Exotic Garage Sale

I went to a neighborhood garage sale this weekend that was organized by several foreign service families that were moving on to other places and needed to do some unloading. Given that these are people that move from exotic location to exotic location the garages were filled with unusual things from all over the world. I picked up a case of Japanese ramen, a bunch of bottles of Croatian olives stuffed with almonds, some chutney from England, mustard from France, framed textiles from Thailand, and salsa from America! Oh, and for a bit of culture, a DVD of Napolean Dynamite.

Today I went to Jingan Park across the street from Jingan Temple. This is a very commercial area of the city and I sat at a cafe in the park and studied. I paid a few cents to get into an area of the park called "Eight Treasures" which is a Chinese garden with recreations of eight famous relics or sites. All the original objects, a fort, a ancient tree, a well, a cave - all were recreations because all the originals have been destroyed. The well, called Bubbling Spring Well was famous throughout China but like so much else in China, was destroyed during the insanity of the Cultural Revolution between 1967-1976.

While I was waiting to get a haircut today I noticed the man seated next to me was playing games on a PDA - that's not unusual but what he was using as a stylus was. He had grown the nail of his little finger into a long thin "stylus" that he could use on his touch screen.