Sunday, February 24th

So, Saturday was a rainy day...

Calvin and I went out to get some sweet potatoes off the blue truck across the street... All of the livery trucks here are required to be painted blue -- some say because the drivers tend to take 'liberties" with road safety, don't sleep enough, and are hyped up on betel nuts, the law was passed so people could see them coming... but that may be a myth.

Often, an independent seller of various goods will open up shop out of the back of his truck on the side of a road. Often for culinary purposes. On our stretch of road alone we have a roasted chestnut seller (the roasting is done on the flatbed truck), an orange and fresh orange juice seller (squeezed on the truck) and the roasted sweet potato guy (also done all on the truck)...

One thing for Taiwan is that small businesses seem to be a heck of a lot easier to own than in some other countries I could name. I don't know what the class issues are exactly like-- many of the livery drivers and truck shop owners smoke endlessly and have the traditional red teeth, but it's a life, and the guy across the street has awesome roasting methods...

Today started cold and rainy (it was a cold, white knuckle drive to Mass!) but soon turned quite warm and sunny. I got to spend some time with out next door neighbor, who grown bonsai. He knows a lot about it, all the ins and outs of crafting a beautiful tree -- he learned it all off the internet, from somebody's blog! He's got 40 plants now, and he gave one he grew himself from a clipping to Rhiannon.

Some of the older ones he owns, he's found among the abandoned houses of old soldiers -- throughout the oldest areas of town, and this is the oldest city here, are mini towns of soldiers houses: tiny, I suppose two or three rooms houses, built maybe 100 together in a grid. All of the retired soldiers were given these houses, and now as they're dying off or are given newer apartments, these communities are being torn down to put up apartment building complexes.

To me, it's a bit sad. The houses aren't the best living environment, I'm sure, but anytime a whole way of life, however small or chilly, is flattened to make way for progress, however warm and well lit, the artist in me gets a bit depressed.

No amount of apartment buildings and townhouses can compare to the well used alleyways, the old water hand pumps, the trees grown through whole brick walls, and layers and layers of wires, posters, masonry and human life.

Well, anyway, a couple pictures of Rhiannon watching my neighbor and Angel working on the bonsais.

And today was Tomato Day!

I chopped the onions first, 5 of them, put them in a bottle's worth of vinegar boiled with mustard seeds, red pepper flakes and various spices + some olive oil.

Then Rhiannon and I chopped up 15 tomatoes and a cup of garlic. I sliced them and she diced them. She's dicing while watching the Simpsons.... Tomatoes are sold green and red here. I'm not sure what the green ones are used for exactly, but it's pretty common and they work fine. They're actually a little tougher than the red ones so they have a nice texture to absorb all the delicious vinegar.

Ah, vinegar!

Favored drink of Roman soldiers everywhere!

And a picture of the end product at the bottom... it should hopefully last us two weeks...


....and a movie at the very bottom!!