GYA16: Getting a Hair Cut

Itinerary: Research milk, haircut, Chinese breakfast, visit aunt.

We started the day in a cranky mood.  Or really, mostly me because I really wanted to just go down my todo list while the kids study by themselves.  But I got mad at Thumper because she was going through the motions, trying to check off work.  The longer I homeschool, the more I agree with Baba.  Elementary years are not about stuffing yourself with knowledge, though that’s a good by product.  It’s learning how to learn.

So when I’ve explained to her why we learn something a particular way and she just wants to finish her work without doing this “something”, that always sets me off.  I know it’s not her fault but rather the way I’ve set up the environment for her.   I was not being very nice.  But during the moment, I was quite ready to just ship her off to school.  She’ll have classmates there and a nicer Mama as a teacher.

A delicious potsticker lunch and little nap improved all of our bad moods.  We then went off  Daan District 大安區.  It’s really far away by public transportation.  Since we live in the mountains, I’m not walking through the neighborhood by the MRT station to discover restaurants and stores.  It’s not actually on the way to anything.  So I keep going back to the neighborhood I am familiar with.

We went to Daan district to get Astroboy’s haircut.  But of course, what trip of ours doesn’t involve first stopping by 7-eleven to buy some snack, taking MRT to Daan, then getting sesame soft serve at Micky D’s (yum!).  By the time we actually went to the same barbershop we went to 3 years ago, it was 4:30pm and there was a 40 minute wait.

We decided to meander to my aunt’s neighborhood instead and check out the park there.  On the way, I saw a neighborhood barbershop and decided to just get Astroboy’s haircut there.  So much better.  It took only 15 minutes rather than the hour plus at the hour place.  Including a wash it only cost us $250.

After our refreshing and quick haircut, we went to check out the local park the kids used to play at.   How quickly they’ve forgotten everything!  The nostalgia is all mine.

Sadly, the playground at the park is being replaced so we had no park to play with.  Then, the local restaurant, Barkers, that we used to go eat spaghetti at was closed, as were most of the restaurants on the street.  So we turned around and walked to 四海豆漿 to have some Chinese breakfast for dinner.

One of the sad things about living in the mountains is I can’t walk out to have a Chinese breakfast every day.  So I’ve been hankering and hankering for it all week.  Finally, 燒餅夾蛋 and some 豆漿 and most importantly, 2 red bean cake (紅豆餅)!

My cousin then called and we visited my aunt.  I stayed with my cousin and aunt the last time we were here.  Astroboy had a good time playing with my cousins baby.  Since the baby was so young, Thumper ran off to read Harry Potter on the Kindle.  She has been reading it every chance she gets.

When my cousin heard about Harry, she lent us book #2 and #3.  Yay!  I’ve been slowly working through Book #2 to replace all the names because I discovered the online version is a non-official translation and they have their own names.  But only book #2 and onward!  Totally confused Thumper and explains why the online version is an easier read.

She saw the small font and thick book and said she didn’t want to read it.  But then changed her mind on the bus when she did read it.  because she prefers the first book’s translation.   I guess if you’re going to go with the online version, don’t use the first book that was re-edited by Haodoo so you won’t have this problem.  Though from the little that I have read, the online translation isn’t super best.  It’s good enough though since ultimately it’s not the English version so as long as she gets the gist, she can read it again in English and appreciate the writing then.

Milk

So I forgot to mention that I spent the morning researching milk.  In case you didn’t know, I’m a fairly granola mama.  Though I’m not usually such a stickler for organic or what not when we travel.  However, there was a food scandal a year ago on 林鳳營 milk, which is used everywhere, including bubble tea.  Then I learned that in Taiwan, milk often have additives in them, like the Dr. Milker brand.  They add oligosaccharide.  One version of oligo is maltodextrin, which we see often in the US.

What’s up with that?!

My brain was spinning after an hour researching because the way they talk about food is different from the way we talk about food.  In summary, I surmised that 義美 (I-Mei) milk is fine.  It’s mass consumer milk.  People buy it because of the trust in the brand.  It has (mostly) escaped from many food scandals.  Costco sells it here and so do many convenience stores.

You can then get into the more “organic” type milk.  They don’t quite do organic milk here.  The Taiwanese seem to think it’s complicated to do organic.  There are a few brands that are close, like 四方, 初鹿, and the brand I went with, 鮮乳坊, because you can order directly from their website!

As I like to tell Fleur, you can get anything delivered in Taipei.  That’s the great thing about a dense city.  I ordered milk to get delivered weekly then paid for it by going to the machine in Family Mart, entering in my order number, printing out a “ticket” and paying for said ticket at the counter.  Super easy.  It worked out to about $5 per bottle, which is $0.16 USD.

My next great plan is to get most of our grocery delivered.  Let’s see how long it takes me to research that!