In the neighborhood

It’s six months since I moved to my current apartment, a few kilometers (or four MRT stops) from where I used to live. I love my new neighborhood, but sometimes when I’m near the old one, I do feel momentarily nostalgic. It was a great place to live.With these thoughts in mind, earlier this week, I went back for a nighttime walk around my old haunts. The late-night timing wasn’t unusual: in my first summer here, daytime temperatures pushed my daily walks late into the evening, and now they’re habitual.Taiwan is ranked 4th safest country in the world, even ahead of Singapore and Japan. Places that look sketchy are totally fine to explore, alone, even at midnight. The sense of safety, and lack of fear of fellow human beings, is pervasive and liberating.It’s within this relaxed context that I find walking alone at night affords some space and quiet on this high-energy, densely-populated island.(Taiwan has 647 people per square kilometer. Te Waipounamu / the South Island, where I lived in…