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11.25.2012

Night lights


Taipei - it's a 24/7 city life

As the sun falls asleep the city awakens.

Lights of every colour flash left, right and center.


People spill out of the metro coming home from work, old men and women wheel their carts into selling positions, and rivers of smoke crawl up from the vendors squished along the sidewalks.

The air thickens with steam, you can hear the crackling and spitting of meats deep-frying, inhaling a new aroma with every step you take.

When the daylight is extinguished the night market is revealed.


You step onto that side-street around the corner, and find yourself thrown into a herd of people crammed among stalls with restaurants and everything stores peaking out from behind. They line up at their favourite dumpling stand and sort through tables piled high with cheap clothing. Around midnight the hungry leave with full, satisfied bellies and the bargain hunters clutching their bursting bags.

Spotted all over the city, and across the country, Taiwan is famous for these gems.


No matter the time, there always seems to be people about, shops open, and sounds in the street, interrupted by the constant jingle of the nearest 7/11 doors sliding open.

No matter the time, I always feel safe in this city.


Vendors continue frying, steaming and juicing into the early hours of the night.

Then as the sun rises, a new day continues where the last left off.
Never really finishing, never really starting.


11.08.2012

And then I moved to Taiwan


If someone were to have told me a year ago that in one year I'd be living in Taiwan, 

that I'd be eating bamboo shoots,

drinking bubble milk tea,

learning to read Chinese menus,

and zigzagging through crowds on a scooter...


I'd have thought they were crazy.

In fact, at any moment in my life if someone had told me I'd be moving to the opposite side of the world to this beautiful, tropical island I wouldn't have believed it.

I mean... Taiwan?! Where's that, right?


(And yes I said Taiwan, not Thailand - a mistake that countless people tend to make. Such as when friends made their farewells, singing "Have a great time in Thailand!")

And yet here I am. One year in France, barely 3 weeks back in my beloved Canadian home and I find myself transported to the hot and humid island of Taiwan.


What can I say? I just can't seem to shake the travel bug I caught when down under in Sydney, Australia. Apparently they have yet to find a cure, but I'm not complaining.


Welcome to my neighborhood in Taipei where I'll be living for the next year.

Can I show you around? Maybe interest you in some dumplings?