2018-11-02
Start: 11:00 / 57 km / 374 hm
Short ride, but nevertheless very dull and uninspiring. Loads of lights on big streets, stopping you every 500m. Timing of the lights was for cars and motorbikes, so stop and go all the time. Annoying.
Met Ming from Singapore at 7-11 on the suburbs of Kaohsiung. Very nice fellow, also into vinyl and jazz. Talked about citypop, turned out that his most favoured LP is from Taeko Ohnuki, the one I was just listening to.
He told me that he studies aqua cultures – didn’t know that could somehow exist. There is even some new direction of so called aquaponics, meaning you use the fish dung for some plants, which then get fed to the fishes again.
Closed circle of life.
Went through some industrial complex and then the rain started. Still not enough for a rain jacket, as it was still warm, but somehow annoying. Also the USB cable from my power pack to the GPS corroded from the salty air (make sure you take spare ones with you), but managed it to the hotel still fine.
Tainan
Tainan seems to be quite nice. But I had just one thing on my mind. Probably the only record shop beside the ones in Taipei. So checked in at the hotel, which employees were all wearing kimonos to some japanese people arriving the next day. They also liked me for being so kind, so they took a lot photos with me and introduced me to the manager.
Room was a little bit on the lower side, no windows and you could even hear people snoring from the other rooms, but yet still ok. So went for the record shop, did a short excursion into a japanese department store and finally arrived at my little used book store. Didn’t saw any records but was told to go to the basement. Bingo!
All used stuff from the late 60s to early 80s. Obscure psych and disco, or let’s say…taiwanese popfunk from the 70s. Shop owner owner was a little bit elusive and sceptic in the beginning, so I was told that I cannot listen to the records, but some of them were on Discogs.
Spent approximately 3h there, digging and researching, alone in the basement. Bought a lot and the owner was even so nice to get them ready for postage. He was quite astonished that his old records go to Germany and became really kind in the end, doing his best…
Then went through some hardware shops to find rubber straps, as I wasn’t sure if I take the records with me on the bike. Solution will come next day.
Finally went to some oden bar, that I had spotted while initially arriving. Turned out to be not a oden bar, but rather a udon bar. Funny if people are advertising something, but don’t know the correct term.
Anyway, the cold udon and japanese sea mussels with fried gobo were incredible. Had another beer and went off to bed…
