Sun Yet Sen Memorial
Today, I set out with the girls for a walk, hoping Liz would fall asleep in the stroller since she was cranky and tired. We walked a few blocks to the Sun Yatsen Memorial Hall. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Sun+Yat-sen+Memorial+Hall
This is a beautiful structure with pictures, paintings and statues of various important Chinese people through the years. The grounds are very pretty, with lots of flowers and bushes everywhere. There is a small lake on one side with a bridge going across it. Ashley loved looking in the lake, trying to find fish and turtles. We did see one turtle and some rather large fish. No feeding them though, they had signs everywhere. Ashley wasn't too happy about that. We were greeted by a few people while we were walking around. Many people here tell us it's too hot to have the children outside and that we need umbrellas covering us and sunscreen and water, etc. I tell them we are from Texas and used to heat and that we use sunscreen and stay in the shade and drink lots of water. Seems to satisfy most of them. We had a nice time at the memorial and I'm hoping someday to go back without the kids so I can read up on the history of the place.
In order for me to get an Alien Resident Card, I had to get a physical. For some reason, the spouse of the working individual must have a physical, but not the working person. I had the hotel call the hospital last week and make me an appointment. Luckily, I left early since there are three buildings to the hospital and I couldn't find an English speaking person to tell me where to go. I finally found it and had my physical done, all the normal stuff, blood sample, bp, pulse, weight, height, urine and stool - this was unexpected and about as bad as you could imagine, but at least it's done and over with. The Chinese also consider this year as 1993, so for all the medical records, I kept writing my birthday as 1975, but they put it in their records as 1964. It was weird seeing my birthdate as that!
We bought Ashley her first bike, a pink Hello Kitty one. When we took her to her 3 year checkup, they asked if she could ride a tricycle, we said we thought so and have tried to get her to ride one ever since, but she can't seem to get the pushing of the pedals down good, so we decided getting her a little bike to practice on would be a good idea. Plus, we figured we'd give the hotel staff more headaches by having a three year old riding a bike in the lobby :) She did okay with it this evening, but she keeps pushing the pedals backwards instead of forward since it's easier on her legs.
We ate sushi and other appetizers on the 22nd floor for dinner. Planned on going out, but it was all so good, we just filled up on that. yum, yum.... soon we hope to visit Sushi Express where you get two pieces of sushi for 30NT (roughly 1 us dollar).
Husband entry:
Grand Club (the 22nd floor Kimberly mentioned) is awesome, that's where all the staff loves our girls, and you can hang out, make a drink(between 5:30pm and 8pm) and snack on whatever happens to be served that night. 'Sushi night' (my name for it, not theirs) is easily the best - they seem to rotate a set course of hoeur d'ourves (sp?) every week or so. Unfortunately, the food at the Grand Club is usually high quality Far East fare, which means usually not too tasty. What I wouldn't do for a Sonic cheeseburger most nights...
Anyways, Kimberly headed back early with the girls to give them a bath (they've been getting pretty dirty playing around everywhere), I hung out a little bit longer, then came back, cleaned 'em up, and we started our nightly ritual of desperately trying to get the girls to both go to bed. This involves a lot of crying and a lot of wear and tear on our patience. As I write this, it's 8:30pm, and both girls are crying (Ashley bloody murder, Liz a whine or two here and there in sympathy of Ashley's louder cries). Fun fun fun.
I'm trying to get used to the new work life here, too, while trying to find an apartment with an agent who would rather tell us his life story filled with woe and an office full of more politics than this year's elections. Not to mention in my first week, I've already had an employee tender his resignation. At least I can say it's not my fault, even if I have to pick up the pieces. And that's on top of this being first time to manage ANY group, much less a foreign one.
That's all the usual complaints, but still, the people at my office are wonderful and friendly, the hotel is beautiful with consistently the nicest people I've met (note that as Kimberly mentioned, with Ashley riding a bike in the lobby of a VERY nice hotel, not one person complained), and overall a great country. Certainly could be worse. Plus, the girls have been very good. Sure they have their bad times, but no more so than any children, and they're wonderful kids as you all know... Hard not to feel blessed with them.
Just thought I'd throw in my perspective on occasion. Hope it's welcome.
This is a beautiful structure with pictures, paintings and statues of various important Chinese people through the years. The grounds are very pretty, with lots of flowers and bushes everywhere. There is a small lake on one side with a bridge going across it. Ashley loved looking in the lake, trying to find fish and turtles. We did see one turtle and some rather large fish. No feeding them though, they had signs everywhere. Ashley wasn't too happy about that. We were greeted by a few people while we were walking around. Many people here tell us it's too hot to have the children outside and that we need umbrellas covering us and sunscreen and water, etc. I tell them we are from Texas and used to heat and that we use sunscreen and stay in the shade and drink lots of water. Seems to satisfy most of them. We had a nice time at the memorial and I'm hoping someday to go back without the kids so I can read up on the history of the place.
In order for me to get an Alien Resident Card, I had to get a physical. For some reason, the spouse of the working individual must have a physical, but not the working person. I had the hotel call the hospital last week and make me an appointment. Luckily, I left early since there are three buildings to the hospital and I couldn't find an English speaking person to tell me where to go. I finally found it and had my physical done, all the normal stuff, blood sample, bp, pulse, weight, height, urine and stool - this was unexpected and about as bad as you could imagine, but at least it's done and over with. The Chinese also consider this year as 1993, so for all the medical records, I kept writing my birthday as 1975, but they put it in their records as 1964. It was weird seeing my birthdate as that!
We bought Ashley her first bike, a pink Hello Kitty one. When we took her to her 3 year checkup, they asked if she could ride a tricycle, we said we thought so and have tried to get her to ride one ever since, but she can't seem to get the pushing of the pedals down good, so we decided getting her a little bike to practice on would be a good idea. Plus, we figured we'd give the hotel staff more headaches by having a three year old riding a bike in the lobby :) She did okay with it this evening, but she keeps pushing the pedals backwards instead of forward since it's easier on her legs.
We ate sushi and other appetizers on the 22nd floor for dinner. Planned on going out, but it was all so good, we just filled up on that. yum, yum.... soon we hope to visit Sushi Express where you get two pieces of sushi for 30NT (roughly 1 us dollar).
Husband entry:
Grand Club (the 22nd floor Kimberly mentioned) is awesome, that's where all the staff loves our girls, and you can hang out, make a drink(between 5:30pm and 8pm) and snack on whatever happens to be served that night. 'Sushi night' (my name for it, not theirs) is easily the best - they seem to rotate a set course of hoeur d'ourves (sp?) every week or so. Unfortunately, the food at the Grand Club is usually high quality Far East fare, which means usually not too tasty. What I wouldn't do for a Sonic cheeseburger most nights...
Anyways, Kimberly headed back early with the girls to give them a bath (they've been getting pretty dirty playing around everywhere), I hung out a little bit longer, then came back, cleaned 'em up, and we started our nightly ritual of desperately trying to get the girls to both go to bed. This involves a lot of crying and a lot of wear and tear on our patience. As I write this, it's 8:30pm, and both girls are crying (Ashley bloody murder, Liz a whine or two here and there in sympathy of Ashley's louder cries). Fun fun fun.
I'm trying to get used to the new work life here, too, while trying to find an apartment with an agent who would rather tell us his life story filled with woe and an office full of more politics than this year's elections. Not to mention in my first week, I've already had an employee tender his resignation. At least I can say it's not my fault, even if I have to pick up the pieces. And that's on top of this being first time to manage ANY group, much less a foreign one.
That's all the usual complaints, but still, the people at my office are wonderful and friendly, the hotel is beautiful with consistently the nicest people I've met (note that as Kimberly mentioned, with Ashley riding a bike in the lobby of a VERY nice hotel, not one person complained), and overall a great country. Certainly could be worse. Plus, the girls have been very good. Sure they have their bad times, but no more so than any children, and they're wonderful kids as you all know... Hard not to feel blessed with them.
Just thought I'd throw in my perspective on occasion. Hope it's welcome.
posted by The Armstrongs at
8/03/2004
