things i think about while powerwashing 162

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Happy snow day New Yorkers! If you haven’t heard there’s allegedly going to be a massive blizzard rolling through the NYC area on Sunday and Monday. And I say allegedly because I’m not there to witness it. Because my flight back to New York got cancelled!

Due to an inauspicious combo of using the Chase travel portal, this blizzard, booking on an Asia-based airline and because it’s Chinese New Year no one is working, my arrival back in New York was delayed by three days. But it’s fine! I will be home!

Honestly the only thing I’m really worried about is not being able to get any work done but I was able to get access to work notion and slack on my ipad, so I guess these next three or four days are going to be the ultimate test of what I can do on this guy!

But regardless, three more days of Taiwan! My grandpa is ecstatic. Speaking of Taiwan I’ve been having a pretty good time cafe hopping and just doing stuff! I went on two bike rides — one up to Maokong and another along the river. The Maokong ride was pretty crazy — it was just straight elevation gain for half the ride for like 10 miles. When I reached the peak at the cherry blossoms, I honestly thought that I was going to pass away like I was in an anime or something. The petals falling down as I dramatically fall to the ground, bouncing off the concrete like a dead fish.

Thankfully that did not happen and the way down was MUCH easier than going up.

My bike ride along the river was much better. There’s a bike path that runs along the Tamsui River from near where my dad lives all the way to the ocean basically, but I only biked halfway out. As someone who is used to biking in New York and sharing space with runners and other bikers on the West Side Highway I am in love with the Taipei bikeway system. There are zero intersections with cars so all you need to worry about are pedestrians in front of you and kids who are not very good at biking.

I also got to try out the Citibikes here in Taipei (called YouBike) and I think they’re much lighter than the CitiBikes in New York, making it easier to bike up any slopes. They also have eBike versions like in NYC which also help but I haven’t ridden one of those in a few years.

So that’s kind of what I’ve been up to this week! Hopefully the next time I write a newsletter I’ll be doing it from the East Coast. I miss Simba!!!!

museum of the week

Growing up in the South Bay Area I think everyone has maybe at least HEARD of the Rosicrucian Egyptian museum? If you’re ever in the San Jose area near the Rose Garden you HAVE to stop by — you can’t miss it, it’s the Egyptian temple in the suburban neighborhood. And that is what esteemed subscriber Connie Liou and I did!

Walking in you immediately get thrown to some type of childhood nostalgia which also happens to be the main driver behind this post. I remember coming sometime in elementary school — and seeing this mummy guy. One thing I do not remember though is this whole exhibit on alchemy!

To be honest, this part of the gallery wasn‘t that good. To start off it felt fairly empty, but it also list words like fermentation and dissolution without really saying what objective was trying to be achieved or how these steps were done.

The highlight of the museum for me was definitely the model of the pyramid. I liked the small details of the humans that helped me truly realize the scale of the pyramids. I’m not sure at which stage of the Pyramid or temple this model captures but I’m kind of surprised there’s not a pointy thing at the top.

But for some reason, I didn’t get the same chill I got when walking into the Bone Museum. When I looked at the mummies there was no ominous feeling that accompanied it, like there was when the skeletons in the Bone Museum were looking at me even when I looked at this baboon mummy.

That is because this guy is a FAKE. Apparently there were so many fakes at some point that a priest had to lead a religous revolt “one sarcophagus, one animal.” Apparently part of the Egyptian tradition was to include a whole animal in sarcophaguses. And apparently this was too expensive for some egyptians so they would just put a fake on in there. Based, I say!

anonymous subscriber news

What did everyone do for their lunar new year celebrations! Wow is this going to start a war about whether it should be called lunar or chinese new year? Lol!

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• anon sends a hug: Please hug sim sim
• anon celebrates: I hosted my first dinner party/Lunar New Year party!

animal of the week

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Esteemed subscriber Carolyn Xu returns with an adorable puppy in a ceramics store. They’re no bull in a China shop!

Puppy in a ceramics store

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