top-quark.blog
Home away from home...
Sat, 01/10/2004, 04:33
Being back at college, I've concluded that Boulder is a fantastically poor substitute for Denver. I could bitch about anything, though.
Really, there's only one other place in the world that I could ever call "home", and that's the city of Taipei, Taiwan. Despite collectively having lived there far less than a year in all my visits, I never feel like an outsider.
As a massive sprawling metropolis, the first word to come to mind about Taipei usually isn't "beauty", but viewing it from farther out can often provide some perspective.. one of my aunts happens to live outside the city on a mountainside, and I was fortunate to visit with my camera right before the onset of a typhoon, during "hong-tai-tee", or typhoon weather.
This typhoon weather is something that warrants explanation, especially for landlocked types. Taipei, being a large developing city, has massive problems with smog. The typical weather of Taiwan further augments the hazy feeling with a thick layer of clouds, providing a nearly-constant neutral gray monotony (that I happen to like!).. The low pressure of an incoming typhoon, though, draws away the haze, making for clear, warm days. The drawn-out remnants of cloud provide for very photogenic scenery, if one's far enough away.
Visible in this picture, taken August 17 of 2003, is the silhouette of the then-unfinished Taipei 101 tower. It's nauseating to personally see it at a closer distance.
Comments about "Home away from home..." :
Fantastic blog! Simply dee-lite-ful to read! Rawr.
-left by Fallon ( )