slow travel means Living like a local
In your face! Xiaolongbao like a local
Another week has wafted past like the steam from a street food vendor’s cart, perpetual and elusive. It’s hard to believe we have only ten days left here before we head on. When you slow travel the time just melts. That is, of course, the real benefit of spending a month or longer in a place. Yes, it saves money with the monthly Airbnb discounts and assuming you cook most of your meals at home, but more so, it’s the lack of stress, not ever rushing around, or fearing you’ll miss something. Mostly, it’s experiencing the integration into the place you’re living. You go from tourist to local somewhere around the two-week mark. You know where things are, you have figured out the public transportation system and use it without thinking about how, and you begin to be recognized by the people you see at the stores and restaurants.
The other inevitable thing that changes is the way you see your surroundings. In the beginning of a trip, everything is strangely new and vibrant. Especially as a photographer. Just aim your camera in any direction and press the shutter—you’re Ansel Adams making masterpieces. It’s as if you are the only person who sees how magnificent a place is. Nothing is mundane, everything is profound, from the signs to the faces. You are left wondering why the locals don’t relish it all like you do. But no, not the drone-like locals with their expressionless tunnel views passing you on the street or in the subway. They’re immune to it all. They’ve lost their ability to see it. And if you’re not diligent, then that new vision dies and suddenly you’re one of them. In a place like Taipei, you’re inundated with constant motion—millions of people, cars, scooters, signs, noises—until eventually you grow immune to it and it becomes visual white noise. After a couple of weeks, you find that you’ve got places to go, and you just want to get there. That street is beginning to look just like the last one. It’s your 25th ride on the subway. This is part of becoming a local, too.
To keep it going, I am always looking for patterns, color relationships, ironies, visual stories, and telling faces. Here in Taipei, it’s the little girls that exude the most beauty. I am often overwhelmed by their purity and innocence. Sometimes there are fleeting moments that I am able to catch with my camera.
The beauty of a moment
If you’re a dedicated seer, the images you make go from Travel & Leisure travel stories to art over the long stay. There is a difference and both have their purposes. To create art you begin digging deeper to find those in between moments that won’t ever happen again. I might shoot all day when I am out and about, but my goal is always to get just one great image per day. That’s 365 images a year. One image per day seems reasonable, right? It is, but it’s often difficult to do. You have to be your own toughest editor and cull images that you might actually really like but you know are predictable and are just saying something that isn’t worth saying again. Sometimes I show those images here but more often I am showing the T&L images because I am trying to share a journey with you. Once I have enough of the imagery collected that I consider art worthy, I’ll publish a book and you’ll be the first to find out about it and how to get a copy, I promise.
I mentioned last week that we’ll be getting out of Taipei over our last few days. I really love this city, and I have so enjoyed traveling all over visiting the creative centers (old tobacco factories or distilleries that have been converted into galleries and creative spaces), shopping districts, the parks and temples, the bookstores and cafes, and eating at many of the literally thousands of great restaurants. I can’t emphasize enough adding Taipei to your bucket list of places to visit before you depart this earth. I suggest coming during January and February when Lunar New Year is happening and you can see the lights and the people, and when the weather is mild. (Maybe avoid it in the summer unless you love heat and humidity. I do not.)
A painting we purchased for our art collection at the Huashan 1914 Creative Park, once a dilapidated distillery, now transformed into one of Taiwan's creative hubs
Yesterday we went to Jiufen, a mountain village on the northern tip of Taiwan about an hour from Taipei. The old gold-mining town is now known for its narrow alleyways, packed with teahouses, street-food shacks, and souvenir shops. From it’s heights it has spectacular views back onto the East China Sea. We climbed up the mountain in Chien-hui’s brother’s car and parked in some local villager’s garage. They are out there hustling for business like those lots next to American stadiums on game day, and since the village is small and there really isn’t any parking lots, it’s easy money for them.
Looking towards Keelung from Jiufen
We meandered through the alleys and took in the smells and colors. The place was packed. (Think Pike Place Market if you’ve ever been.) We stopped for a lunch of Taiwanese food as we sat on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea below. Crumbled pork and rice, soup dumplings, rice wine poached chicken breast, and a grapefruit wheat beer. Umm, yeah. Awesome. The weather was, as well; 72 and sunny. Then afterwards, we did some more wandering around and I stopped into the shop of a leather smith. There I bought myself a new belt since, after losing some pounds, my old one is too long now. The owner and artisan customized the length of the belt on the spot. I also spotted this amazing leather backpack that I just had to have. This beautiful bag was made by the man himself, and the design was completely unique with a crisscross zipper pattern that he had invented. The last time I saw leather-making of this quality was in 2018 when we were in Florence, Italy, where the leather goods are famous. I’ll have this bag for the rest of my life.
The alleyways of Jiufen
We ended the afternoon at a unique teahouse, almost Japanese style, with beautiful wood beams, and furniture. There they make their own ceramics and sell tea pots and cups of the highest quality. We were led to the back of the teahouse and then outside to a table with an unobstructed view of the sea, as we sat down for tea service. A man came over and explained how we were to warm the cups and the pots first with the hot water from the pot that sat steaming on top of glowing coals in the middle of our table. We ordered a special Taiwanese high mountain tea from Alishan called Oriental Beauty. We were shown how to prepare this delicious and highly prized tea, sometimes called “Champagne Tea” and when to add water and for how long on each successive pour over. It all felt very ceremonial as we sipped our little white cups of tea and let our eyes rest on the distant blue sea taking in this peaceful moment we were lucky enough to be having. They brought us tea-flavored cheesecakes and cookies and salted plums to snack on. Ironically, I felt a growing sense of peace and relaxation while the caffeine ramped up my brain’s clarity. I looked at Chien-hui and said, “I know math.” Which was my little joke reference to Neo in The Matrix when he has the Kung Fu program injected into his brain. I definitely don’t know math.
It was a wonderful day.
Tearooms in Jiufen
Hand crafted tea sets
Boiling the water over glowing coals at our table
Taiwanese tea is considered the best in the world
Last night after we returned from Jiufen, we went around the block to one of our local Japanese Izakaya places and sat at the bar while snacking on various small plates, all of them excellent. This is the benefit, as I said, of living someplace for a month. We have a neighborhood joint we like, or several. We understand what it is to be a local here and we can make a judgment about the viability of long-term living. It exceeds in scope and quality of time the kind of travel we are all more used to that comes when you only get two weeks of vacation per year from a job. I don’t point this out to rub anything in for those of you still working. In fact, the rarity of it makes the point: We should all get to experience this kind of travel in our lives.
Locals get to know you when you slow travel
Yes, you do lose some of that initial sheen, and it may visually start to recede into the normal, but it’s replaced with a deeper understanding of a culture. And the best part is you develop a relationship that allows you to understand your place within it. You may never be a local, but you can belong.