The exponential rate of days...

When there's a date in your diary everything seems to move towards it at an exponential rate. For a while it's ages away, then it's quite soon, then suddenly it's 3 days away etc.

Topher goes home on Wednesday and I will be following shortly thereafter. Vacation called off early due to torrential thunderstorms. Beach plans drenched before they were formed. The benefit is that we've had time to pack (always something to be squeezed in at the last minute, such as, er, the act of packing itself), and to shop around a bit for completely non-essential items.

One of these items is vintage photographs from the most wonderful antiques/used books/coffee & tea shop in Taipei. It lives in the lane just behind Longshan Temple (龍山寺). It's the kind of thing that travellers go to the continent in search of - a shop with character, piled from floor to ceiling with dusty treasures and surprises for the unsuspecting. Stairs up to the top floor carries a warning for patrons to step lightly, as the building is in slight danger of crumbling from the weight of its antiquated wares. Right now the entire upper floor is closed, having finally reached its storage capacity.

Asides from picking up a few old porcelain bowls with hand painted geometric designs in blue and white, I couldn't pass up on these vintage photographs, even though buying them (and looking at them) has been a rather curious experience. They seem rather personal, especially the one of the little girl holding the baby (she's thinking: "don't drop the baby don't drop the baby don't drop the baby").

Here's a picture of me standing outside the shop.

p.s. if anyone on the blogger development team is reading this: can you make a better WYSIWYG editor for posting? It's extremely difficult to put pictures in, not being able to change the size or the alignment without going into the edit html mode. Would just be so much easier if it was built into the regular composition side... thanks!