sticker shock

Stickers are a common enough source of incentive and reward for children in the States. All of Binbin's doctors have in their offices rolls of stickers picturing dinosaurs and trucks and animals and blandly encouraging phrases, such as Good Job! In Taipei, stickers rise to the status of minor art form. At our local "study tools" 文具 store, we have already purchased sheets of pink, black, and white puffy, cutesy piggies; puffy sweet treats with yummy sayings, none larger than the fingernail on your pinky; and sparkly i-don't-know-what-these-things-are-but-they-are-cute. From a bookstore on the Northern Peace street 北安路, we have acquired assorted flat winnie-the-pooh and friends. Most recently, we made our richest find yet: a treasure trove of Japanese designed (but Taiwan printed) sticker books, with ocean creatures, dinosaurs, and (you guessed it) trains, trucks, cars, and heavy equipment. We're hoping to keep these as aces in our pockets for the cross-Pacific flight on July 1.