the first few months we lived in taipei (august through early december 2008), we lived in a suburb on the southern most extention of the city, called xindian, on the xindian river. across the street from our apartment was the entrance to a "river walk". from the entrance of the park/walk to the main section of activities, there are picnic tables, a little restaurant, and a buddist temple. the walkway is lined with lanterns, and is lit with christmas lights at night. it's about a 1/2 mile walk from the entrance to the main area. at the main area of attractions, there's a small neighborhood night market (including a bing shop!!!! (sorbet/ice cream type treats), paddle boats for rent, lots and lots of food vendors, and a new strip of restaurants and shops (similar to a mini san antonio river walk). there's a floating stage on the river for performances, and fireworks every weekend night.
during the day, people walk along the park type walkway to and from work, and for a break and excercize. on the weekends at night, the riverwalk comes alive with a wonderful buzz of activities. we have fun memories of sean and i taking the boys along the river walk on weekend nights and watching fireworks, and buying food from the vendors, and stopping for bing on the way home.
(pic taken from our apmt looking down on the xindian river. bottom left, red roof, is the entrance to the riverwalk. top right, the hotels in beitou. top center, you can see the 8 lane car bridge and rope bridge connecting xindian market to the beitou area. on the bottom center, you can see the intersection we had to cross to get to the entrance.)
across the river is a famous area called beitou. famous hotels and restaurants. from the xindian riverwalk to beitou, there's a an 8 lane bridge that connects the two sides of the river, and a rope bridge for pedestrians to cross. the rope bridge is wide enough for us to walk two across, and have traffic from the other side pass us. it's loud with conversation and people enjoying the evening. one night we took the boys across the rope bridge and walked around beitou. it was an interesting site. for it's reputation, it was not nearly as busy as the xindian side, but smaller night markets, karaoke store fronts, food vendors and hotels.
during the days, when the boys were up from their naps, and it was going to be a while before sean came home, i would put the boys in the stroller and head over to the river walk. the daytime was so different than the night. calm and lots of room for the boys to run and enjoy open spaces. our favorite routine for the river walk in the afternoons, was to pack up the stroller & bag (complete with anything we might need for a few hours), go down the elevator, and outside our apmt complex to the neighboring 7-11. we'd pick up sushi rolls for everyone ($33nt each = $1/roll us) and yogurt drinks ($12nt/ea = $0.35/ea). we'd (illegally) rush across the busy intersection and into the riverwalk enterance. (there was a walkway under the intersection for pedestrians, but you had to go down a flight of stairs. when i was by myself, i couldn't manage all three boys and the stroller down a flight of stairs. when sean was with us, we carried declan in the ergo, and camden & quin were buckled in the stroller, and we carried the stroller down the stairs. a lot of work, but better than crossing the intersection on the road up above.) once inside the entrance, camden and quin were able to run and play. there were so few places in taipei where they had this freedom, because of the crowed streets. so, on sunny days, and when all of their naps actually all coincided with each other - the river walk was a wonderful escape for all of us!
as i'm sitting here typing, i'm missing xindian, missing my cousin erin & jacky & pinky & the twins, missing bing runs, missing sunny days in december - and looking at my little boys in these pictures. it's only been a year, and they've grown so much. i'm so thankful for our time in 2008 when we had this little window of xindian!
