Rainy Weekend in Taipei

This weekend we went up to Taipei, of course we had to go to our favorite shaved ice place.

 The next day I met up with Michael to skate. However there was a typhoon that went by, so it rained all day. We went to a little area under a bridge where guys will go skate sometimes.

Because of the rain we headed out to meet Tim Mingle in Danshui because Michael saw a photo of him skating the spot in the photo below.

The locals told us they skate there all the time and no one cares. So we went to skate it. When we first arrived there was an old man sitting on the end of the bench. We politely asked if he could move down to the other end of the bench so we could skate it. He immediately became very angry and wouldn't talk to us. So we gave up and just skated flat.





Eventually he left, so we began skating, about 10min. later he came back and sat down in the same spot. An employee saw and told the guy we were skating there, so he should move down to the other end of the bench. Eventually he moved down. Within 2 min. Another man came and did the same thing. His initial intention was to sit there so we couldn't skate. So we skated the flat ground, not bothering him or anyone else. None of the skaters pestered him to move after asking the first time, or made any remarks towards him. When he decided to leave he threw down his cup of coffee all over the floor where we where skating. The locals said the employees of the place let them skate there. Whenever they skate there they never had any issues before. Within a few minutes the man showed up again. And began to get into an argument with another taiwanese skateboarder. At this point, Michael and I, along with a couple other guys had enough and just decided to leave because it wasn't worth it. It was all very strange behavior, we weren't poking at him to leave, we asked politely once, and they immediately became angry. I don't know what the issue was, however the employees never had any problems with us skating there and actually suggested to the man to move down so we could skate there.

After all that excitement I took the train to the other end of Taipei to meet up with some friends. We took paddle boats out on the water to get a nice view of the bridge and take some pictures.

The next day after going to church we went ice skating. Yes, we are ice skating with helmets on...why because in Taiwan culture they think many things are dangerous. For example swimming without a lifeguard, climbing trees, among other things. So they take extreme caution. They wanted everyone to wear helmets, knee pads and elbow pads. We convinced them I didn't need any knee or elbow pads. In the end it was really fun, I haven't ice skated in a few years probably.