We were in the Taiwan National Palace Museum, looking at a spectacular pair of Qing Dynasty vases. These were an identical set, and each had no less than a hundred deer painted on them, all different ( Read more... )

Well here we are, and Taipei is very foggy and rainy. It's tipped to rain all week, in fact. The lush green hills around the city look like traditional Chinese ink paintings ( Read more... )

Crying babies with amazing lung capacity in-flight are not so good when one is trying to sleep ( Read more... )

Kitchen
Thaw pork neck roast, homemade tomato sugo and kangaroo mince.
Harvest and prep artichokes from scarily happy artichoke triplets in garden.
Prep leeks and harvest lettuce from cheerful doomed plants in garden.
Prep Torbay asparagus and blanch for dinner.
Roast diced elephant garlic and eggplant for tomato sauce. Roast kipfler potatoes.
Cook ( Read more... )

Got to start packing.

I always seesaw between taking too much and too little.

Bah.

Have just bought a pair of pants online, on sale. Been umming and ahhing about it for over a year now, but the moment the price halved, I just had to have them. They look comfy ( Read more... )

Looks like I will be heading off to parts north even sooner than I envisaged (vague plans pointed to 2011 at earliest), thanks to a sudden flurry of family activity.

My brother is heading to this hemisphere. And taking my Father with him on a jaunt to The Other ChinaSo after umming and ahhing, I decided to take up the invitation. Betcha my ( Read more... )