#zhishan

A rooftop near Zhishan Station in Taipei, Taiwan.

惠濟宮 Zhishan, Taipei

Zhishan Ecological Park

old gods (in a crevasse in Zhishan Ecological Garden)

Shilin District, Taipei

Finding an English speaking therapist with a sliding scale took me on a metro adventure to a new part of town today. I snagged a seat early on because it was a thirty minute ride, and then after a few stops a herd of the Taiwanese equivalent of ajummas got on. I wasn’t in the reserved seating area, and the train was pretty packed, so I didn’t relinquish my seat despite a mild crisis of conscience. Karma got me- they all squeezed in next to me anyways, saw that I was practicing my writing homework, and started commenting on it, reading it out loud, and then asking me my age, how long I’d been in Taiwan, if I had any children yet, etc. I was already anxious about seeing a new therapist and finding the place without getting lost, so I turned bright red and contemplated curling up and dying but managed to give some answers in Mandarin before begging for mercy with “I can’t speak Chinese well” but of course that was a critical error because the answer is always “No, it’s very good!” and increased effort to elicit more. But eventually they all got off, with a chorus of “bye bye!”. And it turned out to be a straightforward journey to the counseling center, so getting there half an hour early was a little excessive, oops. On the way back absolutely no one tried to talk to me, so I got way too into the character practice and missed my station by two stops, but fortunately the train was terminating early today so I just got back on going the other direction. 

Yesterday we went to a cat Cafe next to 芝山 station. Lots of kitties and cute puppies <3 we drank te and petted everything, it was great.