jkanou

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TB - Taipei Trip 2015

The very last time I set my foot on the North Hemisphere was right at the end of 2015. I visited Taipei with my ticket of the play I Hate Therefore I Marry by Edward Lam Dance Theater Company. With this opportunity, I wandered the city of Taipei for a week.

The only plan I made for the trip was to see the play. Enjoyed the uncertainty and spontaneity that Taipei offered, I sometimes felt I am still deriving in the streets there, falling asleep while listening to the noises of the city. 

Due to the political separation from the mainland and the influence of Taiwan’s pop culture over the younger generations in the PRC, Taipei is a place we often hear and see but hardly get to smell its scents close-by. 

One hot summer afternoon in Canberra about a year after my Taipei trip, I was reading a short stories collection the Taipei Characters by the contemporary Chinese novelist Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai. The stories lead readers into the lives and minds of those who were residents in Taipei but live with memories as heavy as their whole lives to spare the rest of their time reflecting the past. 

The irony is that for those who took Taipei as home for eternity, none of them have their most precious memories created there but still able to seek salvation Taipei. As if they reborn but still with the same skins to live in Taipei as a local as well as a foreigner.  

Then why not I just took myself as a “local” for that week in Taipei since I have been living in Canberra since 18. I am a local to a foreign land as well as a foreigner to my hometown. 

Japanese style little restaurant

Painted sign

Breakfast store serving beef noodles

Exhibition of Detective Conan

Original copy of Human Head Balloon by Junji Ito

Paper Museum by Takashi Ohta

Buddy!!!!

Kid’s activity room in Puppet Museum....

Last meal in Bolero Cafe

See you soon, Taipei ;)

[jkanou]

Alvaro Siza, Leça Swimming Pools, Leça da Palmeira, Portugal, 1966 (© Nicolò Galeazzi) VS Adolphe Appia, Rhythmic Spaces, 1909

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[jkanou]

photography / hipster / indie / grunge

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[jkanou]

photography / hipster / indie / grunge

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photography / hipster / indie / grunge

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午夜夢迴

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Dolls after hours

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Reveal.

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Sunday cooking.

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New York, 1968

-What's "free" to you, Nina? -What's "free" to me? -Yeah. -Same thing it is to you. You tell me. -No, no, you tell me. -(both laughed) I don't know -It's just a feeling. It's just a feeling. It's like, "How do you tell somebody how it feels to be in love?" How are you going to tell anybody who has not been in love, how it feels to be in love? You can not do it to save your life. You can describe things but you can't tell them, but you know it when it happens. That's what I mean by "free." I've had a couple of times on stage when I really felt free, and that's something else. That's really something else! Like, all... all... Like... like-- I'll tell you what freedom is to me, no fear. I mean really, no fear. If I could have that half of my life, no fear.

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Miss Simone, you are idolised, even loved, by millions now. But what happened, Miss Simone

Maya Angelou

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The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.

J D Salinger 

“De Daumier - Smith’s Blue Period”

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[jkanou]

Como quien no quiere la cosa.