Rain...Rain...Go Away

Saturday was a fun day, we were invited to a birthday party at the American Club in China, for Jonas, a little boy who turned three. The girls were finally in better moods and Liz’s nose had quit running quite so much, so we were actually able to get out and socialize with people J It had been raining since Wednesday when we headed out and we noticed something very unusual – there were cars parked on the highway overpasses. So, a three lane highway was turned into a one lane highway due to cars being parked on both sides of the highway. We crossed over the main river here in Taipei (the Keelung River) and noticed that it was completely flooded. I have no idea how to describe it – there is usually a lot of grassy area on both sides of the park, with parking lots, some basketball courts, tennis courts, etc. Both sides of the river are flanked by very large concrete barriers and then there are streets on the other side of the barrier. Well, you couldn’t see any parking lots – just an occasional top of a car, and you could just see the tops of the basketball hoops. It was just amazing. Although I think they are used to this river flooding, since they have the concrete barriers on each side, I don’t think it’s a normal occurrence. Someone told us that when it floods, the government issues a statement that cars can be parked on highways to avoid being flooded in parking lots underground and in flooded streets. Very interesting.
We had a good time at the party, met lots of new expats living here, some very close to us, and the girls had a great time playing with other kids their own age. Angie was there with Joseph and he and Liz seemed to enjoy playing with the balloons the most. Both kiddos have just started walking so it was fun to see them going after balloons. They had a Chinese clown who did animal balloons and did a little magic with some doves. He was fun and the girls enjoyed him, especially Liz who just wanted the balloons he was blowing up. Anthony got to meet some of the husbands, which was nice for him since he hasn’t really met anyone outside of work. We also took a quick tour of the American Club, which has a pool, workout facility, several restaurants, bars, hair salon, library and kids play areas. It’s nice, but the price to belong is a bit hefty, so we most likely will only visit with other members. From what we’ve gathered so far, many of the expats are a bit higher on the pay scale than Anthony – lots of vice presidents, company executives, etc. I think the price was somewhere around 9000US to join, plus 260US a month (with some of being reimbursable), but still that’s quite a bit of money!

After the party, we took the girls back to the hotel for naps. It was still raining, never seemed to stop! Once Liz woke up, it was close to dinner time, but we thought we’d take the girls for a walk, since the rain looked like it was going to let up for a little while. We headed out and it started downpouring, so we sat on the steps at the Hyatt and let Ashley play in the rain – she got soaked, but she loved it! She splashed and danced and ran around – completely enjoying herself. We went ahead and started walking in the rain – it wasn’t too bad and if you stay on the sidewalks, which are usually covered by signs and building overhangings. We walked for a ways, visited some stores, then decided to catch a cab and go to Amaroni’s, an Italian restaurant here. It was delicious and both girls ate a good amount of spaghetti, with Liz getting it EVERYWHERE, including her hair.

On Sunday, we decided to visit Taipei Sea World (NOT affiliated in ANY way with the US Sea World). It was another rainy day, so indoors was a good place to spend the day. It is an interesting aquarium – they have a large variety of fish species, along with some insects, frogs, turtles, sharks, etc. It’s all packed into 3 stories of a very small building. They do have a shark tank, with some nurse sharks and rays, among other huge fish. We watched the shark feeding, which was quite interesting. The diver got closer to the sharks than I’ve seen any other before back in the US. He would hold them, getting them into position to show various aspects (I have no idea what he was saying – all in Chinese), and one of the sharks got quite aggressive with him, wanting more food – the diver kept having to hit the shark away from him. I was tense for him, but I guess he’s used to it. It’s a fairly small tank with a large variety of sea animals, so not a lot of room for him to move around. There were also sea animals on display that we’d never seen before – they called them “angels” and they looked like little round angels with wings and you could see a pink “heart” in the middle of them. They were the tiny – and in a very dark area with very cold water. No idea where they are normally found or any other information on them, but they were pretty cute.

In the basement area of the aquarium was a play area with ballpit and slides for the kids to play. Ashley and Liz had a lot of fun playing in that and Liz figured out how to crawl through the ball pit and even throw balls – although she threw them backwards, not forwards J We went straight to Chili’s for lunch afterwards and enjoyed a nice lunch watching the rain outside. Liz took a long nap afterwards and Anthony got to spend some quality time with Ashley upstairs on the 22nd floor playing while I rested and watched a stupid HBO movie with no kids! It was a nice afternoon. For dinner, we ate here in the hotel and are now entered into a drawing for a brand new Audi car. The hotel had a promotion going on for every 2000NT spent in a restaurant here, you could get a stamp on a card and once you got 10 stamps, you could be entered in the drawing (that’s 600 US dollars). We really haven’t eaten that much in the hotel, but twice we had dinner with several of Anthony’s coworkers from AMD and charged it to the room, so we got the credit for it. So, wish us luck and we may have a new car soon J
As we were about to head back upstairs, we ran into Beth and her husband, Ingu, with her two children (ages 3 and 11 months) who had just had dinner in the hotel. We had met Beth and her family the day before at the birthday party, so it was nice to see them again and exchange phone numbers and business cards. Turns out they live a few blocks from the hotel and often come over here for dinner. Beth is a stay at home mom, so it will be nice to have someone living nearby for playdates! Her 3 year old daughter also goes to a nearby Montessori school (which happens to be nearby our future apartment too) so I’m going to go check it out sometime soon and see if it’s a place we’d like to send Ashley.

It finally stopped raining today and I was able to take a walk with the girls and get out of the hotel for awhile. We mainly just walked around the neighborhood, checking out little shops we hadn’t been to before. It was a nice day spent with them. We all took naps too, which is always enjoyable, since these days, it’s hit or miss whether I can get Ashley to take one. I met Anthony at Costco after his work since we ran out of Cheerios and desperately needed some more. Back at the hotel, we ordered Pizza Hut after visiting upstairs on the 22nd floor for a while, and enjoyed a meal in our room for a change. Doesn’t happen very often, but it’s nice to not have to go out.

We have decided that Liz is going to be the musical one in the family. She has now really started to enjoy when we sing to her and actually will lay her head down whenever we start singing to her. It is so cute! She will also sway and hum along with us when we sing to her. She’s walking a lot more now and even ran today when Ashley got up from her nap – she was running to her. She still prefers to crawl, but everyday her walking is getting better.

Ashley is doing good, she’s starting to discover her feelings more and trying to voice sadness, happiness, anger, etc. She uses her stuffed animals for this, voicing how they are feeling. It’s nice to have conversations with her and it’s amazing how much she picks up. She asks how to say things in Chinese, so she’s trying to learn bits of the language. She’s a joy to be around most of the time, although I’ll be glad once she gets over the 3 and ½ year old stage of not being able to control her emotions and throwing rather large fits wherever we are.