i went out soon myself, to the porter square star market to get some sale price boneless chicken thighs. i knew i was going to the cafe next, so i had all the groceries i got from market basket packed up heavily in my backpack, including two containers of milk and two bags of frozen buffalo wings.
after dropping off the supplies at the cafe, i showed my parents the application form for the taiwanese passport renewal. i'd filled everything out last night, the only thing missing was a taiwan contact person, and i used my big aunt's address and phone number. i was also there to staple a photo to my US passport application. i was going to just tape it, but the photo could come loose, and the instruction clearly states to use 4 staples to secure the photo, and you know how bureaucrats are stickler for rules. the new photo i took last night and printed out this morning didn't look as good as an earlier photo, so i went with the old photo instead. i left with three zongzi (the ones i forgot to take yesterday).
with roommate gone, i could peacefully use the bathroom before taking a shower. instead of eating the zongzi for lunch, i ate an icelandic provisions skyr, passion fruit and mango flavor. i also opened up some windows to aerate the house, it felt a little stuffy, and better to get some fresh air now while the weather was cool, instead of next month when it'll be filthy hot.
in case you don't know this, taiwan has no official embassies in the US (or much else in the world actually). instead they have these places called, "taipei economic and cultural office" (TECO) that basically function as quasi-embassies. there's one in boston (downtown crossing), and that was the one i was going to go to get my passport renewed. i checked online, their hours are 9-12pm, 2-4pm, M-Fm no appointment needed. i wasn't going to make the morning hours so i decided to go in the afternoon instead.
i left around 1:30pm. i stopped at the harvard vanguard office to pick up a prescription for my mother. the indian woman pharmacist who loves avatar wasn't there today, instead a young asian man worked the counter. i continued on my way and made it to downtown crossing by 2pm. TECO is located in 99 summer street. normally this place would probably be crawling with workers, but post-pandemic, the building was quiet, not a worker in sight. i went down to the receptionist and told the man i was here to visit TECO. he buzzed me through the swing gate and told me to take any elevator. i overheard an asian woman ahead of me asking the same thing, and we got on the same elevator. i noticed she did something weird when we got to the 8th floor: she stepped in front of me so she'd get out of the elevator first, as if i was going to somehow take her spot in line.
this wasn't my first time at TECO. the last time was back in june 2013. security is unusually tight, you have to get buzzed into the office, and once inside, the workers sit behind thick seemingly bulletproof glass walls. technically the chinese civil war between the communists and nationalist never officially ended, and china would like nothing more than to extinguish all foreign representations of the taiwanese government, even quasi ones. there were two clerks working, one without face mask, one with. the lady who stepped ahead of me in the elevator got the maskless clerk, while the masked one was helping a young man who looked like a college student. later a girl came in, she too looked college age. something else i noticed was how all the people there were sort of unfriendly. you'd figure as "citizens" of a country that isn't officially recognized by much of the world, there'd be some sort of solidarity. but nobody said hi to one another, everyone seemed to be in their unkind little shells.
when the college boy finished, the masked clerk called me to the counter. i told her i was here to renew my taiwan passport. she took my application form, my old passport, and my two photos. she also asked to see my US passport for some reason. i couldn't quite hear her, between the layer of bullet-proof glass and the fact that she was wearing a mask covering her mouth.
later she came back and told me i had a military service exemption stamp in my taiwan passport. but because my US passport was also expired, they can't issue an exemption in my new passport. i could either come back with a valid US passport and get the exemption stamp (free of charge), or, just not bother with it, as i'm old enough to be exempt from mandatory taiwanese military draft anyway.
she noticed i had a blank check in my manila folder and said they don't take personal checks. no worries i told her, i had cash. the cost for a new passport? $45, same as 10 years ago. she also made me do something else: i had to write a letter stating the fact that my new passport will no longer have the military exemption stamp. i kind of didn't understand why she wanted it, but i wrote it out anyway in english, a single page of legalese in the best of my ability to interpret what she was trying to ask me, before signing and dating it.
with that i was done. she said it usually takes 6 weeks to process the passport (last time it took just 3 weeks), but added something later that i didn't quite hear, which i assumed was her saying that usually it goes much quicker than that. they'd call me when the passport was ready for pickup (they could also mail it to me, but i didn't mind coming back). earlier i asked her if passport renewals need to be done in person. she said you could mail in your forms and old passport, but easier to do it in person.
because i was a block away from chacarero, and because i'd already looked it up earlier and knew that they don't close until 3pm, i went there to get a large beef sandwich. price has gone up yet again, it's now $15, but i say still totally worth it if you've never tried this delicious chilean sandwich. just visiting the place gave me some nostalgia from when i used to work in boston.
from downtown crossing it was just a short ride to chinatown. can't remember the last time i was in chinatown proper. i noticed a few new restaurants. gourmet dumpling house? the hot spot that got shut down because of numerous health code violations? they were still closed but undergoing a serious renovation, which seems like a smart step, to win back customers.
i went to c-mart first. everything but fresh produce, which i've found ming's market usually has the cheaper price. outside a few c-mart workers had taken it upon themselves to DIY fix a large pot hole in the parking lot. fortunately it wasn't so busy today, so taking up 3 parking spots wasn't a big deal.
afterwards i went to ming's market. they too weren't very busy. i bought a bunch of vegetables but each one seemed heavier than the next: taiwanese cabbage, napa cabbage, carrots, daikon. it took me a while to order my rear bike baskets to fit everything. i was very worried the baskets would collapse from the weight, and all that extra baggage made the bike wobble more than usual.
i left chinatown by 3:20pm. it took me 45 minutes to ride to the cafe, at a slow enough speed that nothing would fly out if i hit a speed bump, or ride too fast and have the baskets wobble themselves to a collapse. i returned via the esplanade then the MIT bridge. today was actually a nice day, 60's in the morning, 70's in the afternoon, and no rain.
i was so thirsty, so the first thing i did when i got to the cafe with my haul was to break open a container of taiwanese plum drink i bought, filled up a glass along with some jar. that really hit the spot. my father was making taiwanwese aiyu kelly with fresh awkeotsang creeping fig seeds that he blended for several minutes in the vitamix blender. business was weird today. with the weather so nice, you'd think the cafe would be busy, but before i left for boston they'd only made a measly amount. but when i got to the cafe in the late afternoon, business had picked up, and they made 6x the amount of what i saw earlier.
i returned home by 4:50pm. i finally had a chance to eat my chacarero sandwich. even though it was already cold by then, it was still good. i asked for spicy but next time i'll just have the regular. spicy is okay, but i think they use habanero peppers, which is fine if you want to make something hot, but i think it's cheating because it can be overpowering.
i finished watching beau is afraid, what a trippy movie. it's not a film you try to understand, but rather just sit back and enjoy the ride, get shocked at the twists and turns. it so very much reminds me of some japanese movies, where seemingly plot is irrelevant, and that style and creating memorable scenes are more important.
lauryn came home a bit before 6pm. i intercepted her before she could disappear into her room. i took her my mother made some zongzi, and she could try one if she wanted to, being that duanwu festival was just next week. i wasn't sure if she would eat it, but when i went into the kitchen a few hours later, one of the zongzi was gone. as to whether it was good or not, i probably won't know unless i specifically as her; she's not the sort of person who just volunteers that sort of info.
i didn't have my zongzi for dinner until around 9:30pm. i blasted them in the microwave for 4 minutes and had them with some sweet chili sauce, can't have zongzi without my sauce.