We bet the car wouldn't fit, then we found the elevator—a strange, whirring mechanical beast that doesn't merely descend but rotates the vehicle in a slow, dizzying arc. It felt like a fitting introduction to a trip where our only real plan was to avoid having one.
January in Taichung is a dry, transparent sort of cold, a crisp seventeen degrees. We spent the evening at the Feng-Chia Night Market, where the scent of charred seafood hung heavy in the air; the taste of a hot, blackened squid, its sweet sauce clinging to our fingers, felt like the only honest thing in a sea of neon lights.
"I told you to book the parking in advance!" someone shouted, their voice echoing through the concrete. We spent ten minutes arguing while the car slowly spun in the dark of the Feng Yi Feng Jia Shang Lv la vida hotel garage, a kind of chaotic teamwork that makes me wonder why we are friends, and yet, I suppose that friction is the point.
There were these foil-packed drinks in the fridge, ice-cold and condensation-slick. We stood there, three adults in a room that smelled faintly of new wood and polished stone, debating which flavor was the correct one to open first, as if we were conducting a high-stakes diplomatic negotiation over a piece of aluminum.
At six in the morning, the room is a vacuum of silence, the light a pale, watery blue filtering through the curtains. I sometimes think the most genuine part of traveling is this pause, the heavy, warm moment before the first coffee when the city is still a promise and the bed is too soft to leave.
My palm rested on the smooth, Northern European wood of the desk, feeling the cool contrast of the Spanish stone accents. I noticed that the distance from the bed to the deep soaking bathtub felt like a short, luxurious morning stroll, a space that allowed us to exist without bumping into each other.
We stepped out at three in the afternoon, and Xitun Road had already turned into a churning river of people. The air was thick with the noise of scooters and chatter; we were swept away, three of us clinging to each other like survivors of a shipwreck, laughing at the sheer, crowded absurdity of it all.
Home is not the apartment I keep in Japan, I think, but this portable rhythm we found at Feng Yi Feng Jia Shang Lv la vida hotel. It is the way we roast each other's failures while sharing a single bag of snacks, a belonging held in the tension between our contradictions.
One stray piece of foil glinting on the bedside table.
- Try the rotating elevator, but do it with friends you enjoy arguing with.
- Walk to the night market at 3pm if you enjoy feeling like a leaf in a storm.