The supermarkets and boutique food outlets around the suburb are increasingly more adventurous in their selections of products, and we're finding more and more exotic fare as every month goes by. We used to wildly celebrate when we saw an Aussie or familiar western product on the shelves, but it seems to be the regular thing these days. We do still get a little thrill when a product appears: it's quite sick, actually! Nonetheless, despite the avalanche of new and/or interesting foods, we still need to get to a number of different venues to source them all!
We had a great weekend, partly because we had an enforced time indoors due to a healthy cold snap that deterred unplanned wanderings around the neighbourhood! We went out and did the food shopping and a couple of other regular errands, including the perennial of dropping off the garbage, all compartmentalized into little presents according to what material it is. We've got gifts of flat plastic, hard plastic, bottles, styrofoam and general trash. If we miss the general runs of the singing garbage trucks, we can deposit the lot in separate bins at the local depot located up near school. I combined this with a decadent serve of KFC on a cold and inhospitable Saturday evening and we watched some TV, cuddled the crying cat and relaxed.
On Sunday we got bundled up in traveling gear and scootered over to Dazhi via the long Neihu tunnel to visit, again, the fancy new Miranew Royal Cinema. As previously described it's quite luxurious with plump, oversized and motorized chairs, little table for snacks and coffee, table services and flocked blankets to cuddle up with. It's a real treat for a great movie and we found one in the form of "The Old Man and the Gun" a Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek movie with a laconic pace and some sublime underacting, especially from the two old masters. We'd both highly recommend it! We'd seen another old master at work recently in Clint Eastwood's "The Mule", but Clint's directing style is less subtle these days and he tends to overplay the symbolism and the themes.
Surprisingly, I'm going to pull up stumps on this entry this paragraph: I've got 92 poems written and analyzed and annotated by by kiddies and they won't get to grade themselves. While I'm procrastinating, Cass is ensconced a couple of doors away hammering a few out! Our tech problems at work still linger and we're fudging out lessons day-to-day, so we're desperately looking forward to the early Chinese New Year break in just a week's time.
Photos: Cass loaded up with cash, train crowds, we got a close up shot of "The Moop" in a unique triple sighting of Moops in our local park!, flower in park, food for sale.