we took the subway from porter square. there was a little drizzle, not enough to warrant taking out the umbrella, which i brought. it wasn't exactly rain, more like mist from a fog that was still enveloping the city this morning. i haven't taken the subway in a long time, and longer for my parents. it took a long time to get into the city; for some reason the train traveled slowly through the tunnels for the first few stops, before it finally sped up. from porter to harvard took 5 minutes, and likewise from harvard to central.
we got off at downtown crossing, where the escalator was broken, and we waited behind an elderly chinese man with a cane struggling to walk up the steps. the escalator was too narrow for us to walk by him, so we had no choice but to wait for him to finally climb those steps.
we made it to the taipei economic & cultural office (TECO) by 10:40am. the guy at the front desk checked to see an ID this time, but only needed one. it took about 15 minutes for my parents to get processed. the masked clerk told them it'd take 6 weeks to get their new passports, but usually a lot sooner than that. while i was waiting for them, i browsed through the collection of bilingual taiwan panorama magazine. i ended up taking two issues as they had a big stack of them.
our original plan was to have lunch at gene's flatbread cafe on nearby bedford street. i read an article recently that said this place was the best chinese restaurant in massachusetts. they search xi'an cuisine, so a lot of noodles, including lamb paomo. we were there a bit early and the cafe didn't open until 11am, so we decided to take a quick tour of nearby chinatown.
we ended up spending a lot of time at the taipei 101 bakery shop, where my parents bought a large shopping bag worth of pastries, including egg tarts. from there we circled back to bedford street, where gene's cafe looked closed but was actually opened. stepping inside, i immediately lost interest. i'm sure it's a fine place to have lunch, and the people who work there are great, but there was just two hispanic ladies manning the store, and as a rule, i don't eat in any chinese food establishment that isn't made by chinese people. i told my parents i wasn't interested anymore, and we walked back into chinatown to look for a better place to have lunch.
there was a yunnan "crossing bridge" rice noodle place that looked promising. my mother also suggested we revisit jibeichuan, the chain restaurant we ate at flushing. we finally decided on kong kong eatery, a little place my parents seemed to know (said it was famous, been a chinatown staple), but i'd never eaten there before. they had a small space with some seats and we managed to grab a spot because we were there before the lunch crowd, while later we saw many people looking for a place to eat. my mother got the triple meat rice plate ($13), and got the roasted duck, crispy skin pork, and some braised chicken. i got the wonton noodle soup ($11) and my father got the century egg congee ($7.50). we also ordered a citron drink ($3.50). the weird thing was their electronic menus had no prices, so we only found out how much everything cost after paying.
the amount of meat in the triple rice plate was astonishing for just $13, given we pay the same from what da chicken for thai chicken and they only give out 1/3 of that amount. my mother said even the rice was special, cooked in flavored oil with individual rice grains. i didn't like the wonton noodle soup because they put shrimp in the wontons. the wontons were also on the sweet side. i ended up adding several tablespoons of hot chili oil to make it more palatable. the congee was watery, but chock full of century eggs, with very salty pork bits at the bottom.
after we finished eating (12:10pm), we started heading back to downtown crossing to catch the red line back to cambridge. my mother wanted to go to primark so we stopped there briefly, long enough for her to buy a pink hooded sweatshirt, but most of the time there was actually spent waiting in line that was about 2 dozen customers deep, both first and second floor. did primark at one time have a third floor as well? they might've downsized after the pandemic. also: no public bathrooms. i don't blame them, with so many homeless and junkies in the city, public bathrooms are like magnets for those people. it was my father's first time in primark, he was surprised by the low prices.
we finally caught the subway by 12:45pm, got off at harvard square a bit after 1pm. here my mother wanted to check out the allbirds store, which she'd never been. she went inside briefly while my father and i waited outside, then came out just as quickly. they had a 30% off 4th of july sale, but only select shoes, none of which my mother liked.
we ended up walking back to my place. normally it takes 15 minutes, but my parents - particularly my father - was walking super slow, and as just i'd estimated, it took us 30 minutes to get to my house. along the way we bumped into my japanese neighbor, the lady i see all the time but i've only said hi to her maybe once or twice. apparently she knows my parents (a customer), and we actually bumped into her this morning, and by coincidence, we bumped into her again coming back.
my roommate wasn't around, so we crashed at my place briefly while i used the bathroom. my father brought the car around so i could load it up with my most recent sidewalk hauls: the two mops and the two industrial fans. the most recent weather check showed it wouldn't be raining until 8-9pm, so instead of getting a ride to belmont, i opted to take the motorcycle instead. so my parents returned to belmont on their own, while i stayed behind to take a quick shower before heading out.
i got some gas at the nearby speedway before arriving at my parent's place by 2:45pm. i had an egg tart. the filling was very similar to the ones we had in flushing, but the crust wasn't as crispy (or buttery), i think the flushing bakery bake their crust before they add the filling.
i finally got a haircut from my mother. it felt a little weird afterwards, like i had my hair in a ponytail, because i couldn't feel it anymore brushing against the sides of my face. i got used to it pretty quick though. after another quick rinse in the shower, i went to the watertown target to pick up the new black + decker microwave i ordered for my 2nd aunt this morning. it's the same one that i have, except it's only $69 after taxes (i think i paid $90 for mine). i got confirmation from her this morning that she has in fact a 0.9 cu.ft. 900W microwave. she said she was willing to go up in power, but i told her that'd mean a slightly larger microwave, so she decided to stick with the size she has now. i personally think this oven is a little underpowered, but it has a nice design (handle open instead of button open). anyway, target was crowded, a real community epicenter if there ever was one. the attendant scanned the barcode on my phone and came out with the microwave. a lot larger than i remembered, and surprisingly heavy too. i left it in the trunk when i got back to my parents' place. i searched the other car and found my parking permit.
my father and i cleaned the smaller of two high velocity industrial fans. not sure the brand but its model number is LF-14. 120V AC 60Hz 0.9A 95W, manufactured in october 2007. the other larger fan is branded "king of fans" with model number HV-20E. couldn't find an exact match online, but the specs sticker says 2.0A, which means a maximum power of 240W. that one seems to have been manufactured (or at least UL tested) on november 2005. anyway, we removed the grill on the smaller fan, held in place by half a dozen screws. the screws wouldn't budge with a screwdriver: we ended up using the impact driver to loosen the screws. we didn't have the proper hex wrench to remove the fan blades, so we cleaned them in-situ. my father also greased the spindle by dripping some motor oil with a toothpick.
my father and i also rigged up a new cover for our outdoor weather sensor. it used a plastic cover that'd deteriorated from years of being outside. we ended up using one of the plastic plum drink bottles cut in half. the only thing i don't like is the dimpled base, which can collect water. in the summer it could be a mosquito breeding dish, in the winter if it ices over it might throw off the sensor. it works for the time being.
for dinner my mother cooked up some broken rice. because it doesn't absorb as much water, the rice turned out to be kind of tough, almost like brown rice. my father chopped up some chinese celery we bought from flushing and used it to cook a stirfry with chicken (or was it pork?). we also have some leftover xuelihong. my mother finished eating quickly so she could go back to her room and watch silo, which i introduced to her. she didn't think she'd like it at first because i told her it was scifi, but after the first episode she was hooked.
i left belmont around 7:30pm. the sky - which had been clear a few hours ago - was now starting to cloud up from a serious impending storm drifting eastward. i noticed a slight rainbow halo around the sun and stopped the motorcycle to snap a photo before continuing to cambridge.
lauryn was already home, and judging from the smell, had already finished making dinner. i caught her while she was washing dishes, told her not to be afraid (as i'd shaved off my beard a few days ago and now had a new haircut). i asked if she was going with coworkers to see the fireworks tomorrow. she said she'd already got last year, actually went to the hatchshell around 6pm so had a great view of the concert followed by the fireworks. she didn't get home until midnight, which was the price she paid for being at the epicenter. she said she felt lazy and wasn't planning on going this year. i told her there might be drones this year, then asked if she'd ever seen drone fireworks before. she said yes, at her hong kong university, where they had a drone show celebrating the school's birthday.
