I was awoken this morning just after 5:00AM by a text message and since I couldn’t get back to sleep, I went for an early morning walk.
Since it was Halloween, I decided to go to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial and see the early-morning activity.
On the last trip to Taiwan, I visited the memorial almost every day, photographing the construction of the Chinese New Year Lantern. I’m pretty much CKS Memorialed out and have only been to it briefly once. Nonetheless, it’s a very nice park and usually filled with people in the mornings. This morning was no exception.
There were the usual crowds of Tai-Chi practitioners, who, like flocks of birds, follow the motions of an indistinctly defined leader in steps.
The Tai-Chi people have been joined by similar groups of jazzercise and tango people.
Then there are the individuals who walk around the part beating themselves about the arms and legs, presumably to improve their circulation, but it looks more like a Monty Python routine to me.
Finally, the newest morning activities is apparently KTV (or Karaoke). In the peaceful quiet of the park at 6:00AM, someone had brought in a portable Karaoke machine and was ruining the morning for everyone.
On the way back from the memorial, I got the opportunity to confirm something that I’ve seen before on every trip to Taiwan, but this time I can confirm it is what it appears to be.
There are dogs in Taipei, smart enough to only cross the major streets with the green walk signal and only in the intersections. I’ve seen it before, but the dogs were walking with crowds and could have been influenced by the movement of the humans. This morning, I watched a dog, by himself, on the near-deserted streets, walk along a sidewalk until he came to a crosswalk, stop, and wait till the walk signal went green and then cross the street.
There were no people about, so he had to being doing this entirely on his own.
On the flip-side, there are an awful lot of three-legged and crippled dogs roaming the streets of Taipei, so clearly evolutionary selection is being helped along.
Come to think of it, Taipei must be a rough place to live. Everyday I see at least 5 people missing an eye, disfigured by fire, lame or otherwise mangled. I suppose the dogs are just fairing par for the course.
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