Let me show ya da hood!

Taipei sits in a "basin" landscape, which means it's surrounded by mountains in a circle with an opening to the sea on the west side. This is good and bad. The mountains protects Taipei from most typhoons. However, it also prevents air currents from dispersing Taipei's polluted air. So, Taipei's air is always hazy, from the humidity and from the pollutants.

Since Taiwan sits right on an Earthquake belt, Taipei is also in the danger zone. It is said that the mountain basin landscape may create a reflected ripple effect if an Earthquake were to happen right in Taipei. Just imagine dipping your finger in a bucket of water. The water ripples reflects back to the center after hitting the wall and continues till the energy is dispersed. This is definitely not good.

Anyways, Taipei City is the capital. It is surrounded by the larger Taipei county, which is the highest populated county in Taiwan. I live on the south east end of Taipei county, right on one of the surrounding mountains. Therefore, we don't get affected very much by typhoon winds or floods. However, it does take a car or a scooter to get "out" since we are in a packed old industrial area. Here's my route to the outside world:



The nature of Chinese that often merges the family with business means that very often, a family will set up their business right at where they live, therefore, residential and business areas are merged in Taiwan except for the rich people of course.
In some streets, for some unknown reason, people just come and set up stalls all over and before you know it, it has become a market place. Here's one "traditional" market place near my place.



The proper term for traditional markets is "Wet Market". Although supermarkets are popular too, many people still prefer to get their fresh produces from the wet markets.

These videos are taken at "off-peak" hours. It's really crowded just an hour earlier, especially being the day before a typhoon arrives. People usually go crazy when a typhoon comes, because fresh produce prices rockets right after the storm. Still, price has already being raised, which doesn't stop people from stocking up their "food reserve'.



Scooters are the major mode of transport in Taiwan. It's compact, convenient and cheap to maintain. It have, however, contributed to much of the air pollution. Scooter riders are also often mad road users, with little regard for safety, since if a car were to hit them, it's always the driver's fault.



So away from this busy street are even smaller ones among the residential apartments. These are often packed high rises built very closely to one and other. Theft rate is high is Taiwan, so people tend to barricade their windows and balconies, which often prevents rescue efforts in case of fire. It also makes Taiwan look like a country of prisons.



Now getting on to the major streets. Still very chaotic as you can see, but we make order out of chaos.



Taipei City, being the capital, is much more orderly and pleasant looking. It's less industrialized and more commercialized, where most of the finance takes place. No photos of videos on that though.