I went to visit my old 'hood' in the Min-Sheng community on Saturday 3rd October. I was filled with excitement and anticipation, as I have actually been looking forward to this moment for like the last 10 years at least! Dreaming about what it might be like to walk the streets I used to walk everyday. To see how much things have changed...or not! Visit the old bookstore that I used to buy all my books and do all my readings, and buy all my stationery. (Ok, s0 I spent a lot of my childhood in the bookshop. It is Taipei afterall! It's a book city!) Go to the park where I learned how to ride the bicycle, where the family would 'attempt' to play badminton together. Eat the silken tofu dessert that was a weekly tradition at home. In fact, the motivation for this Chinese Study experienced stemmed from attempting to make a visit to Taipei this year just to walk down memory lane! And that just developed developed into - why don't I just give work a miss and come to Taipei to improve my Mandarin! (I'm so glad my thoughts developed further than just taking yet another 'holiday'!)
My mum's friends that used to live 1 street away from us kindly gave me a lift to the area (I haven't quite worked out the buses in Taipei...and the Min-Sheng area is not accessible by the MRT) , and treated me to lunch at this adorable Italian pasta cafe that is apparently quite a popular spot. People from other parts of Taipei come here to eat at this cafe as well! Out of all the pasta places I have tried so far, this was actually really good!
So I digress...
It was a very surreal experience walking down memory lane. (And i'm sure the 4 hours of sleep i got from the night before has nothing to do with it!) Interestingly, everything looked almost exactly the same as it did 16 years ago, except it felt as if my world contracted. The apartment block we used to live in, didn't seem as tall and grand as it once stood. The bookshop didn't seem so far away from home like it once did. My elementary school was only a 3 minute walk away from home, not the 10 minutes it seemed like it used to take! The wet market definitely looked smaller than before. It used to feel like such a journey when my mum took me to the inner parts of the wet markets. Like I said, in my memory, everything seemed so much grander and larger! Obviously, my concept of the world has also expanded in the last 16 years, and as an 11 year old, everything just seemed really big! I realised at that moment, how small my world was when I was just a 10/11 year old kid. Everything just revolved around going to school, tutoring centre, piano lessons, dancing lessons, the bookshop and local eateries. My world back then was just a 0.5km radius from home!
So it really didn't take me long to walk down 'memory lane'. It was rather disappointingly short! And to think I almost planned a holiday just so I could walk around the block for 15 minutes!
I have to say, that area hasn't changed much at all in the last 16 years. Some shops have changed, but most things are still as I remembered it. The only thing I did notice is that, the area has indeed aged. It used to look so new and modern...now, not quite so!
My old primary school was 'open' too. So I went inside to walk around. It was a cool feeling =) I enjoyed it very much!
Now for some photographic evidence!
The south entrance of my old elementary school. I used to enter/exit out of there everyday during Year 1 & 2!
The north gate of my old elementary school...I used to think it was so far away from the classroom. It's actually not that far at all!
I remember this was one of the first parks I ever visited back in 1989! I'm disappointed to see that they don't have the same swings like they did 20 years ago!
"Health Footpath" sounds silly in English. But they have these 'footpaths' made up of stones that is supposed to give you health benefits if you walk on it regularly. Mum used to make us walk on it once a week when we lived in Taiwan 15 years ago.
Random street around the area...
I am pretty sure I will be going back to my old hood later to take some better photos! The Saturday I went was rather gloomy...so everything turned out quite grey...
