Weekend walks in Taichung

I took several walks in the late afternoon over the past month or so. The first was one Sunday while Teresa was in the U.S. and I was still in Taiwan. Walking from home, I was struck with the construction ongoing with this building.

From Afternoon in Taichung

They were working hard on a Sunday afternoon. The small structure in the foreground with the odd angles is the "apartment palace" or sales office for the building going up. It is somehow called the "National Museum of Natural Science DC". The National Museum is several blocks away. Perhaps there will views of it from the upper floors? I don't know.

On the opposite corner, the National Hotel is being renovated. To do that, it is common to wrap the building as you see here.

From Afternoon in Taichung

The sales office does a nice job reflecting the other structures

From Afternoon in Taichung

and the sign for the building is here

From Afternoon in Taichung

This sculpture sits at Taichung Gong Rd - a major artery - where it crosses the strip of park land that runs between the Science Museum and the Art Museum.

From Afternoon in Taichung

A store front walking past Taichung Gong Rd. and towards the museum caught my eye.

From Afternoon in Taichung

I hope they sell very fancy candies!

And as always, scooters are everywhere. This is a row of parking on the far side of the museum.

From Afternoon in Taichung

I was also struck with a (new?) bit of graffiti on the canal under a bridge.

From Afternoon in Taichung

I am never sure what the sense of the graffiti is - that is a conversation I have not had yet with a Taiwan friend.

Returning hope, the mist was rising from the atrium (mist nozzles were running)

From Afternoon in Taichung

and then I decided to check out the view from the roof.

From Afternoon in Taichung

From Afternoon in Taichung

From Afternoon in Taichung

From Afternoon in Taichung

From Afternoon in Taichung

From Afternoon in Taichung

All in all a pretty nice afternoon!

Walking Around

Here are a few pictures from walking around our apartment.

HotelOne is the tallest building in Taichung, easily seen from our balcony and pretty much anywhere in the city. It is a new hotel in the Landis chain. We have now tried out their TopOfOne restaurant on the 49th floor (for Teresa's birthday) and their 27th floor restaurant. More about those later.

Moon Light Basin is adjacent to HotelOne and is another apartment building where several work colleagues live. It looks out onto park on two sides.

A luggage store on the next block. There is a word for buildings whose shape mirrors their function. Like the drive-through pharmacy in Lexington, KY or the ice cream shop in Massachusetts. I have to look that one up. (Looked it up - the term is mimetic architecture)

A temple in another local park. There are many small and large Buddist temples scattered through the city and hidden like little gems where you least expect to find them.

Teresa was following me across the street. I hustled and she did not, leaving her in the middle of a major street for a sequence of lights. As you can may not be able to tell, she was not happy.