Among Taipei's Elite

Yesterday, Linda invited Michael and I to accompany her and her kids to an "Easter Egg Hunt" at the Yuanshan Club of which she's a member (here's a quote from their website - "Members are generally high profile, well known in either the local business or international communities" - ie. they're all super rich). So, we met her at her house and taxied over there.

I knew that it was supposed to get up to 32 degrees Celcius, but it was still fairly cool in the morning, so I dressed Michael in jeans and brought along a pair of shorts and both our hats. I was ready to change Michael as soon as we arrived. The sun came out and it was HOT.

Lunch was first. Linda had ordered Michael the "kid's meal" pictured below. Now, has anyone else ever seen a kid's meal comprised of french fries, half a smokie, a quarter of a ham sandwich, two chicken nuggets, a cherry tomato cut in half, a slice of watermelon and honeydew melon, plus a slice of honey cake all nicely arranged around a scoop of potato salad with a chocolate cookie roll stuck on top? Not me. I had to take a picture. Needless to say, Michael loved it and only got through about a third of it. I wanted to ask if I could have the kid's meal, too! I had to content myself with the beef noodle (note to self: never wear a white shirt and order beef noodle) and Michael's leftovers.


Lunch was in the cafe which led out onto the terrace with a small playground. There was also another games building (it had a two lane bowling alley, and a couple of pool and ping pong tables). Down the steps was the Olympic size swimming pool, some green space and then further along were the eight tennis courts. Michael loved running in and out of the cafe to go explore, and Linda made Harris follow him around until I finished lunch. Here's a picture of the club taken from near the tennis courts.


Michael is pushing a tennis ball cart. One of the games they had for the kids to play was catching balls shot from a tennis ball cannon (what's the name of those machines that you can use to play tennis by yourself?) into a net attached to the frame of a tennis racket. Luckily, Michael had more fun running around with the ball cart than in catching the balls. However, he eventually got bored and started throwing balls in the swimming pool. After the other kids had left, the club worker just threw the balls gently into the net that Michael was holding so that Michael could feel like he was catching them. The club certainly provided a full service. And the parents wonder why their kids want everything done for them...


They also had a few other games (throwing darts at balloons, knocking down bottles with a beanbag) including sliding a beer mug down a long table covered in soap suds. Michael loved playing, although he was hopeless at all of them. I regret to say, he throws like a girl, and well, you can see how far he pushed the beer mug... But, there are more important things in life, like learning how to push your way through a crowd in order to make an Easter picture frame. (We never did have an egg hunt.) Alas, he's not so good at that either, and we had to wait quite a while before a crack opened up.


Well, after spending a few hours wandering between the few activities, I was getting very bored and hot. Sara and Harris had decided long ago that it was not for them and spent the whole time in the air-conditioned games building playing pool. I was jealous. I finally convinved Michael to go back inside the cafe where Linda had stayed to chat with all her friends. When he told her he wanted to go home, she distracted him by ordering him a banana split. Of course, they only use Haagen Daaz ice cream, and the three flavours were Reeses peanut butter, chocolate and mango or peach (I wasn't quite sure). Michael finished about one scoop, so I had to sacrifice again and finish it off. Sometimes being a mother is really rough.

Michael went back outside when they brought out the pinatas. I'm told he actually hit one, unlike most of the other kids, but I was too busy eating his ice cream to watch. We watched a little later and found out they were filled with things like rice crackers instead of candy. Only in Taiwan...

Here's a sign that I found by the side of the pool.

It says "Lite guards when entorcing club yeguia-tions must be obeyed" in case you can't read it from the picture. Now, there are always mispelled signs around Taiwan, but I didn't expect to see such a badly translated sign here, where everyone can speak English. It made me smile.

Linda's husband arrived soon afterwards to drive us back. All in all, it was a fun day for Michael. He loves being outside and around kids bigger than he is, so he had a blast. He never seems to notice the heat. Lucky boy.