Good Day
We had a good day Wednesday. I took the girls, first by taxi, back to the Handicraft mart, where I picked up the beautiful ring Anthony got for me. Then we walked a few blocks to the MRT station and took the train to the Transportation Museum where a playgroup was meeting. There were lots of moms there with kids. We played for about 2 hours, both girls just running around everywhere. Basically, they have three different playrooms all connected - one is a big "McDonald's" type play area with tunnels and ladders and little swings. All of the floor is covered in spongy mat type stuff. There is another area with a little trampoline, another with Little Tykes play houses, slides, cars, etc and another area with a ball pit and more slides, tunnels, etc. They had a blast playing and I had fun getting to know some of the women. I mainly talked with two women from Britain - so I occasionally say the funniest things because I heard it from them. Sometimes I just think them in my head and laugh because I haven't actually said it outloud, but it seems so funny. Anyway, we enjoyed our play time, then headed to their little cafe where we waited about 10 minutes for them to cook a pretzel - seems kind of slow to me, but hey, it is Taiwan. We sat with some of the moms and talked about areas to live in, apartment searching, etc. We got back to the hotel pretty late, took naps and then when Anthony got home, we went over to 101 and had Tepanyaki in the food court - mmm, good :)
Yesterday, I walked around for awhile with the girls, found a new mall (NewYork, NewYork 2), with a nice kids area, lots of games and rides for Ashley. We ate lunch at the food court, had fried rice, lo mien and some sort of fish. Ashley loves the rice and Liz loves the lo mien, so it was a nice meal. There is also a store in the basement called GEANT (giant) that's 2 floors. We didn't check it out, but supposedly, it's a grocery store on one level and a household goods store on another level, supposed to be decent. We then walked to an apartment that we were looking at. It's a nice one, on the 11th floor, overlooking highway, but also mountains in the distance. There was no furniture in it, so we need to see what kind of furniture they are going to put in it. It's little - 49 ping, but still 3 bedrooms, plus a study, would work for us. The other apartment in HsinYi area, we are still negotiating on, so we are still looking until that's final. The landlord wants us to sign a 2 year lease and we won't do that since we don't know if we'll be here for 2 years from date of lease (we'll have already been here 2 months at start of lease) and we don't want to be committed to a place that long since we don't know the area. It was late by the time we finished looking, so I took the girls back to the hotel for baths and naps (they were filthy are crawling and playing around in the apartment we looked at). A van picked us at 5:30 (with Anthony in it) and we had dinner with 2 individuals from AMD, visiting from home. We ate at Ruth Chris Steakhouse - all I can say is...mmmm...Fantastic...mmmm. It was delicious :) The girls were fairly well behaved, crawling around and playing. Glad the staff there don't mind our kids making messes and being loud in their restaurant. No way they'd put up with that back home. One of the waiters even took Liz and walked her around showing her different decorations on the wall, kept her occupied for a little while. It was nice to have dinner with people from back home, one of them was Molson, who helped Anthony build our deck and one was his boss, Gary.
This morning, I took the girls to the National Palace Museum. We didn't actually go into the museum, but walked the grounds, where they have a beautiful koi fish pond and covered walking trails, along with a sand pit. There were a few other moms there from the TienMu playgroup. It was nice talking with them. One of them is moving to China in a few weeks time, her husband is already there, and she's packing up stuff, selling stuff off and getting ready to move again. Guess this happens quite often in the expat community. A lot of people coming and going. There was a women there who I met the first time we went to the Transportation Museum who is originally from Russia. Her husband is Taiwanese and they lived in China for awhile. We talked briefly about the sad Russian hostage situation in the school going on right now. She said they have satellite and are able to get a Russian news station but that her husband will show her the Taiwanese newspapers here with news about Russia and it will be different information. She said the government is in charge of the news, so what gets broadcast over there will be different than what really happens. She also said she doesn't like CNN because they'll focus on one story and talk about it over and over again, and ignore other news worthy stories going on in the world. It was interesting! I enjoyed speaking with her. She has a cute little girl who is 2 years old who shared her sand toys with Ashley. Now, we are back at the hotel and I'm enjoying room service pizza while the girls nap :)
Yesterday, I walked around for awhile with the girls, found a new mall (NewYork, NewYork 2), with a nice kids area, lots of games and rides for Ashley. We ate lunch at the food court, had fried rice, lo mien and some sort of fish. Ashley loves the rice and Liz loves the lo mien, so it was a nice meal. There is also a store in the basement called GEANT (giant) that's 2 floors. We didn't check it out, but supposedly, it's a grocery store on one level and a household goods store on another level, supposed to be decent. We then walked to an apartment that we were looking at. It's a nice one, on the 11th floor, overlooking highway, but also mountains in the distance. There was no furniture in it, so we need to see what kind of furniture they are going to put in it. It's little - 49 ping, but still 3 bedrooms, plus a study, would work for us. The other apartment in HsinYi area, we are still negotiating on, so we are still looking until that's final. The landlord wants us to sign a 2 year lease and we won't do that since we don't know if we'll be here for 2 years from date of lease (we'll have already been here 2 months at start of lease) and we don't want to be committed to a place that long since we don't know the area. It was late by the time we finished looking, so I took the girls back to the hotel for baths and naps (they were filthy are crawling and playing around in the apartment we looked at). A van picked us at 5:30 (with Anthony in it) and we had dinner with 2 individuals from AMD, visiting from home. We ate at Ruth Chris Steakhouse - all I can say is...mmmm...Fantastic...mmmm. It was delicious :) The girls were fairly well behaved, crawling around and playing. Glad the staff there don't mind our kids making messes and being loud in their restaurant. No way they'd put up with that back home. One of the waiters even took Liz and walked her around showing her different decorations on the wall, kept her occupied for a little while. It was nice to have dinner with people from back home, one of them was Molson, who helped Anthony build our deck and one was his boss, Gary.
This morning, I took the girls to the National Palace Museum. We didn't actually go into the museum, but walked the grounds, where they have a beautiful koi fish pond and covered walking trails, along with a sand pit. There were a few other moms there from the TienMu playgroup. It was nice talking with them. One of them is moving to China in a few weeks time, her husband is already there, and she's packing up stuff, selling stuff off and getting ready to move again. Guess this happens quite often in the expat community. A lot of people coming and going. There was a women there who I met the first time we went to the Transportation Museum who is originally from Russia. Her husband is Taiwanese and they lived in China for awhile. We talked briefly about the sad Russian hostage situation in the school going on right now. She said they have satellite and are able to get a Russian news station but that her husband will show her the Taiwanese newspapers here with news about Russia and it will be different information. She said the government is in charge of the news, so what gets broadcast over there will be different than what really happens. She also said she doesn't like CNN because they'll focus on one story and talk about it over and over again, and ignore other news worthy stories going on in the world. It was interesting! I enjoyed speaking with her. She has a cute little girl who is 2 years old who shared her sand toys with Ashley. Now, we are back at the hotel and I'm enjoying room service pizza while the girls nap :)
posted by The Armstrongs at
9/03/2004
