One of my favorite pictures of Taipei, is a photo of downtown taipei in the 1930s where it's just row after row of Japanese style homes. It's just an amazing visual of city that still bears the affects of being essentially three different countries in the past hundred years.
You also know that I have a real soft spot for these Japanese homes. The main reason is because they have high walls around them and a big yard. That each house manages to feel like it's own little oasis even though it's smack dab in the middle of a busy city surrounded by other buildings.
Yesterday, after running some errands I had a plan to meet up with a friend for dinner. However my friend had to work late, so instead of taking the bus there, I decided to just walk. It was very fortunate that I did, as I discovered a tiny little secret. A small street that is nothing but these old Japanese style homes.
Like pretty much all of these homes around the city, they are not lived in. Which I always question because the land is so valuable that I never understand why the owners don't sell. Regardless, the thing that separated the homes I came across on this day, is that a lot of them had their outer walls falling apart, or missing a front gate. Meaning you could just walk right in, which of course I did.
Unfortunately if the outer wall was in bad shape enough to get in, than it meant that the house itself was barely recognizable. I was able to get a feel for what the homes were like, but whatever serenity they once stowed, was long gone. Still it was nice to finally get in and "see" one for myself.
Later on the walk I came across some older chinese style homes. These are kind of like apartment buildings but instead of being build up, they are built out. Meaning you have a very long building, divided into smaller rectangular homes that are much longer than they are wide. As you can see in the picture, most of them are destroyed, but unfortunately as is the case with a lot of these, a few are actually still lived in, mostly by very old people who can't afford to go anywhere else.
You can also see that a lot of these old places are used as trash dumps. Those with collapsed roofs make convenient dumps for people to come dump their trash in. An unfortunate result of Taiwan's rather strict trash collection laws, and the scarcity of public trash cans. However it's not all bad as in a way it's a convenient place for people to come and make some money.
I've mentioned before that a common job for older people is to go around collecting recyclable materials to then sell at the recycling center. So at the time I was there, there were many people sorting through all the trash for recycling. yes a bit sad, but in a way much easier than having to push a cart all around town looking for recyclable waste as you go.
So all in all I was quite fortunate that my friend had to work a bit of overtime. I was able to say what I often say to friends who apologize for being late..."No no, not a problem. It gave me the chance to get some pictures for my blog."
