Because every girl should celebrate their birthday at least three times...
Shiao YP and I took the girls to the train station (the
Shin Kong building in the background) to meet San YP, AhPoh and G for lunch. (They traveled up by train from Hsinchu.)
G's first train ticket stub.
Apparently since the last time I'd been, they redid the entire second level of the train station to include restaurants. We saw a Beard Papa's and a very tasty-looking
Mister Donut, but ended up having curry. I paid à la AhGong.
Afterward, we had a look around the vast
underground market accessible from the train station. Lots of clothing, cheap shoes ($6/pair), odds and ends, like kids' toys, wallets, jewelry, hair accessories, etc. Just what you would expect from a regular mall. Someone asked me if it isn't a little freaky being underground like that, but except for the lack of windows, you'd hardly know you were underground, the ceilings are quite high so you have the feeling of a lot of space.
We found a stall, which sold an assortment of personalized stickers, printed in about a minute. It took us ten times as long to decide which stickers to get, we had some printed up for G and BB with both their Chinese and English names on them. Also, spent some time at a book stall, getting some workbooks for the girls. One of paper crafts, and some for practicing their math and
zhu in.
This lady was selling spiral curlers, you thread the hair through these flat tubes... ah, found a
YouTube for them. Also bought G and BB some headbands.
Back home, Wong PP let the girls "wash" figs to make
aiyu jelly. Fascinating stuff, I might have to post some home, it's excellent with some honey, Wong PP said it would be even better with a squeeze of lemon juice. (Didn't have any on hand.)
Admire my new necklace. Also got a
hong bao.
When setting up the candles for this cake, G was going to unintentionally flip the numbers, but then AhPoh ruined it for me by correcting her. Anyway this was an excellent Taiwanese honey cake by
Amo, recommended to us by Shiao YP (and evidenced by the amount of business they did in comparison with the cake vendors adjoining them). So delicate and light and just the right hint of honey – and not too sweet. The other choices were a German chocolate cake, a tiramisu, and a couple other European style cakes.
Z blew out the candles for me, and did a very good job at it, I'm sure I'll get my wish. :)
This is the death-by-chocolate cake Drew got for me for my second birthdaysies. The egads of buttercream frosting was a bit much, loved the cake part.
