There's a well worn gag that if you use the phrase, "I'm not sexist, but....", "I'm not racist, but..." that any words that come after but actually inflame your prejudice, and it's pretty accurate. So, I'm going way out into bigoted territory with this next statement. I'm not ageist, but there's something deeply disturbing at watching multitudes of 80 plus year old men and women pour their bodies into elastine and satin, embellish their outfits with huge fake conical breasts or codpieces, and rhythmically dance down one of Taipei's main throroughfares on a Saturday afternoon to the hypnotic beat of drummer kid troupes!
The air was laden with the heavy musk of burning coconut oil and running makeup, the din from a thousand drummer boys assaulted the ears and the sight of quivering flesh writhing beneath kaleidoscopic coloured feathers and spandex was almost too overwhelming. Where else but Taipei could one be witness to such scenes?!
The Taipei Dream Parade was in full swing in gorgeous autumnal weather with the sun being tempered by a light cooling breeze, and the light stark and Australian in its intensity: all the better to witness the exotic horror wending its way from the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall staging area, up to Renai Circle before a U-turn to bring it back down to a stage by the southern gate of the city! It's a unique mix of high school drumming groups vying for prizemoney, aboriginal tribes in modified traditional dress and what seemed like dozens of Taipei's famous "samba grannies" groups, alternating in the parade order with a few crazy exotic pirate ships and floats in between. Individuals from the rainbow community were even more outrageously attired and wandered the periphery of the main group posing for photos and handing out strings of beads to someone who caught their eye. Cass had a little dance with one girl who presented her with her string 'o pearls!
We had an absolute ball and I took about a million photos and videos: there's nothing like colour and movement and a pulsing beat to get the photographer's blood boiling over with inspiration. Despite the quite disturbed over exuberance of the police officer stationed near us for crowd control we had an amazing afternoon. We danced and bopped along to the beat, laughed and clapped along with the participants, and generally reveled in this quite beautiful celebration of life and love. We often have the opportunity to see and experience the wonderful hearts of the Taiwanese, but to witness this outpouring of emotion and happiness was something else altogether.
Never ones to miss an opportunity, we took advantage of the blockades to take selfies and photos in the middle of Ren Ai road and the city gate. Normally an eight lane thick traffic choke point, it felt like we were in a zombie apocalypse movie to be able to stand in the middle of the road to take a photo on a weekend afternoon.
Being downtown, we decided to catch a couple of MRTs to Cassy's beloved "Aubergine" restuarant in Dunhua, only to discover it had moved! Starving hungry owing to a neglected lunch, we decided to stay in the vicinity and visit Stonewood Pizza: the name at least looked promising. They had a bizarre set menu where you ordered a couple of selections from the menu, then were offered items from serving trays as the waitresses walked around. No doubt it was great value all-you-can-eat, but we were a bit weirded out and ordered a pizza each. Unfortunately, this was easily the worst pizza we have ever eaten. I was trying to place the taste of the "cheese" and Cass came up with the answer: powdered milk! It was a shame, because we'd had such a great day and we couldn't remember the last time we'd had a poor dining experience in Taipei City.
Putting the "dining" experience behind us, we caught a taxi home to avoid the Saturday night crush on the MRT and settled in to watch the Quiksilver Pro live from Portugal and recall some of the great sensations from yet another exciting day in the gem of Asia, our own Taipei!
Photos are probably self explanatory! Link to Taipei Dream album here and here is the YouTube vid.