Waiting

Lots of scooters, in their parking lots. Forests of handlebars and mirrors. All over Taipei.

Press the button

To stop the bus in the next bus stop.

In Chinese, of course

Bike lanes

Taipei is not (yet, maybe) a city too kind to cyclists, even if I am seeing more and more every day, risking their necks sometimes. It is true that there is a ver long bike path all along the river up to Danshui, but that's it, I have not seen any more. Until yesterday, that I discovered bike lanes in some wide downtown streets. I do not know how long they have been there, but these in Dunhua Rd seemed to be very new, with the green coloured lanes and all the signs. Maybe there is a plan to implement them in other parts of the city.

In any case, I was able to try my new camera.

Reading

During these last few days that I have been in Barcelona, when I go to the Physics building with the metro —to do some work—, I have recovered an old hobby of mine that I used to do during my degree and, particularly, while I was doing my PhD: reading a book in the metro. Since I left the city, I could not do it neither in Columbus, where I took a bus at the beginning to go to work, and afterwards I rode my bicycle; nor in Madrid, where I had to drive; nor in Taipei, where I walk to my office. The result is, after spending a few minutes lost inside a parallel universe, that I can catch up to some of the pile of books pending to read. This time, I had even help from a long flight from East Asia.

I must find some time to visit a couple of bookstores before I leave and see if I can get some more books in Catalan to bring back to Taiwan.

Jackets and motorcycles

I saw it just when I started walking around Taipei. If there was a little wind or it was a little bit colder, maybe in the evening, or just because the effects of speed, this is a very common way of wearing a jacket in Taipei when riding a scooter. Backwards!

Men and women wearing jackets, coats, the upper part of tracksuits, even the typical raincoats they use when it rains like that. I read somewhere that the reason is because it has less resistance to air, if you wear them the other way they tend to swell and act like a bag. It is amazing that nobody is selling jackets made this way. Maybe the price difference and the reduced usefulness do not make it attractive enough. Now that temperatures are a tiny little bit lower, I think I am seeing less of them.

I don't know, sometimes I think they do it because it's faster to put on the jacket that way if it's not cold, and do what is really important, run around with the scooters.