I visited the famous Rueifong Night Market in Kaohsiung with my family during the recent trip home. It reminded me how fun the Taiwanese night markets were! When I was a child, my grandmother would take my brother and I to night markets at least once a week. We would play all sorts of games in the markets. The manual pinball game was one of our favorites, and I could see my nephews enjoyed the pinball game as well! They won quite a few toys as prizes.

You can usually find lots of street foods, clothing vendors, interesting items, and games in Taiwanese night markets. Next time, if you have a chance to visit Taiwan, don’t forget to ask people about the local night markets, and experience the Taiwanese-style night life!

My dear friend Terumi made this yummy sweet parfait photo stand by hand using various clays, and acrylic paint. It looks so real! She also has her own blog with tutorials teaching how to make sweets using clays. And, don’t forget to check out her Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/kawaiifriendscafe. It is full of sweet treats!

It was a sunny and beautiful morning. Just when I was thinking that we finished our backyard and we could finally take a break from working on the house during the weekends, I heard a loud noise from outside. I couldn’t make sense of what I saw for about 10 seconds. And, the phrase, “What the F—?", just slid out of my mouth. What just happened? How could the tree branch break off? It wasn’t even windy or stormy.

One of our neighbors gave me the phone number of a tree service company. They were able to come and clean up the mess quickly. Luckily, my car only got a dent and a few scratches, and no one was injured. But, the plants in the front yard weren’t so lucky. They were smashed up pretty bad. I filed a permit application to our city government this morning to remove the tree to prevent similar incident from happening again. As much as we love the shade provided by this tree, it has become hazardous and structurally unsound. Hopefully, we can get the approval from the city as soon as possible.

Originally, we planed to start our front yard landscaping project next year. Looks like it just got pushed up to the top of our to-do list! I can see more working weekends on the way…