i left the house by 10:30am. i was glad to see they finished repaving hampshire street, i'd forgotten all about that. now it's all flat and uniform, curious to see how long that lasts before its dotted with pot holes and dig patches.
my first stop was to downtown crossing to visit the taipei economic & cultural office (TECO) in boston AKA the unofficial taiwan embassy. i love telling the concierge i'm here to visit the taiwan embassy, as he has no idea what a loaded statement that is, while he lets me through the security gate and up the elevator to the 8th floor. in front of the glass door to TECO i had to press another button for them to buzz me in. there was a couple sitting by the counter but when the clerk saw me holding passport receipts, she stopped what she was doing and went to get the passports. i was picking up my own as well as my parents (my mother called yesterday to make sure someone else could pick up their passport, so long as they had the receipt). that's when i realized i forgot to bring my US passport, so they could stamp my taiwanese passport as someone with dual citizenship. that just means i need to come back again at some point, no rush. i signed some paperwork and left with the passports. the new passports no longer say "republic of china" and "taiwan" is printed in a larger font.
from TECO it took me 2 minutes to bike into chinatown. i went to hong kong eatery to get my mother some braised duck. i didn't have to wait long like last time, my order was ready in just a few minutes.
i biked to c-mart. there was nothing there i really wanted, but i bought two packages of pad thai noodles because it looked like they were on sale ($2.28/each). i then went to ming's market, where i picked up everything on my grocery list. i keep on not learning my lesson, but ming's market is always cheaper than c-mart: they sold the exact same pad thai noodles for just $1.99/package. they were selling two varieties of what looked to be kobocha squash - japanese (日本) and another variety that they called "wang hong" (網紅) - both the same price (78¢/lbs.). ming's market were sold out of longans (c-mart still had a few bags) so i grabbed some lychees instead ($2.50/lbs.). with that i was all set, and spent several minutes outside repacking my rear bike baskets. i put some boxy items in one bag before putting the box of braised duck on top, giving it a platform so it wouldn't tip over like last time.
i left chinatown by 11:50am. it took nearly 40 minutes of riding to ride the 5.6 miles all the way to the cafe. in a better bike i could've gone faster, but the way i have my gears set up now - essentially a single gear - i can only ride in a steady rate. and imagine what i could do on a bike with bigger wheels! 27" or 700mm, i would be flying. remind me to do a bike overhaul next weekend, change out all the parts. the trek might be stuck with just 26" wheels, but if i get the gear shifting work, that'd let me ride more efficiently and faster.
i got to the cafe by 12:30pm, right during the tail end of a busy period. my sister was there helping. i ended up staying long enough to cook some soy sauce noodles before leaving around 1:10pm.
i returned home, used the bathroom, showered. i briefly thought about possibly going out for a run, but i'd already biked so much today, hadn't had lunch yet, and still had errands to run, so i figured biking fulfilled my exercise quota for the day. besides, when i weighed myself in the bathroom, i'd already lost a few pounds since this morning.
i went out again around 2pm to run some local errands. i went to walgreens to pick up two prescriptions. the guy in front of me took a long time because for some strange reason he was reluctant to give his address for verification purposes. finally i heard him mutter his house number, but nothing else besides that, by which point the pharmacist basically gave up and let him have his prescriptions. i then went to market basket to get some groceries: bagels, milk, brie cheese, popsicles, frozen pizzas. i even found some whole allspice berries (for blending my own tea egg spices) in the ethnic aisle (a small packet was just 99¢). i got back by 3pm.
it was almost 4pm before i finally had lunch. i toasted a bagel and made some avocado spread. the avocado i had was so ripe mold had started to form on the outside. the inside wasn't so fresh, as i mixed in some olive oil, garlic paste, and a pinch of salt. it wasn't anything special but kept me full until dinner.
i got in touch with julie today. i haven't spoken with her since the start of the pandemic. today was her 50th birthday, which was special enough for me to reach out. i also sent her a photo from her 32nd birthday, over 2 decades ago. we tentatively agreed to possibly meet up next week to catch up face-to-face.
around 8pm i started setting up my softbox lights again, this time opening the other package so i'd have two lights. i wanted them so i could photograph my dinner. i was curious how the remote control would work: was each light controlled by a separate remote or does one remote control both lights? i got my answer: the remote controls both lights at the same time. that means whatever setting you set for one light goes for the other light as well. the only way to prevent that is to turn the light in another direction as you hit it with the remote, which isolates the signal. each light has a 135W LED light bulb, but i haven't verified the output with a wattmeter yet.
i ended up making another avocado bagel toast, this time with an egg. the avocado had turned a brownish green by that point, not the prettiest thing to photograph.
later i tried the lights with some objects on my white kitchen countertop, to mimic a light box. in fact, originally i wanted to buy a light box for small object photography, until i read a comment online that said it's better to buy some softbox lights so you have more flexibility playing with lights instead of a light box which has limited light adjustment capabilities. it's true that softbox lights are more versatile, but at the expense of convenience, as they take longer to set up than a simple collapsible light box.
