Our Neighborhood
We live in Nankang, a district in the eastern outskirts of Taipei City. Here you will see pictures of our neighborhood, including the river, the park, apartment buildings, and the Academia Sinica campus.
We totally lucked out with our apartment and our location. We are a short walk from Academia Sinica, Clara and Oliver's schools, a bakery, three mini-marts, numerous family grocery stores, restaurants, and cafeterias. We are also directly across from a nice park and near several others, near the river, and near a major bus route. The subway (MRT) station is a 10-minute bus ride away.
Other neighborhood attractions include a banana grove, a mouse and rat breeding center, an Army post, a cobbler, at least 6 cram schools, 3 barber shops, a stationary store, a dentist, several print shops, fruit stands, a traditional market, incense shops, apothecaries, drug stores, and two appliance stores. There are video cameras mounted on utility poles almost everywhere in the city, and the police patrol frequently.
A short explanation of cram schools is in order. A cram school is a small private school where kids of all ages receive extra instruction in particular subjects, like English or Math. It is quite normal to see kids in these schools as late as 10 o'clock P.M. Academic grades, school selection, and achievement are highly stressed here.
Click on thumbnails to see larger pictures...
Our Apartment Building
We live on the 5th floor of the apartment building in this picture. There is a common entryway with a shared elevator shaft and stairwell. In the last picture, you can see that they are replacing all of the tiles on the building. The 7-days-a-week hammering and chipping will last over a month!
The View from our Apartment
Here you can see the park in front of our apartment, as well as the military post. The pushcart vendor is selling dou hua, which is soft tofu in a warm, sweet soup. The vendor sings out his arrival or plays a small stringed instrument.
Street and Park Views near our Apartment
The park is very popular for a number of activities, including basketball (usually played until midnight), tai chi (in the morning), dance classes, tennis, firecracker launching, and dog exercising. There is even a mud-pit with water spigot for the kids to play in. As usual, there are river-stone walks for a healthy foot massage. For the kids, there are very well-made concrete slides. They put plastic and metal slides to shame!
The park has another important use: on sunny days, it is used as a place to air and dry bedding!
Our Local River
It's not particularly clean, but it is a nice place to walk. There are lots of fish and a number of resident egrets that are fun to watch. The watercourse features high walls and floodgates due to it the river's propensity to flood. The walls are also a very popular place to dry fruits, herbs, vegetables, and blankets.
Views of Academia Sinica
Academia Sinica is a nice place to walk, and the children can play with many of their classmates on weekends here. The tall building in the first three pictures is the IIS building, where Van works part time. The rice paddies are part of the Agricultural Science Institute. We stayed in the Student Activity Center for our first month here.
Academia Sinica Web Site
Institute of Information Science (IIS)
Institute of History and Philology (IHP)
Around Nankang
Please note the open-air market, the typical wall decoration (embedded broken glass), and the apartment building with the large chicken coop on the roof. Livestock on the roof is fairly common, even in the city.
Hiking & Walking in & around Nankang
A short walk will put you in the countryside and up in the hills. The Nankang Tea Park is an area of mountain roads and footpaths serviced by small tea houses and restaurants. Note the old-fashioned brick farmhouse on the hill.
