work out

I did a 3-hour up-and-down hike on Yangmingshan. First I raced up the stairs to Qixing park that my mum, Sarah and I had to hike down in the dark last year in summer when we sort of picked up that Dutch guy on the way up and he turned out to be so slow, it was starting to get dark when we reached Mount Qixing, with 1120m the highest peak within the vicinity of Taipei. As my mum and that guy have really bad nightvision and the stairs were of course unlit, Sarah and I each had to lead one of the two. So we went down going "step, step, step, no step, no step, step, step, step". Needless to say, it took us ages and we were utterly exhausted by the time we reached the street. And it was so late that we had to walk for at least half an hour before we found a taxi. The next day, I got terribly sick from the exhaustion.
It was much nicer doing the stairs during the day. And there was almost nobody around which is probably why I managed to get so close to those beautiful big blue birds who kept leading the way for a while. I think they were Forumosan Blue Magpies. There was no point in going up to the park and taking pictures of the view since there was zero visibility, so I turned towards Lengshuikeng. By the time I got there, it was really foggy, and I have absolutely no idea what the area looks like. From the description, it looks like it might be worth it going up there another time when the weather is better. I just went on towards the Juansi waterfalls and found in them one of the nicest spots I've been to that close to Taipei downtown. As always when doing a hike in or around Taipei, I kept thinking that I should have done that much more often during my time here. But every time I thought that, the next weekend would come, and there would be so much every-day stuff to deal with. Or the feeling of just wanting to hang around at home would be so strong that it would usually take months before I'do the next hike and find some other absolutely great spot fairly easy to reach.

alleycat's
Reiner was working late and then called about dinner, so I suggested my beloved Alleycat's. I didn't expect to run into either Jenny or Alan, so seeing Jenny there was a niiice surprise. Hopefully, I'll manage to run into Alan on Saturday, when Roelof is having his birthday party at the Neihu Alleycat's.