Back in Taiwan, back to the routine. First order of business was shopping. Stop one was at the produce market. Nothing exotic, just the basics for salads and fresh fruit - bananas, oranges, kumquats, persimmons. The kitchen counter is now a riot of color.

Stop two was Costco. We could have gotten fish heads,

or black or white chicken pieces,

but we got the regular Costco staples instead - coffee, granola and almond milk. We also scoped out possibilities for tomorrow night's birthday dinner. We have a dozen or so friends coming over, including a fellow teacher who shares my birth date, and we need to feed them something. Probably chicken parts, the regular ones, not the black ones. (There's a variety of chicken that is completely black, from feathers to flesh. It looks kind of weird but apparently tastes the same as what I'm used to.)

Stop three was the plastics store. I'm sure it has another name but that's what it sells, so that's what we call it. It's open 24 hours so it's also referred to as The 24. Either way, it's the go-to place for all those odds and ends like paper plates, a new shower head and dish rags so the cleaning lady has something to scrub the balcony floor with besides my hand woven towels.

After all that shopping we rewarded ourselves with cups of coffee and a park bench. We watched the sparrows, pigeons and unidentifiable black and white birds squabble over bread crumbs while the heron and duck foraged along the edge of the pond.

All-in-all a pretty productive day. The goal now is to stay awake until 9:00 so we can get our body clocks reset before we head back to work on Monday.