after finishing my last blog posting on friday evening, i packed up my bags to take a quick trip down to tainan for the "ancient capital city marathon" held on sunday. while registration for all of the big races was closed, there was a free 3K open to anyone held towards the end of the morning that i intended to run in.
arriving in tainan on saturday, i made my way to ani's uncle's apartment to make myself at home, only to discover that i was missing one of the two keys necessary to get into the apartment. a phone call to one of my taipei "aunties" and i soon found myself crashing at the lovely home of twinky and santiago (who were mentioned in a previous posting) and enjoying their generous hospitality. the next morning, santiago gave me a lift to the start of the race, and walking into the quiet yet bustling registration area i immediately had that familiar race-morning feeling: there's something about being in my running shoes, with the dark grey early morning skies above me and trampled sidewalk grass beneath my feet that makes me feel right at home. and typically, a little nervous for the race ahead--but not so much, of course, for this race.
waiting in line to get my free number and safety pins, an elderly gentleman approached me, all smiles, and asked me in broken english if i would be running the 3K. i said yes, which made his smile grow wider, and he even clapped a bit. it turned out, from what i could gather, that he was one of the "old guard" members of the taiwanese road running club which had organized the race (as well as the one i ran with ani and matt earlier in the trip). he was so happy that a foreigner was in tainan to run that he wanted to get a picture with me, and then presented me with a gift of a beautiful silk scarf with a drawing of the main building of tainan's public university on it. a very sweet gift, which he insisted on immediately tying around my neck. ultimately, when the race started a little while later, then, i found myself running in what i consider to be a more typical taiwanese running outfit than my usual garb: t-shirt and shorts, but with the addition of a scarf around my neck and a backpack (carrying warmer clothes, water, camera, sunscreen, map of tainan, borrowed cellphone, etc. etc.) strapped securely to my back. my first race with a backpack. and a scarf, for that matter.
the outfit ended up not being too important because, unless i missed a turn somewhere, the race was definitely not 3K in length. and no one really seemed to care. i was only confused because we had been running for just ten minutes when we turned the corner, and lo-and-behold, there was the starting line. when we crossed it, everyone started walking off the course. this is one of those moments when i really felt like a foreigner. where was everyone going? we were just getting started! i briefly considered that somehow during my travels, without running more than a few times and even spending a whole week sitting on my butt, i had managed to become so fit that without even feeling it i had been on track to pace a 17 minute 5K. ha!
after thoroughly stretching from such rigorous exertion, i waited patiently at the finish line to see the first marathoners come through. at just about 2 hours, 18 minutes (incredible) a kenyan runner named bernard mutai--defending champion of last year's race--finished the 26.2 mile course and he was the picture of strength and grace as he cruised past the line. the win netted him the first place prize of $500,000 NT, or about 15,000 US dollars (pretty good hourly wage!). about 45 minutes later, the first female came through, a very petite asian woman--but i wasn't able to catch her name. she also took home $500,000 NT.
later that day, twinky and i explored a few local wonders in taiwan: the confucius temple (beautiful), the 60-year-old lily fruit shop (perfect slices of lantern fruit and fresh squeezed OJ), and a famous fujianese meatball shop. we ended up at one of twinky's personal favorites in the city, the shih kong mitsukoshi department store, where we perused the shoe section with such diligence that i felt i was in the presence of a master shopper. i ended the day with the purchase, unexpectedly, of a pair of yellow high heels-- trust me, they're cute!
yesterday i enjoyed the surreal experience of watching the oscars, live, over breakfast. it was quite enjoyable to curl up on the couch and witness that whole hollywood-world from across the ocean. and when twinky returned from her morning grocery shopping, we got to debate the best outfits of the evening, and identify our shared taste in men ("very handsome" she would say... "yes, yes, very handsome!" i would agree). we spent the afternoon in the harbor town of anping, enjoying more local cuisine favorites and walking the narrow pedestrian streets. we met the owners of a 100-year-old preserved fruit store, still in its original occupation-era building, and took home dried and pickled plums, and some sort of pickled red root vegetable that i wasn't able to catch the name of... but the taste had me sold.
at this shop, looking at a picture of the family back in the early 1900's, i couldn't help but overlay my newly acquired knowledge of taiwanese history over the history of the business. back when the shop opened, the japanese occupation had just begun. amidst that uncertainty, they opened the shop and it has remained in the same location, and under the same family ownership, to this day. they even use some of the same large preserving containers. it's amazing, in the swirl of so many different forms of taiwan, to see something so constant. this thought also crossed my mind the day before, at the fruit shop twinky took me to: it was opened in 1947, the same year as the 2.28 massacre. amidst all of the fear gripping the country as its own government executed civilians, a family opened a fruit shop on a busy corner in tainan; there i was, over 60 years later, enjoying their famed products on a sunny sunday afternoon.
today, i spent the day with sharon and viola, nieces of twinky and santiago, ages 29 and 27. we had a nice girls' day out: lunch and a movie ("enchanted", the disney fairy tale, of course) and then a walk through the small town they live in outside of tainan. last night, their parents took all of us to the "solar city" lantern festival, which was absolutely amazing, a taiwanese tradition of paper lanterns in all shapes and sizes and colors. quite the visual experience, witnessed with corn-on-the-cob in one hand and a "taiwan beer" purchased for me by sharon and viola's dad in the other. i felt like one of the crowd, and it was perfect.
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