Taking Care of Business

This year, because new year's day falls on Monday, the holiday is a 9-day extravaganza (counting weekends). Lots of local businesses will be closed during that time, including the local fresh foods market and the post office.

I'd always planned on posting a few things home, here in Taiwan, it's possible to send things by surface mail, which means anywhere from 1-3 months before a package will arrive in the United States. So being the post office is going to be closed all of next week, I had to hustle a few things out.

I was at the post office on two succeeding days, the first day was so stressful, I had to go buy myself some comfort douhua. The top one had lotus seeds and a couple other things, topped with sweet red bean "soup"; the bottom had sweet kidney beans, some taro mochi bits, topped with peanut "soup". Both awesome.

Little cuttlefish (among other things) for lunch, they're steamed at the market for you. These still had their eggs inside. You can also buy the cuttlefish with ink inside, it's a bit of a surprise when you first bite into them. Also, a tasty three-egg dish: century egg, salty egg, steamed with a regular egg to hold it all together. 

Doing some extra bit of cleaning, putting things away, partially in preparing for going home, partially for the new year. Freed up this chair for the first time since our being here, M took a real liking to it. Posted herself in this sunny window (yay sun!) for nearly an hour, hunting out various things, like the doodle board and G's book, to entertain herself with.