blisters, beads and macro

We got out on the water today! For some reason Rudder and I both agree that rowing here feels much more difficult than anywhere else. I attribute it to the climate – thought it wasn’t hot today it was warm and still humid – while he’s still theorizing. This is what happens when you haven’t rowed for that long:

That was taken with the macro lens I bought last week. While I was experimenting I decided to try taking pictures of some beads that are normally difficult to photograph; here are two pictures of labradorite beads and one of some sculls and other glass beads with different finishes.

and here are a few pictures we took last weekend. The day after we bought the lens we went to the Taiwan Traditional Arts Center in search of a tea tray; Rudder particularly wanted a stone one. We found one – it has a vent to drain to a tray below or through a tube to the bucket because the ceremony can involve spilling a lot of water. While we were there we bought the tea set to use with it, because we really needed more tea cups to add to the ones from my grandmother, the ones from Rudder’s great-grandmother, the ones from our good china, the ones from his grandparents’ extra china set that they gave us, and the set we bought in Seoul. (And yet, we still need a Yixing clay teapot, in case we should want to brew Oolong properly. Anyway, here is the tea stone and the little teapot, and as lagniappe a picture of the tulip vase we bought in Amsterdam.