There has been a fair flurry of spring cleaning going on in our house lately; I suspect highly motivated by the imminent arrival of guests for our Spring Break! There has been subtle and less-than-subtle cleaning of nooks and crannies that barely feel the vacuum's brush, and even wall hangings have been taken down, washed, and re-hung. The latest victim of the cleaning police was our lightweight floor to ceiling curtain in the bedroom which was looking a little the worse for wear. After some gentle handwashing refused to do the trick, I boldly suggested that it would be fine to put it in the machine: well, it came out a pristine white, but it was torn to shreds!
A trip to the big homemaking complex of HOLA was in order to seek a replacement, so we scootered over on Saturday in streaming spring sunshine, crumpled ruin of curtain in hand. We arrived at the exact same place where we ordered the curtain all those years ago and managed to find some plainish material among the myriad of garish and over decorated options available. The salesfolk measured up, gave us a quote which we accepted and we were ushered away to pay at the front desk. They even took the poor shredded curtain away for us! We had a quick wander around the store before emerging and choosing to leave the scooter for the time being, deciding to explore our old stomping ground, the environs of the Shilin Night Market.
We wandered down the luxuriously wide (for Taipei) footpath and reminisced about some of our earlier visits to the area. Along the way to the back entrances of the market we spied a huge complex of abandoned workshops and factories, the forest reclaiming great swathes of the grounds, while a clever entrepreneur had commandeered a slab at the front for a temporary carpark. The area is so big, in such a sought out area, that it would be worth more than some small countries: looks like no-one has deep enough pockets to make a move just yet.
It brought back lots of memories to wander past the setting up of stalls for carnival street entertainments, darts and balloons, with stuffed animals for prizes. There were stickers and signs, bags and belts, t-shirts and shoes, oh, how many shoe shops! At least we'd arrived at a time when things were just setting up: tiny blue trucks and laden scooters buzzed through the alleys re-stocking the stalls and shops, but the slow shuffling hordes of people were not yet in evidence. We had the time to stop and marvel at some of the weird and wonderful clothing and footwear as well as the cutting edge tech tools, phones and electronics. The back lanes were steaming with push carts of various "special and delicious" snacks and the basement food court stalls were all sizzling meats and wok-tossing vegetables as we wandered past with individual stall owners exhorting us to try their wares.
We had a great time on our wander and would have tried a new tapas place if it was open. We spoke to the owner and he told us he was trying a few different things and we'll probably be back to get some of his takeaway roast chicken at the very least. Another new trendy bar has opened up with a cool vibe and street frontage just down from there, which also might be worth a visit in the future. Being in the vague vicinity of our new burger favourite, Burger Ray, proved to be fatal to any other food option hoping to tempt us! We threaded our way across to Shilin station then up the road from there to indulge again in the delights of the Ray! We were pleased to discover that standards remain high and after a delicious meal we wandered through the early evening back in a big loop to the scooter before motoring on home.
We had a pretty lazy Sunday before strolling across to the Wellcome for our weekly grocery shop. In the afternoon I fired up my Setanta Sports subscription to watch the first game of the season for the mighty Newcastle Knights, with high hopes for a winning result against the lowly rated Titans. Despite a reasonable showing, they got clobbered, but we thought there were a few encouraging signs for the future: we live in hope!
Photos are of Shilin Night Market and environs, including an abandoned factory that must be worth squillions, ducks being plucked and treated at this shop had a long queue of customers, and a tiny corner of genuine and spectacular cherry blossom. I'm reading Michael Connelly's The Crossing and Cass is reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Another video fro our Christmas trip for your edification: An art work in Mumok in Vienna was entitled "Stations of the Cross": you can see the video up top for now, or here later.
