You run one pouring day between the streets’ appalling motorists to the base of a mountain that begins precisely where the city ends. Within moments, you are engulfed in subtropical foliage and only corrugated steel shacks down overgrown mud paths belie the presence of any people at all nearby. Stairs are built into the mountain, with tablets of Chinese characters filling in every few steps, and a platform a half-mile into the mountain bears a cement table and chairs topped with decorative tile. But the tile is chipped and the stools are askance, and the rain donates to the scene a sense that few people frequent this place.
You are soaked, your glasses have fogged. Without knowing it, you seem to have come to some sort of look-out. You look out. There is the second tallest building in the world, shrouded in mist. To linger would almost be too much.
On the way back, two purple and neon-orange bugs drag a limp spider across the path. These are mammoth insects. You flee when one of them seems to make a sound.
(sunrise) Taiwan (sunset) 