We arrived in Taipei and after depositing our bags at our AirBnB, which was centrally located across from Taipei's MRT main station, we hopped on the train bound for the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall and Park, where we had boba tea at the original place that started serving it. Soon afterwards, one of my oldest and dearest friends, who I will refer to as "M" called and met us with a driver and van. She showed us around some of the neighboring areas and introduced us to some of delicious foods served out of tiny restaurants with no seating. After an hour or so, she dropped us off at Taipei 101, where we met up with another friend "Y", who had had been a former employee at the observation deck (where we first met in 2013). She managed to get us all in free, and this included access to places and levels rarely seen by other tourists. Afterwards, we took a taxi to a place I had never visited on my prior trips, but after seeing they had five Michelin rated food stalls, I knew we had to go, so we were soon at the Raohe Night Market. Everything we tried was delicious, but somehow, we missed trying one of my favorite night market cuisines - Cho Dofu, or "stinky tofu".
The next morning, we met up with "M," "Y", and another friend, "M2". My friend "M" really went beyond kindness by booking us a nine passenger van and driver to take us where ever we wanted to go for the next two days (eight hours each day). I already had locations in mind, so after thanking her, we ventured to the northeastern coast to a small tourist town that's 588 meters above sea level called Jiufen. Jiufen is literally built on the side of a mountain just over a mile from the Pacific Ocean. The beautiful view coupled with it's traditional teahouses, tight alleyways that are always descending or ascending, and packed with street food venders, make it a must visit. After eating and seeing the sights, we met up with our driver to see another side of the mountain, and drive along the coastline to see the Yinyang Sea and the Golden Waterfall. We wound up at the Huanbao Repopulation Park, which provides a unique and picturesque view of Jiefun from the coast. We finished the first day back in Taiwan in the Ximen district, where we had the driver drop us off at Longshan Temple, and after eating at a local restaurant, we finished our evening touring the Ximending Night Market.
Back at our AirBnB, my wife and her friend were exhausted, and after showering, they told me they didn't think they could do another day out in the heat, and since the plan was to meet up with two other friends of mine for day two, they asked if they could sleep in and just let me hang out with my friends. So the next morning, I met up with "L" and "B", one of which I had met on my first trip there in 2006, and the other, I had met in 2013. We agreed to visit the mountain range due north of the city called Yangmingshan, which is also a national park. We trekked along paths that led us to Datun waterfall, enjoyed some boba teas from a small café nearby, and then had the driver take us to an outdoor restaurant called Shang Yuan (Garden in the Mountains), which served dishes harvested directly from the mountains. As expected, everything was delicious and fresh. The bamboo was probably my favorite dish. Afterwards, we continued up the mountain to Xiaoyoukeng recreational area. At 810 meters, it boasts volcanic sulfur vents and steaming puddles of water along hiking trails you can explore. I was amazed at the glowing vents, which soon became hard to make out as a cloud bank rolled in and blocked the view which had been pristine only moments earlier. We ended up at my favorite little city - Danshui (or Tamshui). It's the last stop of the red line that goes north out of Taipei, and it sits at the mouth of the Danshui River were it runs into the Taiwan Strait. The scenery is gorgeous with Guanyin Mountain literally rising up 609 meters in just over a mile on the opposite side of the river, and the sunsets are pristine. I've written two unpublished stories with the boardwalk at Danshui as the setting, and each time I'm there, I'm reminded why I love it so much. With mountains on both sides, a river, the sea, a boardwalk, street food, young lovers, the last stop on a train line, and my favorite little tea café in the world - Lattea, it always inspires me. My friend "L" had been with me on my first trip to Danshui, and I'm forever in her debt, as our ineptitude that day had caused us to miss a stop twice, which led us to simply stay on the train which took us to Danshui. She and "B" spoiled me with my favorite drink from Lattea, called Gai cha (milk cap tea).
Our stay there was brief as I had a final prearranged appointment time to meet one of my oldest Taiwanese friend's sister "A" for the first time. I had helped her edit her doctoral dissertation years ago, and having never met her, we felt it was a great time, even if just for an hour or so. She and I met in Ximen after a 45 minute ride from Danshui on the MRT, and it was such a pleasure to rehash old stories and discuss her sister, a long-running joke (where I had told her sister in college that I should marry "A" so we could be family), her job, and the whirlwind trip four day trip I had put together. She and I walked back to the AirBnB just to enjoy the little time we had. My wife and her friend BB, had spent a much more relaxing day enjoying Taiwanese beer and shopping, and listened to my stories from my day. The next morning we met up with "B" and "Y", who escorted us to the MRT, where "B" had to say goodbye, and "Y" continued on with us to the airport. Our time had been rushed, but "Y" and I enjoyed a nice chat as we have several of the same friends in Taiwan and the US, so it was bittersweet to see her go as we had to go through security. Near the end of our four hour flight to Bangkok, I started feeling ill, and the next morning, I was running a fever with chills and body aches, so our plans to meet up with one of my wife's childhood friends and her sister for some shopping at a fresh market, literally became a hi/goodbye moment, and I was back at the hotel where I spent my entire birthday in the bed sick with what I was soon to learn was the flu. After checking with all the people I had been around in the days prior, "Y" was the only person besides me, who had caught it.
The next day, we boarded a flight to Ubon Rachathani, and I did very little the next three days, due to the lingering flu symptoms, which seemed to come and go, sapping me of any energy I thought I had. We did manage to go out a few times to eat with family members with me looking like I was in full covid shutdown mode. Finally, our last days there, we enjoyed meals with friends, trips to the mall, and me driving around the city on the wrong side of the road/wrong side of the car yet again. We flew back to Bangkok for one more half day excursion with two old friends, enjoyed dinner and hanging out at my favorite mall - Mega Bangna.
The next morning we boarded our Japan Airlines flight to Haneda. I was excited as I'd never flown into this airport, and with it being more centrally located to Tokyo, I didn't mind if our connecting flight got cancelled, as it meant we'd pull an all-nighter in Tokyo. After a few hours, I looked out the left hand window, and saw Taiwan below. If Taiwan had a zipper running right up the middle of it, we were literally zipping it up with our flight path, so I was thrilled that we flew just south of Taipei at an altitude above 35,000 feet. It was amazing to see it all below. From Taoyuan to Keelung, it seemed so small, but putting it into perspective - there were more than 7,000,000 people below me going about their daily lives, as I passed above them in silence. Somewhere below, my wonderful friends couldn't know I was looking down on them, thinking about every other time I had visited them, but this last brief trip had been the quickest and I regretted we hadn't been able to stay longer. Every single one of them had made a sacrifice of their time to spend time with me, and that, in the end, is the greatest gift a friend has to give. What had inspired my first trip there was a bygone infatuation, but it had been the match that ignited the flame of my wanderlust, and I'd never wanted gotten over it. I pondered back 20 years, remembering times and things I still can't explain. I had chosen to go to Taiwan instead of Japan in 2006, putting off my Japan trip a year, because I needed closure on something and it was granted or dare I say, replaced with a love of Taiwan itself.
In less than two hours, I found myself peering out the window again with the sun sinking low in the sky, and the looming dark composite cone of Mount Fuji coming into view. Having seen it all my life in pictures, art, and movies, I was awestruck by it's beauty in the waning golden hour before sunset; it all seemed reminiscent of what was missing on my trip in 2007, and much of what I had missed during that time. Though it had been there during my entire stay back then, it was like the old saying, "I couldn't see the forest for the trees." (Literally though, it had been the clouds). I had missed seeing this towering symbol of Japan in its majesty, and now, I was gifted with a shadowed silhouette of it against the backdrop of all the colors of the sunset, and skirted with dark gray clouds. As we approached the peninsula where Yokosuka juts out from Kaneda Bay, I knew this synchronous moment might happen, and the flight path I assumed we would take on this flight, long before we ever went on vacation, couldn't have been more accurate. As our flight banked towards the bay and the sun slipped below the horizon, I began videoing the landscape below that I was conscious I would likely never see again, at least not this meaningfully or magically. I knew roughly where a street meandered below, and dead ended in a valley. On it, a quaint Japanese house held a now, elderly couple, who likely didn't remember my name any longer, but I hadn't forgotten them. I had held them in esteem back then, but in less than a year, it all faded away. Time had provided the cognitive pruning that allowed me to see the tree in spite of the forest now. It was tree of healing and forgiveness. I hoped they were healthy, well, and enjoying their golden years together. This was as close as I had been to them in 16 years, and I was thankful for the brief time we enjoyed each other's company. Hours later, we took off over Tokyo and the awe inspiring view tens of millions of lights - symbolic of the most populous urban area on Earth with a population of 37,000,000. No city in the world ever made me feel as small and insignificant on her streets, and it was equally as humbling at night from thousands of feet in the air.
Fast forward through the month of October into November, and I put together two "shorts" on my youtube channel utilizing two video clips from September. All they needed was music added, and I drew from two perfect inspirational sources. The one for Taipei was simply a blessing. While perusing a list of songs to choose from, I saw the name "Butterflies," and this took me back to September 10th, 2003, when a wandering Monarch butterfly crossed my path on his way to a wintering spot, high up on the side of a mountain in Mexico, and he came to symbolize the silver wings of an airliner taking someone away, also on that day, who had left an indelible mark on my heart. I wrote about this imagery in poetry for years, and later put it into a book and sent it to Taiwan to the person who inspired it. To this day, we are still dear friends. (Thank you, "M"). From the opening chords of the song, I felt it matched the appearance of the slow passing of Taipei below me as though it were time. It's minor chords provided the haunting tones representative of time being restrained to match our presence within it, when in reality, its there, and then it's gone. My wonderful friends below were going about there daily lives unknowing that I was flying silently by, higher than any Monarch Butterfly ever could, so I titled my short "Miles Above You."
For the video coming into Japan, I immediately knew "Departures" by Globe was perfect for it. I had discovered it by accident, while trying to look up the movie trailer for the movie "Departures" in early 2009. Without knowing the translation, I knew the emotional "live" and slower rendition I came to love, spoke volumes to me. As the year went by, and as I garnered the actual translation, I couldn't help but feel the coincidences in the song, and how my life had played out, along with a singular last name, had offered me another dose of synchronicity - a bitter pill I had to swallow. As I dropped the song track into the video and played it, I smiled at how moments where I had zoomed while shooting the video, had a coincidental preciseness to where it focused on, and at the perfect moment in the song. As if to prove my life motto that "too much of a coincidence is never a coincidence," I couldn't help but notice that funnel shaped cloud in the fading twilight that seemed to be approaching Japan's most recognizable symbol. I remembered seeing in while videoing, and remembered thinking at the time, how emblematic this was of two people who met in the far off past, where they were from, and how I had been the perfect storm, and she was this emerging beauty - like the mountains at sunrise. Literally, in one day, I had peered down on the lands of my three great loves, and reflected back on the 20 years that had passed. God has blessed me so richly, and yet, I messed up so much. Regardless, I'm forever thankful for those years, and hope that somehow, in one day, I was able to capture idyllic moments and blend them with serendipitous themes and music to express love that I will never allow myself to forget. If you read this far, I hope you enjoy the video links below
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_D0vrXlGdjI
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/KZ7dGn4DolU