Solar Tree Time: Taichung Day 6

Today I headed out after breakfast to have a look at Watsons and see if I could find any white eye-liner and black eye shadow.

I spent ages looking around and trying the palette shades, and when I finally found something that would work and was cheap, there was no stock. GG.

No white eye-liner though. But they did sell contact lenses solution in single cartridges which would be great for travelling.

I then went to Cosmed just around the corner and they had white eye-liner! Score!! So there's a brand called "I'm meme". Lol.

Then I went back to Watsons to buy a compressed powder that was so smooth, and seemed like it would be good for oily skin. I bought two shades for a friend.

Then off back home as 二叔 said he bought lunch. All the students were out now and it was drizzling lightly.

Pork buns and soup for lunch. Soup had 豬血, fish balls and intestines. After lunch I made a submission to 在見到你 Juan chun archive project, to add dad's village in.

Then it was almost 2pm, time for 見素 shop to open. For some reason 二叔 said he will drop me off and wait?! But I said I will take a long time... he was adamant he'll be OK. On the way we stopped at 四叔's store and sat for a bit and had some tea. Managed to see everyone at the store and said hi to Zhili 叔叔, 四嬸, and 五叔. Today 四叔's big beetle on the couch was moving heaps! Doing laps around the container but he kept flipping over on himself. 四叔 said he is old now and found a buyer who will make a sample out of him. He lost a leg though, and 四叔 told the buyer but the buyer was OK with it, just find the broken leg and send it with the bug. Think Mr beetle is due to be sent in like 2 days.

Then just after 3pm it was time to head to the store. It's kinda tucked away but we managed to find it.

Wow! They have a row of puppets! Some of them were the same character. They also had some merch, I found one LinXueYa powerbank lol. 二叔 also came into the store to look and I was taking my sweet time like staring at all the details on the costumes. Sooo coool~~~~ Then I looked at the merch and bought 3 postcards to send to friends ($100 each, there is like character tax on one of them for like $300-400 online but Boss is just selling them all at the same price). I also got a pack of playing cards at $240. And then a photo book at $450. Boss gave me some tokutens - a Thunderbolt Fantasy postcard featuring LinXueYa and ShangBuHuan. 😭 It's beautiful thank you... and some other Pili characters. He said that every month the company gives out tokutens if you spend over $1000. He also said that there are some rights issues at the moment with international viewing and that they are still discussing it - I'm looking at you Crunchyroll. You dicks.

二叔 already went to the car and I took about an hour - as I expected lol. He then dropped me off at 奶奶's house. Today is 1st on the lunar calendar, so an offering would be made. I arrived and reported to 爺爺 and ancestors, and 奶奶's altar. 五嬸 arrived a few mins after and prepared the food - put the bentou onto a plate and offered it onto the altar. We then put incense on, and then 小智, 五嬸 and I each put on 1 incense each for 奶奶 (so 3 total). I also helped put some paper money into the yuanbaos and that was also offered onto the altar.

Then we decided what to do for dinner - was going to McDonald's but then I asked if Mos was on delivery. They are! 五嬸 has a look and they were on Food Panda. So we got Mos Burger. Delivery was gonna take about an hour, so 五嬸 went to airfry some chips, nuggets, and basil pancake. She took out the airfryer from the box and said that she hasn't sorted out a home for the airfryer yet so it lives in the box for now, as they only really use it on weekends. When 五嬸 was cooking Mai'ya came and did a poop lol. At least this time it was before we ate and not during eating haha.

About halfway down the incense (I was eating the basil pancakes), 五嬸 and 五叔 went to ask 奶奶 if it was OK to burn the paper money yet. They threw the coins but seems like it was a no as they threw it a few times. Maybe 奶奶 hasn't finished eating yet. So we'll wait a bit. I finished my pancake and not long after they tried asking 奶奶 again. Hu'nio wanted to go out on the balcony so she was let out. And then after 奶奶 agreed on the coins, Hu'nio came back in so I closed the screen door. Down we go to burn the paper.

We took the burner, a metal stick for poking, and the paper money and yuanbao in a little bag. 五叔 set it up outside and started the fire. I wasn't so good at folding the paper so it has air when burning. 五嬸 was really good at it. The delivery also came just after we started burning. It didn't take too long to burn. 五叔 tried to help me near the end as the fire was running out of fuel, but I said "please don't take away my joy lol" since I don't get much chance to burn money at all. He then gave back half the stack he took. x'D

After that, we watched until the fire went out, then close the lid on the burner for it to cool, and we went upstairs to have dinner. I got a rice bun with pork. Mos' fries were like thick cut in a V shape. The flavouring is nice. They had heaps of McD's ketchup in the fridge and it was made in Korea. I noticed that it wasn't as tart as the one in NZ. 五嬸 is they make it too sour people will complain. ?!?! Sad.

Helped eat some nuggies and airfried fries. And then I asked 五嬸 about how long it takes for the Good Manner masks Yahoo! Shopping listing I found to get delivery if it says 15 days. Is it business days or calendar days? Turns out it's business days so it might not get here in time after all. Then 五嬸 started looking on Shoppee and then Kupang!, a Korean wares shopping site. She tried so hard to try and find me the masks that were local stock. Awww thanks. I had some sourplum drink they bought. It was quite nice. Strong umeboshi taste, but not overly strong. Then I realised it was 7:20pm and I needed to go if I was to go to Animate before it closes. Woops. Better get my ass together.

I asked 小智 if he wanted to go, he grabbed his stuff and then realised that he's on rubbish duty tonight so no lol. Aww. I told 奶奶 and 爺爺 I'll be off and back next time I have a chance.

Let's goooo - I managed to get there 20 mins before closing. I found they had some special stamps for a series on promo. Omnipotent something. Then I went upstairs and had a look. I didn't see any Golden Kamuy stuff. Haikyuu!, Blue Lock, Jujutsu Kaisen, Tokyo Revengers, the usual josei mukei idol series, big ass section for Nijisanji and Hololive. Didn't see anything I want and went out a few mins before closing. Then checked, JB was open until 9pm. Alright, they're not far too. Walked there and had a browse. Managed to find a Frieren puzzle which will work for a xmas present! They had books at the very bottom level which are open to anyone to sketch/draw/write in it. Each book was for a specific series or fandom. They also had doujin made merch in gashapon. I tried to have a look for 1/2 Prince but didn't see it. It was about 8:30pm when I finished and tried to see if I could go to the 3-ren-sei. They're about a 15min walk and it would be too short a time before they had to close. Awww. But seems like there's another store just around the corner, so let's check them out! Store is called Ruri - like Lapis Lazuli. They had more blind box and small figs, and a lot of Ichibankuji. Some of the blind boxes were Chinese license. They had 2F and some of the merch were left over Ichibankuji prizes. I did find a mofusand magnet that would work as a small gift for a friend so I got that.

Time to go home, it was almost 9pm. The next 35 bus comes in 9 mins, so walk to the Central Park bus station. It'll take at least 30 mins to get home. Changed my mask to Zimi. It's a little sticky but not bad. Can still breathe easily. Passed by an old timey stationary store that still have a lot of child toys and fund things outside. OH MAN!!! They still make the exact same Totoro money back!!! WHAT A SURPRISE!! I had one of those when I was a kid.

Bus wasn't too crowed when I got on but at the next stop and subsequent 3 stops it pretty much filled up. When I got off and walked home, there was a big Garfield mascot dancing at the intersection to the entrance of Fengjia Nightmarket. Cute. Otsukare mascot suit worker.