We had a rare dinner party last night. Correctly speaking it was our flatmates who had the party and made all the arrangements, we just showed up. The guests were a Taiwanese couple who was known through work. He was a teacher, quiet and a bit inarticulate, and she was the precise opposite: an entrepreneur […]
Better deal
We went to our first class at the city school today. I was relieved that it turned out to be very good; the textbook remains as dire, but the teacher was genuinely good and made excellent use of its exercises so that perhaps for the first time I was confident I was listening and understanding […]
Visa run part deux
I went for my own visa run this morning. Not much to report: another lovely walk through the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, this time earlier in the day so there were men out fumigating it. There were four people ahead of me so I had about a 30 minute wait, not too bad. The application […]
Visa run
This morning the GF and I went to apply for a visa extension. It all took far longer than we had accounted for. First, a half hour walk to the visa office, passing through the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, possibly the only truly monumental building in the country. Then on to a restaurant for lunch, […]
Drowning
The Boddhisattva had been given two tickets to the new Paul Chiang exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. She did not intend to use them so we took them off her. Off we went down to Yuanshan where the museum is located (also the big farmer’s market in the expo centre), stopping first for […]
Treasure hill
I left early in the morning into cold rain and wind as I had an appointment with a hairdresser in Xinyi. This is just on the edge of downtown-y bit with all the malls and megastores, a sixth floor office in an office block turned into a hairdresser’s salon. This sort of setup seems quite […]
Whirlwind
We persist in reaping the whirlwind as the President of Pakistan, armed with a fatwa from Al-Azhar, the closure of the Kaaba and Al-Aqsa, a revised azaan in Kuwait, and the example of nearly every other Muslim country in the world, meets the jahil-e-azam mullahs of Pakistan and comes away with the the following decision […]
Deadline
Yesterday was the submission deadline for a document that had been badly disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak. We squeezed it out under the wire. In the process I managed to annoy my oldest colleague/ friend at the organisation who doesn’t like his indolence to be brought to attention. Some years ago I think I would […]
Flower shopping
The GF woke up late and I waited for him, so we parted ways with the Boddhisattva and the Woodland Creature for the day, planning to meet up in the early evening at the Jian Guo Flower Market to buy some plants and flowers for the flat. So off we went, first for lunch at […]
To Da’an
This morning we moved to Da’an. We called an uncle who has one of those gigantic taxis and loaded it up with all our belongings: two suitcases each (one large, one small), assorted backpacks and handbags, and a few bags of household stuff acquired here: lamps from ikea, mugs, the GF’s basketball, the Woodland Creature’s […]