Family Fun Day

At the end of the year, the school always has a family fun day, where activities are set up in each room and parents and siblings are invited. It's always lots of fun. Michael and I had our portraits sketched in under three minutes (it looks nothing like us) and then Michael was free to run around anywhere he wanted. I was in charge of the bubbles station. I made different types of blowers, aided by the assistants of course, out of coat hangers, chopsticks and netting (those were pretty neat - and mostly my own idea!), straws and string, and the good old standby, pipe cleaners. I had a big bucket of water to wash off sticky hands, and no one spilled it, so I think it was a huge success!


Michael's favourite activity was the bouncing castle. The teacher in charge of it told me later that Michael spent almost the entire time jumping in and out of it. And, he didn't crack heads with anyone else. Another success!

After all the kids had left, I took a peek inside my old class to see if the new teacher had finished setting it up for the kids to arrive on Monday. Nope. No toys, no decorations, no change in furniture layout. Nothing. Then she started saying goodbye to everyone, so I took her aside and, as gently as I could, asked if she was all ready for Monday. She went back to the class, took a look around, and left fifteen minutes later without doing anything. I felt sorry for my little class, but I can only do so much.

Getting Curriculum Back on Track

I do not have a degree in Early Childhood Education, nor do I have any formal training in correct ECE practices. However, I do have compulsive reading disorder (I made up the term myself) and a little streak of perfectionism. (Unfortunately, although this streak applies to parenting - which has caused me no end of grief and anxiety - it does not apply to household management as the state of my house can attest to). So, when I was hired to be a preschool teacher, I read everything I could (the National Association for the Education of Young Children has a great magazine) and learned a lot from my principals and co-teacher (who were ECE trained). To give you a glimpse of how little I knew, my New Zealand co-teacher (who is the best preschool teacher I have ever met) asked me during my first week if I knew "The Wiggles." I had no idea what she was talking about. I'm surprised that she didn't recommend my dismissal right then and there. Luckily, she put up with my ineptitude and actually told me at the end of the year that I was the best co-teacher she had ever had.

I, too, discovered that the best teaching assistants are the ones with no formal training or experience with other preschools. They are the hardest workers and the most willing to learn because they appreciate the fact that you gave them a chance despite their lack of education. I was the same way. I worked at school everyday from 8-6, with a half hour break to eat lunch with my husband, then went home and often worked until 10pm. By my second year, I knew a lot more, and only rarely had to take work home.

As a mother, I have kept up with current ECE practices and so it wasn't too difficult to get back into teaching this past semester. I had heard that many things had changed at the school before coming, and I knew that without a principal, curriculum would be dictated by the parents (ie. memorize as much English vocabulary as possible and learn to read by age four). And that is exactly what was happening. As I knew that I would only be at the school for a few months, I consciously decided not to get involved with what was going on in the other classes. I would do the best I could for my little ones and educate their parents about what was really important for children to learn at this age (ie. social skills, independence, creativity, problem solving skills) and that would be it.

My resolve started weakening after that terrible PD day. I started giving more and more little impromptu lessons to any teachers and staff that seemed interested. Again, it was those with the least formal training who were the most receptive. I finally sat down with the owner and talked about my concerns about the school. She wondered why it had taken me so long. Then, she started going through all the excuses about how parents were more demanding now and there was so much more competition than four years ago. Personally, I think the parents are exactly the same, but we've just started giving into them more because there wasn't a strong principal in place to defend our practices. And yes, there is more competition now, but in such an environment, you find a way to differentiate yourself, and from my point of view, the school was heading in the opposite direction. They were becoming more and more like all the other preschools, but still charging double the amount. No wonder enrollment had fallen. Of course, I couldn't really say those things, so I offered to do what I could in the little time I had left.

The first thing was to prepare a workshop on the value of quality, free, unstructured play. Even in North America this is something that is being pushed out of preschools in favour of more "educational" curriculums (with emphasis on reading and math skills), despite all the research that shows that this is unnecessary and even harmful. All parents want to give their child a head start, and teaching children reading and math skills does give them an advantage when they start school. However, this advantage disappears sometime between grades three and six. Why? Because the older children get, the more mature they get, and they develop skills that help them learn these academic subjects faster. Thus, while it may take hundreds if not thousands of hours to teach a three or four year old to read, a seven year old will take a fraction of that time, and by the time they're both ten, they'll probably be reading at exactly the same level. It's a mistaken belief held by many parents that if their kids start out behind, that they'll always be behind.

Just as I learned in university that research has shown that the best age to learn a second language is at age 13 (unless of course, you're brought up in a bilingual home). The only advantage to learning a language while young is that your pronunciation will be better. Thinking about it, it makes sense. Little kids have little vocabularies. They use the same few hundred words over and over and it takes a lot of exposure (or a high level of interest) for them to learn new ones. The kids in Kindergarten spoke like natives (well, two of them were...), but they probably only knew a couple of hundred English words. Most of them had been in the school for three if not four years for a minimum of six hours a day. Now, if a 13 year old spent the same number of hours learning a second language, he would be able to read, write and converse using thousands of words, because he has much better concentration and study skills.

But, if we're not teaching them reading and math, why should parents pay for them to go to preschool? Simple. For them to learn all the other life skills that were (once upon a time) learned from siblings and other neighbourhood kids while playing. Research has shown that the quality of children's play has decreased dramatically in the past few decades. This can be attributed to TV, fancy toys, smaller families and less free time (not necessarily in that order). And by quality play, I mean imaginative and creative play involving many different skill sets.

Okay. Enough of the ramble. It is now December 2008 and I have still not finished this blog, mostly because I've been too caught up on my high horse with this post. So, to actually get back to what I did in Taiwan...

I prepared my workshop and had about three hours worth of material that I tried to fit into one. After a little over an hour, I asked if they wanted to continue, and everyone agreed. By the end, they were all thoroughly convinced that the children needed to play more and that we needed to do more to promote a higher quality of play at every age level. Too bad I know that everything I taught will have been forgotten within the month, and I won't be there to keep things on track. You can only do so much when you're an ocean apart...

Last Day of School

My first year in Taiwan, I must admit, I got a little teary eyed when I lined up my preschool class to go home for the last time. It had been a hard, but rewarding, year and I had put a lot of effort into making my class the best that it could be. I loved each and every one of those kids. One of my favourite memories was when I was telling my 21 kids that I soon would no longer be their teacher. My most difficult student, an aggressive four year boy who had joined us halfway through the year, immediately piped up, "But I love you Ms. Hurdman!" (in English I might add!).

This year's last day felt like any other day. Part of the reason was because I knew I was still going to see them next week, even if it wasn't as their teacher, and the other part was because I had not invested as much of myself into them. They were a good little class and had progressed very quickly in the short time I had with them, but I never connected emotionally with them as I had with other classes. This is probably due to the fact that only one of them spoke any English. In any case, the last day proceeded without fanfare.

I did, however, forget to send home their progress reports. Oops. The school secretary even asked me if they were in the kid's bags as we were lining them up to go and I said yes because I thought that I had seen my TA pack them. It wasn't a big deal, because, as I said, they're all coming back next week anyways, but it was still a little embarassing.

Michael's class was doing a fantasy unit this past month, and had a dress-up party with all the parents for the last day. May dug through some boxes and found a prince's costume that she had designed and had made for her son over ten years ago. Since Michael had said that he wanted to be a king for the party, it worked out well.


Michael and I made the crown ourselves (obviously). He chose the colour. I cut it out and he decorated it with a package of dragon stickers that his grandma had sent him from Canada.

When I got to his classroom after saying goodbye to my class, the party had already been going on for over a half hour. There was tonnes of food brought in by the parents, and the kids were all going crazy while the parents chatted with each other or took pictures. It was also a furnace in there. I lasted about ten minutes, then just grabbed a plate of food and Michael and headed back to my classroom. Michael was glad to get out of the heat, and he always likes skipping out on nap time, so he was happy to join me in cleaning up my classroom.

All in all, a pretty uneventful last day...

The 2x4 That Broke the Camel's Back

I can deal with the crazy bus drivers who always start moving before the doors are closed, and couldn't drive smoothly to save their lives. I can deal with cab drivers who don't make the slightest effort to understand my Chinese. I can deal with the cold and rainy weather in winter, and the thunderstorms in spring. I can deal with buildings with gaping holes in windows and doorways that let out heat in the winter, and cool air in the summer. I can deal with all the ugly buildings and lack of green or even open spaces. I can deal with the pollution and less than appealing smells. I can deal with the pushy crowds and crazy traffic (pedestrians do NOT have the right of way). I can deal with not being able to understand anything that anyone is saying. I can deal with sleeping on a bed that feels like a brick wall. I can deal with having to wait three hours for my clothes to dry in the dryer because it's so humid. I can deal with no shower curtain in the bathroom and having to bend over because the showerhead is so low. I can even deal with geckos in my apartment. However, a few weeks ago, something that tested my adaptability started to pop up with increasing frequency.

Cockroaches.

At first they were few and far between, therefore somewhat tolerable. Robert even caught one for me to take to the Kindergarten class during their bug unit. It also helped that most of them were dead. Someone must have been putting poison out because dead, or near dead cockroaches started appearing with increasing frequency after that. I even found one swimming around the toilet bowl the other morning.

Michael found a huge (live) one in the cupboard under the stove when he went to get a juice box. He came running to me, "There's a big one!". I didn't even have to ask about what he was referring. He was right. It was one of the huge ones that I normally only see squished on the streets and sidewalks. YUCK. That's when I began counting down the days until it was time to go home.

Tonight however was the last straw. I was very tired and looking forward to getting to bed early when the infestation started. It had been thunderstorming for the past few hours, which might explain why they decided to appear en masse, in my bedroom at 9pm at night. Luckily, they weren't cockroaches, or I might have just checked into a hotel for the remainder of our stay in Taiwan. I don't know what they were. They seemed like skinny long earwigs, and they were everywhere.

I killed a few using Kleenex before I realized the extent of the situation. That's when I decided to bring out the big guns, in this case, my vacuum, and I started vacuuming them up. They seemed to be coming in from all the cracks around the air conditioner in the window, so I stuffed some more cloths around it and kept on vacuuming. Everytime I thought they were all gone, Michael would point out another one. We spent an hour combing through our room making sure that we had gotten them all before Michael fell asleep.

I, however, was afraid that as soon as I lay down, I would feel one crawling on me, so I went and played on the computer for another hour until I was tired enough that I felt I could fall asleep fairly quickly. I sheltered Michael's face and turned on the light to do one last visual sweep of the room before turning off the light and going to sleep.

Approximately two minutes later, I felt something crawling up my leg. EWWWWWW!!!

I jumped out of bed, turned the light back on and found two more in the bed that I had so carefully inspected just a few minutes ago. After taking care of them, I do another thorough sweep of the room and again turn off the light.

Luckily, those were the last two. At least I never found any more during the rest of my stay in Taiwan. I even unpacked and repacked an entire suitcase that I had in my room to make sure that none were hiding inside.

Dead cockroaches kept appearing around the apartment until the day I left and joined the cemetary of insects inside my vacuum bag. But after that night, I told myself that I was never living in Taiwan again. And although I said that last time, this time I mean it!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Only two more weeks before I leave and there are so many things I wanted to do for the last time. I can't belive I've only had a mango ice once the entire time I've been here! I also want to go to Jiufen, because I've never been. I want to take Michael on bumper cars again. I want to go back to my 10NT store and have traditional ice in that night market again. I want to take Michael to the cool new waterpark they built here.

However, it doesn't look like I will be able to do any of those things as there is rain in the forecast for forever more... Now, all I want to do is go back to Canada. What's the point of staying in a rainy country far from home with an active three year old?

So, back to IKEA and Toys 'R Us, to search for Thomas the Tank Engine plates once more. Robert informed me that two had broken on his trip back, so we needed replacements. Still no plates, but we did find a Thomas Snakes and Ladders game. Not much of a substitute for bumper cars, but it will have to do. It turned from rain to torrential downpour while we were there, so we waited it out in Starbucks with a super large hot chocolate. Can you believe I'm drinking hot chocolate at the end of May in a sub-tropical country!?!

I taught Michael how to play snakes and ladders after we got home. He caught on pretty quick and loves playing it. He got upset the first time I won, but I explained how we needed to take turns winning, and although he wasn't happy about it, he conceded that that was only fair.

I must admit that I did cheat a little to let him win a little more often, but that's just what moms do.

Celebrating Mediocrity

Anyone who has watched "The Incredibles" will understand the title of this blog post. Anyone who hasn't - stop reading now and go watch it.

Kindergarten graduation at a rich school takes place at an exclusive club in Taipei called ACC to those in the know. The American Club in China is just like the Yuanshan club, except this one is even better because it's full of rich ex-pats, instead of just rich Taiwanese. The school's Christmas concerts and Kindergarten graduations have always taken place at ACC, so I was already familiar with the grandiose ballroom where the ceremony was to take place. I should mention right now, that our Kindergarten class is comprised of ten students, one of which never attends large functions due to shyness.

As I have been helping out twice a week with the Kindergarten class, Michael and I were invited to attend. I had been helping the class prepare their performance songs (A Whole New World and a personalized version of Leaving on a Jet Plane) for the past two weeks. May's son, James, was to be the accompanist, but I had to be by his side to point out which lines he should play, especially when it came to our rather creative endings. Next time we'll know to get piano music first instead of teaching the kids how to sing like Celine Dion and Chantal Kreviazuk...

We arrived at ACC an hour and a half before the show was to start in order to help set-up. Michael enjoyed running all over the stage, putting on his own one-man shows, and of course, jumping crazily off to shouts of "Watch out!". I was glad when two of his little girlfriends, Lauren and Audrey (of Mother's Day fame), from his Nursery class showed up so they could all run around together.

I needed to sit close to the piano so that I could jump up when needed, so I vetoed sitting by Audrey's parents and grandparents, so we ended up with Lauren's parents. They were very nice and willingly played musical chairs throughout the ceremony as the kids (Audrey came over later) kept on changing their minds about which seat they wanted.

Before the show started, I asked Michael if he was hungry as he hadn't eaten much before leaving. He said yes, so I gave him a granola bar. As Lauren was watching with great interest, I gave her one, too. She then stands on her chair and yells across the ballroom to Audrey, "Look what Michael's mommy gave me!". As I didn't have any more granola bars, I gave Audrey a Squiggle (dried fruit) when she came running over. She then ran back to her parents, but reappeared a few minutes later and announced to me, "I'm still hungry". You've got to love the subtlety of three year olds... I explained that there would be food after the ceremony and that she would have to wait. She didn't quite think that was fair as she could see one more Squiggle in my open purse, and was a little put out that I wouldn't give it to her. Life's tough, isn't it?

I had brought Michael's video MP3 player to occupy him during the show as I knew he would not sit still. Unfortunately, that only kept him busy for about five minutes. Luckily, this being a graduation ceremony, there were two cameras for every person in the room. Michael just had to put on his charming smile and flash those blue eyes of his, and strangers were giving him their expensive cameras and tripods to play with. It was insane. Michael completely pulled apart the tripod behind us as the owners looked on in enjoyment. They found him more entertaining than the ceremony I'm sure, but I was afraid he was going to lose all the little pieces. When I got back from helping James with the piano, Michael had a lady's camera and was taking dozens of pictures of the floor, his knees and the back of people's heads. I was so afraid that he was going to drop it, that I got out my camera and let him have it (with the wrist strap on!), just so he would give the other one back.

Due to the small number of graduates, the ceremony did not last long and then the food began. This being ACC, it was all very fancy and all very good. I loved the grilled eggplant and zucchini sandwiches, while Michael loved all the fresh fruit platters. When he had had his fill, I took him down to the supervised playroom (that they had just finished renovating the week before) and signed him in. They had a huge play structure in there with lots of different toys and activities to do. Then I had to fulfill my teaching responsibilities by taking pictures with all of the kids, the parents, their grandparents, their third cousins, etc...

Traditionally, the owner then takes all the staff to lunch at one of the fancy restaurants there, but we were all so full already, that we didn't order much. They had the nicest kids menu that I had ever seen. Basically, everything that a regular adult menu would have, except in kids portions. Michael, being a little boy, wouldn't hear of having anything but a hamburger. But, oh what a hamburger. I have never tasted a nicer one and was actually happy to eat Michael's leftovers.

Somehow, I don't think that Michael's Kindergarten graduation is going to be quite so fancy...

Michael's New Favourite Place

I took Michael to the Children's Museum today because I knew that it would be raining all afternoon. They built it after Robert and I had left, on the fifth floor of Taipei's largest bookstore (unfortunately also built after we left), so I had never been there before. We found it fairly easily and there weren't many other children there. I was especially glad about the lack of school groups. Our receipt says that we entered at 1:53pm and the cashier told us that we could go in and out as often as we wished until it closed at 9:30pm that evening. Well, I had no intention of staying there anywhere near that long. In fact, after thirty minutes, I wondered if we would even stay an hour and a half. Michael seemed to wander around, trying everything out for a minute or two and then move on. I couldn't get him involved in anything. After an hour or so, we went out for afternoon tea. They had a pretty good food court in the basement.

As soon as we got back, Michael really started to focus and concentrate. I guess he needed that first hour just to get oriented and discover all the options before settling down. In the end, I had to drag him away at 8pm. We did have a thirty minute break for dinner, and one other potty break, but the rest of the time, he played happily. I had originally thought that the 500NT price tag for both of us was a little steep, but for almost six hours of keeping Michael engaged, it was a deal.

The whole place is just like a massive preschool classroom, except they have way cooler equipment (Annie's adjectives are starting to rub off on me). There are 15 different centers for the kids to explore. Below are some of Michael's favourites.

Here he is in the Cotton Kid's Fashion Shop where he's basically sticking bits of different types of cloth and yarn onto the outline of a paper doll. His favourite part was cutting the yarn.


This is Michael in the Kid's Stage area. They had a tonne of dress up clothes in a massive walk in closet, but Michael wasn't too interested in dressing up.


However, he was interested in putting on little "shows." His favourite part was opening and closing the curtains.


In the construction area, I liked how they had the great view of 101 out the window. Of course, Michael liked it, too. It was great inspiration for the little builders!


In the raceway area they had all these open tubes with light rubber balls. The tubes are magnetically stuck to the wall, so Michael could move them around to create his own different raceways. Michael had a lot of fun moving all the pieces around and dropping balls in at the top. It was nice that they even provided stools, so that he could start higher.


The TV studio was cute, but it didn't hold Michael's interest for long.


So, I asked him to sing a song. Here he is doing the Itsy Bitsy Spider on TV.


Here's my little Mikey the Builder. He was pretty sad that there were other kids on this when we first arrived, but he soon got his turn.


He was really happy about getting to put on the vest, goggles and helmet as well.


But this was Michael's favourite activity of all. They had a mini supermarket set up with a real scanner and cash register. They even had their own play money. Michael would take turns with me being the shopper and the cashier. He loved scanning in the items and popping open the cash register.


He took it very seriously.


Especially since money was involved.


When he was the shopper, after he finished paying, he would run over to the next center which contained an Austin Mini, climbed in, put his shopping basket in the back seat, and drove home.


Brrooom, brrooom...


Sometimes the car broke down and he'd have to use a motorbike, or a motorscooter as he calls them.


Notice the basket of food carefully placed behind him.


There were other places as well, but those were Michael's favourites. He spent hours playing in that supermarket and in that Mini with me.

We were both really glad that we went. It wasn't even raining anymore by the time we left.

My Little Snow White

Michael's teacher showed me these pictures that she took of Michael this morning. Doesn't he make a cute princess?



In fact, Michael has declared that he IS a princess. His class is doing a fairy tale unit and he's really enjoying all the princess stories and costumes. Today he made a crown and as we were walking down the hallway after school, he told me that it wasn't a prince's crown or a king's crown. It was a princess crown. End of discussion.

I took him to his favourite toy store for the last time. I think they recognize me now because they didn't have someone follow me around demonstrating anything that I glanced at. I bought a "fast train" for Michael. They have a set of five different Taiwan engines that go on wooden train sets, which included Taiwan's high speed train. Michael loves talking about when he went on the high speed train, and I couldn't deny him his own little toy one.

Then we went to Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall. Sometimes it's hard to remember to take pictures of the things you see everyday. Robert and I used to live two blocks away from here. We walked through it almost every week, but I don't think we have any pictures of us there. So, I took Michael to get a few shots.


No, it's not my camera. The water really is that shade of green. Gross, I know.


Michael points out 101 whenever he can see it, so here he is with his favourite building.


Here's a statue of Sun-Yat Sen and some big stone tablets behind. I have no idea what they say on them. Of course, Michael didn't even notice the statue. He was too busy chasing pigeons. After awhile, he came up to me and said, "Chasing birds is hard work!" Very true.



We headed home after that. I remembered Annie this week, but maybe she almost forgot, because she was twenty minutes late. Neither of us said anything about the time...

Birthday Party No-Nos

Michael's teacher was sick today, so the school asked me to be Michael's teacher this morning, while the girl that I've been training as my replacement took over my class. I agreed, got the schedule and wasn't too worried until I found out about the birthday party at 10:30am. They arrive at school at 9, have group time at 9:15, recess from 9:30-10 and then they're supposed to be free to explore the learning centers for a little over an hour before getting ready for lunch at 11:20. But, today was Audrey's birthday, and Mom felt that 10am was too early for cake, and Michael's teacher felt that 11am was too close to lunch for cake, so they compromised on 10:30, which is possibly the worst possible time to have cake. You see, after recess they all have to go to the bathroom and have a drink of water. By the time we get back to the class, it's 10:05. Then we have to clean up all the toys and rearrange furniture for the birthday party at 10:20 so we're ready in case mom shows up a few minutes early. In this case, mom did not, but she showed up with a whole bunch of shiny helium filled balloons which the kids promptly started fighting over. All the girls wanted one of the three Disney Princess balloons and all the boys wanted the single train balloon.

I finally got the kids calmed down and seated for the "party." Audrey had requested a strawberry cake, so mom had brought the strawberriest cake she could find. The entire top was covered in whole strawberries, which makes cutting small slices very difficult. The bakery had suggested taking off all the strawberries first, cutting the cake, and then putting the strawberries back on. When 18 kids are clamouring for cake, the last thing you want to be doing is removing and replacing strawberries, but that's what we did.

Then as soon as they finished the cake, they all started fighting over the balloons again, so I had them all sit down and sang a few songs while I quickly tried to think up a way of distributing them that would not result in tears and tantrums. The assistants suggested just holding the bunch of them and letting each child choose a string, and whatever they got, they got. I decided against this as yes, it would be fair, but very few would be happy. The boys would probably end up with the princesses, and then their parents would complain.

So, I quickly grabbed the least popular balloons and asked the birthday girl to hand them out. The children who didn't care what they got, or who had the least amount of patience put up their hands quickly for the balloons. I chose the next bunch, saving the most popular for the end, for the kids who REALLY wanted them. In the end, it almost worked out. The only problem was the poor birthday girl got left with the Hello Kitty balloon that nobody wanted, and who was on the verge of tears until mom distracted her with the promise of lots of presents to come.

By the time the cake and balloon fiasco were done it was after eleven, too late to let them have centers time before we would have to clean up for lunch, so we had another group time. So, basically, I spent the entire morning doing group time. I had no idea what songs they already knew, so we were doing all the basics. And I mean ALL of them. My voice was almost gone by the end of that morning.

So, to anyone who may be reading this: When planning a birthday party at school, never plan it for the middle of the children's centers time. Never bring a hard to cut cake. And never, ever bring gifts or goodies that aren't all exactly the same.

I had told the school that I couldn't sub in the afternoon as I had promised Michael that I would take him swimming. However, I agreed to be back by 4:30 to sub for the Grade 3s. As time was of the essence, it was rainly heavily, and I was getting paid overtime for subbing, I decided to take a cab to the pool. I had the name of the sports complex in Chinese, but not the address. I hoped it would be enough. It wasn't. So, he had to pull over, pull out his glasses and peer at where I was pointing on my bilingual map. He finally nodded, although he still looked pretty uncertain, and away we went. About half way there, a lightbulb came on over his head and he started pretending to lift weights while smiling and nodding his head. I said the Chinese word for "yes" and then he was much happier. So was I, as I had only ever been there by MRT and had no clue how to drive there either.

I bought our tickets and we went down to the pool. One of the pool attendants showed us where to leave our shoes and then directed us past the ladies change room to the "family changing room" which was a corner beside the snack bar that you could pull a curtain around. No shelves, hooks or bench to put your bags or clothes on. Whatever. We quickly changed and put on our attractive bathing caps (which are mandatory at every public pool and hot spring here) even though neither of us had any intention of getting our heads wet.

We took our belongings over to the lockers and I let Michael choose which one we should use. They required a 10NT coin, so I got out two (because I always have bad luck with those types of lockers) and tried to lock our belongings in. Two coins later, no luck getting the key out. Another attendant came over and tried to help. After a few minutes, she went over to the snack bar, got out another 10NT coin and had us move everything to another locker, which worked.

Michael had a lot of fun in the little kids pool. We were the only ones in it. The water was warm and came up to my waist, so Michael was able to walk around just fine by himself. He wouldn't go down the slide without holding my hand as he couldn't get his feet under himself fast enough and would go under unless I was holding him. He played with his "rowboat" most of the time. It's basically an inflatable flutter board that I got him at the cheap store. We stayed for a little over an hour, and Michael only tried to break the rule of no kids in the hot tubs once. I thought it went pretty well.

I wasn't about to change in the "family changing room" now that we were all wet and there was nowhere to shower or put our dry or wet things, so we went to the ladies changing room. I immediately realized why they had taken us to the snack bar curtained corner instead - no changing stalls or curtained showers, and many women showering and changing. But, there were benches and shelves, so we just changed as quickly as possible. However, I was a little embarassed at Michael staring at all the strange women. I am never taking Michael swimming by myself again...

It was pouring when we left, so we caught a cab back to the school and I helped the grade 3s with the board games they were making. One group was having a hard time without realizing it. They were convinced they were done, but when I was reading over their rules, they kept on talking about owning weapons and using money to buy weapons. However, on their board game, there was only mention of killing bad guys, and nothing about weapons or how to acquire them. Of course, they could see the logic in everything, but I was completely baffled at their lack of common sense. I finally got them to see a little bit of reason by the end of class, but I'm not sure it will make any difference.

After school, I was too tired to find someplace to eat, so we went to the cafe that used to be my old classroom four years ago for dinner. Michael really wanted the spaghetti, and I ordered the Japanese mushroom stew. Michael barely ate anything (he said it was too spicy), so I ended up eating almost all of both of our meals. I have gained a lot of weight here, and meals like this one are one of the biggest reasons why.

By the time we were done, May was also done upstairs, so she came down and offered us a ride home, which was really nice as I was exhausted.

The Truth About Santa Claus

Due to a scheduling conflict, our English ward was sent up to the third floor chapel today, where we had watched general conference a few weeks ago. The first speaker was a new missionary to the ward. He started off as all missionaries do, "I'm excited to be here, la dee da dee dum..." I must admit that I was trying to keep Michael occupied rather than listening closely until he started talking about Santa Claus. I'm always try to get Michael to listen to the speakers if there's anything that he can relate to, so I quickly told Michael, "Listen. He's talking about Santa Claus." Michael's head popped up and he said, "Santa Claus?" Michael had really just caught onto the idea of Santa Claus this year, but he definitely still remembered.

The missionary had just been talking about how Santa Claus is so good and everybody loves Santa and then he dropped the bombshell - "But Santa Claus is not real." I had been looking at Michael, but I immediately whipped my head around and started glaring at this oblivious nineteen year old, mentally ordering him to backtrack or say something like, "He's not real to some people who don't believe in him." But, nope. I'm frantically thinking of what to say to Michael as the missionary repeats at least three times how Santa isn't real, but the gospel is real or something along those lines. I'm also kicking myself for telling Michael to listen. It seemed like most of the other kids were completely ignoring the speaker as usual and didn't catch on, whereas Michael kept on saying, "He said Santa isn't real." I caught pitying smiles from all around as I tried to convincingly tell Michael, "Yes, he's real. That man made a mistake." And Michael would reply, "No, he said he's not real." We went back and forth a few times until I gave up and let the subject drop, hoping that by the end of church, he will have forgotten all about it, and that by December, he will not have any memory of some guy in a suit telling lies at the pulpit.

The ever wise bishopric set the record straight, and announced before the intermediate hymn that Santa was definitely real, and he knew how to get to Taipei and into houses that didn't have chimneys (as no one has fireplaces here). Finally! The truth! Unfortunately, Michael didn't hear a word of it, and I had already learned my lesson about asking Michael to listen. And I don't want to hear another word about Santa until December.

I still didn't get a belated Mother's Day Toblerone. And Michael ran off and got lost leaving me to wander the third floor calling out to him. On the plus side, after I found him, we found the umbrella that he had lost a few weeks ago, so he was happy.

As we were walking to our bus stop, Michael pointed to the huge Taipei Post administration building and said, "When I grow up, I'm going to live here all by myself." He's only three and he's already thinking about moving out!

Taipei 101 with Pictures

Our last completely free weekend in Taipei. Next Saturday is Kindergarten Graduation and the following Saturday is Family Fun Day and the Saturday after that, we'll be back in Canada! Wow, the time sure has gone by quickly.

I decided to go down the stairs to our breakfast stand for the last time. Michael always insists on ordering a "burger" there even though he never eats more than two bites. He also always gets a chocolate milk from the 7-11 first.


Here's the fresh pork stall right beside the breakfast stand. I thought I would take a picture as it is so typical in Taiwan. This is how people buy their pork. And no, there is no ice or refridgeration at all. However, they do usually have strings attached to a slow moving fan to keep flies away.


Since it was another beautiful day, and I had never been up to the Taipei 101 observatory, and Robert had forgotten the camera when he took the boys up last time, I decided to take a look. Ever since going with Robert, Michael has been obsessed with 101, so he was very excited to be able to go again.


The bottom few floors are upscale shops, such as Dior, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Tiffany & Co., etc... Most of the jewelry shops don't even have open doors. You have to be buzzed in by an attendant.

We found our way past all the designer shops to the fifth floor where the world's fastest elevator was. We bought my ticket (Michael was free)and went straight up more than eighty floors in 37 seconds. We got out and started walking around the indoor observation area. I have never seen more white people (other than at church) all in one place in Taipei before. Yet, Michael was still a magnet for any locals that happened to be up there. I know it's a terrible picture, but I had to get at least one shot of people taking pictures of Michael. This woman had to bribe Michael with candy before she could pry him off of my leg for a picture. I'm sure her picture didn't turn out much better. Who takes pictures of people right in front of a bright window?


I took a couple of pictures of the view. This is a view of the part of Taipei that we have spent the most time in.


This is the part of Taipei where we live.


Since we were being "tourists," we went all the way and bought a postcard from the gift shop, just so that we could mail it from the "highest post office box in the world."


Then we walked up to the outdoor observatory, passing by a little piece of home on the way (the CN tower).


They had these binoculars everywhere, but I never gave Michael money for them despite his pleadings, as he wouldn't know what to do with them. The bars behind Michael are the ones that Robert referred to earlier when he said that Jeremy could fit between them.


We walked all the way around and then went to see the five minute video presentation that shows the building of Taipei 101 and a bit of the fireworks from this past New Year's celebration. I had heard that it was a great show, but that you couldn't breathe because there were so many people on every street with a view of 101. I was glad that I could just watch it on video. A much better view, and much more comfortable. Michael watched the video twice, just so that he could see the fireworks part again.

Then we went to the floor below the observatory where they have the world's largest wind damper (don't ask me what it does - I don't know). It just looks like a huge gold ball suspended on wires to me. To get there, you walk through two darkened hallways with lit floors. The first hallway had a cosmos floor with comets shooting by and galaxies swirling around. The second looked like a cloudy sky, but as you stepped on it, the clouds would part to reveal the city of Taipei below. I thought the floors were a lot more interesting than the damper...




Then Michael wanted to go up two floors to the outdoor observatory to watch the video presentation again. There were more people there this time, but Michael just ran in, plopped himself down on the front row and started jabbering away to the white man beside him. There was no room for me, so I saw a few rows behind. The man was a little surprised, but I don't think he spoke English anyways, so he just ignored Michael. Of course, all the Chinese there thought he was much more interesting than the video and watched him talking away the whole time.

We ended up staying there a lot longer than I expected. Of course, we had to have the Movenpick ice cream (you got a coupon for it with your lift ticket) as well. Very yummy. We are definitely very spoiled in Taiwan.

Never Mix Chocolate Ice Cream and Prada

Since Robert left, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous. Sunny and not too hot. It has been quite windy though. I found out later that a typhoon was passing by the island which explained the cloudless skies and wind. So, after school, I asked Michael if he wanted to go to the park or the zoo. He chose the zoo, so away we went.

Michael's goal was to see the lions this time. So, we took train up and walked over to the African Animals area. We stopped at the elephants along the way. Michael seemed interested, so I tried to sit him on the barrier, so that I wouldn't have to hold him up. He freaked out because he thought that the elephants would be able to touch him there. I explained that they couldn't come anywhere near us because there was a huge ditch all the way around that they couldn't cross. He felt better after that and sat there watching the elephants for another fifteen minutes.


I think he watched the lions for about fifteen seconds...

Then we wandered around a bit more before getting back on the train to go back to the entrance. I decided to let Michael get a chocolate ice cream because I am a totally indulgent mother, and we sat on the bench waiting for our train. After we got off the train, I noticed the ice cream was starting to drip a little, so I asked Michael if I could help him with it. As he handed it to me, it dripped heavily on my Prada purse which my aunt had given me the last time we visited her in Hong Kong. Having no tissues on me, and Michael having used up all the wipes on Mother's Day, we rushed to the bathroom where I had to buy toilet paper to clean my purse. Luckily, my purse is brown anyways, but why are stains always attracted to the most expensive thing that you have on or with you?

Then it started to rain. The only day it rained all week. We ran into the gift shop where Michael had fun trying on all the hats.


After the rain let up a little, we hurried over to the MRT and went home.

Forgetting Annie - Again

My progress reports are due tomorrow, so I had Michael stay with his class until three o'clock today while I finished them up. Then we went to IKEA as Michael had been asking to go for the past few days. He played, we got take-out, the usual. It wasn't until we were waiting for our last connecting bus home that I remembered Annie and glanced at my watch. Oops. Annie was supposed to be coming over in five minutes. So, I quickly gave her a call and told her we would be fifteen minutes late.

I'm trying to get Annie to use more descriptive language, so we flipped through the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue and read a few descriptions. Funny, not one of them mentioned the word "cool" (other than when describing temperature) and yet that seems to be the only word that Annie had to describe something she liked. But, is that so different from North American teenagers? Can they usually tell you exactly why they like something? Probably not. So, I didn't press the issue too hard.

Easy Substitute Teaching

Mr. Yoshida, the Grades One and Two teacher was in Japan, so the school asked me to sub for him. It was the easiest substitute teaching I have EVER done. The Grade One's were working on their fictional solar system books and worked so diligently and quietly that halfway through I had to insist they get up and take a break. The first set of Grade Ones decided to play "Simon Says." I haven't played Simon Says for at least fifteen years and was the first one out. Actually the only one out. The rest of them were experts, but I didn't mind as they were getting quite the workout, while I just sat on the sidelines and watched. The second group of Grade One's refused to take a break. They just wanted to keep on working. Why didn't I have Grade One's like that during my two years here before?

I only had the Grade Two's for an hour. Mr. Yoshida had told me of some of the social problems they were having in the class, so I had them choose the name of a classmate and by the end of class, they had to come up with three nice things to say about that person. So, they were all on their best behaviour so that the secret person who had their name would write good things about them.

If only substituting the Grade Five's had been so easy!

A Mother's Day Doomed to Failure

It was one of those days...

Michael decided to clean the bathroom floor by peeing on it then mopping it up with a whole package of tissues.

Michael pulled out all of his wet wipes and put them in his bath water.

The Bishopric didn't buy enough Toblerones for the mothers at church, so I didn't get one.

All we had to eat for dinner was pasta with canned tomatoes and shredded cheese.

Michael got into the chocolate bunny that Robert had brought me for Easter and got chocolate EVERYWHERE.

I didn't get a single e-mail or phone call or card all day wishing me a Happy Mother's Day.

Michael said he only loved me a "little bit."

Oh well. Such is the life of a mother!

Michael's Informal Photo Shoot

I continued cleaning up the apartment today. I did laundry, laundry and more laundry. Michael got bored and decided to nap, so afterwards, I decided to take him to Yu Kids Island for the last time. We stopped off at our favourite "cheap store that sells everything" to get Michael a case for his new "Ipod." It's actually a Creative Zen that Robert bought him the day before he left, but to Michael, it's an "ipod" just like Daddy's. I didn't buy him an ipod case either. I'm not sure what it was, maybe a cell phone case or an extremely small purse. Anyways, I wanted the one with a dragon on it, but Michael decided on the one with a monkey. Since he was born in the year of the monkey (and it's his case after all) I let him get it.

Michael had a great time at Yu Kids, except for the time when he was in the jumping castle and decided to wrestle down another boy, bumping his head in the process. He screamed very loudly but didn't get much sympathy from me. Later on, he found a little girl, who was probably a year younger than him and was leading her around by the hand and playing nicely with her. Why isn't he such a good big brother to Jeremy? It must have been because she was a girl. How come I don't have a girl?

At the TAS spring fair a few weeks ago, we had been approached by modelling agents who really wanted to sign up our boys, especially Michael. I had thought about having Michael do a little modelling while here, as it's super easy for white kids to find work here, but decided later we didn't have the time. One of the agents was pretty disappointed with our refusal and kept on showing Michael magazine covers and asking him if he wanted his picture on them. Michael had no idea what she was talking about. However, today Michael decided that he wanted to be a model after all and insisted on my taking dozens of shots of him while on the climber. Here are a few.




He is pretty cute, I must admit. However, I soon tired of, "Mommy! Take my picture!"

Afterwards we went to Geant where I finally found the toilet scrubbing pads that I was looking for. I also found Michael a T-shirt that he loves, because it looks like the ones that Robert likes. And it was only $3 Cdn. Now, those are the kinds of clothes that my boys need. I should have bought two...

Mother's Day Two Days Early

Today was our Mother's Day presentation at school. The mothers are all invited to come and hear three songs that the kids have learned, to eat a few treats that the kids have made, and to get their Mother's Day card and present. Each class is done separately, and I asked to do mine in my room because I knew not a single one would sing if we were in the big recess room. It was supposed to start at 10:45am, so they could just leave with their moms afterwards. The invitation was addressed specifically to the moms, but of course about half the fathers showed up and a fair number of grandmothers. Only one baby sister, who started crying half way through our show.

At 10:40, we cleaned up and I had the kids all ready and prepared so that at 10:45 when the hordes came throught he doors, the children would be calm and ready. As double the amount of people that I was expecting came through the door, I did have a hard time keeping the kids from running to their parents, but luckily only one escaped and he came back willingly after his hug. I had the children sing a few fingerplay songs to get their attention and to give the parents time to jockey into best photo taking position. Then we started.

It went pretty well. One of my boys lay down flat on his back and covered his eyes the entire time, while his twin sister sang loud enough for both of them. My best singer suddenly stopped in the middle of the second song when she realized her own mother was nowhere to be seen in the crowd. I didn't realize this until after the show when they all ran to their parents and she was alone. Mom came in a few minutes later. I only sent home three reminders with the time they should be at school underlined... Another mother came to me a little later and asked when the presentation was going to start. I guess she missed it too, but came in just as everyone was getting up to go to their parents. As every other parent was holding a videocamera, I suggested she get a copy from another parent.

At 11 o'clock I excused myself for a few minutes to see Michael's performance. The children didn't mind at all. They had their parents and chocolate covered pretzels that they had made the day before. I don't think the moms got any of the treats as the kids devoured them very quickly. We had also made fruit kebabs, so in the end everyone got something.

Here's Michael waving to me as he came in for his presentation. I was very glad that he refrained from running over to me.


Here's the second song that Michael sang "M-O-M-M-Y." He always pulls up and shows his tummy when he's a little embarassed. However, he soon forgot his shyness and became hyper instead.



Here's the third song that Michael sang. Everyone thought it was so cute that he tried to hug Audrey, except for Audrey. My Dad called it, "His first rejection by a girl!"



Fridays are long days for me, but when May asked if we would go out with her and Annie after school, I said yes because I know how crazy her schedule is. She's wanted to take Michael shopping for a long time, but I made her promise to only buy one outfit each for Michael and Jeremy. She was also on the hunt for Mother's Day gifts for her mother and mother-in-law, whos' appreciation for gifts is in direct proportion to the amount of money spent on them. Thus, May always does her gift shopping in upscale Japanese department stores.

So, needless to say, Michael was totally bored, but luckily there was an "educational" toys display that Michael could play with while May kept on running over with different clothes. I asked that she refrain from buying mostly white clothes as my boys are very much boys. In the end I think she ended up buying more than my imposed limit, and the price tags were outrageous. Who would pay more than $50 for a short sleeved polo type shirt for a three year old? Well, obviously some people do. But now, I'm afraid to let him wear it in case he ruins it. I'm afraid to wash it in case the colours run. What am I supposed to do with it, let alone all the other similarly priced clothes she bought?

I was soon bored as well because I don't even bother to look around at clothes when the price tags are so high. Again, my dad's training kicking in. By 9pm, I told her we had to leave so that Michael (and I!) could get to bed, and left her and Annie to continue shopping alone while we took a cab home. It was pouring rain out, but I didn't even have to get out my umbrella as the doorman ushered us into the cab using his patio table sized umbrella to keep us dry.

We were glad to get home, although I had to be careful not to let the boys' new clothes get wet as we ran into our apartment. Expensive clothes are way too much hassle...

A Day of Rest

Michael decided that he didn't want to see Daddy off at the airport after all, so we said our goodbyes at 9:30 last night at the apartment amidst Jeremy's screams. He thought Robert was leaving without him. Robert was just taking the luggage to the elevator... Try explaining that to a 20 month old.

As Michael didn't fall asleep until after 10:30, we were both a little tired and very glad that it was a half day of work. I wanted to pick up a few things from the supermarket on the way home and discovered that it was closed for renovations! As it's the only supermarket that's on my daily route, I was a little disappointed as I am in sore need of toilet srubbing pads and mosquito repellant wall plug-ins. I guess it will just have to wait.

Michael and I both had a nap. Having Robert and Jeremy here was wonderful, but very tiring, and very messy. After my nap, I started tidying up the apartment so that it was liveable again. A more thorough cleaning will have to wait until I get to a supermarket!

Bye-bye, Taiwan

Jeremy and I are leaving today.

Yesterday we went downtown, all four of us, just to give the boys a change of scenery and a chance to move around. It was raining, so we walked around the computer market, Nova, and then the underground mall around Taipei Main Station. The boys had some fun and Trina found a store that sells traditional Chinese clothing. In the end, she bought a couple things for her and a matching outfit for each of the boys. But she was looking and trying things on for about half an hour, which is much too long for Jeremy and Michael. The owner of the store was very kind and gave Michael a snack of seaweed, which he really liked. I'm sure he didn't know what it was. Fortunately, she also had a broom and dustpan, which kept Jeremy occupied. It also entertained all the passersby, to see him hard at work. I joked with the owner that she would have to charge us a little more for the seaweed, then take a little off for Jeremy's work. After that, we went out to dim sum with Joseph and May and their family.

This morning, I thought it best to prepare Michael for our departure. I told him, "You have a long day at school today, so you'll be eating lunch with your friends." That was fine with him. Then I said, "Daddy and Jeremy are leaving to go back to Canada today." "Then Mommy will pick me up from school," he said. Trina reassured me that she'll miss me. Jeremy and I spent the day packing and resting for the long trip. When I picked Michael up from school for dinner, he made up for his previous stoicism. He burst into tears and said, "I'm gonna miss you, Daddy." I'm going to miss Michael and Trina, too. Our flight isn't until 11:00pm, so we'll fly all night, then get in to Calgary just after midnight. Trina and Michael will be home in another month.

Computer Market

After Jeremy and I picked up Michael at school, we ate lunch and played in the recess room. The boys had fun, and I guess Trina was feeling good because she offered to take the boys and I could go to the computer market. She took the boys on the bus and I headed downtown.

I walked up and down the computer street, then into the new GuangHua marketplace. It's all different from before, when they had it under the overpass. For safety reasons, the city tore down the old location and is building a new IT building. It was supposed to be ready last month, but I think the sellers are in a temporary location still. I didn't need anything, but Trina suggested a USB hub and a multi card reader. If you want to have a computer build or need a knock-off of an iPod or blank CDs or DVDs, it's definitely the place to go. I did see an ACER desktop that was really small and just around $530 (without keyboard, mouse or monitor) and the first thing the guy said was: I can reduce the price! I also played for a moment with the new EeePC 900. My current one works fine, so I was not tempted to buy it. I also visited the underground computer market. It's great for spare parts and repairing systems. The most interesting thing I saw was a Chinese book (published in Taiwan in March) called something like "How to get the most out of your EeePC" which made specific reference to a package I put together to enable the advanced desktop that Asus left out. I felt a moment of pride, then moved on.

The computer market was the last on my list of things to do, other than the textile market (clothing), which we won't visit because it's too rainy. So now that I'm done, I can spend the next two days cleaning and packing and resting, hopefully reducing the severity of our jetlag.

I got back home at 4:15, and as I took out the keys to get into the house, I realised that if I had the keys, Trina wouldn't have been able to get inside. And the boys wouldn't have napped. I called the school, where Trina had just left, but they ran after her and, without going into further details, everyone had an early bedtime. Except Jeremy, who doesn't know how to go to sleep and just played in bed for hours. I fell asleep before he did, and woke up at 11:30 to find him with his arms above his head, his back on the matress, but his bum and legs on the floor.

Our First Date

Trina mentioned to me how tired she's feeling. It's really nice to have a vacation, but I've been trying to pack a lot into under three weeks. I understand what she means.

With the boys, we walked down to buy breakfast, then played on the playground for a little while. The weather was turning very hot, so we walked up to the community pool to see what the hours and rules are. Speedos only (fortunately, they sell some that come down to the knees), no swimming shorts, swim caps required, goggles optional. Open from 5:30am to 9:00pm, and only about $1 CDN per person. We planned to come back in the afternoon.

We walked down to the train station, then took the train to the Holiday Flower Market. When Michael saw where we were, he was not very impressed. He doesn't really enjoy shopping, and it's hard to blame him. He and Jeremy amused themselves playing in the fountains, Robert looked at bonsais, the most impressive of which are the flowering ones, and Trina bought carnations for her class to put in food colouring. Jumping ahead, when she brought them to school on Monday, her teaching assistant asked apprehensively if they were for Mother's Day. White is the colour of death, so it would have been very poor taste. Trina's not so clueless, though. The flowers were just for the kids to enjoy.

After a quiet, but hot, afternoon, we went back to the pool to swim. It was 32C out and humid, but the water was cold. Jeremy was unimpressed and stayed on Trina's lap the whole time, but Michael and I really enjoyed splashing around. A little girl was kind enough to lend Michael a flutter board, but even after she wanted it back, he was perfectly happy in the water without toys. Of course, playing jumping and spinning games with Daddy was pretty exciting.

We got back home just in time for May to babysit the boys, then we were off on our first (and only) date in Taiwan. It was such a strange feeling, not have either of the boys with us. We didn't have to worry about keeping them safe on the bus, keeping them close in the crowd or walking slow enough for Michael to keep up. In fact, Trina was walking fast enough that I had to hurry to keep up. We had dinner at a steak place called St. Paul's that seemed to be pretending to be an American buffet. But when there are tea eggs and dried tofu and hot tea, it's just very Chinese. That's not to say we didn't enjoy it, and it gave us the energy we needed for some serious shopping. We bought some souvenirs, but my favourite stop was a clothing store called Giordano. I don't shop for clothes at home, but I still have a pair of pants I bought at Giordano over four years ago in Hong Kong that I really like. In fact, their clothes fit my style fairly well, which is unusual in Taiwan, where the preference seems to be for large patterns, bright colours and unique designs. The sales people got really excited when I bought three pairs of pants and four t-shirts, plus a top for Trina. We were excited that it only cost around $100 CDN.

We had a fun time out and enjoyed being together. We came back to find the boys both asleep in their clothes, sprawled across our bed in different directions. I guess they had fun, too.

The World's Longest Tunnel

I woke up early this morning. Bleary eyed, I looked at my watch on the table, thought it said 7:00 and woke everyone up so that we would be ready to leave by 8:00. We all got up, got all ready to go and went to ring May's doorbell. Joseph came out and said "We're not leaving until 8:00." It turns out it was only 7:10 and Trina pointed out that I must have read the time wrong when I woke her up an hour earlier. Since that was the case, we went and bought some breakfast, and when we got back, May was ringing our doorbell, wondering where we were.

We had the same driver and the same van as the previous week. When Jeremy tried to play with the interior lights (which were off), Trina noticed that the fingerprints were still there from the week before. May told us that it used to take two hours to drive through the mountains from Taipei to YiLan, but they've built a new tunnel so it only takes 45 minutes. I think we were all glad for that. It is actually a series of three tunnels, with the longest section measuring 12.9 km. Our hosts told us that it is the world's longest tunnel, but a quick search on wikipedia shows that it is the fifth longest road tunnel in the world, second longest in East Asia. Either way, Michael sure thought it was neat.

After stopping briefly at the historic village, we decided to spend the morning in the park and the afternoon at the village. The park was beautiful, with wide open spaces, grass, trees and water. The temperature was very warm, around 30C, and the sky was clear. We played with bubbles, rode a bike, flew a kite, played ball, and ate tropical fruit. It was very relaxing and we enjoyed spending time with our friends.

YiLan, Taiwan

Click above to view the album.

At lunch time, May and Joseph wanted to take us to a restaurant they really like. May grew up in YiLan, but she said it has changed a lot, so we had to get directions. Then they ordered way too much food, from tripe & blood pudding through mountain vegetable, mapo dofu, spicy chicken, pork belly, popcorn shrimp with sweet mayonnaise and sprinkles, betel nut tree soup, bitter melon and salty duck eggs. And for the kids, dried tofu, clams and a few other dishes. It was a veritable feast and we greatly enjoyed what we ate. I won't claim that we tried everything, though.

In the afternoon, we visited the Traditional Arts Village. Jeremy and Michael both fell asleep in the car, and we didn't have the heart to wake them. They had a big morning and a big lunch, and I could have napped myself. Joseph carried Jeremy and I carried Michael and the ladies went shopping.





You can see that I had gotten a sunburn during the morning. I tried to stay out of the sun the rest of the day, and it didn't get too serious. When the boys woke up, they were happy to just play in the grass with Annie and her cousins. Joseph took me to visit a historic residence, which I enjoyed. I told Trina that she should write what about what she did, but she said they shopped the whole time. Apparently, she found some really nice things, but since they're fragile and wrapped, I won't see them until we get home.



Apologies in advance for another diaper story. We had planned to meet at the entrance at a certain time, so Joseph and I, the boys, Annie and the cousins were all waiting inside. Jeremy dirtied his diaper, so I grabbed a clean one and went into the men's room. On the way past the ladie's room, I noticed they had a change table, which got my hopes up. I guess Taiwanese men don't change diapers, because our washroom was not equipped. I briefly considered just using the women's, since it was mostly separate from the rest of the washroom, but I told Joseph about the situation and he said Annie would help. She and her cousin attempted to change the diaper, using many wipes in the process. When I walked back past the ladie's room with Michael, I distinctly heard Annie's voice (in Chinese) saying "so stinky, so stinky!" It turns out that they got a stranger woman to help them.

On the way back to Taipei, we stopped at some hot springs and dangled our feet in for a while. It was nice and relaxing and the two boys love playing in water. Michael kicked his toes around and Jeremy amused himself by splashing a stranger. It's lucky he's so cute... but we moved him to the other side so he could splash without getting anyone else wet.





May and Joseph invited us for dim sum, but we didn't get back to Taipei until around 8:00, so decided to postpone it until Tuesday. We're looking forward to it!

The Hillside Town of JiuFen

Jeremy and I took Michael to school again today. That avoids some of the craziness in trying to get him and Trina both out the door by 7:30. However, I forgot Michael's backpack... again. This time it had his lunch in it and so Jeremy and I had a taxi drive back up to our apartment, then back to the school. I hope Michael really enjoyed that lunch!

After that, Jeremy and I walked to ZhongXiao FuXing intersection to take the bus to JiuFen. Trina didn't seem really interested in coming and taking both boys is not easy. Taking Jeremy wouldn't be easy, but I wanted to visit. JiuFen is like the Banff of Taipei in that it's scenic and it's a tourist destination, even for the locals. We found the bus stop on the north east side of the intersection (after walking half-way around), then waited about 15 minutes for the bus. It's just like a city bus and it runs every 20 minutes. It's only 90 NT (less than $3) for a 90 minute bus ride. The bus was totally full and we got the very last seat. Fortunately, Jeremy fell asleep fairly early into the ride, because otherwise he doesn't stay still. While on the bus, I realised that just about everyone else is from Hong Kong. They look a little different from Taiwanese people, they almost all wear blue jeans and they speak Cantonese. And a little English, so I spoke for a couple minutes with the girl Jeremy had been playing with.

The ride was quite scenic, but the view of the Pacific Ocean, when we arrived, was spectacular. Then we started down the street with the attractions. There were shops with toys and nick knacks and art and food and snacks. Some of the time Jeremy walked, but much of the time I needed to hold him, because a lot of the stuff was breakable. Even if it's not very expensive, I didn't want to pay for broken stuff. Jeremy found a massager that he thought was a hammer (and which tickled his back), so I bought that for him.

JiuFen

Click above for the album.

Even though it was packed, we only saw four or five other white people. There were a few tour groups from Hong Kong, though. Part of the reason may have been that it was a weekday. We stayed for two and a half hours, which was how much I enjoyed it.

We went to grab the bus home... along with a whole crowd of people. They just crammed us all in the bus, but fortunately someone gave up his seat for us. That was great, because Jeremy went to sleep almost immediately. It was a Taiwanese boy, who had been sitting with his girlfriend, and I've found that Taiwanese people are very helpful. I wonder if Hong Kong people are not helpful, since none of them even looked tempted to give up their seats. The first stop was pretty close and enough people got off that a seat opened up for the boyfriend. A few minutes later, he used his cell phone to phone his girlfriend (beside me) and tell her to ask me to switch spots with him. Jeremy was fast asleep, so it was tricky, but he had given up his seat for me, so I made the effort.

Jeremy woke up as we pulled into the bus stop and we walked back to Michael's school. We bumped into our friend Linda, who invited us out for dinner. Jeremy, Michael and I played at a nearby playground until Trina was done work, then we went to a fancy Thai restaurant at the top of Sogo. Linda used her VIP membership (with the mall?) to get the next available table, and we enjoyed great service and delicious food. Trina says the boys were better behaved, but I think we were just more calm with them, because of the atmosphere in the restaurant. Imagine eating out like that all the time... but in Calgary that would be not only expensive, but inconvenient because everything is spread so far apart and the food takes so long to arrive.