In the Pursuit of Exercise/Happyness

Whenever I move to a new place (which isn’t all that infrequent for me these past few years), my favorite thing to do is explore the immediate surroundings. Find every little path to run on, learn the local stores, and meet people in the area. Of course, forming exercise habits is one of the essential things that I need to do to be happy in a new place. So, I dedicated this morning to scoping out the exercise scene near my apartment.

This morning proved to be a fun kind of adventure. First, I walked about 2 blocks to the youth park, which is a large park with a pond, some concrete trails, and, as I discovered today, a driving range, a lap pool, what seemed like a scuba dive certification pool, and the “PU Track,” an orange sidewalk that wound through the park. I’m excited to check out the pools and see if I can swim some laps in the mornings before work. Anyway, I started running amid many, many groups of middle to old age women doing different calisthenics, or line dances, or taichi, I couldn’t tell. There was a variety of types of music playing the soundtrack to all the different exercises going on as I ran around and around in that park with no particular method to my madness. After I had run around the whole park enough times to feel self conscious about it, I made my way run/walking to the botanic garden. I am still not sure if it is acceptable to run on the sidewalks. I got my share of weird looks, but that is beginning to be the norm for me here.

The botanic garden is a gorgeous, lush green series of gardens, and there were many people out walking, doing a similar variety of exercises to the ones I witnessed in the Youth Park, and even a few people running. I ran through a fern garden, past a garden dedicated to famous botanists, and around a stunning lotus pond. I’m really excited to go back there with my camera, perhaps after work today (we have the morning off since the main researcher is visiting his sick mother and Dr. Lu is in a meeting all morning). The running was a tad frustrating since there were so many people out strolling and flailing their arms, but I was happy to see such a gorgeous place.

Verdict is: These parks will satisfy the immediate urge to run, but I want to find the Xindian stream, which I believe has a trail running along it so that I can really let my legs loose.

Hello Taipei!

To update my blog quickly (or else I jut won't do it), I'm going to just paste the email I sent my family:

Hey again!

I'm at my apartment rested and semi moved in. The apartment is much bigger than I imagined. Mike and I each have our own room and there is a third empty room that a Taiwanese post doc will be moving into shortly. My room faces out to the street and right in my window is a huge mango tree! Its got all the essentials, a queen bed, lime green carpet, a closet, and yes.... air conditioning!!

The apartment is on the fourth floor of an small complex (I still need to figure out what our address is...) and is right across the street from a grocery store called Wellcome (an automated voice says ne how when you walk in) and a Seven Eleven. As far as food goes, I have found that black soybean milk is delicious and Taiwan beer is not so delicious. I haven't ventured over yet, but Dr. Shau says that its a 10 minute walk to the Botanic Gardens where TFRI is located. I'm really excited to check it out and hopefully it will be a good place to run. And we are also very close to a middle school that has a track, so at some point I will have to see if I can do some speed work there, though I may scare middle schoolers with my out of shape breathing...

Also, I was really excited to see that it is very common to bike on the streets here. Just as common as bikes are motor bikes, and together the bikes and motor bikes outnumber the cars! And the motor bikes tend to group up at lights making what would be a bike gang in the US but is just a bunch of Taiwanese going about their business here. Today I saw a woman with a medium sized dog standing on her bike while she was riding.

Anyway, thats all I have to report for now, I attached some pictures. Hope all is well in Concord/Oakland/Redmond!

Love,

Allison