Hi from Taiwan!

Well, hello from the Far East! Haven't had much time for posting or chance to deal with photo until today, but we're having a slow day today - running low on funds and my stomach's gone potty...=( so we thought we'd save train and food expenses and stay in - near the bathroom!!!!!

So, what is Taiwan like, other than hot and noisy? It's about 33 degrees centigrade here, (something like 90+ in farenheit, I should think), with high humidity and a building work-in-progress somewhere in this neighbourhood. Still, that's just like when I was living here as they were building a government place for training etc next door to my old block!! I went to see it last week.=) On the left is a street in Taichung, where we visited an old friend during the first weekend we were here and on the right in the pool in the centre of the very traditional teahouse she took us to, also in Taichung. It's quite well known and has it's own website: Wu Wei Teahouse, where you can see more.

I'm not sure where this left hand photo was taken, whether it was here in Taipei, down in Kaohsiung, or again in Taichung, but this is actually a food stand, where you can pick what you want from what's on display and it's all freshly cooked up for you. On the right here is one of the displays from the Kaohsiung Museum of History.

This last shot will be of interest to most of you. These are some handcrafts that were on display in the Taichung teahouse. I've since bought a load of oriental fabrics - both patterned and plain to have a go at making something like these to sell on Etsy, as well as trimming things to add to the zips and so on. Yesterday I found a quilting shop in the area we've been staying in here in Taipei and am told that there are some great embroidery shops near my old home area, so I plan to go and look. Not thinking of buying anything as I have more than enough stash for the next 25 years, but I want to know what kinds of work ladies do here. I daresay they haven't r heard of hardanger, ribbonwork or stumpwork, so there may be a market here for some pieces of those if and when we get chane to come back for a while. DH is trying to get some Taiwan etc related work so we can spend some time here as well as us both looking into further language training at the centres out here. Bloomin' expensive thus far!!

Haven't done much stitching, just a few hours on my new birds cross stitch. Will show photos of that next time, (probably when I get home next week), but I had some trouble getting on with it en route as the tapestry needle was broken and so I made a start with the little beading needle they provided (rather thin and delicate, as you can imagine!), which later disappeared and I couldn't find any to buy! I had put some in one of our cases, but instead of putting that one on the Taiwan plane, it ended up in Pakistan instead!!!! Thankfully, I'd divided our stuff into halves for packing so, should a case go astray, we could manage, and we at least got the larger one with the washing things in! So, what with delays in Europe thanks to the snow, (when we got an unexpected day in Amsterdam - thanks to to dh who put in 100 Euros 'just in case'!!!), part of our luggage going astray for 5 days, loads of travelling around and the weather here being cold and rainy for a few days, (it feels cold owing to the very high humidity, even though it's almost 20C/late 60sF), and now a bad tummy, it's been quite a trip so far! Caught up with lots of old friends and been to lots of old haunts.

More next time!