Three months and change

We’ve been here for over three months now, so I figured it was about time we started a blog.

I’ll start with our neighborhood.  We’re living in an area of Taipei City called Dazhi.  Dazhi isn’t in the city center, and some Taipei denizens would call it the suburbs, but it’s still way more urban than any American suburb.  The New Yorker in me likens it to Long Island City/Astoria/Sunnyside: it’s just across the river from central Taipei, it’s got a brand-new riverside park, and it’s overbuilt with shiny new luxury condos, but it’s also got an older, denser section that has lots of mom-and-pop shops, old 5-story apartment buildings, and leafy streets.  We chose the neighborhood primarily because it’s home to a school that seemed like a good place to send the kids, and it’s on the same subway line as Serge’s office.

We live in the new part of Dazhi, which is where the kids’ school is, near the new riverside park.  Ten years ago, the river was horribly polluted, and our immediate neighborhood was a wasteland of vacant lots.   Our apartment complex, which was originally a public housing project, existed, but there wasn’t much else around.    Then the city cleaned up the river and built a tunnel that provided easier access to central Taipei.  That led to the first wave of development.  Two years ago, the subway system was extended into the area.  Now we’ve got a weird mix of hypermarkets, luxury condos, cheesy hotels, and construction sites.  There’s also a driving range and a fancy mall with a huge ferris wheel on top that has become a Taipei landmark.  Prices have gone way up, and speculative building continues.

Here are some photos:

Subway pulling out of our station (Jiannan Road on the brown line of the MRT, for those of you who care)

Our neighborhood mall, the Miramar (or Meilihua in local parlance)

We like to spend our Friday nights at the mall, riding the merry-go-round and looking up at the ferris wheel.

Shiny condos amidst construction sites and vacant lots

Riverside park just across the road from our apartment complex. Lots of bike paths and ball fields. On the other side of the river is central Taipei, and that’s Taipei 101 (tallest building in Taiwan) sticking up in the distance.

While New Dazhi is somewhat sterile and feels a bit like it could be almost anywhere, Old Dazhi (a 15-minute walk away) feels much more like the Taiwan I’m familiar with: narrow alleys without sidewalks, mildew-stained 5-story walkup apartment buildings, eateries of all sizes and shapes overflowing into the streets, scooters galore.  Old Dazhi is also home to a university, one that specializes in architecture and design, so there are lots of eateries and cafes catering to those students.  It’s the sort of neighborhood we’d live in if we didn’t have kids.

Lunch hour on one of the main drags in Old Dazhi

One of the many residential alleys

Sub-alley running between the backs of apartment buildings

Some sort of eating or drinking establishment that looked inviting

Another place I’d like to check out

That’s it for now.  Next up: life in Taiwanese “public housing”