Downtown Taipei — Xi Men Ting (西門町)

A couple of blocks from my parents’ place is the biggest shopping area for teenagers, sort of like Japan’s Shinjuku (not sure if I spelled it right).

	Taipei was hot and humid! This morning I took a shower to get rid of the sticky feeling, but it only made it worse. During my afternoon walk, I sweated so much that I thought it was raining. (Now I’m covered by a thick layer of solid sweat.) Amazingly that kids were undeterred by the heat; they were everywhere and it was impossible not to bump into anyone.

The Four Sisters

A rare event for the four sisters gathering together. They met at my mom’s office and then headed over the morgue with lots of food and underworld money for my grandpa. For people who unfamiliar with the Chinese Taoism and Buddhism ritual: You prepare real food for Gods/Goddesses/loved ones in the other world, pray for them with incense, and then ask them if they finish the food with 2 pieces of new moon shaped wood. If they are done, then you burn the underworld money that they can use over there and then eat the food. Sounds bizarre to the Westerners, but when I was a kid, I loved the ritual because that was the only time I got to eat meat.

From the left: my youngest aunt, my mom (the oldest of the four), my 2nd aunt, and my 3rd aunt. They are all unusually tall for Taiwanese women due to my grandpa: 168cm, 165cm, 167cm, and 172cm. They all used to be pretty skiny, but ages and kids could be hard on a woman. I’m only 162cm (5′4″) while my sister is 170cm. *sigh* I have to tell myself that I’m more portable.