Beautiful Weekend full of Exercise
We had a wonderful weekend. The weather here has been amazingly beautiful – not too chilly, not too hot, sunny and no rain. Saturday morning was too nice to waste, so we decided to go hiking again. We took the same path up Elephant Mountain, but instead of going back down the same way towards XinYi road, we went the other direction and headed down towards YongChan park (I think that’s what it is called). Despite the HUGE 20 minute fit that Ashley threw at the beginning of our hike, the rest of the hike went great. The girls had fun, got lots of attention as usual. We saw some really nice views of the city and our neighborhood since it wasn’t as hazy as it had been on our last hike. There are many, many trails on this particular set of “mountains” and I think it will take months to explore them all. Some venture to other areas of Taipei. There are maps on the trail itself, but since there are so many other little trails veering off of the main trail, it’s hard to tell what goes where. We ended up at the bottom in some temple close to our apartment building. It was strange walking down a set of stairs and suddenly being in a little temple. Oops...
Saturday evening, Anthony and I went out for dinner with another couple (Beth and Ingo). We had a good time and enjoyed the company. It was nice getting out and having some adult conversation for an evening, without talking about the kids the whole time. The girls did great with Frances (the babysitter) and went to bed without a problem.
Sunday was another gorgeous day and we joined another family (Beth, Ingo, Claire and Benjamin) at one of the parks in town, near Neihu by a river. The girls (Claire and Ashley) rode their bikes, ran around and even tried Claire’s “rollerblades”. They had a lot of fun. Liz was really good at walking around, even running at times, up and down little hills, without falling over. She’s gotten very good at balancing herself. We all ate lunch at the American Club, which was good – the kids ate a ton of food and got to run around and play some more after eating. The all were exhausted when we left and both took good naps. Anthony did some Christmas shopping for me while I took a nap with Ashley and then we all went Christmas shopping after naps. We decided to go to AsiaWorld since there is a ToysRUs there – I have gotten Ashley’s presents, but we needed to find Liz some things. We got her a few cute wooden toys (one thing I like about Taiwan toy stores is their selection of basic wooden toys instead of the plastic Fisher Price and Little Tikes). We also went to IKEA, where Ashley got to play in their kid area – which always helps shopping go a little easier for us! We found a shelving unit for our kitchen (since we are running out of space to put anything), a really cute rug for the kids play area in the living room and Liz’s major Christmas present – you’ll have to wait until after Christmas to find out what it is. When we tried to find the shelving unit though, we found out we had to buy it then and come back later (today) and pick it up from the warehouse. Apparently, they don’t keep all items in the store, they keep them in a warehouse next door and you have to buy the item, then come back the next day and pick it up or have it delivered, for a charge. Of course, being that this store is in Taiwan and they don’t communicate in English well, it took about an hour to figure all of this out. And the girls were getting very cranky and tired (it was 9pm by the time we got it all figured out!). We are definitely learning patience while living here, patience in dealing with the locals, patience in dealing with each others frustration in dealing with the locals and patience in dealing with the girls while we are dealing with the locals. Ahhh, so much fun!
All in all though, we had a great weekend and I am looking forward to more kitchen shelving and the kid’s rug! I’ve posted quite a few pics from last week and the weekend – take a look when you get a chance.
Saturday evening, Anthony and I went out for dinner with another couple (Beth and Ingo). We had a good time and enjoyed the company. It was nice getting out and having some adult conversation for an evening, without talking about the kids the whole time. The girls did great with Frances (the babysitter) and went to bed without a problem.
Sunday was another gorgeous day and we joined another family (Beth, Ingo, Claire and Benjamin) at one of the parks in town, near Neihu by a river. The girls (Claire and Ashley) rode their bikes, ran around and even tried Claire’s “rollerblades”. They had a lot of fun. Liz was really good at walking around, even running at times, up and down little hills, without falling over. She’s gotten very good at balancing herself. We all ate lunch at the American Club, which was good – the kids ate a ton of food and got to run around and play some more after eating. The all were exhausted when we left and both took good naps. Anthony did some Christmas shopping for me while I took a nap with Ashley and then we all went Christmas shopping after naps. We decided to go to AsiaWorld since there is a ToysRUs there – I have gotten Ashley’s presents, but we needed to find Liz some things. We got her a few cute wooden toys (one thing I like about Taiwan toy stores is their selection of basic wooden toys instead of the plastic Fisher Price and Little Tikes). We also went to IKEA, where Ashley got to play in their kid area – which always helps shopping go a little easier for us! We found a shelving unit for our kitchen (since we are running out of space to put anything), a really cute rug for the kids play area in the living room and Liz’s major Christmas present – you’ll have to wait until after Christmas to find out what it is. When we tried to find the shelving unit though, we found out we had to buy it then and come back later (today) and pick it up from the warehouse. Apparently, they don’t keep all items in the store, they keep them in a warehouse next door and you have to buy the item, then come back the next day and pick it up or have it delivered, for a charge. Of course, being that this store is in Taiwan and they don’t communicate in English well, it took about an hour to figure all of this out. And the girls were getting very cranky and tired (it was 9pm by the time we got it all figured out!). We are definitely learning patience while living here, patience in dealing with the locals, patience in dealing with each others frustration in dealing with the locals and patience in dealing with the girls while we are dealing with the locals. Ahhh, so much fun!
All in all though, we had a great weekend and I am looking forward to more kitchen shelving and the kid’s rug! I’ve posted quite a few pics from last week and the weekend – take a look when you get a chance.
posted by The Armstrongs at
12/13/2004
