woke up early to take my two aunts to the museum of fine arts, neither of them having been there before (and for one of aunts, this was her first time being in the united states, here in boston visiting from taipei). we started off in the asian arts, figured it'd be a good starting point, let them see something they're familiar with. we saw the japanese netsuke displays, one of my favorites (have they expanded? i don't remember they had so many before). the only museum they've ever gone to is the national palace museum in taipei, which in itself houses the world's largest collection of priceless chinese artifacts, but the thing is, it only represents chinese culture. something like the mfa, it's a sampler, you get to see it all.

towards the end of the asian art tour, i got a call on my cellphone from my cousin in taipei (erichow), he wanted to speak with his mother. it was surreal, thousands of miles away, receiving a phone call in the strangest of places. ain't technology a kick in the head? from there we wandered into the egyptian galleries (to see the mummies! i also explained how egyptians used a pictographic form of writing as well, just like chinese writing), followed by roman/greek statuaries. then it was off to the paintings, starting with european (classical, romantic, impressionism, they were most impressed with the one "paintings within a painting"), ending with american (i told them the funny anecdote about george washington and the horse's ass).

astrolabe	"paintings within a painting"	gros general bonaparte visiting... jaffa 1804	couture a widow 1840
munch summer night's dream (the voice) 1893	renoir dance at bougival 1883	george washington	copley paul revere 1768

the construction workers were going to get out of their regular job early today (4pm), so my father and i headed down to the house to see last night's progress and to be there when they arrived.

alex and jack huang came to visit as well, guest number 12 and 13. they were impressed by how high the ceilings were (they're the tallest people i know, if it passes their rigorous standard of height excellence, then i'm clear) and liked the bbq potential in the backyard. as for last night's work, all that was done was the ceiling in the living room. when the two brothers left, my father and i went down to the star market across the street for the very first time (fondly nicknamed "the ghetto star" by some of the people i know). my expectations were sort of low, but it turned out to be a very well stocked star market, had everything i'd ever need from a supermarket. i got a bottle of tide detergent (mountain fresh scent with color bleach alternative), a box of fabric softener, and a 24 case of pepsi. minutes after we got back to the house, the crew arrived. zuka gave me the receipts for the supplies and calculated out the number of hours they worked during the week (13 hours). the final cost of labor plus material however was much lower than my original estimate. these guys are definitely cheap! i'm definitely getting a bargain, other contractors would've charged so much more for labor, these guys do the same kind of job just as well, yet they cost so much less. i wonder if it's all that free cans of coke and pepsi? who knows, but i really lucked out with these guys. zuka went over what else he needed to do, how he wanted to put a strip of molding around the ceiling's edge in the living to give it that extra level of detail, and he asked about what kind of door i wanted for the coat closet. i figure maybe 3 more days of work before everything's done (other than the floors, the windows, and painting).

later my father and i took my aunts to the mt.auburn cemetery. we wanted to get a view of boston from the tower but it closes at 5pm, so we just took some photos up on the hill, overlooking the city.