Arrived yesterday at about 3pm. Still no sunshine since leaving oz. This area seems to be the land of fog and mist. Great train trip up from Kaohsiung saw a bit of countryside and no sun. The temperature here is a few degrees cooler than KA - running about 19C - check weather link way down bottom at start. Fay and Bridget were tired last night so after we had a quick look around I went out by myself. I walked up the road to the Peace Park and then around the corner near to the presidential Buildings where there are still a few demonstrators - about 10 waving flags very peacefully although one hit me on the head with a waving flag and long pole. One of the flag waving ladies was happily chatting to a policeman whose job seemed to be to keep and eye on them.
I walked around a bit further and had to step around a big pile of steel frames holding barbed wire mesh just piled up from last week on the footpath and presumably ready for any others demos. There were also rolls of razor wire rolled up on the footpath I had to walk around. Looks like they hadnt been cleaned up properly from last week.
One of the buildings across the road had sprayed on the fence in front CHEATER PRESIDENT still visible. A bit further and the presidential building ( administrative I think) had soldiers guarding the entrances, water canon trucks at each gate, spikes in all driveways, and rolls of barbed wire behind low fences. In addition there are these specially constructed trailers with covers holding rolls on barbed wire ready to be rolled out. There was one or tow of these in each gateway and about 10 in the carpark opposite alongside big army trucks. Every thing else is pretty clam with normal looking commuters walking past all this on the way home from work.
The newspapers here and in Hong Kong (well the only ones I can read in english) have had a lot of editorials and opinion pieces by worthies on democracy and the dangers of moving too fast and creating disorder by democracy. In my judgement (seeing after 5 days I am now an expert on all things Hong Kong, Taiwanese and chinese) the events in Taiwan ( Taipei) will have more effect on the democracy and mainland influence in HK. You might get some of this in the South China Morning Post and Taipei Times online
During all this I came across a group of young girls practicing dance steps in a sort of music bowl with seating in front in Peace Park. I sat down for a while to rest. They seemed to be doing a dance somewhere between funk and traditional because they were pickingup umbrellas at one stage and twirling them. Funny how girls of that age 10 12? all over the world love doing the same kind of group dances together.
Despite all the differences sometimes it feels just all so normal. I went into NOVA a big collection of electrical good outlets, cameras, computers, mobiles. I had to get a charger for my Siemens mobile. So I had a look around at computers and its a very familiar feeling geeking around looking at computer specs and prices.
We went to the National Palace Museum today - very impressive - unfortunately about 3/4 of it is closed for repairs.
Strange Musical Bits
Tonight in a small street sock and undies shop we heard Brian Kennedy being played on radio.