For Franko

Hey Frank - You will be proud to know that I biked along the river here once. It was pre-knee surgery so I haven't gotten to go back yet. But I'm definitely planning to. In fact, I think I want to purchase a bike over here. There are a lot of bikes made in Taiwan so I should be able to get a pretty good deal. I just need your help in picking one out!

These are some pics of the park located near my house. I have about a 4 block walk to get here so it's really convenient.




Here is the little bike rental stand. I'm really lucky because the rental stand is right near the entrance I use to get to the park. Most people drive here and then park and rent a bike. But I can walk here in 10 minutes. Oh, and I can rent a mountain bike for about $2 per hour...nothing fancy but it gets the job done. They have other bikes for rent as well - two seaters, street bikes and even beach cruisers with the basket on the front. They usually get these and put their dogs in the basket. I swear I haven't seen a dog here that weighs more than 5 lbs. I'm wondering if regular size dogs have been outlawed from Taiwan??

Ginner - Charlie would love it here because she could always be the alpha dog!





This bike rental stand, along with an improved bike path that runs along the river, was all created for the Taipei Flower Expo. The Flower Expo travels from country to country and was held in Taiwan in 2010. It was a huge deal and a lot of changes/upgrades were made in Taipei to prepare for it.


The bike path is called the Xindian River bikepath. It is over 100 km long and it runs along all three rivers in Taipei. Here are some pics I pulled from the internet.


I've never been a big biker, but I think living here might change that. It will be a really convenient way to get around as well. Of course we'll see how enthusiastic I am about it when it's 100 degrees this summer.

Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn...

The photos below are of the hotel that is being constructed right.behind.my.house. Literally. And I think they are behind because they start working at 7am every day of the week. Yes, that includes Saturday and Sunday. And normally people don't work on the weekends here.

Luckily, the sound doesn't really bother me. As long as my windows are closed, the construction noise doesn't bother me too much. It's actually kind of interesting to follow their progress. It also helps me find my way home because this hotel will be the tallest building in my area once it's done. I can see it from really far away so it's one more land mark to help me find my way around. And I can't ever have too many of those :)



The two photos above are of the walls surrounding the construction zone. There are a lot of these in Taipei. I think they like to cover up the construction as much as possible. So they put plants (they are the real deal) along the sidewalks so that you hardly notice the construction as you walk by. They even employ people who water the plants when needed.

Too busy...

Sorry I've been too busy to post anything here. I'm trying to catch up this week so I'll be posting things from very far back. Better late than never :)

First things first...the photos below are of my favorite fruit stand. This is about 4 blocks from my house and I usually go once a week. I know it doesn't look like much, but the fruit is great, prices are cheap and best of all, they cut all the skin off the pineapples for you! This of course means that I've been consuming massive amounts of pineapple...which makes me very, very happy :)