5 April 2018: I chose my Airbnb room in Taipei because I saw on Google Maps it was in Xinyi District (信義區), close to the Elephant Mountain Nature Trail (象山自然步道). As I’ve mentioned, one quality I look for in a city is closeness to nature; in particular, proximity to hikeable hills and mountains. Hong Kong, my favorite of all the cities I’ve lived in, does spectacularly well in this regard.

Taipei acquits itself quite well in this category, too. The Elephant Mountain trailhead was just a 20-minute walk from my Airbnb in downtown Taipei, and offers sweeping panoramas of the city. When I was there (on weekdays mostly, granted, but during the Tomb-Sweeping Festival [清明節] holiday when a lot of people make a long weekend of it), it wasn’t too touristy, despite the opportunity for multiple money shots of the gargantuan yet graceful skyscraper Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building from 2004 to 2010. I did run across a gaggle of giggly Filipina tourists one day who had to take a photo with me, but otherwise the trail was uncrowded.

Besides views of the city, I heard (but rarely saw) strange tropical birds singing throughout the steep but short (45 minute) hike. I did see plenty of butterflies; Taiwan is one of the most diverse butterfly habitats in the world.

I liked this hike so much that I repeated it all but two of the mornings I was in Taipei (on Saturday, 7 April, it rained; on Tuesday, 10 April, I was packing up in preparation for my move to Tainan). At Yongchungang Park (永春崗公園) near the trailhead, there are chin-up bars, push-up bars, parallel bars, and other fitness equipment, so I took the opportunity to work out alongside the elderly (who else is in a park at 9am on a weekday?). I don’t have access to the weight room at work anymore, so I have to get creative. I have to stay toned in preparation for the nubile young Slavic women I hope and imagine I will befriend later in my voyage.

I also hiked part of a longer trail along Jiantan Mountain (Sword Pool Mountain; 劍潭山) on 8 April, which is further from downtown Taipei in Shilin District (士林區). On exiting the subway, I instantly disliked Shilin. I couldn’t immediately put my finger on it. Then I noticed that I had to walk about a quarter-mile along a busy highway before I finally came to a crosswalk and traffic signal where I could cross over to the beginning of the trail. That’s why I hate Shilin — it’s a suburb. I loathe suburbs because they’re built to accomodate cars, not pedestrians. And I despise cars.

• Suburbs are an escapist, unsustainable, resource-wasting, carbon-emitting 20th-century dinosaur whose time has come to go extinct. I’m not saying burn them all down; just let them go back to nature, or reclaim them for agriculture. People should either live in cities (98%) and telecommute, walk, bike, or take public transportation to work, or on farms (2%) if they’re growing food. Maybe a few small towns should be allowed to survive, so the farmers have somewhere to shop, but on second thought I don’t think they’re actually viable anymore either. The farmers can buy everything online with Amazon Prime like everyone else. But I digress.

My irritation continued for the first 15-20 minutes of the trail, too, which was peppered with campsites where Chinese tourists were warbling away to Chinese karaoke hits of the ’80s. It wasn’t until I got past all that, to quieter trails where Chinese ancestral tombs, many newly spiffed up and adorned with flowers and mementos from the recent holiday, looked out over the mountainside toward the distant metropolis below, that I started to enjoy the hike.

But for my money, Elephant Mountain’s the way to go — better views and much closer to civilization.