that I used to sit at was not there anymore!    

The Houli Horse Farm was the governor's stables during Japanese occupation, then was commandeered by the interloping KMT when they retreated from China after the civil war. Finally, it was opened to the public to see the variety of horses bred there. The track was actually used for races back in the day but fell into disuse.  
All of this mishegas is for a grand plan called "Houli Horse Ranch & Forest Area" that is expected to be completed in 281 days, according to the website, in time for the "2018 Taichung World Flora Expo". That is a horse of a different color. 
 
       The Bikeway will be extended 1.2 km. on what they're calling "Flower Horse Path" between the Houli Train Station and the Horse Ranch. They say they won't mess with the historic buildings of the ranch; just add a lot of flowers to create a "garden city." All this progress will crowd out my pleasant bike ride.

To accommodate traffic, they are also constructing another overpass parallel to Highway #1 across the Dajia River to the new flower exhibition center; now I know where the center will be. Not only will it cover the racetrack but also spill into the horse farm area. The horse farm will be updated. But for now, the building of an exhibition center leaves me nowhere to sit without the din of drills. I rode back up the bike path and stopped at a boardwalk and wooden benches near the Taiwan railroad line.

There I sat in peace at the end of the path with a silicon valley factory out of sight over the hill, far from the school kids on their rented tandem motorized bicycles . My solitude was short-lived though as a pensioner couple on two bikes that first passed  doubled back to sit in the area near me. I didn't mind their company if they were discreet, but they chatted at normal volume like I wasn't there. I began singing “The Sounds of Silence” out-loud, softly, then louder, just as it’s meant to be sung. The couple first thought I was cute then ignored me in typical Taiwanese fashion and talked over my singing. And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more, loud-talkers.
I finished the last verse, got on my bike, and rode home for lunch.