However, brave or silly, we did get out today for a little trip down to Carrefour and a further trip down to Hsin Yi to Taipei 101 and its excellent bookshop, Page One. The main reason for our first trip was to check out a few cameras. Unfortunately, our own camera and the one which the school has generously "lent" me for the past few years have both suffered the same fate. They seem to have uncleanable spots in their inner workings which come out on all our photos. My hope for a solution was the new phone's camera and it has been doing a good job for a number of weeks. It just has a lot of trouble with low light and also if my palsied hand has the slightest wobble when taking a shot it is blurringly unforgiving. As we're both off to different places this Christmas, we're keen to get a camera that will do our destinations justice, while still being handy and compact.
Being my father's son, I cannot do any of this without extensive research first! Poring over reviews on the internet for days has pretty much just confused me even more: who knew there could be that many models and makes of compact cameras out there? there are hundreds!! Suffice to say, I didn't get one, but Cass was very patient as I hummed and harred for a very long time!
Sustenance was needed and we dined at the casual, excellent but not very creatively named "Eat Burger" just near the Zhishan MRT station. Fortified we ventured onward against the rallying calls of the hopeful politicians and braved the seething masses on a Sunday afternoon heading into Taipei proper. The MRT was packed and we rolled with the populace all the way to main station before transferring to the equally popular eastern line. On a familiar walk through Hsin Yi to 101 we were delighted as always to see a happy crowd enjoying the unseasonably warm day, the street entertainers and the shining excesses of the world's most decadent labels pouting at us as we walked by from their metal and glass palaces. Cassy managed to whisk me into at least a few of these establishments, but after the likes of Tiffany, Cartier, Dolche and Gabbana, Hermes, Dior, Salvatore Ferragamo and the like I was quite ready for the solitude of the cavernous Page One bookshop. I bought myself a travel guide on Delhi, Agra and Jaipur and Cassy seemed insistent that I also purchase "Guide to Surfing in Europe". I'm sure there is a sinister plan in that somehow, but I don't think I'll complain: as she said, "It's my favourite thing and your favourite thing all in one book, how could that be bad?"! Hard to argue with that kind of logic.
Home via taxi which was an event in itself as the taxi driver appeared to be suffering from Tourette's and also chewed lushiously on red bettle nut all the way home! Photos: self portrait outside The Spice Shop where we dined on Saturday after watching the Social Network (Cassy liked the movie more than me). Various posters for the election, Cass at Hsin Yi and me at Eat Burger. I'm reading "The New Manhood" by Steve Biddulph, so hope to be displaying traits of a real man very soon! Cassy is reading "Eat, Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert.
