Hsinchu

I used to live near Hsinchu, so I would go there on the weekends to shop or just get out of Jhunan. This is a little park with a stream that starts near the station and goes out for a long way. It's a pleasant place to walk in the shade.

One time we saw someone walking their pig. He was kind of resisting at this point. He just wanted to sit down.

The night market. Or possibly just a street with shops the extend outside. I'm not sure what gets to be an official night market or not.

This was taken during election season. All the billboards are for candidates. This is one of those exciting intersections where there aren't any traffic lights, and people have to work if it's safe to cross on their own.

This was taken by the station, looking north-east. Sogo is a Japanese department store. I was only interested in the basement and the top floors, where they keep the food. Basement 1 has the expensive gift foods, and Basement 2 has a foreign supermarket. It's mostly Japanese food, but there is some western food, too. There is a floor at the top with a food court, almost exclusively Japanese food, and I think there is another floor with nicer restaurants. The bookstore on the 10th or 11th floor used to have English books, but no longer seems to. So I usually went to Eslite.

They have an English literature section, but other English books are mixed in with Chinese books. It can make things a hassle to find, but I imagine it's convenient for the Taiwanese people who can read English and want to see all the options in one place.

This is just past Eslite. The gray trash bins are for trash, and the blue ones are for recycling. That might only apply to Hsinchu, I don't remember what other towns used.