i went to bed last night at 1am. the bed was comfortable, soft yet firm, and i had a good night's rest. didn't need the blanket, and the slightly opened screen window allowed just enough cool breeze to act like a natural air conditioner. no fever dreams unlike the previous night, maybe because i was less anxious. i woke up at 8am out of habit, but stayed in bed until 9am. i saw on the news that brazilian left-wing president lula won the runoff election against bolsonaro's son. i'm pretty surprised since all the things i read before said lula was in a dire situation.

i did a small load of laundry, mostly clothes i wore during shanghai. i decided to wear shorts the few days i'm here in taipei, saving my pants for china. the front-loading washing machine turned on without a hitch, i added my clothes, poured in some detergent, and let it run for over 1-1/2 hours.

i waited for my clothes to finish washing so i could hang up them outside to dry. i think they'll be dried by wednesday, today isn't as humid and there was a gentle breeze.

i left the house by 10:45am in search of rice noodle for breakfast, or possibly stinky tofu. i went to dongmen market, which was like a maze, but i couldn't find the old rice noodle spot. i did buy a bag of roselle confections for just NTD$100. there was one place with a line selling meat nuggets i was tempted to try, but i prefer squid nuggets and didn't have the patience to wait. i finally gave up. i think a lot of shops are still closed for the holiday, or maybe i came too late, and they only cater to morning customers. i went across the street to yong kang street. despite it being morning, there were still crowds of people outside the various food shops, so no go there. i also learn that it's better to have a plan then just randomly walking around hoping to run into a good place. all my mental maps from 12 years ago are completely useless now.

i was trying to figure out where else i could go when it dawned on me that ximending (XMD) would have places to eat. so i grabbed the red line from dongmen station to CKS memorial, then switched to the green train to get to XMD.

ximending was not how i remembered it 12 years ago. the complete unfamiliarity with this new version made me queasy as i walked around the pedestrian streets. there was supposed to be a large yiansuji store but i couldn't find it, looks like maybe it went out of business. i kept searching until i found a place that sold squid nuggets for NTD$50. just a small bowl but that was enough, plenty of squid nuggets, broth stuffed with bonito flakes, bits of eggs and mushrooms. after that i found a place that sold suanmeitang (actually smoked plum with black tea) for NTD$50. another NTD$50 was spent on a taiwanese sausage. i found an empty bench were i could sit and people watch, enjoy my sausage, drink my tea. just for a little while i could relax. i then felt something hit the top of my head. normally it's condensation from air conditioners, but i checked anyway. when i checked my hand, it was covered in bird poop. i looked up. sure enough there was a tree canopy above me. a bird pooped on my head. this has got to be one of the unluckiest vacations of all times.

i only had some much paper towels. i cleaned up the best i could then took the subway back to the apartment.

it was around 1pm when i got back. i was hoping to go over to my taiwanese aunt's house in the afternoon to take a hot shower and get some pants hemmed. i called her but she didn't answer. i figured i'd try again later. regardless, i'd meet her tonight for dinner with my big cousin and his family and my little uncle and his wife.

my taiwanese aunt still wasn't answering her phone, so around 2:30pm i decided to head out again in search of stinky tofu. both my godmother and aunt wu recommended a place 8 subway stops north of da'an. i got out of the subway station and saw a giant mall with a ferris wheel. however the stinky tofu place was not there, but on a different street. i walked towards that direction. i knew it going the right place because i could already smell the stink. those poor neighbors! there was a crowd of people outside. you take a number, they call your number, you go and make your order, they give you another number to pickup your order. i ordered the large stinky tofu extra hot NTD$110. i waited a good while. one of the managers was so embarrassed by my long wait that she came out to apologize, said they were frying a fresh batch, i said no worries. when my order finally came, it didn't look spicy (because it wasn't). there was a heap of pickled cabbage, but also shredded pickled daikon strips. on top were sprinkles of basil leaves. i tasted one of the fried tofu. not very good, even though it didn't look it, it seemed to be fried too much, to the point where it tasted bitter. i also found out while i was eating that the dinner scheduled for tonight was at 7pm like i thought but rather 5:45pm. i had 2 hours to get back home, grab my things, and go to my taiwanese aunt's place in xingdian.

i arrived in qizhang station in xingdian with 15 minutes to spare. i barely recognized the place. there seemed to be more stores, and in places where i remember used to empty, were now new stores that were already so old that looked old. once again i had that same queasy feeling i did this morning in ximending, like buck rogers getting thrown forward in time, or rip van winkle. i saw a few places selling betel nuts, a taiwanese classic. i don't think any place in taipei proper sells it, it's frowned upon.

the restaurant was practically next to the subway station. but since i had time, i walked to my taiwanese aunt's place, maybe knock on her door, or maybe run into her. i've been here enough times through the years that even though things have changed, i can still locate the apartment. sort of. which floor? which buzzer? which building? that i wasn't sure. i called her again one last time but she didn't pick up. i was about to leave when i heard someone walking down the steps. that's when i saw my taiwanese aunt. she let me inside so i could drop off all the bone health vitamins my mother bought her. the only thing i took were the two bottle of wild turkey whiskey for my little uncle and big cousin. we walked to the restaurant, using a hidden alleyway i'd never noticed before.

my cousin and his family were waiting for us on the main road. the last time i saw my cousin's daughter she was a little girl. now she's a senior in college. my cousin looked chubby, but later i learned he actually lost a bit of bit ever since he went on a weight loss drug 6 months ago. my cousin's wife told me they're going to beijing and harbin end of next month. my little uncle and his wife showed up a bit later at the restaurant.

the place we went to was tokiya, a western-japanese fusion restaurant. bear in mind i just a large serving of tofu with cabbage 2 hours ago. food was the last thing on my mind. yet i was asked to order, pages after pages of selection, each pick felt closer to death.

goes without saying dinner was an ordeal that i was relieved to be finally over. after we finished, everyone went their separate ways. i followed my taiwanese aunt back to her place where she let me take a hot shower. i also asked her if had my taiwanese ID card. she let me search and sure enough i found it. why it was doing at her place we won't know. i also looked at the bank records and found a copy of the chop seal i used (the wooden one, just as i thought). my little uncle actually came up, not sure why, came to talk stock with my taiwanese aunt. after i showered and got ready to leave, he left as well.

my mother phoned me while i was waiting for the train on the subway platform. i couldn't hear her because i took out my hearing aid when i showered and never bothered to turn them off, so they were still synced to the phone. but she was smiling, which told me she had some good news, which could only be about hainan airlines. i video chatted her back the next opportunity i got, when waiting for a connecting train. yes, hainan airlines finally agreed to make the changes to their booking, after she said they were an elderly couple traveling and couldn't sleep for the past 2 weeks worried about the plane ticket.

when i got back to the apartment i washed all the clothes i wore today because they stank of smelly tofu. i did a hand wash in a plastic basin before hanging them up to dry. if they don't dry by wednesday it's okay, i'll just put them inside.

i made plans to meet my taiwanese aunt tomorrow morning to get some rice noodles for breakfast. she told me not to come too early because she sleeps late.

i woke up at 4am this morning to get ready to return to the beijing airport. my flight was 8am but i wanted to get there early so i'd have plenty of time to get my drone back from the customs department. i left the room by 4:30am, taking one last look to make sure i didn't leave anything behind. good bye guoce hotel!

i went downstairs. the main rotunda foyer - which was packed with people on friday and still busy saturday, was completely empty now. they took down the huge conference wall and the place was dark. the check-in counter looked empty, but i saw a woman sleeping in an office chair with a jacket as a blanket. she must have super human hearing because she woke right up to check me out, which was basically returning the hotel key. i asked about the ride to the airport, and more importantly, that hainan airlines would foot the bill. she pointed to the entrance and said someone would take care of it. that someone was another young man whom i didn't see at first. seems like his job is booking transportation for the hotel guests. i told him i was a hainan airlines refugee, he said there were already cars coming to take guests to the airport, but he saw that had two large suitcases, so ordered a car just for me. we chatted a bit, he was very soft-spoken, i could barely hear him with my poor hearing made worse by the cold. i told him i rather get to the airport earlier than later. he told me a story of a foreigner who had an 11am flight and only came down from his hotel room at 10:20am asking for a ride. goes without saying he missed his flight.

the car arrived, a sedan. the trunk was just big enough to fit my two suitcases. the driver took me to the airport in silence. he must not go to the airport regularly, because he went the wrong way and we ended up in a parking garage. i love it when didi drivers assure you that your destination is just a few meters away. i've learned usually when they say that and let you off early, the results will be wrong. there was an elevator which i took to the second floor. when i got out, it just opened up to the roof of an empty parking garage. i had to walk out, turn around, then across a busy airport highway to get to the airport itself. this is the beijing international airport! how could this be a thing?

i went inside and found the check-in desk for hainan airlines. i had a choice of aisle or middle, no window seats. i picked the aisle. i also asked the clerk where i could go to pick up my customs confiscated drone. he said there should be a blue desk that can take care of it for me. while i was leaving, i saw the belgium guys arriving. so even though i left earlier than them, it didn't seem to have made much of a difference in time saved. i found the customs desk, which is the desk you come across before you get to customs. there's usually a few bored individuals sitting behind a counter, but everyone once in a while they have something to do, like with me today. i told them i was here to pick up my confiscated drone. what followed next was more bureaucracy. i was told to fill out a form in duplicates. could i have a pen please? we don't have pens, someone is bringing some up. it took forever for 2 customs officers in overalls to bring the drone. why two? who knows. two to verify with their body camera. i filled out one form but before i could fill out the other, the clerk said i could skip it (took pity on me for my poor chinese handwriting).

i proceded to customs. but i noticed one of the agents was following me. maybe he was seeing me through the customs gate, but he came inside with me. i casually asked him how long he's going to follow me. "until i see you at the boarding gate," he said. also when my carry-on was getting screened, i got some extra screening, with everything taken out of my bags and examined one by one. maybe to teach me a lesson about bringing in a drone. they found no contraband other than a 5mm hex wrench i didn't realize i had in my backpack. they confiscated that. didn't want me to secretly take apart the plane while it was flying. having a customs agent shadow me actually made me feel like a VIP. people must see us and wonder what's going on. when we finally got to the gate, i asked the agent is he was going to stay, but he said no. he told me not to open my bag until i leave china. i said okay, but not sure how they would know if i did or didn't (probably surveillance videos). there are a lot easier ways to bring a drone into beijing. you could just bring it via car, no way they're checking everything vehicle. besides, all of beijing is geo-locked, so a drone can't even get airborne unless you somehow hacked it.

the departure was 8am but they allowed us to board by 7:15am. this was a smaller plane, so there were only 2 seats per sides plus 4 seats in the middle. a chubby taiwanese girl wearing all black sat in the window seat next to me. she seemed a little grouchy, immediately pulled down the shade on the window. when they started serving the in-flight meal, she didn't want anything. this meal was better than the two i had on my boston-to-beijing flight: chinese sausage with hainan habanero hot sauce over fried rice. unfortunately i didn't have much of an appetite, only ate half. everything seems so salty, maybe all the drugs i'm taking is change my tolerance for sodium.

the flight from beijing-to-taipei did not take 3-1/2 hours. it didn't even take 3 hours, just 2 hours and 50 minutes. most passengers were filling in the foreigner checkout lines, but i and a select few native taiwanese could use the quicker taiwanese citizens line. it looked like you could scan your passport and walk right through the gate, but i tried a few times and it didn't work. an agent came to my aid. he said my passport had been used in more than 2 years, so i have to go through a real agent. it was pretty simple, agent took my passport, read my name, then said i could pass through.

i met the belgium guys at the luggage pickup. i was curious why i didn't see them around the hotel, especially during breakfast-lunch-dinner. turns out on that first day they stayed at a hotel they had already booked that was closer to the city center. they said it took an hour to get there, but it allowed them to sightsee beijing much better. they came back to the airport hotel last night (where they still had free rooms booked, just didn't stay) to make it easier to get to the airport. turned out their friend rescheduled the wedding, so they're going to make it after all. it seems people had trouble getting to the wedding during a typhoon, so it was in the best interest of everyone to reschedule. plus they had 3 more days to explore taiwan.

customs didn't even bother screening us after we got our luggage, just waved us through. i said good bye to the belgiums, then followed the navy blue line to catch the city bus that'd take me into taipei. i'd already missed one bus, the next one wasn't until 40 minutes. i could try taking the subway to get taipei - which would be cheaper but more of a hassle - but in the end decided to go the bus route. one ticket was NTD$175, a little over $5. it's really hard shuttling between two countries with different currencies.

i saw a vending machine and decided to try my luck. it would only take currency up to NTD$50, and the smallest amount i had was NTD$100. then i saw an option for alipay. when i tapped my alipay app though, the app told me alipay doesn't work overseas. i was about to give up when i saw it accepts credit cards. so i tapped my visa card and sure enough, it accepted it, allowed me to choose my beverage. the can of heysong soda must've jostled hard enough when it landed that when i went to open it, it started fizzing everywhere.

i decided to do some exploring of the airport. for an international airport it's not really big. i picked up some helpful taipei maps, then managed to walk outside the airport where the city buses picked up passengers. immediately i felt this wall of humidity. yup, this is the taiwan i know. it's great for your skin, but this pervasive humidity is year round. i quickly went back inside to where i originally bought the ticket.

i went to go wait for the 12:40pm bus around 12:30pm. there were already a few people waiting. second time around being outside i was ready for it mentally, so it didn't feel as bad. they put tracking number stickers on my luggage before storing it underneath the bus. there didn't seem to be many passengers, but we stopped at terminal 1 and picked up a few more people, including a korean mother and daughter. i knew they were korean because i saw the mother scrolling through a korean app but they also wore a lot of makeup.

i was nervous about missing my stop so i tracked our route via google maps. fortunately they announce it before we arrive, so plenty of time to ring the buzzer. my stop is only 3 stops after we left the airport. the whole ride took about 45 minutes.

i got dropped off in front of the howard hotel. from there it was a 10 minute walk, hauling two suitcases with tiny suitcase wheels on sometimes bumpy and uneven sidewalks. i ended up going the wrong way before finally getting my bearing and locating my godmother's place. the key was just exactly where the upstairs lady hid it for me.

it was almost 2pm by the time i arrived. i'd been up since 4am this morning, flying from beijing. i was exhausted. all i wanted just to take a hot shower. i stripped out of my stinky sweat-soaked clothes and jumped into the shower. there was no hot water. i did a quick rinse before getting dressed and checking the instant gas hot water system outside. everything seemed fine. when i tried lighting the gas stove, nothing happened. there was simply no gas. i sent aunt wu (the lady upstairs) and my godmother a group text messaging asking about the hot water. aunt wu responded right away, told me to turn the gas main valve to different positions to check if the water was getting hot. i did that, nothing. she said she'd be home around 6pm and she could come check it out.

i also tried the wifi password my godmother gave it. that didn't work either. but it was a simple fix, i tried different cases and managed to find the right password. so that could've easily been another problem.

i felt sticky and gross. all i wanted was a hot shower. a part of me wished i'd stayed in a hotel instead, at least i know what i'm getting. i also couldn't find any bath towels so i used a towel on the rack that looked like the floor towel (it'd been washed at least).

in the meantime i had things to do. i needed to buy an easycard. i could've gotten it at the airport, but it would've been the generic version. i wanted something cool that you can only find at convenience stores. i also needed to eat something.

i walked towards dongmen market. yes taiwan is humid, but once you surrender yourself to the humidity, you hardly notice it. that is until you go into an air conditioned room and go back outside and realize how soupy the air is. day time temperature is 80 degrees, night time temperature 70 degrees. plants love it though. i see various succulents just growing out of gutters, the sort of plants we'd normally cultivate with great care in the states. here, they're just weeds.

at da'an park i got some egg cakes (NTD$25). i noticed the ding tai fung had opened up a much larger restaurant across the street from their own place, which still existed. was this always the case? i can't remember now. that little taiwanese dollar store where i got those good pairs of slippers is still there, i'll have to go back and see if they have anymore. when i got to dongmen market it was almost 4pm, and most places had closed for the day. any food adventures there would have to wait until tomorrow. i then went to yong kang street, which has recently become the mostly popular taiwanese foodie destination. every place had a line. that's because today was a weekend (sunday), but people have the day off tomorrow too (some taiwanese holiday). i just walked around and sightsee, i didn't have the patience to wait in line for food. i started making my way back to the apartment. the only food i got were the egg cakes and a drink from 7-11. i visited every single convenience store, browse through their stacks of subway cards, but none of them caught my attention. i passed by my cousin's architecture company, where i lived the last time i was in taipei. there used to be an underground supermarket that had some very good selection, but in the 12 years i've been gone, it's turned into a cosmetic store.

i was almost back at the apartment when i saw a place i thought was for mi-xian but was actually wontons. i decided to give it a try. i was starving by that point, anything would be good. i must've picked the wrong thing because i wanted wonton soup but ended up getting dry wontons. i ate it anyway, most for for the protein but without any food joy. two stores down was a place called fukdup fried chicken. i just have to give it a try. i picked their 7 wings meal which was NTD$279 ($8.50), maybe a little pricey, but would be much more expensive in the states, especially for freshly battered and deep fried chicken. i thought i was playing to cool, ordering like a local, but the waitress noticed i didn't understand some chinese words and showed me the english menu instead. how embarrassing! i read good chinese! i waited patiently for my order.

walking home, i saw a family mart. all the convenience stores i've visited so far have been 7-11. maybe family mart will have the subway card i want. i looked the stack, nothing really caught my eye, but one of them was sort of okay, and i didn't want to search forever for that perfect card, so i just picked that one. cards normally cost NTD$100, but this one was special so cost NTD$150. i then added NTD$500 onto the card. these cards can be used to ride subways but also used at convenience stores. also rent bicycles. various features. even though i put in NTD$500, i probably used up half because i bought a lot of drinks.

back at the house i dove into the fried chicken. tender, cooked to perfect, with a light spicy breading. because i ate those wontons i didn't have much of an appetite, but still managed to forced feed myself 3 wings. and these were full wings too, the "buffalo" section and the drumstick section.

at 6pm aunt wu came by to check on the hot water heater. she couldn't figure it out either. i'd taken a look at it again earlier. the numbers on the gas meter was moving no matter what i did. definitely the gas has been shut off. but from where? only the gas company would know. aunt wu said maybe because my godmother hasn't been back in taiwan for over 6 months, they shut off the gas for safety reasons, even though she continues to pay her gas utility bill (maintenance cost). i told aunt wu that was going back to china on wednesday, gone for 2 weeks. if the gas can't get fixed with the next few days, there's no rush, since i won't be here anyway. i spoke with my mother earlier on videochat, she suggested i boil some water with the electric kettle, mix it with cold water in a basin bowl, and do a sponge bath.

i was prepared to not go out tonight, but it was still 7:30pm. time is a premium when you're on "vacation" so i decided to try and hit a local night market, see if i could get some stinky tofu.

i went to the liaoning night market, which i'd never been before. it was just two subway stops and a bit of walking. there was a faint drizzle but google weather said it was fading so i didn't bother bringing an umbrella. it took a while to find, but when i finally did see it, it was unmistakable, a street lined with food stalls and restaurants. many of the stalls were closed, maybe because of the long weekend holiday, or closed for the typhoon. i didn't see any place that had stinky tofu and was ready to leave, when the lady owner of a restaurant yelled at me to try her food. "do you have stinky tofu?" i said? "sure we do!" she replied, even though the guy standing next to her said they didn't. i went inside and took a seat, wedged between two round tables of loud mixed gender patrons smoking and drinking and being very typical taiwanese. in small doses okay, but you wouldn't want this everyday. i saw a girl come back with something that looked like stinky tofu that the owner told her to go out and buy. when they finally brought out the stinky tofu, i almost wanted to leave. "this is stinky tofu?" i asked her. "yeah," she said, like i don't know my stinky tofu. it was stinky tofu drizzled with soy paste and some scallions thrown on top. "where the hot sauce? the paocai?" i asked. the owner said coming up. the girl brought out a small dish of soy sauce with a bit of chili paste. when i asked about the paocai, she played dumb. i ate quickly so i leave. yes it was stinky tofu, but the sort of garbage i could get back at home, not the authentic stuff. so i basically got fleeced. NTD$220 ($6.75) plus a apple sidra soda. i'm prepared to leave a very unfavorable review on google. basically if a place doesn't advertise stinky tofu, don't believe they can just make it from scratch. i don't know who fleeces me more - chinese or taiwanese. or an equal amount. this would never happen in japan!

i stopped by a convenience store to buy more drinks using my subway card. that NTD$500 i put in early had already been used up, so i had to pay the difference. when i got to the subway station i topped off the card (i could've also done it at the convenience store, but i was already embarrassed enough). i added NTD$1000 this time.

i got back by 9pm. earlier i saw a mosquito inside the house. my mother warned me about them, back when my parents stayed at my godmother's place. i thought i killed it but unless you see a dead body, assume the mosquito is very much alive. i was sitting on the toilet when i felt something and saw it flying away. i slapped it to smithereens. hopefully that was the only one otherwise it's going to be an awful night of sleep.

i took my mother's suggestion and filled a basin with half cold water and half boiling water. it was surprisingly effective, and conserved a lot of water. maybe hard to wash my hair, but for a basic body rinse, it was pretty refreshing. so yes, if the gas doesn't get turned on before i leave, i can still wash, just have to be creative. but my mother spoke with my taiwanese aunt and she said i can go over to her house tomorrow before dinner and take a hot shower.

this vacation definitely doesn't feel like a vacation. too much work! typhoon delays! drone confiscation! catching a cold! no hot water! at this point i can't wait to go back to authoritarian china. at least staying at chinese hotels i'm guarantee hot showers and clean towels.

i took two doses of nighttime severe cold and flu medication last night. i was feverish underneath the comforter, dreaming about fulfilling bento orders because i accidentally hit a button and now we had 1200 orders. i would wake up to tell myself only a dream, then fall back asleep and enter the nightmare state. despite the night terrors, i had a good sleep overall, going to bed at 9pm and waking up nearly 12 hours later.

i used the bathroom and took a shower. i cleaned up all my luggage in case the cleaning people came while i was gone. i then went downstairs for the morning buffet. this was my third time eating the buffet and the novelty has worn off completely. the smoked duck? too salty, and taste like they injected brine into the meat. i had very little appetite. it's ironic, because i came out with the idea of this would be a foodie vacation, sampling all the different delicious foods of both taiwan and chongqing. and now i don't feel like eating anymore.

i went back upstairs to my hotel room. there was also a free lunch, but if it wasn't like the free dinner i had last night, it was worth skipping. i heard a knock on my door: it was the cleaning lady. i told her i didn't need any cleaning but if she had any bottled water (she gave me 4 and took out the trash). i then went to sleep for 2 more hours, from 11am to 1pm. i don't think it was jetlag, i think i'm just tired from the cold.

today i had a mission: get a chinese phone number. that would save me the hassle of doing that in chongqing. i looked up china unicom offices nearby. the closest one was 2.6km. too far to walk, so i'd be trying out out chinese uber - didi - for the very first time. i walked out an entrance behind that hotel that looked out onto a desolate highway. across the street was a large orange building that looked to be an empty conference hall, or could've one time been a mall. there was another hotel behind me - mercure. i used the didi mini app in my alipay. i picked my location, where i wanted to go, and a list of vehicles, from luxury cars to standard to minivans. i picked the cheapest option. the app showed me where my driver was and how long before he arrived.

the car arrived and i got in. he asked the last four digits of my US phone number to confirm. i told him this was my first time using didi and i was trying to get a chinese phone number. we drove to this little commercial strip out in the middle of nowhere. there was a concrete mounted mixer boom pump parked in the middle of the road. the driver said he could go no further, but the china unicom office be less than 100m away. i got out of the car and walked underneath the legs of the mixer to get to the other side. kind of sketchy, not par for the course in china. i found the office but it was closed, seemed to have been empty for a while. while everything there looked old, nearby was a new convenience store catering in snacks. i went inside to grab some candy and a bowl of instant noodles. the selection was so mind boggling i found it hard to choose. i then went back the way i came, trying to find a good spot to call another didi. i passed by a few food places, but they all seem so dirty and dusty, i didn't want to risk eating there. there was another snack supermarket so i went inside to take a peek. i got a drink.

i found another china unicom office that looked more promising. i hailed a didi. this was a bit farther, in a town called shunyi (i don't know how beijing works, maybe that area is called shunyi and it's still beijing city). the people who worked there were not very helpful, they just assumed you knew how to do things. so i was supposed to pick a phone number and then get a ticket assigned to me. i basically store around there like an idiot before one of the workers couldn't take it anymore and helped me out. she was speaking very slowly, like i was retarded.

there were several agents working with various customers. one man was having a screaming fit with his agent, not sure what that was about, but everyone ignored it. my agent first tried to use my US passport but when she noticed it didn't have a visa, she went back to my taiwanese visitor card (taibaozhen). all the deals were crap, there was no pay-as-you-go plan, everything monthly. not only that, but i forgot in china they start the billing cycle first of the month, so even if there was only just a few days left in the month, you still need to pay full price. there was a monthly plan of RMB99, but i'd have to cancel it before i left china otherwise they will continue to bill me and i'll get bad credit. there was a 4-month RMB200 plan that did have an auto-cancellation, at least that's what the lady told me. in dealing with these agents, i can never be sure if they're telling me the truth or trying to fleece me. i did the math - RMB200 - about $28 - that's a deal i can take. my agent started doing the paperwork, took photos of me with my mouth open, eyes closed, nodding my head. it took forever to get right, maybe because of my beard. when she inserted the new sim card the new china number popped up right away.

there was a lot of stores in shunyi, and worth checking out if i wasn't still a little tired. i went to a post office to get stamps, but they only had very small denominations. i also found an outdoor produce market, that made the trip worthwhile. there was a yoshinoya i thought about getting lunch from, but it looked complicated to order and there were already a lot of people there, so i left.

i walked as far an the intersection that would take me directly back to the hotel before i hailed another didi. the driver arrived, but i accidentally picked the wrong spot to get picked up so i didn't see him. i walked to where he was supposed to be but he was already gone. i was about to hail another didi when i saw him and flagged him down. he actually wrote me english text in the alipay didi mini app, so he knew i was a foreigner. where are you from he asked me? i said america, but originally from taiwan, and we didn't speak anymore after that. while riding in the car, i discovered i picked the wrong destination. so i feverishly tried to change it, and finally got it changed. the price dropped from RMB50 to RMB20. as soon as he dropped me off, two other passengers got on the car, so at least his trip wasn't a total waste.

it was already 4pm when i got back to the hotel. i noticed i lost my hacked VPN wifi access. did the new sim card mess with my settings? my esim stopped working. it took a while before i finally figured it out. the esim has to be selected as the internet option and for data roaming. the china unicom sim is only for calls and texts. i couldn't get my VPN to work anymore but i'll worry about that later.

i decided to take another nap, waking up at 6pm to go have dinner downstairs. i thought about eating the instant noodle instead but i decided to save that for taiwan. i choose the mapotofu - same as yesterday. it was kind of awful, super salty, and i only ate half. before i went upstairs to my hotel room, i asked someone at the front desk if i could book a ride to the airport early tomorrow morning. he said no need, there are always drivers hanging around outside. it'll take his word for it. it's only a 15 minutes ride back to the airport anyway that early (4:45am) in the morning.

i got back to the hotel and figured out how to activate the VPN. the secret is to first get online using the eSIM, since it's unrestricted internet. then open up the pixel built-in VPN, which will connect successful. after that, turn on the hotel wifi, which should connect to the internet without any restrictions. final step is turn off the eSIM so the phone doesn't accidentally use its data.

i bought a small package of beef jerky i realized i have to eat because i can't take it with me to taiwan. i'm trying for a 9pm sleep time, wake up at 4am to get ready to leave.

it was around 4am friday when i arrived at the beijing international airport after a 16 hours flight across what looks to be eurasia instead of over the arctic. i walked across a flight board and saw big read CANCELLED next to the flight for taipei. reason? typhoon champi. not good. there was a special office for taiwanese/HK/macao ticket holders looking to transfer. the clerk said i had to call the airline to reschedule a departure flight. but since i don't have a china phone number, my only other option is to go to the hainan airlines ticket counter and change ticket. the only way to do that is to clear customs as all the ticket counters are outside the security zone.

i passed by the luggage carousel for my hainan flight from boston. when i checked my bags they said it'd be shipped directly to taipei. but what happens when the flight gets cancelled? my question was soon answered when my two suitcases popped up. i grabbed them and started preparing to go through custom. everywhere were signs alerting passengers to declare their drones. just so happens i have a drone in one of my suitcases. i took the customs officer this. but i also told him the reason i needed to go outside was to change my cancelled ticket, and that i'd be back afterwards. they consulted, and said in this case i should put my suitcases back on the carousel. how transfers work is all the suitcases from cargo get dumped out. the unclaimed ones are sort and then rerouted to the connecting flights. in that case i wouldn't have to declare my drone and they wouldn't have to sieze it (drones are illegal in beijing, i think the only city in the world that has that policy).

after putting my luggages back on the carousel, i went outside. this early in the morning the airport was still pretty empty, but i found the hainan airlines desk, with two masked workers inside. i told them my problem. they were able to change the flight without any issues - EXCEPT the next available flight wasn't until sunday. flights to taiwan today and tomorrow were all cancelled. that means i'd have to stay in beijing 2 days. i asked if hainan airlines provided free complimentary hotels in cases like this. the clerk told me that for natural emergencies, they do not. so i'd have to find my own hotel, in a city i had no intention of visiting.

so i looked for alternative flights. hainan and air china might not be flying to taiwan for the next few days, but maybe other airlines were? the only ones i found were a few filipino carriers that first flew south to manila (for a 12+ hours layover) before flying back up north to taipei. it's still take something like 18 hours, but at least i'd get to taiwan tomorrow, leaving today. unfortunately those single trip airfares were expensive - $350-600 - and had multiple luggage restrictions. the easiest bet would be to take the hainan flight, even though it wasn't until sunday.

by that point i activated my esim card and told my parents the bad news. we were trying to figure out a solution, but we all came to the same conclusion that i had no choice but to stay in beijing for 2 days before flying to taiwan on the 25th. the question now is where to stay. does beijing airport have cheap capsule hotels? and there was the question of my luggage still on the carousel. would they transfer it to taipei on sunday or will it just go unclaimed, stuck in beijing indefinitely?

so i sat there exhausted from my long flight, my cough becoming increasingly worse. there was a family mart convenience store and i looked for cough drops. i found a chinese brand and went to pay with alipay, my very first time. i was worried it wouldn't work, but it went through without a problem.

i decided to go back to the hainan airlines ticket counter. they said they changed my ticket, but i didn't get an updated boarding pass. a different clerk was helping me, and this one said she'd check if there was a free hotel, even though the other clerk said no. i was surprised when she said yes, and told me to talk with the woman writing down a bunch of names of mostly foreign passengers heading to taipei stuck in beijing like me. my luck was changing! i spoke with 3 college looking guys, they told me they were belgians going to taipei for a weekend wedding. they'd miss the first day (saturday) but were hoping to catch the sunday reception. afterwards they were spending 3 weeks touring china. it only took them 6 hours to fly from brussels. the flight agent could speak english, but i helped her translate to the foreigners.

there seems to be a lot of paperwork. in all the flight agent corralled about 17 stranded passengers including myself. she was trying to organize a shuttle bus, but the hotel didn't have any at the time, so she had to book a felt of taxis to take the passengers. i helped her direct the foreigners to their cars. afterwards she told me to go and get my suitcases after she called and they told her i can't just leave them inside.

but how i get back inside, pass security? i waited in the special line for taiwan/HK/macao passengers disembarking. it was a long wait - 20 minutes - and my backpack was killing me. when i showed them my boarding pass for beijing to taipei, it got flagged immediately. so hainan already changed the ticket, so when they entered the booking number, it said my flight wasn't ready until sunday, not today friday. so i had to get out of line and find another way to get to my suitcases.

i went back downstairs to customs, where i originally exited. there was a side door for employees, i explained to the guard my situation, she said a flight agent was looking for me, and waved me inside. i found my suitcases and told them i had a drone. what followed was 25 minutes worth of bureaucratic theater. drones are entirely banned in beijing. if you have a drone, you have to declare and they hold it for safe keeping until time for you to leave, in which time they'll return the drone. there was a lot of paperwork, and two additional customs agent came with body camera to co-sign the paper before taking the drone. while that was happening, there was a customs crisis where a chinese man who just returned from mauritania had a suitcase full of raw camel (or was it turtle?) meat. all of it had to be confiscated. he was getting quite incensed, said everyone was bringing in raw meat, why was he flagged. he was lucky they didn't fine him for not declaring.

so with my drone temporarily confiscated, i left customs with my two suitcases. now i just had to find my flight agent. we added each other as wechat friends earlier so we could find each other better, but i couldn't add her, because she had a government account, and i needed to through another level of security before i could add her. i scanned my face and that allowed me to add her. by that point i returned to the hainan ticket counter (for what seems like the millionth time today). they helped me contact the agent before i was able to do it myself through wechat. i waited there for another good 20 minutes. feeling thirsty, i returned to family mart and got a honey jasmine tea, the kind we used to sell at the cafe, but this was just RMB$4.

finally the flight agent showed up. i was the last of her stranded customer. the hotel was sending a car, a great big minivan all for me. i thanked the agent, got in the car, and was ferried to the hotel. i heard it took 20 minutes to get to the hotel, which made me think it was probably close to the city center. it only took that long because of traffic, it was actually very close to the airport, still on the 6th ring circuit. the gouce hotel but more like an exhibition hall. the concierge said something strange when i first got out of the car, said i could keep my luggage in the foyer. why would i do that? i told him need stuff from my suitcases.

i checked in. hainan airlines provides free room and board and transportation. but here's the catch: it has to be two passengers per room. otherwise you have to pay for a single room. which is what i did. i'm too old to share, and rate was something like $30/day, so i took it. i paid with alipay for the third time. how would it do with bigger numbers? it worked, but i saw on the receipt there was a 3% foreign credit card fee.

the hotel wasn't just a hotel but a conference hall. there was some kind of chinese colon cancer expo happening and the place was very busy. i went to go find my hotel room but couldn't find it. a man saw me and said i had to keep on going, actually leaving the hotel which was really just the exhibition hall. the hotels were something like 2 dozen identical buildings that looked to be apartments before they were converted into hotels. 24 hotel buildings! china please! there were also groves of orange trees, which i later discovered with large persimmon trees. are they edible? they looked dusty though.

i finally found my hotel building, 21 floor 4. so that's why the concierge was asking me if i wanted to keep my luggage in the foyer. it's a long ass walk! when i got to my room, it was okay, i was overly impressed, but it looked clean and relatively new, a good place to rest for the next 2 days.

first thing i did was use the bathroom and take a shower. i smelled a little ripe. the shower head featured a wand and a rain shower, i used the wand which was already set high enough for me to stand understand. at first the water rain tepid, but eventually got hot enough to be comfortable. that shower was so soothing!

the whole time i've been updating my parents through line, either audio or video. they were concerned i was coughing, but i had high strength cold medicine i began taking immediately. it was 9:45am, i had enough time to make the buffet breakfast cutoff, so i quickly ran back downstairs.

the buffet was pretty good. i grabbed as much i could and started eating. their smoked duck was amazing. but at exactly 10am the chefs came out and started throwing away the food. what a waste! all that good duck! i briefly video chatted with my parents while i was eating.

lunch would start in another 1-1/2 hours. in the meantime i went back to my hotel room to rest. the hotel has free unlocked wifi but you can only use chinese apps like wechat and amaps. i tried my macbook pro and discovered when i activated a boston area VPN that i had unrestricted internet access. i did a speed test: 6 Mbps download, 40 Mbps upload. while upload is so fast is a mystery. i checked my airalo esim: even though it's unlimited, the esim will restrict to me only 1 Mbps speed if i got over the 3GB data limit per day. i was at 500MB because of the few video calls. otherwise i'd be a lot lower. i couldn't get the VPN to work on my android phone. when i switch to the hotel wifi, my VPN app says there's no wifi access, so it looks like VPN is somehow disabled when connecting with a phone.

i went down to lunch around 12:30pm. it was supposed to be free but my name wasn't on the list. instead of trying to contest it, i just out of pocket (via alipay) RMB$100 for the buffet. i was ready for another magnificent spread, but it was a lot of the same stuff i saw this morning. and there was less food this time, because a lot of the convention goers had already eaten through the buffet. i ate as much as i could, but nowhere did i eat RMB$100 worth of food. it left me a little disgruntled.

after i finished lunch, i went back to the counter to ask if i had free food because i was a stranded hainan airlines passenger. the clerk wasn't sure, but she called the flight agent i was working with earlier this morning, and she said hainan airlines would pay for all my food. the clerk gave me a few meal tickets so i can claim my free food.

there were several vending machines on the ground floor and i tried to use them to buy drinks, but i couldn't get my alipay to work. i gave up and returned to my hotel room.

as much as i appreciate a free hotel room (actually not true because i paid for the single occupancy upgrade), this hotel was situated in a bleak area of beijing, out the 6th ring. there was no restaurants or markets nearby, the close was a mile. it was like a commercial desert besides the hotels.

i ended up staying inside until evening. it struck me as ironic - i paid nearly a $1000 to fly halfway around the world, only to stuck in a beijing hotel room streaming videos with my VPN-hacked wifi. i could be doing all this back in cambridge for free! vacation time is money, and i felt guilty just wasting so much time when i should be out exploring. but i was fighting a cold and needed the rest. resting is okay, but i didn't want to sleep, because they would fuel my jetlag. neverthless i went to sleep at 5pm (under the warm covers), waking up at 6pm (dark outside) for dinner.

i discovered my pixel 9 pro has built-in VPN as part of the operating system. i was able to turn it on using the hotel without giving me an error. lo and behold, unrestricted internet access! all google services, reddit, new sites, the works.

i had my meal ticket this time. instead of the cafe, i went to adjoining small restaurant, that was served by a pair of serving robots that delivered food from the kitchen. i was kind of amazed. how lunch and dinner works is instead of a buffet, you pick an item from a set menu and that's it. i saw the price, i picked mapotofu was which RMB$35. i made sure to drink as much as i could since i have a limited supply of bottled hotel water back in my room and i don't know how to use the vending machines. i saw a few foreign passengers from earlier, but i didn't see the belgian guys, maybe they went into the city. good for them. maybe i'll do that tomorrow, to get a china phone number and check my ICBC bank account.

i returned to my hotel room. it was getting a little brisk at night, i wore my two layer jacket from when i left boston, about the similar amount of chill. once i got back, i prepared to sleep early. i flossed, brushed me teeth, took a hot shower, took my pills. my parents connected me via video to ask how i was doing. i learned earlier that my 2nd aunt has said she'd help my parents at the cafe while i was gone, so i wouldn't have worry about them getting swamped with orders.

i took my night time portion of my cold medication, it's got the good stuff that's like taking a sleeping pill. i'm ready for a deep recuperative sleep, hopefully waking up tomorrow good as new.

content forthcoming (some notes on my phone i need to copy over)

in less than one hour my parents will come to pick me up and take me to the airport.

i bumped into jeff this morning, we said our goodbyes. he's not sure if he'll be back in cambridge. but his wife michelle is in town and they're going up north to do some leaf peeping.

i worked all day at the cafe. once more we tried contacting booking.com about my parents' airfare, once more they couldn't do anything. we ended up buying a phone card and calling hainan airlines in china directly, there US hotline was no good, i stayed on hold for over an hour.

when i came back home i took a quick shower and repacked my suitcases, shifting some heavy items to the medium suitcase, resituating the bourbons to a more central and softer location. i wanted to do more cleaning but alas the house will just be dirty when i get back in a month.

i'm eating a tonkotsu instant ramen for dinner right now.

next time i write i will be in taipei.

woke up this morning and went to whole foods to return some hanging pots (they didn't have drainage holes), harvard vanguard to get some prescriptions for my mother (only one was ready, will have to come back tomorrow), then to market basket to get some cafe essentials (whole milk, bean sprouts), before finally heading to the cafe. it was almost 9:30am by the time i arrived, just in time to open up.

goes without saying that still no word from booking.com. such a simple problem and it's taking them 4 days and still not resolved yet. i supposed i can continue tracking the case progress from taipei, but it's not ideal.

surprise e-mail this morning from claudio, asking me when i was coming to japan. what he didn't realize is i decided to go to chongqing instead, along with taiwan. he filled me in on some details of his life so far. he told me he actually went to taipei a few years ago, said he really enjoyed the foods. is taiwan the ultimate asian foodie destination? i was taught that the reason why taiwanese food is so delicious is after the chinese civil war, a lot of mainlanders fled to taiwan, bringing their unique home cuisine, that was later fused with other cuisines, to become what we now know as taiwanese food. but there are so many great food spots elsewhere in asian. vietnam, thailand, japan, and of course china. one place that i heard that has great food is singapore. it was a potential destination before i finally decided on taiwan-chongqing. maybe next year!

champi continues to pull further away from the taiwanese mainland. looks like i'll be able to arrive in taipei from beijing friday noontime after all.

my father asked me to switch the wiring for the nest thermostat so it's in heating mode. i wasn't able to ignite the pilot because we didn't have any matches.

i took the car and went to home depot to get some caulk to seal the basement door frame. i first a made a stop at my parents' place to get some matches and grab a pair of taiwanese slippers. besides caulk, i also got a 10ft length of 3/8" clear vinyl tubing for the portable heat pump air conditioner.

when i returned to the cafe i realized we didn't have a caulking gun, so i couldn't caulk the door frame. i'll bring one from home tomorrow. i could however ignite the pilot light for the furnace, but needed my father's help to jerryrig a bamboo stick with some paper taped to the end that we'd light and give us enough reach to reach the pilot light. the furnace worked as intended, even though the nest thermostat gave me a wiring error initially.

today was a slow day, we didn't even reach our daily average. i told my mother it was better we get slow days, since we won't regret closing the cafe for nearly a month for the whole family to go on separate vacations.

the day ended pretty quickly. i was dreading returning home because i still needed to pack. after a shower, i ate a leftover bento for dinner. then it was packing time. one jumbo ziploc bag for socks. one for underwear (enough for 3 weeks). one for t-shirts (enough for 2 weeks). two for pants (5 pairs, not counting the 2 pairs of jeans i'm getting hemmed in taiwan). one for shorts (3 pairs). i also selected the outfit i'm going to wear to the airport tomorrow night. all the packages of clothes acted like cushions to protect the rest of the items, which were various gifts for relatives and friends. the only thing i'm worried about are the two bottles of bourbon. i really hope they don't throw my suitcase. i may need to revisit how i'm packing the bottles. before i knew it, i was done packing. a lot of little things like electronics and drugs and anything with a battery i threw into my backpack. i also have a second bag which contains some camera equipment. the final step was sticking a bunch of food stickers all over the suitcases, help with identifying them. i might go with a different approach because the stickers seem like they might fall off. it was close to midnight before i finally finished packing. i didn't think the largest suitcase was that heavy but when i used my suitcase scale it registered nearly 50 lbs which is the weight limit.

tonight is the last night i'll be sleeping in my bed for the next month. i suddenly got an anxious feeling, which is how i normally feel before any big trip. what's left to do tomorrow? pack up a few more items like chargers and cables. maybe clean up the house a bit. then wait for my father to pick me up to go to the airport.

i showed up at my parents' place by 10am for a needham-waltham supply run. first stop was the needham restaurant depot. we didn't need anything from their freezer department. instead, it was takeout boxes and drinks. they also had cases of medium pho noodles that we use for pad thai. they're all sold out in chinatown, so this was a rare find. they also just recently started selling boba ingredients, the stuff we get from foodpak. they only had a few flavors but the prices were much cheaper than foodpak, another bargain find. the regional manager matt (who lives in rhode island) introduced himself to us and said a week ago they had a sale on the boba products so they were even cheaper. the checkout lines were long but they went quick, unlike at the everett restaurant depot which takes forever.

originally we were going to go to the waltham market basket next, but we didn't really need anything from there, so we opted to go to our third destination instead - the waltham costco. i bought 3 boxes of ferrero rocher hazelnut chocolate balls as gifts for people in china (though there's a good chance i might keep a box for myself). we didn't get any eggs - we still have enough for the week - and if my parents need eggs they'll just get them from the supermarket.

returning to cambridge, we stopped by the fresh pond trader joe's to get a few supplies before we arrived at the cafe to unload.

we returned to belmont around 1pm. first thing i did was to call booking.com and ask if there were any updates regarding my parents' airfare. it's such a critical problem, i can't stop thinking about it. to make matters worse, i'm leaving wednesday night, and i don't know if it can be resolved by then. the agent i got today was another vietnamese man. he basically just told me the same thing the previous other agents all said, that we just needed to wait for the airline to authorize the itinerary change and then booking.com can make the changes. this agent said something else today: we may have to wait 2-3 more days. why is it taking so long? the only silver lining is hainan airlines seems to have already penciled in their itinerary change for my parents, including the seat numbers, which i don't know if it's true or not. seems like they've reserved to spots for them, and all they need is our authorization (or our refusal for a full refund but cancelling the whole ticket). i just feel like i can breathe until this gets fixed.

my parents pan-fried some costco frozen dumplings as well as some lamb dumplings my sister made saturday night. they tasted pretty good but i had no appetite as i was still thinking about the ticket situation and all the things i needed to do from now until i leave.

my father and i went outside to empty the rain barrels. we can't take the risk that there won't be any freezing while we're gone. we don't need to water anything anyway, most of our garden plants have succumbed to the frost. we also put away some of the garden hoses. doing it now is better than waiting weeks from now, when the hoses are stiff and frozen and can't be easily coiled.

the latest tracking for typhoon champi is it's pulling out to sea and moving north towards japan instead of making a direct hit to taiwan. the typhoon is also diminished, moving from a category 2 friday to category 1 saturday to just a tropical storm by sunday. it's going to be a rainy day when i arrive but nothing destructive. as far as taiwanese are concerned, this is a pretty week typhoon.

in the late afternoon i took the drone out for a spin. i wanted to test if it could pair with my new pixel 9 pro (no problems). i wanted to see our new fresh front lawn from the air (hard to imagine it was just a lawn of dead dried grass just a few months ago). i also wanted to check out the ongoing construction on the property near the fresh pond golf course.

after dinner my sister showed up with esmei. i thought i heard something before my mother shrieked when she saw esmei. she was wearing a glowing neon purple collar that made it easier to see her when i let her out into the backyard.

i went home to pack but i spent most of the evening cleaning up the clutter in the living room and backing up my computer files, whether it's copying over documents to the new macbook pro, or backing up my photos. i've also been trying out various word press themes, wanted to have a special travel blog, but i don't think that's realistic at this point. basically i was doing everything but packing.

fingers crossed that booking.com finally get in touch with us tomorrow. keeps me from having to worry about it while i leave for vacation wednesday.

(special note: this posting was typed on my new macbook pro. i spent some time tweaking the preferences to more closely match the settings on my old macbook pro).

i woke up at 8am this morning, to go see the head of the charles. it was 59 degrees inside the house. i decided to turn on the heat. i needed to turn it on anyway, to prevent the pipes from freezing and bursting while i'm gone, now is a good a time as any.

i left the house around 9am. it was 37 degrees outside. i wore a pair of thermal underwear for the first time this season, as well as gloves. i also brought some hot cinnamon tea to keep me warm. with all the construction around the charles river, memorial drive has been reduced to half its normal size. all the great viewing spots along the charles river were cordoned off. i went to the spot i discovered last year, almost to the finish line. there's a clearing and some large boulders to stand on. i parked my bike besides me, u-lock the back wheel to the frame.

despite the cold temperature, standing in the full sun actually felt very warm. the fact that i biked here also had something to do with it. i ended up taking off my jacket, was warm enough in just my generic grey fleece sweatshirt.

i got there right when the youth girls eights were arriving. the sun's glare reflected off the water was right in my eyes, i should've brought sunglasses. even though i was close enough to the action, i wish i had an even longer zoom than 250mm. i brought my new 18-125mm EF-S lens as well but didn't use it. photography is like exercise, and i came here to work out the kinks in my technique. after the eights came the girls youth doubles. i saw a little bit of that before finally leaving around 10am.

my mother called me this morning, said booking.com nor hainan airlines have contacted them yet about the proposed itinerary change. so i hurried home and called booking.com. i spoke with another indian agent, with not only had a thick difficult to understand accent, but he was also speaking very fast. i understood 70% of what he said. he told me there was no progress with change but would elevate the case. sounds good but what exactly does that mean? and asked for more time. i called my mother to relay her the message. she wanted to know if we accepted hainan airlines refund offer, would we be reimbursed for the whole itinerary or partial? so i called booking.com. once more i got an agent with a thick accent. at first i thought it was indian, but the more i listened, the more i could hear an asian accent. chinese? if that was the case, maybe i could play the asian card. anyway, he told me that a ticket refund would cancel the entire ticket for a full refund, no partial refunds. he saw the notes on my case and said he'd personally take charge of it, escalating it most urgent status. i thanked him but once again felt like they said the right thing but didn't actually do anything. he sent me a transcript of what we talked about, and i saw his name at the bottom, something vietnamese, but with an english name of augustine.

it was getting close to noontime and i headed over to my parents' place. i didn't have to stop by the cafe, they put away everything before they left last night.

my mother was in the backyard picking the last few small bitter melons and beans. the cold night that killed all the ground grown luffas, and some of the beans as well. swiss chards seemed fine, likewise the bokchoi and the cilantro. those plants are cold hardy.

i went back inside where my parents made a sweet rice porridge with kabocha squash, some turkish sausages (sujuk), fried eggs, and bacon strips.

i continue to keep track of typhoon champi. new york times has the best forecast map. it shows the typhoon slowing before it reaches taiwan, the epicenter still offshore by the time i'm scheduled to arrive in taipei from beijing. will that flight get delayed? cancelled? i wouldn't mind spending a day in beijing, provided the airline gets me to taipei eventually.

my father and i installed the 3/8" vinyl tubing for the heat pump water heater condensate pump. we only did it because my father needed a length of tubing for his portable heat pump air conditioner, and the only way we could tell if we had any left over is to install the tubing. we attached it to the cold water line affixed to the ceiling of the basement. when we finally installed it, we discovered we didn't have anymore tubing left.

my sister came home briefly with esmei. i let esmei out in the backyard. there were rabbits, but they were too quick for esmei, even though i tried calling her over to chase the rabbits away. later esmei went to go hide underneath the bed before my sister took her home.

there was a jets-patriots game today. even though new england won 19-26, nobody seemed to be happy during the press conference. patriots played a sloppy game and was lucky to get the win. had it been any other team besides the jets, this would've been a loss.

jeff contacted me asking if i had a tire pump. he wanted to pump up the tires of his bike and wheel it down to harvard square with a free sign. he asked if i wanted it, after he already gave me his wife's old bike. i said sure. too bad it's a little too tall for me, but it's a great bike, with disc brakes and a monkeylectric wheel light. i could probably easily sell it for a few hundred bucks and take the money to but a smaller bike with disc brakes. i just need to find some room in the basement to keep the bike.

for dinner my mother made noodle soup with a smoked ham broth she'd been slow simmering all afternoon.

my heat kicked in once i got home even though i put it in eco mode. once i'm gone i need to make sure it stays in eco mode and doesn't turn up the heat when nobody's here.

with just 3 days left before i leave, i figured now would be a good time to start thinking about packing. i started to amass on the couch all the things i needed to bring. i did two loads of laundry, including washing all the bedsheets. i started cleaning up the coffee table and the kitchen, put away things, throw other things out. i felt a little restless with my parents' itinerary situation still in limbo. there are also two outstanding amazon orders i need to resolve before i leave. there's just still a lot of things i need to do, i don't have enough time to do them all.

any errands i wanted to do this saturday morning went out the door when my mother called me and said hainan airlines cancelled a portion of their flight. it was the beijing to boston segment, which hainan mysteriously decided to scrap (my theory: to save on fuel).

booking.com website gave them two options: hainan gave them an alternative itinerary, which involves flying from taipei to beijing on november 15th, staying in beijing for 3 days, before flying to boston on the 18th. the other option was a refund. i was afraid to click on the refund, not knowing if it'd cancel the entire flight or just the cancelled portion. so i was on the phone with booking.com the whole morning. "on the phone" is kind of a polite way of saying i was speaking with an AI agent. it couldn't solve my problem, said they only do accommodation services or some other nonsense.

i then used the online chat, when seemed to be with a human agent. it took a long time, i got the sense she was taking care of other customers at the same time, before she finally told me she couldn't solve my problem and to contact the booking.com help services. but i thought this was the help services?

so i searched booking.com website before i found something. it was another online chat. while i was waiting, i found an actual number i could call (917-421-7240), so i did that instead. an indian customer service agent answered. it was kind of hard to understand him through his thick accent, but i kept at it, especially if he could solve my problem. i told him this: delay wasn't a big deal, but could they move the taipei to beijing flight to november 18th instead? this way my parents could stay an extra 3 days in taiwan instead of 3 days in beijing, not knowing if hainan airlines will even book them a hotel for those 3 days. my agent understood what i was proposing, and said he sent the request to hainan airlines for the proposed alternative itinerary. he told me sometimes it'd take as long as 24 hours so to be patient.

i told my mother the partial good news. we weren't out of the woods yet, but we were on the right track at least. nothing we can do but wait. them extending their vacation means we're only opened for 6 days in november.

---

a typical saturday, we made the daily average only because my mother sold two knitwear. it was going to a long day for my parents, because my sister was holding a dinner event after we closed, and would end up ensuring both my parents, my 2nd aunt, and her godmother to help her. things that she should've done days ago my sister was only doing them now, with just hours before guests were due to arrive at 6pm. i wasn't going to help and planned on leaving right when we closed.

my 2nd aunt went to the bakery next door and got some pastries. she also got a prosciutto arugula sandwich on focaccia bread ($12) that was pretty good. the passion vine flower buds i soaked in water a few days ago, one of them bloomed today.

when i got back home i put away the garden hoses before turning off the outdoor spigot. i then raked and swept the backyard path and front sidewalk, made the house bit tidier for when my upstairs neighbor return next month.

jeff left some hard cider on the backyard deck. over text i told him i was leaving for a month long vacation next wednesday. he told me he's still job hunting but taking it easy until next year in preparation for the holidays. he might even form a new company with some former coworkers.

for dinner i baked two salmon burgers in the oven. i had them with a pair of leftover buns, some leftover lettuce and onions, and some homemade tartar sauce. i ate while watching some taiwan night market food videos.

it was almost 9pm when my mother called me. they were finally finished with the cafe dinner. my sister spent so much, i don't think they recouped much profit. my mother said booking.com still haven't contacted them yet (i know this because i've also been repeatedly checking).

i wasn't planning on packing until monday night. but on a whim i decided to do some fast packing, throwing everything into my suitcase-with-a-suitcase, figure out how much everything weighed. i quickly realized weight wasn't the problem, but instead it was the volume space. suitcase-in-suitcase i didn't have enough space to put in my clothes which i haven't packed yet. so it looks like i have no choice but to bring two suitcases instead of packing one inside the other.

i saw this yesterday and continued to follow the news today. there's actually a super typhoon (champi) in the pacific, making a direct hit on taiwan the day i'm supposed to arrive (friday). the first hint that something was wrong when i checked the extended weather and saw it was rainy in taipei thursday and friday. then someone on reddit mentioned a typhoon. i did a check, and sure enough, out by guam was a category 3/4 typhoon. it seems like every time i go to taiwan i run into a typhoon. the worst that could happen is i stay in beijing overnight if my flight is delayed or cancelled. luckily i'm traveling solo so it should be easy to get a connecting flight. so it's not just my parents with some flight drama.