Interzone

The next issue of Interzone is going to be running an interview with me - should be out in the next couple of weeks, I guess. First sunny day in Taipei, really, since I got here, although it's been far, far from cold. I only really got over the jetlag the other day - my first week here I was walking, but asleep. Mostly we've been running around the city - those who know me in Glasgow will know what I mean if I say the area around where I am bears a certain cultural resemblance to the West End of Glasgow, if Glasgow had a population of several million and the West End covered the entire of central Glasgow.

Basically, Taipei has a couple of 'night markets' - shops, restaurants and hang-out places that are all open until early in the morning, occupying a maze of back streets, and always very, very busy. The one I'm nearest - off the Shui-Yuan Road - is definitely the best. At some point I'll be taking the bullet train down the coast to Tainan for a weekend. In the meantime, I did some browsing in YouTube, and found someone's video of one of the markets that gives a feel for what Taipei is like in general - although I'm rather less sure of the soft rock soundtrack the uploader concerned has chosen to put over the images: