Taipei Family Adventures

We've moved

2006-03-28T01:51:00.000+08:00

We are moving to Beijing, China and so I've started a new blog - here's the link:

http://armstrongsfromtexas.blogspot.com/

I'll be posting about the expat life in China with three small kids.

It's getting closer

2005-11-22T17:19:00.000+08:00

Our official leave date for Taiwan is now December 13! I can't believe it's so soon - less than three weeks away. We are going to Beijing for a week before flying to Arizona to visit with family for Christmas and then home to Texas right before Christmas. I am starting to get really excited. There's quite a bit to do before we leave, mainly just figuring out what to ship home and what to keep here for moving onto China next year.

The girls are doing good. I think it's starting to hit Ashley though that we are leaving and it's gonna be a bit hard on her at first. We were at Chili's the other night and she was in a really funky mood - not wanting to talk to Winter or go inside and play with all the staff, which is what she usually does. She actually started tearing up when I asked what was wrong and why she didn't want to go see Winter. She wouldn't say anything, but we finally figured out that she'd seen some boxes we packed up in the living room and had realized we were moving. She said she would miss Winter - we'll miss her too! Once we talked a bit about it, Ashley was happy again and went to talk with Winter and staff. Winter gave the girls some princess charms - too cute. We keep talking to the girls about going home to see all the grandparents. Last night at dinner, Liz said "go grandad's house" and kept pointing to a picture we have of the girls and grandad - she's very excited to be going.

They both started ballet class last week - it was interesting. I think I'm gonna have to leave next time so they pay more attention - as Liz kept coming out to see me and hang with me instead of stay in the class. They looked so cute in their little outfits. Liz did about 1/2 the things that the older kids did. The class is pre-ballet, so it's from ages 2-4 - both girls are in the same class. With Ashley's gymnastics class on Thursday and ballet on Friday, I noticed a bit of a trend that we're gonna have to address with her. It seems that she's gotten used to a lot of one on one attention in a classroom setting. So, when she doesn't get the attention she wants, she acts up - interrupting teacher, saying inappropriate things, acting inappropriately, etc. When she didn't get the attention she wanted in ballet, she went off in a corner and didn't participate in the class for about 15 minutes. I've spoken to her about it, so we'll see how this week goes. I guess it will be interesting once we are back in the States and she's not glorified for being white and cute anymore, how much her attention grabbing skills will be used.

The baby and I are doing just fine. He's kicking and moving all around like crazy. I can't believe that I have three more months of this - he seems to be so big already, I don't know how my body will handle the rest of the pregnancy. The yoga has helped and hopefully, I'll be able to continue taking that once I am back home. I have started to have lots of ligament stretching pains, along with the sore rib spot that I've had with all my pregnancies. I bought a pregnancy belt the other day, which helps to lift up my belly and give my back some support.

I got to watch the Vikings play football today - that was fun, especially since they won and beat the Packers. We get Sunday and Monday night football games here but it's rare that we actually get to see one of our teams play. Anthony has gotten us tickets to go to a Cowboys game up in Dallas while we are visiting his family. That should be fun and something we are both looking forward to.

My family's expanded!

2005-11-18T14:06:00.000+08:00

My little brother and his girlfriend had a baby boy 2 days ago - Carter. He's a cutie from the pics I've seen and I hope that someday soon I'll get to see him in person. That's what really bites about families living so far apart from one another these days. Ashley and Liz have four cousins, all within 4 years of each other and they probably will never have the opportunity to spend much time together. Each family lives in a different city or state than we do (obviously now, in a different country, too!). Anyway, it's exciting news and I wish the best for my bro and his new little family.

Not much happening here, starting to kind of clean up stuff to get ready for the move. Going through paperwork, tossing things we don't need or use, etc. Also, the cool/cold weather has hit here (although you wouldn't know it since I slept with the air conditioner on last night!) and Ashley has almost nothing warm to wear and what she does have - not much of it matches, so she's in desperate need of clothes. She's getting to an age or stage though, where she wants to pick out her clothes so she can wear what she likes, not what mom thinks she should wear. She's really into fashion - funky, fun, colorful stuff - nothing just plain Jane boring. I put on some black, pink and white striped socks the other day and was told how cute my socks were! She's pretty funny right now. I did go shopping today and bought her some clothes that I found at an outlet store - mainly "The Children's Place" clothing - some really cute stuff, or at least, I think so, we'll see what she has to say!

First the Oven, then the Bread Machine

2005-11-15T18:13:00.000+08:00

I am beginning to think that rejects get sent to be sold in Taiwan at an inflated price and then break so that you have to replace it. First, our toaster oven went out. This is owned by the landlord and of course, trying to get the landlord to replace it is near impossible and trying to get it fixed takes forever since we have to go through our rental agent, who goes through the landlords rental agent who has to talk to the landlord about what to do, who then tells our rental agent who then forgets that we needed something done and never gets back to us. It's really frustrating. So, I just bought a new oven which we'll take with us when we move.

Last week, I tried to make some bread in the machine and it never did rise or cook properly, so I just figured I'd gotten the recipe wrong or the yeast was bad. But then today, I tried again, using a bread machine bread mix, which you can't really go wrong with, and nothing happened. It stirred everything up into a goey mess, but it didn't cook it. So, our bread machine is broken. We got it from Costco, so I'm gonna try to see if we can get it fixed instead of chalking up another loss.

Both these items are less than one year old and it's not like they are used even on a weekly basis, so I'm at a loss as to why they are breaking. I've noticed that things tend to break here easily - cabinets, furniture, appliances, plastic things, etc. I just don't understand.

It has finally cooled down here, a cold front came through yesterday, thank goodness. I was getting REALLY tired of 90 degree weather, even though almost all my maternity clothes are summer clothes. It's so nice to go outside and take a walk in the cool breeze instead of sweating up a storm just walking to the park.

I did my glucose test yesterday and I passed! I was a bit worried and really didn't want to have to sit for three or four hours in a crowded busy hospital getting my blood drawn again. If you live in the States, u should be very happy that you get to drink an orange flavored sugar drink for your test. It's just pure sugar here that you mix with water and it tastes just like sugar or syrup - kind of similar to Karo Syrup but not that thick - not exactly fun to drink. It's quite gross. Anyway, I passed, so that's all that matters.

Weekend

2005-11-13T20:28:00.000+08:00

We had a good weekend. Anthony took me out Saturday night while Ms. Wu watched the girls. He took me to a place called the "Swiss Chalet", which is, well, swiss food. We ordered fondue - both for dinner and for dessert - the dinner was just meat, which we'd not had before, so we experimented with how to cook it until we figured it out. We tried asking the waitress how long to cook each meat, but she didn't really answer - you'd think she'd know, but maybe it was because she spoke very little English? Anyway, the beef was really good, the shrimp good and the chicken was just ok. We had chocolate fondue for dessert, which was very tasty. We got home at 10:00 and were told the girls were asleep, but that Ashley had gone down at 9:30, which is very late for her. Ms. Wu left and we went to check on the girls, to our surprise, their light was on and they were happily playing together with Barbies! Too funny!

We went to DaAn park today, taking the girls rollerblades, so they could practice. It was packed at the park. I'm not used to going to the parks during the weekend, only during the week, so it was a bit of a change to see so many people around. After naps, we took the girls to see "Chicken Little" - it was just going to be Ashley and me, but we decided to try and see if Liz could make it through a movie - no such luck, Anthony left 1/2 way through and took Liz home - she just couldn't sit still or be quiet. Ashley loved the movie though and sat mesmerized through the whole thing. I thought it was ok although I really don't understand why SO many Disney movies have main characters with no mothers. Ashley and I also went out to dinner at her choice of restaurant, which was Chili's of course "since Winter will be there" was her reason (Winter is a waitress at Chili's that is always wonderful with us and the girls - she gets them little gifts and plays with them often letting Anthony and I eat in peace). It was nice spending some one on one time with Ashley. We also went walking around doing some window shopping - she loves looking at Barbies, My Little Ponies and Horses. Barbie has come out with some new fairy tale thing involved a pegasus which she has fallen in love with - her favorite thing right now is horses, ponies, unicorns....u get the picture.

It was a good weekend overall although I think it will take me a few days to recover from all the activitiy - my legs and belly are a bit sore from all the walking, along with my Yoga on Saturday.

Interesting Ultrasound

2005-11-13T20:18:00.000+08:00

I had a high level ultrasound a few weeks ago where they measure, count and look everything over to make sure baby is developing properly. We had this done at the Private Clinic next to ChungShan hospital. The tech was very thorough, even making sure he could count fingers and toes. The size of the baby is good for our due date and everything looked great. We got a few photos, although nothing really good - no profiles or hands waving or anything. After it was over, the tech was trying to portray to us that an ultrasound does not guarantee that the baby will be 100% healthy and normal, but it was quite interesting how he told us this. He would say things like "the baby may have a mouth, but may not be able to speak, the baby has two eyes, but may not be able to see", etc. We understood what he was trying to convey but it was a weird way of hearing it.

Baby Update - 24 weeks

2005-11-11T17:00:00.000+08:00

I am now 24 weeks pregnant and little Junior is starting to get very active. I went to the doctor today for a checkup - here, I just go when we think it's time, no appointments, no reminders. It had been over a month since I'd last seen my OB and I know that the glucose test is around 24 weeks, so I went. For some reason, the hospital was busy, lots of kids and adults, sick kids and adults, I assume, standing around coughing and breathing the same air as myself, a healthy pregnant woman. That is one thing I REALLY don't like about the doctor visits here - everyone is all together, sick and well, sure makes it a lot easier to pick up nasty little germs. Anyway, saw the doctor, all is well. My weight is the same as the last time I had a visit - so I got a stern look for that. I had to remind her that I'd lost a bunch of weight from my last sickness and have since gained it all back, so I've actually done quite well. She listened for Junior's heartbeat and found a very muffled, but steady one after prodding and poking and hurting me for a few minutes. She said Junior must be way back by my spine so it was hard to get a clear heartbeat. He was kicking the doppler wand anytime she stuck it in my belly, so I know he was doing ok in there. For my glucose test, the pharmacy gave me a bag of sugar - at least that's what it looks like, told me to mix it with 200cc of water, drink it in 5 minutes and come to hospital to get my blood drawn exactly one hour after drinking. I will do it on Monday. It cost me $150 NT (about 5 us dollars) to get the sugar - apparently the National Health Insurance does not cover the cost of the test here. Makes me wonder how many women elect to not have it done then and whether it's even a cause of concern for the Asian population.

I haven't been sleeping too well. I take a long time to fall asleep, usually because that when my body starts aching from the day and Junior wakes up and starts kicking/punching. I have been having these really sharp shooting pains on my right side at night that are very bothersome. Doc said it's probably a nerve and that only time will make it go away. I sure hope it goes away soon. I'm exhausted in the mornings, try and take naps in the afternoon and am ready to go back to sleep by 8pm! It's really sad.

I am taking Yoga classes once a week. The instructor does the class in Chinese, as I'm the only foreigner in the class - but she'll occasionally switch to English if she sees me looking lost or confused. I was really sore after last weeks class so it is doing it's job! I've also noticed that a lot of the poses we do open up the pelvic muscles and are often poses that you see in natural childbirthing techniques, so hopefully, this is getting me ready.

I'm currently reading "The Birth Book" by the Sears duo. It is a very good read and has give me some great information on attempting to labor and birth naturally. I'm actually starting to look forward to my labor and my whole birth experience with this one. I even dreamt about it last night! Definitely a different mindset than with my others ("Just give me the drugs as soon as I have my first contraction!").

The Next 6 Months will be Interesting

2005-10-26T16:29:00.000+08:00

I guess it’s time to update everyone on our living arrangements, meaning where we’ll be living and when. Our current plan is to leave Taiwan in the middle of December to travel home for the holidays. We will stop in Arizona to visit family there before heading home to Austin for Christmas and New Years. I will stay in Austin with the girls and Anthony will travel back to Taiwan for work. He’ll come back to Austin in February, hopefully for the birth of the baby. Then a week or so after the baby is born, he’ll head back to Asia. We aren’t sure yet if that means Taiwan or to the new city we are being assigned to – BEIJING! Then, sometime in April, depending on when the new baby is at least 6 weeks old, Anthony will come back to Austin and pick us all up and we’ll all fly to Beijing where we will live for at least one year. Pretty exciting, yet, nerve wracking at the same time. I am sad to leave Taiwan, as I’ve made some good friends here, but we always knew we wouldn’t be here for long, such is the life of an expat. I am excited to be coming home for a few months, even if that means living life with 3 kids and no husband around! It will be a hard and trying time for all of us, I’m sure. We’re working on whether to put the girls in school for a few months while home or to hire someone to come to the house to help out. Maybe both, we’ll just have to see how that plays out.

I realized this last weekend that Ashley will be starting kindergarten in the fall, so we have a new dimension to our relocating that we haven’t had to worry about before – making sure there is a good school nearby where we live that Ashley can attend in Beijing. The one that I know of in Beijing is the International School of Beijing, which is not anywhere near where Anthony works. So, it will be interesting finding housing there. I can’t believe that Ashley is almost old enough for real school! How time flies.

We are keeping an eye on the bird flu situation. I am not concerned right now, here in Taiwan, as health officials tend to be on top of things and let the public know quickly about outbreaks, as well as all the embassies here. There has been no human to human contact that is known from the virus and we don’t hang out around any chickens, birds or ducks, or in the live markets, so we’re fine. I am keeping an eye on China though – heard a report today about hundreds more birds they found contaminated, but still no human to human contact. During SARS, China tried to hide how many people were infected and limit the amount of press that was released about it. I am really hoping that does not happen this time!

And It's a....

2005-10-25T12:57:00.000+08:00

During my stay in the hospital, we were able to do another ultrasound and see the sex of the baby! From what we could see and what the doctor told us, IT’S A BOY! We are very excited and can’t wait to find out how different having a boy is from a girl. We have another ultrasound next week (3D) and will verify the sex just to make sure. He is a very active baby, as Anthony has been able to feel his kicks for weeks now. He is most active in the evenings, especially when the girls wake him up by kissing my belly and telling him goodnight. The other night, they even told him “secrets” by whispering to my belly. I have no idea what they said to him, but it was a darling scene. I have only gained about 2 pounds, so now that I am completely healthy, I’m trying to eat a lot to gain some more weight. The belly is growing though and people are now able to tell that I am pregnant. I am very tired, more so than with my other pregnancies. I haven’t had my blood levels checked for anemia though, so I will have them check that next time, in case that’s the reason for my tiredness. Not much else really, I am 22 weeks now, over the half way mark! At the last ultrasound, they moved the due date forward a few days to March 1 instead of February 26th. We’ll see. I have started my search for a birth and postpartum doula to help assist during and after the birth. I am excited at the prospect of having a more natural birth experience. We do have a name picked out, but are keeping it quiet until he is born, gotta have one surprise!

Yes, We are all OK

2005-10-25T12:55:00.000+08:00

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. I’ve gotten a few requests from people to update, so here goes.

It’s been a LONG month. There were a few good weeks, with the kids doing well in school, me learning how to keep myself occupied with no kids during the day and Anthony working hard. Then, we had typhoon Longwang – no real damage around here, just windy and rainy on a Sunday, so Anthony didn’t even get the day off of work. I bought an air mattress the week before, in preparation, and we spent several hours sleeping on it in the living room, away from the big windows in our bedroom. I started to kind of feel a little icky that day, having some contractions also. By Wednesday, I was pretty sick and after visiting one doctor who said “oh, it’s just some GI thing, go home and rest”, I went to my OB here, who referred me to her husband, who is an internal specialist at the same hospital. He admitted me into the hospital to get some IV fluids in and run some tests. I was in a lot of abdominal pain, with on/off contractions and not able to keep food/water in for very long. The baby was fine, heartbeat was good and I wasn’t having consistent contractions. They diagnosed me with acute invasive gastroenteritis, from something I ate or drank. Fortunately, no one else in the family got sick. They were not able to determine exactly what bacteria was invading my body, but they went ahead and put me on antibiotics and kept me in the hospital for four days, until I could eat and normally use the bathroom, with no contractions. It was not a fun time, being in quite a bit of pain and not really knowing what or when it would be over. Due to the pregnancy, they did not want to give me any pain medication, so I had to suffer. It was nice knowing that everything the GI did had to be approved by my OB, so I was able to trust that they were both doing the best for me and for the baby.

Once I got home, I then started to run a fever for three days and then once I was better, Liz was home sick with enterovirus, which is commonly known as hand, foot and mouth disease. We thought the kids might get it as it was going around among friends that they had been around and it’s a fairly contagious virus. Sure enough, Liz got the spots on her hands, feet, mouth, legs and stomach – poor thing! She was in a good mood though and stayed home with me for the required 6 days. We had lots of fun as I was finally feeling good and she was happy to be at home with mommy and no Ashley.

Since then, we’ve all just been prodding along, watching my belly grow. Anthony has been working quite a bit, having dinner meetings, conference calls and working through email while at home. The girls are still loving their school. Liz doesn’t cry anymore at all when we take her, she gives us hugs and waves bye-bye. She has even finally learned how to walk the whole way there and the whole way back. This has taken weeks of huge crying fits in the middle of the sidewalk because she wanted to be carried. It’s getting difficult for me to carry her, so that’s kind of not an option right now. The girls sing songs they learn at school, even Liz. We don’t really understand what she is singing, but the mumbling has some sort of rhythm to it, so we assume it’s a song. Ashley is working on learning how to spell short words, along with learning the sounds all the letters make. She is also perfecting her art skills as she attempts to draw everyone in the family and animals. Liz is learning her numbers and colors and how to talk so we can understand her.

Green Island Trip, Taiwan

2005-09-22T12:23:00.000+08:00

I am finally feeling better! It’s been over a week since I’ve had to visit the porcelain bowl, which has been wonderful. I’m still getting a bit queasy sometimes, but I’ll take this any day compared to what I was experiencing.

We’ve been quite busy. Last weekend was our weekend trip to Green Island, a small island off the southeast coast of Taiwan. It’s small enough to get around by scooter within about 45 minutes. They have very few cars, so scooters are the only option for driving around. We took a domestic flight from Taipei to Taitung, then an hour ferry ride to the island. The ferry ride was awful, choppy and made a lot of people seasick, including Liz. I had taken medicine, otherwise, I’m sure I would have joined her since she threw up all over me! It was pretty nasty. Poor baby though, she was pretty miserable for most of the ride.

Once we got to the island, a man called us over and put us in a van, drove about 100 feet, had us get out and pick up scooters. We quickly got our first lesson in driving one and off we were to our hotel. We stopped at this place so they could show us a map and tell us that we were to go snorkeling that afternoon. We kept asking where hotel was, when we could go to hotel and clean up, etc. They kept saying, here, here and we were a bit perplexed. This was just one room with some tables next door to some shops, we had no idea it was a hotel – more of a motel. Turns out behind the building, there were some rooms set up – cleverly called “cottages” by the travel agent, not exactly cottages, more like 4 walls of plywood put together to form a room. 2 HARD beds, one typical Taiwanese bathroom with shower being the whole bathroom – no bathtub or curtain, a wall air conditioning unit which only stayed on when you were in the room. Very interesting and NOT at all what we were expecting for the money we had paid for the room. Apparently, they don’t charge for the room, but for the number of people in the room and because there were 4 of us, we were charged more. We decided to make the best of it and went around the island. It was beautiful. Lots of coral rock formations and beautiful beaches (rocky, coral) with tide pools for looking at small fish in.

That afternoon, we went snorkeling. We were taken to a little place across the street from hotel that had the gear we were required to put on for snorkeling (and this is NO joke!) – full body wetsuits including boots (no fins here), a lifevest and snorkeling mask and then once we rode our scooters in all this fine HOT gear, we were to go out with a guide who was holding onto a rope attached to round floaties that you could hang on to. There were lots of waves so the kids stayed ashore and Anthony and I took turns getting out to the reef. Once past the rocky and wavy shoreline, the snorkeling was beautiful – lots of fish, some squid and nice coral. It was just a strange experience seeing groups of Taiwanese holding onto swim rings in groups of about 5 or 10, all snorkeling together with a guide. Not something I’m used to seeing.

Saturday was spent running around the island, sightseeing all the beautiful coral formations, along with the one of only three natural ocean hot springs in the world. It rained off and on all day, so we actually spent quite a bit of time at the hot springs in the warm water. It was strange, smelly and pretty dirty water. We walked around all the tide pools letting the girls find shells and crabs and see the fish in the water. They even got to see a beautiful black and yellow angel fish in one of the shallow tide pools. At one point, we had to take refuge from the rain under a little overpass, sort of a cave in the rocks, since it was raining so hard and we couldn’t drive the scooters in it. There were a few families there and they enjoyed making comments about Ashley and her yellow hair and how cute our kids were, meanwhile, ignoring their own kids standing right next to them. It’s a strange feeling sometimes.

We were told we would be leaving Sunday morning at 9am, but then when Sunday morning came, we were told the ferry was full and we would leave later, so off we went to try and get in some more snorkeling. I ended up being able to rent some snorkel gear (yes, with wetsuit!) on my own and doing some snorkeling alone while Anthony spent time with the girls on the shore. It was gorgeous, although really strong waves, so kind of hard to really relax and snorkel around. Anthony did go out once, without a wetsuit, and ended up scratching his back up pretty bad when he fell into a hole while walking and fell down onto the coral. Guess we learned why wearing a wetsuit is beneficial in those types of conditions!

We made it back for our ferry ride to the mainland – and this time, it was much, much calmer and no one got seasick! We had a good trip there, just weren’t too happy with price or accommodations.

Waterfall

2005-09-07T21:03:00.000+08:00

We made it through the typhoon, wasn’t too bad here for us. The strongest winds seemed to be in the middle of the night, so we slept for a few hours in the living room where there are smaller and less windows than in our bedroom, where the whole wall is windows. It was blowing so hard that our curtains were blowing in the wind with the windows shut. Hmmm, maybe not a tight seal? Anthony and the girls had a typhoon day on Thursday, so they spent the day at home playing.

I was feeling pretty bad on Friday, went to another doctor and had to stay at hospital for a few hours while I had IV fluids and got rehydrated. Doctor also gave me some new meds, so I’m trying those and they seem to be helping a bit. I’ve only thrown up a few times so far since taking them, instead of everyday, a few times a day. The baby is growing, heartbeat is steady when I go to the doctor. I’m starting to pooch out a bit, although only Anthony and I can really tell, still too small for anyone else to tell. I can’t fit into any normal clothes anymore – so all maternity, which are too big and look silly, but hey, I’m in Taiwan, who cares!

We did manage to get out this weekend for a little day trip. It was so nice to get out of the house and do something. We headed to a place called Shifen, which has a beautiful waterfall. It took about an hour to get there, through the mountains, and then it’s about a 15 minute walk to the fall itself. It’s not huge, but it is beautiful. There is a café there and a playground/park with covered patios and barbecue pits. Great fun for the whole family. The girls enjoyed it there, even though it was raining part of the time.

Weekend and Acupuncture

2005-08-31T14:40:00.000+08:00

Time sure does fly by when you spend your days in the bathroom or in bed, wallowing in misery…ok, so it’s not that bad, but if in the future, say 2 – 3 years from now, I mention wanting to get pregnant again, please remind me of how awful this has been!

The girls started at Princeton Children’s Preschool . It has gone really well. Liz did cry and put up a bit of a fuss, but after we would leave, she’d calm down and be just fine. On Monday and Tuesday, I picked her up after lunch and then attempted to have her nap at home, which she would have absolutely none of. This in turn made us both exhausted and cranky. So, Wednesday, we left her at school for naptime and of course, she went right to sleep with all the other kids (little brat!). Thursday, the girls both went ½ a day and then we headed off for TaSheen Resort west of Taipei City. It took about an hour to get there. It’s in a beautiful mountainous area. Anthony had a work function going on Thursday and Friday out there and we were lucky enough to get to tag along. We had a fun time and Anthony’s coworkers even embarrassed him by making him get up in front of everybody and they announced that it was our anniversary and made him give me a toast and speech. He was quite embarrassed and unprepared. It was a nice gesture though and fun to have such a big deal made out of something we’d pretty much almost forgotten about. They also had a small cake waiting for us in the room with a nice card wishing us a Happy Anniversary.

On Friday, after I was able to get up and going (that took a while, didn’t feel too well), the girls and I hung out at the pool while Anthony had some conference calls he needed to make. We left the resort around 2pm and decided to drive the long way home – going up and around the west coastline back into Taipei. We stopped in a town called Bali and went to Taiwan’s Architecture Museum. That was a pretty cool place to visit. Ashley did like it much as they had slanted walls that seemed like they were closing in on you and some dark rooms with exhibits. By the time we were done walking around there, we were all beat and tired and ready to head home.

The rest of the weekend was a blur, we didn’t really do much with the kids during the day and I pretty much stayed in bed resting and trying to keep food down. Anthony and I did go out for dinner Saturday evening for our anniversary – to a really good Teppanyaki place in Taipei 101. It was a full 5 or 6 course meal and we were stuffed! The food was delicious! We also went to see a movie and arrived home at 10:30pm to the sound of Ashley screaming. It turns out she didn’t want to go to bed and Miss Wu kept taking her back to her room to lay down and she started throwing a big fit. Nice way to come home, huh?!

I have started acupuncture for my “morning sickness”. I started last week – the doctor put 5 tiny needles in my ear and I kept them in there for a few days. When I went in to start, I was a bit dehydrated, so the ear ones were not only for the stomach, but nervous system and brain function (interesting, huh?). After a few days, he took those out and started regular acupuncture. 6 needles in all – 4 in my legs and 2 in my wrists – it is quite calming for the most part. The needles in my legs don’t hurt a bit, don’t even feel them going on, the ones in my wrist are a different story. He has me put them in a weird curled up position against my belly while waiting about 15-20 minutes under a heat lamp. It isn’t so much a sharp pain as just a dull ache in my wrist area, unless I move them, then it’s a sharp pain. Overall, it’s not too bad and something I’m willing to continue doing to see if it will help. So far, it hasn’t helped one bit. He wants to see my 3 times a week, so maybe it will get better.

It’s now Wednesday and a typhoon is headed our way - looks like a big one. I’ll keep you posted on how we’re doing.

New School and Vacation Plans

2005-08-17T10:25:00.000+08:00

Don’t know why I have these “brilliant” ideas. I thought today would be a great morning for going to the local fruit stand to get some fruit – it’s about 3 blocks away – and it’s only morning (can’t be that hot outside!). I walked with Liz in the stroller to discover that the fruit stand wasn’t open, ok, well, I’ll just walk the other block to the local market and get some fresh produce that I need. So, we walked through that, had a great time, bought some salmon, potatoes, onions, broccoli, a hat for Liz (50 NT!) and some cashews. The guy at the fish stand was really sweet, talking to Liz, showing her fish – he had a parrot fish, which I find to be one of the most beautiful fish in the ocean – it was sad to see it there, I’ve never thought of eating one – but it was also beautiful to see out of the water – amazing the colors it has. I had always thought the colors on those fish were so brilliant because of the water and the reflections from the sun, but that is not so. Anyway, I started to feel a little off, so we started to heard back home – boy, it’s a LONG walk home when I feel like puking! In the heat, I was so hot and my stomach was churning. I was walking along a major road though and didn’t really want to give up my breakfast in front of all those people. I managed to make it home (of course, the elevator was on the 10th floor and I had to wait for it come down – argh) and to the bathroom, thank goodness. Guess I’m just not ready to venture out yet in this heat and humidity, with the smells of a market. It did feel good to be out, before I started feeling icky.

We ate last night at a local restaurant – the menu was all in Chinese and Anthony did his best to order something. The tea they served at the place was superb – the milk tea was YUMMY! The food was ok, but I think if we knew what we were ordering, it would have been better. I told Anthony it was nice to go out, to eat local and feel like we actually live here rather than that we are just passing through this place. Sometimes I get that feeling, that we are just biding our time until we leave and not really experiencing all that Taipei has to offer.

I’ve been looking at local preschool/daycare centers for the girls. We got the rate sheet for Ashley’s school for the fall and decided to try and see what else we could find and compare prices (something I didn’t do before). I had just heard how good her school was and all the other expats sent their kids there, so I didn’t do a lot of research on other places. I looked at a place right down the block from us – it was TINY – but they had about 10 students – range in age from 3 to 6. The girls would be in the same classroom, with one Chinese teacher and a foreign (English) teacher a few hours a day. They did outings and field trips and provided lunch. It was a decent place, not the cleanest, but it looked promising. The cost was about ¼ of what we currently pay for Ashley’s school! Yesterday, I looked at another place, near us, called Princeton school. I really like it. It’s colorful, full of books and games and toys, age range is 2 to 6, low student to teacher ratio (both girls classes have 4 students enrolled for fall), Chinese teacher and English teacher, gym room with foam padding, safety concerns, great bathroom with little toilets for the kids, cameras in all the rooms so you can watch the kids from downstairs without disturbing the classrooms and so much more. The tuition is about 1/3 of what we currently pay, which means we can have both girls go for less than what we were paying just for Ashley! That part I am happy about. We’ve decided to go ahead and enroll them starting next week. Liz just isn’t getting enough social interaction with me at home feeling icky all the time, we think it’s best that she start going to a preschool. She seems very excited about it when we tell her she’s going to go to school with Ashley. I’m sure that won’t last, but we’ll see. Ashley is very excited too! Her first comment was “They have English!”. The kids won’t be getting exposed to as much Chinese, but I think for Liz, that’s a good thing since she’s not even speaking much in English. For Ashley, I have mixed feelings on that. She knows a lot more Chinese than she lets on and I just hope that maybe with a class of English and Chinese, she’ll feel more free to speak both languages, like she’s got a choice and isn’t being forced to speak Chinese. Seems like she’ll speak Chinese out of the blue when we don’t expect it, but if we ask her to speak it, she won’t. They’ll go three days next week (Liz ½ days, Ashley all day) and then Thursday and Friday we are going to a little resort with Anthony’s work for a “team building” time. The girls are I just plan on hanging out at the pool while Anthony does his work stuff. I’m hoping it will be fun, should be nice to get out of the city for a bit and stay in a hotel.

In the beginning of September, we are planning a trip to Green Island, an island off the east coast of Taiwan (http://www.greenislandadventures.com/). Should be fun, yet interesting with 2 kids in tow. We have to take a 6 hour train ride from Taipei to a harbor, then a ferry to the island. Only way to get around the island is by foot or scooter – so we get to try our hand at scooters with kids. It’s a small island and should be fun to explore. They supposedly have excellent snorkeling, I really hope so as I could use some relaxation with the fishes.

Cute Kids Through Fatigue-Tinted Glasses

2005-08-10T14:34:00.000+08:00

This is a husband post [see, it happens... sometimes... :) ]

Just wanted to share a little life with the kids with you.

To start, of recent Liz has been very co-dependent in her sleeping, she refuses to sleep in her bed unless one of us is in the room (and since she learned to climb out of the crib, this became a problem not so easily glossed over with a closed door and desperate apathy, plus this past week we moved her to her toddler bed).

If we’re lucky and trick her or outlast her, she’ll fall asleep in her room, but 1-2 hours later, you'll hear the quick slapping sound of little fat bare feet on the cold tile floor as she comes running in. Usually, I’ll hop awake to get her and spirit her back to her room before she wakes up too much and lay her back down.

The first two or three times in the night I do a good job, then I start moving slower and she penetrates deeper into our room, towards her exhausted goal: Mommy. Anyway, to fight this off, last couple of nights we’ve been letting her sleep on the floor in our room on the princess couch. And this works well, so far, at least up to about 6am or so, by which time Ashley has usually joined us in bed. Then Ashley starts waking up and she is rarely quiet about it.

Anyways, this particular morning, Ashley’s in bed, starts waking up, and I send her to her room until 7am (that’s the ‘official’, if not well-enforced, rule - for Ashley, anyways). I try to get her there as quickly and quietly as possible, so that Liz is not woken up. C’est la vie, it does not work. And around the time I’m groggily returning to the land of some sleep and no rest, Liz is waking up and getting in between Kimberly and I and our sleep - in our bed. So, I'm down to “just go to the living room or something, please!” This directed at li’l 2-yr-old Liz, who kind of conforms (not quietly by any means), while Kimberly and I do our best to try to go back to sleep.

Fast forward about 30 minutes of what in some under-developed situations such as ours will be termed ‘sleep’ – and I finally get up to check on the girls. And thus get one of the wonderful tableaus that makes the rest of it endurable (which about 50% of the time are tableaus that in themselves are not within the ideal bounds of discipline, but hey, who's counting…) So, I’m assuming that Ashley is still in her room until 7am (pseudo-time-out), and looking for Liz, but Liz is nowhere to be found. Finally, against better judgment (who’s kidding here, I no longer have ‘better’ judgment, the kids have whittled my judgment options down to one pathetic lump of proto-judgment), I go into Ashley’s room.

And there are my two and four-year old, sitting quietly on Ashley’s bed at 7am in the morning, wearing bathing suits (Liz is not in her state-mandated diaper) and working their way through a container of Pringles. To fully paint it, this is one of those ‘frozen tableau’s’ – where they stop and stare at you, knowing that they’ve probably done something wrong, but not quite sure what (or at least not quite willing to ADMIT they know what). Later it turns out Liz might not have her diaper on, but at least she put on a pair of Ashley’s underwear under her bathing suit.

Cute, adorable, and without any redeemable value – except another sweet memory of semi-innocent beautiful mischief.

p.s. I apologize that there was no property damage (which it may sound like I was leading up to), just kids eating Pringles in bathing suits at 7 in the morning, but I swear, it was very cute. And next time, I'm sure I'll have some real damage to discuss...

Groceries

2005-08-04T17:50:00.000+08:00

I made it out of the house today! That's pretty good for me lately. I took Liz up to Taipei 101 to get some things at Jason's Marketplace (a high end import supermarket). I decided to post how much some of the items were that I bought. Keep in mind that almost all of them are imported and this is a higher end store, so prices tend to run expensive. When I sat down and figured it out though, I realized that we really pay for our comfort food from home!

12 oz jar of Planters Peanuts 139NT ($4.50 US) ON SALE!!!

24 oz jar of Treetop Applesauce 109NT ($3.50 US)

23 oz bottle of Eggo Syrup 209 NT ($6.75 US)

20 oz can of Dole Pineapple slices 109NT ($3.50 US)

15 oz can of DelMonte Pears 99NT ($3.20 US)

3.5 oz can of black olives 39 NT ($1.25 US) ON SALE!!!

1 box of Jello 59 NT ($1.90 US)

1 tiny watermelon 199 NT ($6.40 US)

Our BIG news

2005-08-04T10:19:00.000+08:00

Well, I guess it's about time I post our latest news. We always seem to have something going on. Many of you already now this, so it won't be a surpise, but....we're having a third kid! Yep, I'm pregnant - again. We found out right before our trip back home to the States so I was able to see my doctor back home to confirm everything. The due date is February 26, 2006. Our current plan is that we go back home to the States to deliver the baby - leaving Taipei sometime in December. This will mean that Anthony will be traveling back and forth from Asia to the States quite often while I stay at home with the kids. It'll be difficult, but I'm very happy that I'll give birth at home.

It's been a fairly difficult pregnancy so far, I've been really sick and tired. The doctors here have given me some medicine that has helped a bit with the nausea/vomiting, so that's good. I'm hoping that it will all ease away soon. I went yesterday for a prenatal visit with a doctor here in Taiwan - she was pleasant and spoke good English. We heard the heartbeat (at 10 weeks) so all is going well at this point. I've lost some weight from being sick, but I have no doubt that will all come back in the next few months. I'm starting to do a bit of reading on natural childbirth as I've been thinking of maybe trying it this time. I haven't made up my mind, but I do wonder what the whole experience would be like without any drugs.

We are excited and looking forward to the next year and all that's going to happen. I am hoping to find out the sex of the baby at our 20 week ultrasound - I know we have been surprised 2 times now, but this time, I just think it best to find out ahead of time to make it easier for preparation. If it's a boy, I feel like I'd have no idea what to do with him! Gotta prepare for that! We will be happy no matter what the sex, boy or girl. The girls are excited - Ashley says she wants a baby brother and Liz is just excited about a baby. She loves them and I'm hoping that will hold true in the future.

Cost of Milk

2005-08-04T10:16:00.000+08:00

I just figured out how much we pay for milk here – we pay 65NT for a quart of milk – that is about $2.15 (US) per quart of milk – which is $8.60 per gallon! Wow, that’s pretty steep. We go through about 2 gallons a week – we get it home delivered every Tuesday and Friday. Now, this is organic milk, straight from some farm on the day we get it delivered, but still…that’s expensive.

Back to the Daily Grind

2005-08-02T18:35:00.000+08:00

We are back home in Taipei. Got back 2 weeks ago, when a typhoon was hitting the island! Of course, what else would be expected of us. I swear we just attract the water. We landed in Tokyo and waited the storm out there for a few hours. They told us it would be a bumpy ride (I was really hoping we would just stay the night in Tokyo) but they were going to fly us in on the backside of the storm. The flight really wasn’t that bad and I managed to sleep through the majority of it, so that was good. We got back pretty late at night, I think around midnight. The girls took a long time getting back to schedule. Elizabeth figured out how to climb out of her crib the first night we were back! So, everytime she woke up, she headed into our room or the living room to play. It was quite frustrating. She’s still waking up super early – between 5 and 6 am, but at least Ashley is finally back to sleeping all night.

We had a great time back home in the States and really enjoyed seeing family and friends. I got to celebrate my birthday with everyone, so that was wonderful. The girls really had fun with the grandparents (thanks granddad for the pool!). It was great staying in our house and we felt completely comfortable there. I was sad that it was such a short visit – 2.5 weeks just isn’t enough time to see everyone and spend quality time with all. It also isn’t enough time to get kids adjusted to the time zone difference and then do it all over again on the way back. UGH. That is the one thing that really bites about traveling with them.

Ashley is back in school – for summer session. It’s a smaller group and she’s got the “baby” class in with her class. When she started going back, she asked why her school was different and said she didn’t like it. I explained to her that it’s different because there are some new kids and lots of kids are still in the States visiting family and that the whole school is all in one classroom for now. They are remodeling the upstairs where they had some water damage from the last typhoon – so the two classes that were upstairs are downstairs for now. She seemed to understand all this and then was fine with her “different” school. They have outings once a week and do cooking, music and gymnastics during the summer session, so she actually is enjoying herself. Today, they made sushi – not that she would eat any of it, but she did have fun making it. I went to pick her up and she was sitting eating pretzels while the rest of the class ate sushi. At least she was eating something, right?!

Did I say the kids were doing well?

2005-07-05T16:57:00.000+08:00

Ok, I must remind myself to quit bragging about the kids. Anytime I do, it backfires. After those first few good nights, then came the bad nights. One really bad one, with pretty much no sleep for me or Liz. Argh. She's doing better now, but it's taking a while for her to get used to this sleeping thing with a 13 hour time change. Ashley slept all night last night, without getting up once and is currently sleeping curled up like a kitten next to me on the couch (after REFUSING to take a nap because she wasn't tired).

We are enjoying our visit, seeing friends and family and am just so thrilled that we were able to come home for a visit this summer!

We're Home!

2005-07-01T06:22:00.000+08:00

We are back in the States for our short visit. The trip here was uneventful and went well, all things considered. The weekend before we left was quite chaotic. Remember how I said we were all healthy in my last post, or at least mostly healthy. That changed quite dramatically after posting when both girls started running high fevers. Ashley ended up having an ear infection and went on antibiotics and Elizabeth had tonsillitis with no antibiotics. Both of them were well by the time we left on Wednesday though. I kept Ashley home from school on Monday and Tuesday. Monday was difficult for her, getting adjusted to being home with mommy and Liz all day, without daddy around. We had some tense moments, a few timeouts and even a hitting spree (her hitting me, not the other way around!). She got her ponies taken away for that little stunt and that evening, Anthony asked her about it and she admitted to hitting mommy after a little prompting - her first reponse "I don't know why mommy took my ponies away". Uh, huh... She was much better with dealing with herself on Tuesday, so that was good for all of us.
We got here in the evening on Wednesday, after 24 hours of travel time. We were starving (plane food is just not good) and stopped to have Mexican food on the way home. It was so good! The girls went to bed easily that night, but both were up on and off from about 2:30 until 6 am. Argh. Anthony had to work the next day, so he was up with them for about an hour and I was up the rest of the time with them. We ate sandwiches and crackers and drank juice. The bread was soooo good - really, you have no idea how good. Normal American wheat bread. Mmmm. Ashley ended up sleeping until almost 11 am and I woke Elizabeth up at noon. I then kept them both awake all day long, until we put them in bed at 9:45 last night. Ashley slept completely through the night and Liz woke up a few times, only to go back to sleep after drinking some juice or milk for about 5 minutes. She's having some digestive issues, so I think that's the reason she woke up. I can't believe how well they slept last night and only hope they continue to adjust so well to the time change.

"No, Mack, No!"

2005-06-23T19:44:00.000+08:00

** The title? Well, it's the most common refrain heard in this house, yelled over and over again (even on the street by Liz, without a Mack anywhere to be seen - I guess she likes to practice...). -antny**

Wow, I haven’t written in a long time! Everyone is pretty much back to being healthy, for the most part. We seem to be just passing around a cold – at least one of us has the sniffles or a cough at any given time. I think it’s just the weather and being in Taiwan – seems everyone has this right now. We haven’t really done much lately. Wish I could say we’ve been exploring or adventuring around Taiwan and discovered some great new places, but we haven’t really been out much. Lots of our friends have been heading home for the summer, so we’ve been saying a few goodbyes. Ashley has been in school for 2 weeks now with just the summer kids. She’s actually enjoyed it and been in a good mood most days. She talks about her friends that “have gone to the States for a while” but she knows she’ll see them in a few months, so doesn’t seem too worried. She also knows that we are heading home soon and is VERY excited! She can’t wait to see granddad and grandmom. We have less than one week left before we leave and we are getting ready. Although I haven’t actually started packing, I have begun to think about what we’ll take and we’ve started a list of things to buy.

The Romano’s Macaroni Grill opened last week and we had dinner there over the weekend. It was SO good! MMMM!!! They had a waitstaff and kitchenstaff from the States to set up and train everyone here, so everything was close to what it would be back home. The test will come once all the Westerners go back home, whether the recipes change and become more Taiwanese. The bread was ok, not as salty as we would like, which we didn’t realize until one of the guys told us they use less salt here than in the States. We knew it was off, just didn’t realize why. We ordered dessert, chocolate cake and our local server asked us if it was too sweet. Anthony and I had a good laugh over that – it’s chocolate cake, how can it be too sweet?! I guess that’s another Western way of food.

We joined in a rummage sale last weekend to try and clear out a few things we had over here that were just taking up space. A few toys, some clothes, etc. The playgroup here used space in a small schoolyard and set up a rummage sale. Many people donated items and the money collected was used for charity (I believe towards tsunami victims). The items not sold were then given to a local charity also. It was good fun for everyone.

Yesterday, as I was driving to playgroup up in Shilin at the Park next to the Science Museum, I saw a cab driver scraping his tongue with scissors. Yes, that’s right, scraping his tongue with scissors. They weren’t little scissors, they were the big handled shears, like the kind used to cut cloth and he was using it to scrape his tongue – it was quite strange.

And tonight, we decided to go eat at a local Teppenyaki place – we’ve eaten there before and it was good. It’s within walking distance, so we took the girls (who were VERY cranky) there to eat. Not the best idea, since both kids refused to eat anything and were whiny and cranky. But, while there, Liz was sitting in a high chair with a tray and I glanced down and saw a roach on the tray – Anthony killed it – and we went on eating. Don’t really think that would happen much in the States. But here, well, it seems to be quite normal to see the little buggers everywhere. Pretty gross. I’ve only seen one in our apartment, but from what I’ve heard, roaches can be a real problem here. We had tape over all our floor drains (they have circle floor drains in the bathrooms and kitchens) to prevent this problem and to prevent smells from creeping up into the apartment from down below. They don’t use typical U type pipes here underneath sinks, like in the States, so it’s a straight shot down into the sewer system. Ewww.

I’ve been a bit emotional lately and am now seeing a counselor here in Taiwan. I had a panic attack a few weeks ago and have noticed how on edge my nerves seem to be. It happened quite suddenly and took me awhile to figure out what was going on. I’ve been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome from the December Tsunami. It’s amazing what our minds and bodies go through when faced with that sort of event. I can’t imagine what it’s even like for those who live in the affected areas, who lost loved ones and some even their whole way of life. I think often of how fortunate we, as a family, are. It’s been almost 6 months to the day – seems like such a long time ago, yet, at the same time, seems like it happened just the other day. I am learning how to deal with it, along with other feelings that I am having. It will be an interesting journey, I’m sure, and one that will only make me stronger as a person.

2005-06-09T20:40:00.000+08:00

6 Teaspoonfuls or CCs? That's a big difference!

You want to ADMIT her?

2005-06-09T20:34:00.000+08:00

Last night, Anthony came home to a really itchy wife with a large bumpy rash rapidly spreading across her body and to a sick kid who needed to see the doctor. So, off we went to ChungShan hospital. Liz saw a doctor who within a few minutes of examining her said she needed to be admitted to the hospital for 3-4 days. Ummm…No… This seems like crazy talk to us since she’s had a fever for 2 days, a cough and runny nose. No real difficulty breathing that we could see. Doctor told us not to come running back to her when Liz gets worse (nice, huh?). She said she would do some tests to make sure – did Chest Xray and Blood Draw. I was away seeing a dermatologist for my rash while this happened, so I didn’t have to be put through the agony of a toddler getting blood drawn. Anthony did though, poor thing. Liz screamed and screamed while it was happening, but she got over it fairly quickly, although she didn’t want the doctor anywhere near her. Doctor said her WBC was normal and her chest Xray showed some signs more of bronchitis than pneumonia (which is what she originally wanted to admit her for). So, we came home with a load of medicine – three combinations for Liz and three for me, including an antacid. I don’t understand why every time I get medicine here, they give me an antacid too – STRANGE. Doctor said I had Hives, he had a horrible bedside manner and barely spoke a word to me, but the itching went away by morning, so at least the meds worked. No idea why I got them, but hope I don’t get them again since it wasn’t a very enjoyable experience.

Liz is doing better today. She woke up with a fever, but it was gone this afternoon. She ate a little dinner (first she’s eaten since Tuesday night) and played a lot this afternoon. She didn’t nap well, I was holding her during my Chinese Lesson while she napped and then I managed to get her to sleep on the little Princess couch. I remember when Ashley used to sleep on that next to her bed. Too cute. What a great purchase that couch was – they use it all the time.

Ashley had swim class today with Tiffi. I didn’t go this time and I guess Ashley wasn’t really into the lesson and just ended up playing in the kiddie pool the whole time. At least she was in the water, right? Too bad she’s not learning to swim though, I really wish she would learn so I can take them both to a pool and enjoy it a bit. She had some cake and ice cream too and then spent the evening with her friend, Tiffi. She was so tired when we picked her up, she just wanted to go to sleep.

We are going home for a Stateside Visit next month! I believe the dates are June 29th – July 17th. I’m a bit excited since that means we’ll be in the States for my birthday (sorry, Angie!). It will be nice celebrating it there. We are looking forward to seeing family, friends, house, BACKYARD with grass!, good English speaking doctors, Mexican food, American Italian food, etc, etc.

2005-06-07T20:45:00.000+08:00

Northeast Coast Beach - would be beautiful if it were clean

Taiwan really is Beautiful, if you ignore the Trash

2005-06-07T20:21:00.000+08:00

Argh, Liz is sick now. First Ashley last week, with just a cold, runny nose and cough and now Liz, with a high fever and cough. And, of course, it’s when the weather is absolutely beautiful outside and we could be doing some stuff around town. Oh well, such is the life of a mom.

We had a good weekend. Anthony and I have concluded that Taiwan really needs some PR work. Taiwan is an amazing island, with gorgeous mountains and wonderful beaches – if only, they would keep it clean. We decided to head out to the Northeast Coast on Saturday and go to a beach. We drove along the coast line until we came to Yanliao – which is a beach area. This place also has a little water park area with pools and fountains. Thank goodness for that since the beach area was FILTY. It’s a beautiful sandy beach, soft on your feet, small waves for the kids and yet, there were mountains of trash just laying all over the beach. It is such a sad sight. There was NOONE at the beach and just a handful of people at the water park. This is on a sunny Saturday, with them temps in the upper 80’s. We found it very strange. We played in the water park for a bit, letting the girls run around in the water and slide down a water slide. They had fun.

We then decided to keep driving and went to Fulong Beach, which Lonely Planet touts as one of the best beaches in Taiwan. Again, lots of trash on the beach. This place was supposedly closed, as we were told NO SWIMMING and not to get in the water. There were still people in it – doing wind surfing. We just hung out in the sand and let the girls play with some other kids for a bit. It looked like with a little care, the beach could be great. I don’t really understand it – why Taiwan doesn’t seem to realize what natural beauty they have in this island and why they can’t take care of it. We were told that the beach would be open on Sunday and we still have no idea why it was closed on Saturday. We ended up taking a mountain drive back, which we thought would be nice and scenic, which is was – amazingly scenic at some points. But with all the horrible driving on the mountain roads, don’t know that we’ll want to do that again. Big tourist buses and big trucks passing us around corners on a 2 lane highway going up the side of a mountain. It was CRAZY. It took us about 2 hours to drive 75 kilometers (about 46 miles).

Computex

2005-06-02T10:04:00.000+08:00

Ok, so I was wrong about Computex – apparently, it is NOT put on by Intel, it is organized by the Taipei Computer Association and the Taiwan External Trade Development Council. It is the 2nd largest IT convention in the world. There are many people in town for it, lots of foreigners. I thought Intel put it on due to the large number of Intel logos all over town and on every banner for Computex. We were at Neo 19 last night to eat dinner at “The Dining Room” and we walked from New York, New York through the Warner Village area. There are café tables with umbrellas all over and the majority of them have Intel labels. Although Anthony did point out the green ones that had AMD on them. It just seems everywhere you look, you see Intel. But, I am starting to see more and more AMD ads here – on buses and buildings, so that’s a good thing for us.

There is a new restaurant opening up at Neo19, on the first floor – where a clothing store used to be (I think Diesel?). We found out last night what it’s going to be – Romano’s Macaroni Grill!!!! How exciting! Anthony is psyched about that. Hopefully, they will be able to make things the same as in the US – and not turn it too Taiwanese. We peeked in the windows and saw that the inside décor is much the same as in the US – red bricks, yellow and green stucco walls, lots of iron work. We heard it’s supposed to open within a few weeks. It’s so sad that we get excited over a US chain opening up a restaurant here. Some say that it’s horrible, the West invading the East and making everything the same and commercial. While that may be true, we still love our Western food and love when we can eat something that reminds us of back home.

Ashley is sick today – I kept her home from school. It seems everyone in her class has been sick in the last few weeks, so it’s just going around. I wondered when she would get it too. So far, it’s just a cough and runny nose. No fever yet and hopefully it doesn’t turn into any sort of infection.

Yesterday, Liz and I had playgroup up in TienMu (about a 45 minute drive for us) at a park. It was really hot and I had mosquito bites all over my legs which were driving me insane. They have a nice sandpit and Liz really enjoyed playing in the sand and the water from the faucet they have next to the sandpit. She was a MESS after playing. Before we went back home though, I stopped at a store recommended by a friend called “Best Buy”. It’s right before Taipei American School on ZhungShan Road, Section 6. It’s got a good selection of clothes for the whole family at great prices. They also have larger sizes for larger people – which is HARD to find here in Taiwan. I got Ashley a swimsuit, a Disney princess nightgown and a ballet outfit – all for 500 NT (about $16 US). I will definitely be going back there to check things out.

Ballet

2005-05-30T15:12:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I took Ashley to see the Russian Children’s Ballet perform AliBaba at Sun Yet Sun Memorial Hall. It was her first ballet performance and 2nd live show (first was FantaSea in Thailand). She enjoyed it although at first she kept asking me “when will it be over?“. I explained to her that it was like a movie, you had to wait until the end. She was tired, but managed to stay awake and see the whole show. The performance was pretty good, costumes were nice, some good teenage dancers. We had fun and I’m glad that I took her.

A few weeks ago, Anthony and I went to see the Moscow City Ballet here and it was ok. I haven’t been to many ballets and enjoyed seeing that one. The costumes were bright and fun. The dancers weren’t the best and the music was a recorded track, not a live orchestra – so you’d hear the track stop and start again after a few seconds pause (I think expecting applause?). That was interesting. We had gone with a few other couples and all of them stated the ballet was horrible, the costumes gaudy, the dancers not good. I guess I’m just not “sophisticated” enough to have known any better since I actually enjoyed it.

Most of the families here are starting to get ready to go home for the summer. We’ve already said goodbye to one of Ashley’s friends until the end of August and two of her other friends will be gone in a few weeks. She seems to understand though that she will see them in a few months and doesn’t seem too upset by it.
There is a big convention in town this week – Computex – put on by Intel, I think. Anthony is pretty busy this week going to meetings and dinners because many people are in town for the convention. We had an enjoyable dinner last night at a new place called The Windmill – out by Miramar in Neihu – Italian food, although not pure Italian. Anthony had chicken parmesan and it was just chicken with cheese on it, no spaghetti noodles on the bottom. The girls enjoyed the place since it was some Koi fish outside. They were pretty active last night and did a lot of running around the restaurant – Ashley even sat at a table next to us for a while – playing with some toys another family had brought. She’s so outgoing and because people here think she’s cute – she gets away with just about anything – going to be hard on her back in the States when people won’t exactly appreciate her pulling up a chair while they’re out dining

2005-05-27T15:12:00.000+08:00

Ashley's new hairdo

Haircuts

2005-05-27T15:00:00.000+08:00

Ashley got her hair cut (again!). This time, she got bangs. She looks so cute and grown up too. It just kept getting in her eyes and didn’t stay up all the time, so we thought we’d give it a try. Liz is also sporting a new hairdo – little bangs too. She wouldn’t keep her hair up so I went the easy way and just cut little bangs. I did her myself, so they are a bit crooked with little stray hairs, but oh well. I took Ashley to MingYao again and she did really good – even closed her eyes when the hairdresser cut across her forehead. She understood everything the lady said in Chinese – so she’s really improving on that.

We are cat-sitting for another expat here in Taipei who’s visiting family back in Ireland. The cats name is Moguai and he’s a white Persian. Very pretty, although he’s had a trim recently, so he looks a little funny – big head and little body. He’s a very good cat, walked all around our place as soon as he showed up, no hiding for him. He’s taken to sleeping in our bed and playing with the kids. He’s been really good with Mack, who tried to put up a fight in the beginning, but now they play together. We can see what’s in store for Mack as he gets older – lots of tail pulling and neck hugging by Liz – she LOVES the cats and even has to hug and kiss them each goodnight.

It’s been pretty hot and humid here lately. I’ve been doing quite a bit of walking around, trying to get some exercise. Liz is doing really well sitting in the stroller for the most part – she’s even taken to sleeping in it if we’re out for a long time. She isn’t doing so well walking around on her own. I’ll take her to Ashley’s school and not bring the stroller and she’ll throw herself on the ground crying because she doesn’t want to walk. My arms have gotten quite a workout carrying her. I’ll try the whole leave her on ground and walk away thing – it doesn’t work – she could sit there all day whether I’m around or not. So I end up carrying her. Hopefully it’s just a phase and she’ll start doing some more walking on her own. She’s fallen in love with one of our security guards. Everytime we walk through the front gate, she has to stop and give him a hug or at least say hi. She’s so good with him and will just sit in his arms for a long time. He told us he has 2 boys at home, so he enjoys having a little girl around. It’s really quite cute.

I’ve been watching American Idol – they show it on Star World here the day after it airs in the States. Of course, for the finale, our digital cable was all messed up – the sound kept going in and out, along with green squares showing up all over the screen. Not good, especially for a show that’s musically based. I still made myself watch the whole 2 hour show last night so I could see who won. Was hoping Bo would win, but oh well. About a month ago, the digital cable was doing the same thing – and we brought a cable guy in to look at it. Of course, when he came over, it was just fine, no problems. He said it’s probably the cables in the building and they can’t do anything about it. When the building was built, they put in cable wire for each apartment, but apparently, they use cheap cable wire, so eventually it goes out or you have cable issues. And they can’t replace it all because it’s run through the whole building in concrete. Nice, huh? We’ll see if it continues and if so, we’ll have to give up digital cable!

They are going to start showing “Lost”here on AXN (regular cable) on June 6th. Anthon and I are looking forward to that since it started right before we left the States and we never got a chance to see it. We’ve heard great reviews about it, so we’re looking forward to seeing it. It’s the little things here that keep us happy.

Birthday Fun

2005-05-23T10:37:00.000+08:00

Ashley’s birthday was this weekend. She is now FOUR years old! I just can’t believe it. It’s amazing how fast they grow up. She had a birthday party on Friday afternoon. About ten of her friends – mostly girls – it was interesting. They were quite a rambunctious group, thank goodness Anthony was around to chase them and help them expend some of their energy. We rented out a room downstairs in our building that has a piano, bar, tables, chairs and couches which also opens up to the outdoor patio/fountain area in our complex. It was a good location for the party (although the air conditioning was broken, so thank goodness there was a breeze that day!). I made a ½ chocolate, ½ yellow butterfly cake for the kids, along with lots of fruits, snacks, etc. Ashley had a blast running around and playing with all her friends. They sang happy birthday to her in English and Chinese. The present opening was interesting. In Asian culture, it’s not normal to open gifts at the party – you are supposed to save them and open them later, when no one is around. Ashley was too excited and looking forward to opening presents, that we decide we were going to keep the American tradition. I don’t think the girls were used to having someone open gifts as they all seemed to just go crazy and all wanted in on the opening action. Thank goodness Ashley is a sharing soul and didn’t seem to mind too much over the chaotic ness of it all. Anthony and I tried calming the kids down, having Ashley sit down, but that didn’t really work. Ashley still had a blast and was very excited about her presents. After the party, Ashley and Liz spent most of the evening playing with the new toys. Liz enjoyed them all also, especially a little stuffed dog that Ashley got.

Ashley opened the rest of her presents from family and friends back home on Saturday. Both girls had fun doing that. She got some great stuff for her birthday and we've had to do a bit of organizing/rearranging to fit it all. Thanks to all the grandparents and Uncles/Aunts for her presents (and Liz's too :) - she was so excited to get stuff from "the States".

This weekend was gorgeous weather – although a bit hot. We didn’t really do anything. Sunday, Anthony had a business lunch, so we couldn’t really get out of town (it would have been a good day for the beach). After his lunch, we did take the girls over to the Miramar mall (Anthony had to buy tickets to see Stars Wars, he’s taking his work group today) and we ended up riding the worlds 2nd tallest ferris wheel. The girls and Anthony enjoyed it. I’m not into heights that much, so I really didn’t enjoy it much. Would rather have stayed on the ground.

My helpful hint of the day

2005-05-13T22:38:00.000+08:00

Whatever you do, if you must cook with a red chili pepper, WEAR GLOVES! I had never cooked with one, had no idea that touching it would cause severe pain, like my hands were on fire. Silly me. I thought I'd try cooking some Kung Pao Chicken - chili peppers are used here all the time, I'll use just a little to spice it up, not too much, so it won't be too spicy. I cut them up, rolled them in between my fingers to get the seeds out and cooked with them. The meal itself was good, a bit spicy, but edible. My hands though - they are suffering! It's HORRID! I'm sure it will be better tomorrow, but, wow - don't think I'll be cooking with any chili peppers anytime soon.

2005-05-13T08:02:00.000+08:00

Introducing our newest member of the family - 4 week old Mack

2005-05-10T10:00:00.000+08:00

Isn't she just the cutest?

2005-05-06T13:30:00.000+08:00

Mosquito Zapper Tennis Racket

66 Villa Motel Love Inn

2005-05-06T12:58:00.000+08:00

This is the name of a new hotel/motel/inn that has been built close to Anthony's work - we drive by it everyday and I just laugh at the name.

Liz woke up with bug bites all over, I think mosquito’s, so I went out this morning and bought a bug zapper – hope it works! We also have a portable bug zapper given to us by a friend here. It looks like a tennis racket, but turn it on and swing at the bugs – it zaps em – pretty cool, but I’m sure completely illegal in the states – I’ll try and remember to take a picture of it soon.

The other day, I went to playgroup, which was at a place called “Alladin’s castle”. Right next to that place, is a movie museum for kids – it has a ticket booth outside and then you go in and there are rides and stuff that they do in movies (like fake snow). All the signs are in Chinese and I had never been, so I didn’t know that Alladin’s castle is different than the museum and you have to buy separate tix. Of course, I bought a ticket to the wrong one, walked in, realized no one was there and I was at the wrong place. Found the right place, bought another ticket there and had no money left for parking. I tried to get my money back from the other place, I argued with the lady as much as one can argue with a language barrier – she refused to refund my money – even though she’d just sold me the ticket about 5 minutes earlier – she saw me walk in and out. I was so frustrated, but just gave up and went to play with Liz. About an hour went by, I’m standing next to Angie talking to her and this guy in suit comes up and starts saying stuff in Chinese to her, then she points to me, he hands me my money back and says “I’m sorry”. Very cool, that made my day.

Ashley had a weird thing happen the other night – she was in our bed asleep and I was on the computer. She started wimpering, then crying out. I went to her and she wouldn’t wake up, she just kept crying. I tried waking her, she wouldn’t open her eyes and she started shaking. Her legs were stiff and shaking and her arms were stiff. It was so scary. It lasted a few minutes, then she woke up and we talked and she calmed down and went back to sleep. She was fine the rest of night. I ended up taking her to the doctor after school and she said that she doesn’t think it was a seizure (which is what I thought it was) but probably a dream that she couldn’t be aroused from and she may have hyperventilated by crying so much and having trouble breathing so she was shaking. I really hope that was it and not a seizure. She wants us to keep an eye on her and if it happens again to videotape it. I also took her to an orthopedic doctor for her leg pains, which still continue a few times a week – and he thinks it’s just growing pains. He said it can last until age 6 or 7, so guess we’re in for a long couple of years. She let him manipulate and massage her legs and joints, which she wouldn’t do for the doctor in the States.

Anthony has been working quite a bit this week – he’s had several late night (at least what I consider late night!) interviews (past 7 or 8 pm), along with lots of email at night and conference calls. At least it is only occasionally that this occurs as I would hate seeing so little of him and I know the girls wouldn’t exactly be happy either.

We went out to Miramar last night to eat at TGIFriday’s. We had their TexMex appetizer platter with fried jalapenos, quesadillas and nachos. It was really good with ranch dressing, sour cream and guacamole! MMM…tasty. Anthony and I both ate the jalapenos, which neither of us would have touched back home. We are starting to become used to and for me, at least, actually enjoy spicy foods. The girls had fun at the restaurant, running around and getting tons of attention. I don’t know how many pictures there are out there of our kids. Liz had the couple next to us take several pictures of her over the course of our meal. It’s just too funny and something I don’t really understand, but oh well, I’ve learned to just take it in stride and not get too upset.

2005-05-05T23:50:00.000+08:00

At the zoo

Small Chinese Civets secret special smells by their scent glands

2005-05-05T14:29:00.000+08:00

Try repeating that 5 times! We went to the zoo last weekend and saw this on an information sheet about civets. We laughed pretty hard at that one – especially next to the picture of a civet’s scent glands.

The weather has turned hot and humid here. It’s hasn’t been too bad, as long as we stay indoors in the air conditioning! Last week, on Thursday, we joined some of A’s coworkers for KTV night at The Living Mall. Very interesting place. It looks like the whole floor has been converted into KTV rooms (private Karaoke rooms). Apparently, there are even VIP rooms that are themed, such as Vegas Room. We had a standard room, seats about 10-15 people – 3 mikes, 2 computers, 1 screen for showing the words. It was interesting. They had a small selection of English songs, most of which we’d never even heard. They would load up an English song and give the mikes to us and want us to sing, then be really surprised that we had no idea what it is (saying it was really popular in Taiwan) – pretty funny. Anthony sang a song or two – adding his own lyrics and rhythm – they really seemed to like that and cheered him on. It was a fun night, although hard to go out at first with the kids screaming as we left them at home with Ms. Wu. They freaked out and although she said they calmed down shortly after we left, it was hard to go.

Saturday, the girls both woke up at around 5:30 am and were in bad moods. I think it gets light here too early and they wake up, thinking it’s time to get up. We are looking into getting some room darkening curtains in their room so they will sleep later, we hope. They have started sharing a room now – Ashley in big bed, Liz in crib still. Ashley seems to enjoy it, Liz doesn’t really seem to care, except if Ashley has a stuffed animal that she wants. Anthony and I went out Saturday night – again, the girls screamed and screamed when Ms. Wu showed up – Anthony had to literally pry Ashley off of him and snake his way out the door. It was awful, so hard to do, but we really needed to go out – we haven’t done enough of that lately. The girls are beginning to not like us to leave at all because we are always with them. We saw Ashley in the window peering down at us as we walked away – it was so sad. We had dinner and went to see “Sahara”. Anthony really likes the author of that book, so he was looking forward to the movie. We both enjoyed it, I thought it was a fun movie. We got home to a quiet clean house and the girls were fine.

The zoo was on Sunday, but apparently, everyone else decided to go too – it was crazy busy. We only stayed for a bit, saw a few animals, then went over to the “zoo mall” and hung out there for a few hours. The kids rode rides, ate and played in a jumpy castle with slide. They had a blast. We had friends with us, so that was very enjoyable since we don’t get to see them as often as we would like to.

Last week was Ashley’s observation day and parent/teacher conference. It was nice to sit and watch the kids in their classroom environment for a bit. The conference went well – apparently, Ashley is a good student. Ms. Christy said that Ashley enjoys learning and often tries to do things that are too hard for her. She likes a challenge is my take on that. She works hard, puts everything away, interacts with others well, cleans up after herself, very independent and is learning Mandarin from other kids in the class. She isn’t really speaking much, but she understands much more. She sings songs all the time and reads books, making up her own Chinese words. Sounds like Chinese to us, but it is just made up stuff – very cute. I asked if Ms. Christy has to discipline her and she only gave one example of Ashley talking during story time. She has a friend that she sits with and they are both talkers and enjoy having conversations (in English) all the time. Ashley really seems to enjoy her friends and is SUCH an extrovert – who ever would have thought our children would be extroverts – with 2 introverts as parents. She constantly invites herself over to other peoples houses – asking “can I come over today?”. It’s cute, but can be very annoying sometimes as it makes me feel like she doesn’t like home.

Elizabeth is growing up so fast, I just can’t believe it. She has hit the potty training age and doesn’t enjoy wearing a diaper or clothes for that matter. If she could run around naked, I think she would be in heaven. I am constantly putting clothes back on her or trying to prevent her from being naked in the store. We wake up to a naked child in her crib and often have to wash the bedding. She loves sitting on the potty and is constantly doing that, but not actually using it – only once has she actually gone in it and that was when I was in Hong Kong! I wasn’t even witness to it! She’s talking more, adding one or two new words a week. She LOVES babies and will go up to them in public and caress them and kiss them. She holds her baby doll, rocks her baby, feeds her baby and tries to change baby’s diaper – it is so cute.

Our living room flooded the other night – wasn’t too happy with that. The small drain hole they have out on the balcony wasn’t working and it rained pretty heavily for a few hours and water came seeping in through the door to our balcony – at 1 in the morning. We were trying to clean it up and dumping buckets of water over our balcony. Not fun at all. It is fixed now, thank goodness.

We are starting the process of getting a live in helper (referred to here as AMAH). That’s one of the reasons the girls are starting to share a room – so the amah can have her own room. The process will take a few months, so hopefully, by summertime, we’ll have some help. We’ve debated this for awhile and it took some time before we actually decided to do it. It is so common here and women come from Indonesia and the Philippines to work. They make more money here as an amah than they would there as professionals (and they don’t make much here – a few hundred US a month!). Many of the Amahs actually have college degrees and choose to come here to work instead – isn’t that crazy? Anyway, we are trying to figure out what kind of amah we want right now – someone experienced who’s raised kids or had experience with another family or someone who is new, inexperienced, easily trainable – there are advantages and disadvantages to both. We’ll have a bunch of resumes to go through – hopefully sometime in the near future. It will be very strange having someone living in the house with us, but I’ve heard that feeling goes away fairly quickly.

I’m doing quite a bit of reading up on the culture here – trying to figure it out. There are so many places here in Taipei that we haven’t visited yet that we need to before our time is up. My impression of the people of Taiwan is that they have no unique identity and I’d liked to try and figure out why or what their past history is since I don’t know much about it. The people here are so friendly and open – I have experienced that first hand here and many others have written about how easy it is to be a foreigner here compared to other Asian areas. Not necessarily how easy it is to get around or live here day to day, but how easy the Taiwanese are in accepting foreigners. It seems though, that there isn’t much in the way of “This is Taiwan” attitude. They import everything it seems and use really cheap products lacking in quality. Maintenance seems to be an issue too – they build beautiful parks and buildings, with lovely gardens and water features, only for the weeds to overgrow and the water to turn icky brown and stay that way. Sidewalks don’t last very long – the tiles become loose (some due to earthquakes) and dirt/weeds overtake them. Trash begins to litter areas and starts to pile up, attracting rodents and bugs. The part of the city we live in, XinYi, wasn’t even developed around 10 years ago – yet the buildings, the sidewalks, the parks – they all look REALLY old. People seem to see the new stuff and then forget about the old.

Guess I need to start posting more often – this is pretty long! I’ll try to blog more often so they don’t get this long.

Flush Nothing Down Paper Toilet

2005-04-26T13:53:00.000+08:00

Anthony is back from Beijing – he had a great trip and I am just glad he’s back. It’s no fun when he’s gone. The girls were very difficult to handle this time around, often making me think that I’m just not cut out to be a mom. I know that’s not the truth, I think it’s just that I’m not cut out to be a SINGLE mom, kudos to all those single moms out there, I don’t know how you do it! I find that I have very little patience when Anthony is not around and I haven’t figured out why yet. Anthony pointed out that maybe I spend too much time cleaning up and picking up and doing things around the house and not enough time paying attention to the kids. Probably true in a way, but so hard to find that happy medium. When Anthony used to travel back home, the girls and I would get into a routine and it was fine, it was actually quite enjoyable sometimes, just me and the girls, but here, it’s a completely different story.

One fun day was Saturday, I took the kids to BBSmart where some of our friends were playing – so they got some exercise running around and got to play with some of their friends. Then in the afternoon, I took Ashley to see “Robots” with some friends while Beth’s helper watched Liz (who didn’t seem to care that I was gone!). Ashley loved the movie and it was so nice doing something with her all alone, without Liz or Anthony. We had dinner afterwards with Beth, Ingu and Claire, but that was trying since it was late and Ashley didn’t want to eat anything I had ordered. Other than that, it was nice.

Anthony’s birthday was yesterday. I made him a cake – Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix with homemade chocolate frosting. First time to bake a cake in a convection oven, using Chinese instructions (they covered up the English instructions with a Chinese sticker and I couldn’t get it off), it turned out GREAT! It was so yummy!!! The cakes they make here are just not sweet enough and the frosting they use is pretty nasty, usually whip cream based and more dairy than sugar. Probably healthier for you but not as tasty! Anthony was very happy with it and so was I. We all went out to dinner at Amaroni’s – an Italian restaurant. Although it was good, I think he would have preferred dinner with just the two of us, the kids are a bit difficult to handle in restaurants now. Liz is at an age where she absolutely refuses to sit still any longer than it takes to consume her food. Before the food comes and once she’s done, she just wants to run around or sit in our laps making it hard for us to eat.

I got a parking ticket this morning – ugh. Parked in normal spot in front of Ashley’s school to drop her off – they don’t have any designated parking and all the open spots near the school are red lined, meaning no parking, but really no choice, plus it was raining. Police came by and ticketed me for parking illegally. Supposedly they’ll mail the ticket to whoever owns the car (the leasing company) so everyone at Anthony’s work will know that we got another ticket. Nice, huh? Guess I’ll have to be more careful in the future.

All New Products is a Sleekly Elegant Bath

2005-04-22T11:08:00.000+08:00

I thought I’d start giving titles to my blog that reflect the everyday things I see here that cause me to go “WHY?”. Word for word, store signs, directions, T’shirts, anything I see that I think is strange. Enjoy…

I had a great time in Hong Kong. It was fun to be away, to meet some new people, to hang out with women and not have kids in tow. I did quite a bit of shopping, mainly for myself, which I don’t do very often. The first day there, we went to a market called “Stanley”, which I bought a lot in. I got the girls some clothes, since this market has Gap and Gymboree outlet places. I got Ashley a few dresses (which I didn’t notice until I got home, were all mainly white – UGH!), Liz an out fit and some onesies and myself some really nice linen pants and tops. I’ve always wanted linen stuff, but never really been able to find stuff that fits and that I like, but I found it there! The next day, we did shopping at a mall there and I got some really gorgeous shoes (with heels!) at Nine West. It took me about an hour – they didn’t have much in my size – me and my big ole feet. I was determined to get some shoes though, so I tried on whatever they had in my size. I also got some stuff at a store called “Marks & Spencer”. It’s a European store, with UK sizes. We did quite a bit of eating and I ate lots of different cuisine – Cantonese, Vietnamese, English High Tea and others. The whole group of women I went with are all of Asian decent, so I was the only “White” girl and ended up trying lots of different foods that I wouldn’t have otherwise. There were also quite a few "high end" shoppers in our group - Louis Vutton, Prada, Gucci, Chanel, etc. It was very interesting.

Parts of Hong Kong were beautiful. My impression when flying in was that it was a beautiful place – little islands everywhere. I saw one island that just had a resort on it, that’s it – it looked absolutely gorgeous. We stayed on Hong Kong Island, at the Grand Hyatt. It’s in the WanChai District. I didn’t know anything about Hong Kong before going there, so was a bit surprised at how mountainy it is. The city is built into a mountain, so lots of hills and curves – not a place for stollers or children. We went up to the Peak and rode a trolley back down the mountain – that was pretty cool. We also took a ferry from Central Hong Kong over to the Kowloon side and had a drink at a trendy club called Aqua on the 30th floor of a building. It overlooked the harbour and Hong Kong and around 8pm, a laser light show started on the other side, from many different buildings. That was pretty cool. I tried to get pics, but it was so dark, you couldn’t really see. I had no idea that Hong Kong used to be British – so the city is VERY international! It was very refreshing to have Asians speak English, have English and Chinese signs and menus and to see a large number of “white” people – Europeans. I would catch myself staring at them – how strange is that? But it’s such a rarity here in Taiwan that I was just amazed at the sheer numbers there. The drawback to that is that people aren’t so friendly there. They pretty much keep to themselves, unlike here in Taiwan.

I had a great time, but was ready to come home by Sunday. I gained 5 lbs from eating over there! I thought I walked enough, but I guess not. Anthony and the girls picked me up from the airport and I’ve never been greeted so wonderfully before! Lots of yelling and running towards me. It was great! They had a great time while I was gone and Anthony did a great job taking care of them, but they still missed me.

I’ve had a few people ask how to access our picture website – here’s the link. http://community.webshots.com/user/akaearmstrong

Caught on Camera

2005-04-14T10:53:00.000+08:00

Apparently, about a month ago, one of us ran a red light on the way to or from Anthony's work and got caught on camera. A ticket was issued and sent to the leasing company that the car is registered to. They then sent it to Anthony at work and he had someone show it to him saying we owed the leasing company the money since they paid the ticket. UGH. Anthony swears he told me that they had cameras on the roads and sent tickets out to people who were speeding or ran lights, but I don't remember that! It took about 3 weeks for the ticket to arrive, so I'm wondering how many more there are coming - hopefully not many! Now I know why taxis will slow down at some intersections and stop at some lights and not at others. My friend, Angie, pointed the cameras out to me the other day - they are on poles with bright black and orange tape on them, not too hard to miss, if you are looking! I also remember riding in a taxi once a LONG time ago, where it had a picture of a camera that light up in the rearview mirror every so often. I wondered what that meant, now I know. Guess there are some cabbies out there who like advance warning when a police camera is around.

I'm all packed and ready to go to Hong Kong. I stayed extra this morning at Ashley's school to spend some more time with her, she knows I'm leaving and is fine with it, probably becuase I told her I was going to buy her some dresses. She was so cute this morning, makes it hard to leave her. Liz has been a bit clingy lately, last night I had to rock to her sleep again. When I take her to put her to bed, she makes this sound - rgh - which means ROCK - and looks up at me with these big blue eyes, pleading. I always give in because it's just too cute. I hope she does ok while I'm gone.

Busy, Busy, Busy

2005-04-13T10:05:00.000+08:00

It’s been a while since I’ve written in our blog. We’ve been so busy doing stuff. Liz is better, thank goodness! When I took her back the following Monday, the doctor said it was all clear. She’s doing fine now and Ashley didn’t end up getting sick, so that was a blessing. I still have a slight cough – is getting better every week. I also am all stuffed up, that’s been going on for a while now, couple of weeks, so I’m starting to think I may have some sort of allergy going on right now. Who knows though?!

We had a wonderful time in Hualien, Taiwan. Last Thursday morning, we caught an early morning train to Hualien (got up at 5am!!!). We went with another couple and their 2 kids (both around the same age as our kids). They had the whole trip arranged, which was very nice in that we didn’t have to make any travel arrangements or try and figure out what to do or where to go or how to get there. We arrived in Hualien and had a van driver take us to Taroko Gorge, which is an ABSOLUTELY beautiful place to visit. If you are ever in Taiwan, this should definitely be one of your stops. It’s a mountainous region, with marble rock all over the place. There are gorgeous colors of marble – green, white, black, gray, blue, pink – it really is neat. There are waterfalls and caves and spring ponds and hiking trails and roads cut through the mountain. We stopped at one place, I believe an Aboriginal Park, where they have cabins set up in the mountains that you can stay at, that would be pretty incredible. After having our fill of walking, hiking and playing in the rocks and water, we headed back to the Hualien to check into our hotel, the Bellavista, a very nice hotel, with beautiful grounds and nice restaurants. On Friday, we headed over to Ocean Park, which is a mini Sea World. They have a dolphin show, a sea lion show, a mermaid show, kiddie rides, a ferris wheel, lots of little shops and food. We saw it all, stayed all day. The highlight of the day for the adults (Anthony and I) was swimming with the dolphins. For ½ an hour, we were in a tank with three dolphins. We had put on wetsuits and been shown a dolphin whom we fed and touched and got to know first. Then we got in the tank and the trainer showed us how to grab on to the dolphins fin and swim with her – it was amazing! I’ve always wanted to swim with a dolphin, so this experience was just incredible. I rubbed her belly and fins and head, fed her fish, had her follow me around the pool and let her pull me around and around. The park took some digital pictures they are supposed to send us by email, but we are still waiting. I hope we get them soon so I can post them.

That night, we had a hotel babysitter come watch the girls and we went out to dinner with the other couple. Liz screamed and screamed when we left – saying mama over and over again. It was heartbreaking and I stood outside the room listening for a long time. Now that she’s getting older, she’s becoming quite attached to me and doesn’t like it when I leave. She did eventually calm down, thank goodness. We had Japanese food, which was interesting – lots of sushi and tempura food. Then went to sit in one of the hotel bars, where a band was playing. Not a very good band, that’s for sure, and the drinks were awful. Don’t know if it was a bad night or if that’s a regular occurrence there. You’d think for a 5 star hotel, they’d have a 5 star bartender and band, but guess not.

Next morning, we headed out to a “farm” near Hualien. We can find no English name for the place, so I can’t tell you what the name is. They have a bird area with tons of bird cages and different birds from all over – peacocks, toucans, ducks, flamingos, etc. They also have camels, rabbits, ostriches, deer, horses and the main attraction – COWS. It’s a dairy farm, so they have lots of cows. There are certain times that you can feed the baby cows, but we never got a chance to. They also have many different flower gardens, ponds, butterfly gardens, playground and small water park. We rented a golf cart to drive through the park, it would have been too much to go by foot. Everyone had fun running around and we are glad we went there. That evening was the train ride back. Ashley fell asleep and Liz was pretty cranky. It’s a 3 hour ride and of course, Liz feel asleep 10 minutes before we arrived at our destination!

On Sunday, we went to the Taipei Flower Market near DaAn park. We picked up some rose plants and a big plant for our balcony. I have no idea what the plant is, I need to do some research, but it smells absolutely wonderful. It has little white and purple flowers that almost smell like lilac, but they are small flowers, not the large bunches like lilac. It’s nice to have some plants though. Ashley also picked up three tiny plants to take care of.

Yesterday, Angie and I went to the Neihu Flower Market and she got a whole bunch of indoor plants and some outdoor ones. I picked up one large indoor plant and some fresh flowers. Supposedly this market is the one where all the shops get there flowers and plants, so they are all pretty fresh and nicely priced. I got some roses, tulips and daffodils. A very nice bouquet. Angie has our big plant, the pot is too heavy to move (it was delivered to her place), so it may be a while before one of the guys can take care of it.

Before we left on our trip, we visited a fairly new store at the Far Eastern Hotel, called Super City. It has 2 sections, a home store and a grocery store. They have lots of imported food items, similar to Jason’s supermarket, so that is very nice. I picked up a few baking items since I haven’t really made anything here. I ended up making some blueberry muffins from scratch, which were ok, a little dry, so I’ll have to work on that.

They’ve started recycling in our building now. They sent us a sheet – all in Chinese, of course. So we had to have it translated. Apparently, they are sorting the garbage into compost, what pigs will eat, recyclable and regular trash. Interesting, now. So we have three different garbage bins, plus the recycling. I’m glad they are doing it, but it will take some getting used to, especially trying to figure out the difference between compost and what pigs will eat.

I leave for my trip to Hong Kong tomorrow. I am very excited and a bit nervous. Three nights without the girls. I’m sure they’ll be fine, they always are as long as Anthony is around. I will miss them, but I will also have fun doing lots of shopping and eating. I’ve heard it’s a shoppers paradise, so I’m getting ready! After I get back, then the next week, Anthony leaves for Beijing for five days, so that ought to be interesting.

We Just Can't Get Well

2005-03-31T16:33:00.000+08:00

Sickness…ugh…I am so tired of it. It just seems to be everywhere right now. Liz’s fever hadn’t gone done as of this morning, it had gone up, and so off to the doctor we went (at Chung Shan). Now that we are under the National Health Insurance plan, it’s even cheaper to see the doctors! Instead of 10 US dollars, it was only 7 US dollars and no cost for the meds. Isn’t that crazy?! Turns out Liz has tonsillitis. She’s been tugging at her ear, the doctor said her ears are fine, but her tonsils are swollen. So, she’s on antibiotics and I’m hoping her fever goes down soon! She’s pretty miserable and tired since she’s not sleeping much, which means I’m pretty miserable and not sleeping much either.

I had a Chinese language lesson today, which was cut off short due to Liz not cooperating at taking a nap. Usually I have my lesson during her naptimes, but today, she was feeling so miserable, she couldn’t sleep and she didn’t want mommy doing anything other than rocking her. I won’t have lessons next week due to Tuesday being a holiday (we’re hoping to go to the zoo) and Thursday we’ll be leaving for Hualien. It’s slow going, the language classes. Sometimes I enjoy them, sometimes not. I understand more and if I take my time, can say a few things, but people talk so fast here that most of the time it just all runs together and I have no idea what anyone is saying.

I rented “The Terminal” and we watched it the other night (with Tom Hanks). Not his best movie. It had some funny parts, but I thought it would never end as it just seemed to go on and on and on…if you haven’t seen it, you aren’t missing much. We have “21 Grams” too, which is supposed to be pretty good.

One day last week, while driving back from dropping Anthony off at work, I was at a stoplight. The intersection I was at is in the middle of a circle – so there are 3 roads that go through the intersection (instead of just 2) with a middle section for cars waiting for the light to turn. There are three lanes going each way in the middle of this “circle” intersection. I’m in the far right lane, with two buses on the left side of me and a scooter on the right side (they always ride next to cars in the right lane, even if there isn’t actually a lane for them). So, right there, in the middle of this MAJOR intersection, the guy on the scooter waves to the bus next to me, takes his helmet off, hangs his helmet on his scooter, takes his keys and hops on the bus – leaving his scooter right there in the road – not on a shoulder, sidewalk, side street, nope, right in the middle of the street. So strange. At first, I thought maybe the scooter was broken, but it had been running, he turned it off with the key and it was a fairly new one, didn’t look old or rusty or dilapidated in anyway. There’s Taiwan driving for you.

On a different note, the other day, I saw a guy on a scooter stop and ask an old lady if she’d like a ride. She had a pull cart with her and was walking across a rather long bridge. It is rare that you see someone on a scooter offer to help someone who is walking. They didn’t appear to know one another and she seemed happy that he offered to help, but she declined his offer and kept on walking.

Travel Plans

2005-03-29T21:06:00.000+08:00

Wow – I am going away for a weekend! I am so excited! To Hong Kong! It’s a girl’s weekend, with some of the women I’ve met here and some I don’t know. We are going in April. I just made my reservations and I am thrilled. It will be strange, flying with no children and three nights without children or husband. I am going to have fun though!

We are also taking a little family vacation next week to Hualien here in Taiwan. It’s on the east side of Taiwan and has an Ocean Park and is close to a supposedly gorgeous gorge which we will visit. We will all be going with another family, which will hopefully make it a bit easier on the kids, since there will be a friend for both Ashley and Elizabeth. It looks like April is going to be a BUSY month for us. Anthony also has some coworkers coming into town in April for a work visit, but it will still be nice seeing them and having some American visitors. Anthony may also end up going to China for a few days for work in April, although he doesn’t know for sure yet.

We had a great Easter weekend. On Saturday, we wanted to go hiking and last minute decided to try driving up North to Yeliou GeoPark. We had visited this place last year when we came up for our scouting trip to Taiwan, but didn’t get to go to the aquarium there so thought we’d try that. We drove up there, only taking about an hour to get there, with no traffic it would have only been about ½ an hour! The drive was great, going through long tunnels and mountains. We went to the aquarium (called Ocean World) and saw a show with dolphins, sea lions and divers. It was fun, although I think I definitely enjoyed it more than the girls. They seemed rather bored with the actual show and just loved running around up and down the bleachers of the stadium.

After walking through the aquarium, we decided to walk through the GeoPark, which is basically a REALLY long point sticking out into the ocean, with lots of really neat rock formations. It was an experience being that close to the ocean. We didn’t really talk about it at the time, but we both (Anthony and I) kept watching out for escape routes - ways we could run up the “mountain” and away from the water. I know for me, I didn’t really look at the waves much, I just couldn’t do it. I could look out at the ocean, in the distance, but found I would watch the boats to make sure they weren’t tipping over or moving around a lot. The girls did fine, Ashley wanted to be near the ocean and play in the sand and Liz just had fun riding around in the backpack carrier and occasionally playing on the rocks if we felt it was safe enough. I made us walk all the way to the end, not realizing how far it actually was. It took us about 2 hours to walk all the way, but it was SO worth it. No only physically – the view was absolutely amazing, but emotionally too, I needed to do it for myself, to be that close to the ocean and waves for as long as possible. At the end, there were some rock stairs leading up to a “gazebo” type structure overlooking the ocean and the bay. We walked up it carefully as the stairs were little, skinny and almost straight up. Anthony did really well considering he was carrying Liz on his back! He’s so brave! The view from up there was astonishing and we were so glad we did it. It was just gorgeous looking out over the ocean from that high up, seeing the bay, the mountains, the islands, the rock formations. We’re really glad we went out there and we had a great time.

On Sunday, there was a playgroup get together for Easter at a park here right next to the domestic airport (so planes fly right overhead). There was a maze there, so a few of us moms brought Easter treats for the kiddos. We “hid” them in the mazes and the kids went around “finding” them. They, of course, were all out in the open so the kids didn’t have a hard time finding them. The girls had a blast – getting together with friends and getting treats. One of the ladies also brought hard boiled eggs and decorating items for the kids to decorate. The sun was out and it was a wonderful day. The girls were exhausted after the Easter trip and took really good naps that afternoon!

Liz isn’t feeling too well today. Don’t know what’s going on, but this evening she had a fever and I rocked her for a long time while she just lay there. Poor baby. I hope she’s feeling better tomorrow. It was raining most of the day today – we got soaked when we walked Ashley to school and picked her up (Anthony took the car today). Ashley sure enjoyed it though – she loves getting wet in the rain, even though the Taiwanese frown upon that – they even dried her hair at school with a hair dryer when she showed up there this morning! I am so glad to have found her school with teachers that really do care about her. She gives them hugs everyday and is so happy going to school now and talking about her friends.

Yesterday was her ballet/dance class. She was so excited – all day – and kept talking about her friends, Claire and Tiffi, that would be going with her. Anthony joined us at her class so he could see her dancing and running around with her friends. He even brought her a bouquet of roses, which she loved and handed out to her classmates and teacher. He also brought me flowers, which is a nice treat!

I think I’ve written a book by now, so I should sign off – time to relax a bit before heading off to bed.

One of the Saddest Moments

2005-03-24T09:35:00.000+08:00

I've ever experienced occurred this morning. Ashley, Liz and I walked to Ashley's school this morning. Ashley was in a good mood, wanting to go to school, excited about it. We got to school, I did a puzzle with her, then she gave me hug and kiss and said goodbye. I was going to leave when Liz wanted to walk upstairs, so I went upstairs with Liz (where the younger kids room is) and let Liz play around for a bit up there, getting to know the other kids and teachers so hopefully someday, she'll go there without a big fuss. After about 15 minutes, we went back downstairs to leave - there is glass in between Ashley's classroom and the stairs, so you can see into her room while walking down the stairs. Ashley was eating a snack at a table and saw us and waved. Once we got down to her room and by the front door, she was still waving bye, but her face started to scrunch up and turn red. I went over to her and gave her another hug and kiss and she started tearing up. She said "Bye Mommy, I love You" and then reached over, grabbed a Kleenex and patted her eyes. It was so sad. I tried talking to her, telling her she would have fun and I would pick her up after nap. She nodded yes, then said "Just Go Mommy" - oh, my heart just broke. Here she was upset that I was leaving, on the verge of sobbing and she was telling me to just leave, because she knew that was best. It was just awful for me! I left with Liz and took a LONG time walking home. Ashley is growing up so fast, it is just amazing. I'm so proud of my little girl.

Cops and Baby Dolls

2005-03-23T09:27:00.000+08:00

Yesterday I had a first here in Taiwan, my first time to be pulled over by a cop. Oops. I did not get a ticket or any sort of lecture though. He pulled me over for running through a yellow/red light on the way to pick up Anthony from work. He was standing on side of road with his lights flashing, just waiting to pull someone over, and that someone was me. He came up to the car, I rolled the window down and he started saying something in Chinese and pointing back to the light (I knew what he was referring to) and I said “Bu Dong” which is Don’t Understand in Chinese. He said Oh, and looked back at the kids, looked at the dash, then asked me something in Chinese, which I recognized one word as Where? So I pointed to Anthony’s building (1/2 a block away) and he said OK and motioned for me to move on. So, got out of that one. Funny thing is, I didn’t even get nervous when he came up to the car. I thought either he speaks English and I get a ticket or he doesn’t speak English and I get out of it. I’m glad I got out of it though.

Liz has found a new fascination with baby dolls. She LOVES them. She feeds, rocks, bounces, dresses (undresses), plays with, sleeps with, puts chapstick on her baby. It is so adorable. I’ve taken some pictures and hope to post them soon.

Ashley really likes her school now. We have no complaints from her going to school at all. She is doing really well there, making lots of friends and even occasionally, she’s speaking Chinese words (without even realizing she’s doing it). She had her first ballet/dance class on Monday with her friends Claire and Tiffi. She had an ABSOLUTELY fabulous time and can’t wait until next week until she goes again. They were all so cute following the teacher and dancing around. Ashley did well and even seemed to be good at stretching, especially her legs. Must be all those exercises we do with her (or at least Anthony does with her).

I’m staying busy keeping house – cleaning, doing laundry and cooking, along with visiting friends during the day. We have playgroup today at the Children’s Transportation Museum, Liz will enjoy that. Sunday is our playgroups Easter Egg Hunt in the park. That should be fun. I volunteered to bring some treats, so now I have to come up with an idea for about 20 kids of varying ages using things here in Taiwan (not as easy as back home where you can stop at Target and pick up all kind of Easter stuff). Don’t think they really celebrate Easter here, so you won’t see little bunnies or cute springtime stuff in the stores. I’ll find something though.

Life

2005-03-18T14:44:00.000+08:00

March 16, 2005

I’m getting flack from my husband for not writing in our blog lately – he says our fans are getting restless. HAHAHA. It has been a while, just been busy with the kiddos and getting back into the routine of things. Ashley is now back in school, doing very well! This morning we walked to school (it’s a BEAUTIFUL day out) and we did a puzzle together, she gave me a hug and kiss and said goobye. No tears, no pouting, no crying. It was awesome. The other day, she grabbed a tissue, was being so brave, had little tears running down her cheek, but she said goodbye, I love you and walked away with the Kleenex held up to her face. It was so heartbreaking for me to see, but at the same time, I’m so proud of her. She is really enjoying school now, and talks a lot more about her “friends” at school and what she does everyday.

March 18, 2005

Ashley went to an “art class” last night after school with some of her friends. It was interesting. All in Chinese. The teacher spent about 45 minutes explaining how to do the art – these are all 4 year olds – and then let them work with wires and foil to make a person. She really enjoyed the art part, just not the instruction part – too long for her. But, she did great and made "herself dancing".

This last weekend, Ashley was asking us to repeat things, saying she didn’t hear. At first, we just thought it was really cute “What did you say, mommy?” as she would lean her head closer to listen. But, last night, at dinner, she said her ear hurt – and so off to Dr. Bear’s Clinic (thank goodness it’s open until 9pm and you can just walk in!). Turns out, she has an ear infection – UGH. Her first one in years. I feel bad now, almost like I was ignoring her and let a week go by before taking her in, but that happens, right? It is nice though now that she’s older and can explain to us when something hurts and what hurts.

We ate dinner at Chili’s last night – mmm, it was good. We have become regulars there, with a certain waitress that enjoys the girls – even buys them little presents and stickers. We have fun going there, and watching people ooh and aah over the kids and give them attention.

We had a good weekend last weekend, lots of walking around our neighborhood, finding little shops and restaurants we never knew existed. We found a great local place for Tepanyaki, where the cooks were really nice and made some great food. They seemed to enjoy the kids and even cut up food in smaller pieces for them. I also like when they cater to the kids – don’t hear of that happening much in the States, at least in my experience. Anthony also joined a local video store, so we can finally rent movies! Yea! We rented three this week and it’s been hard finding time to watch them with the girls – Ashley seems to have a 6th sense when we want to watch a movie and decides that is the night she’s going to give us trouble going to sleep.

Ashley ran out of pull-ups last week, so we decided it was time to use the potty at night. She got to pick out a “My Little Pony” and we have a sticker page for her, every night she goes without an accident, she gets a sticker – 7 in a row and she gets her pony. It’s been five nights so far and no accidents! I wake her up before we go to bed and take her potty and she always goes – maybe not willingly, but she does go. She is doing a wonderful job and we are very proud of her. She’s growing up so fast. She also starts a “ballet/dance” class on Monday after school. I went today and got her some ballet shoes and little ballet outfit. I’ll be sure to take some pictures. She is very excited and can’t wait – I hope she enjoys it as much as she thinks she’s going to.

The weather has been pretty good. Playgroup this week was at Peace Park, where Liz had a blast running around playing with kids and on the playground equipment. I chased her around everywhere and got my exercise! We took the MRT there, first time to take the MRT in a long time and Liz did really well in her stroller. She even fell asleep on the way home, she had so much fun at playgroup and was so tired.

We’ve had some issues getting Liz to sleep. I don’t know what is wrong or why she does not want to go to bed at night. She seems for her naptime, goes right now, maybe will fuss for a minute or less, that’s it. But at night, she’ll scream when we put her in crib. I rocked her to sleep several nights in a row, which I’m sure just makes the problem worse, but I just can’t take her crying at night and I love sitting and holding her and rocking her, just being able to hold her while she sits still, it’s a rarity these days. It’s getting better every night, so hopefully, it’s just a temporary thing.

Finally, the Sun appears

2005-03-06T20:36:00.000+08:00

This weekend was very nice. The weather turned gorgeous after a horrible week of rain and misery. Saturday I got to sleep in, which is always wonderful. I wasn’t feeling too well that morning, so the sleep really helped. Anthony took the girls to the park next door while I took a shower. I went to join them and there were three other families in the park from Ashley’s school – so we had a great time hanging out with all of them and Anthony got to meet some of the moms and dads. The park that is next to our house has expanded by quite a bit since we’ve been gone. They tore down this square block of storage units and cleaned it out and planted trees and laid brick and turned what was a small park into a bigger park with a large area which is perfect for riding bikes! The girls had a wonderful time running around, riding bike and playing with all the other kids. It was chilly out, but that didn’t matter. We then went to lunch with 2 of the families at this little dumplings and noodle place. It was really nice for us and for the girls. We really enjoyed it. After naps, we went to Mitsukoshi to let the girls run around inside for a bit. They had fun and Ashley even tried on a great dress which I just had to buy her, she’ll be wearing it for her birthday in a few months, so you’ll see pictures of it – Anthony called it an “80’s goth prom dress” – I know you really want to see it now, but you’ll just have to wait! Saturday night, Ashley had trouble getting to bed, while we tried to watch a movie “Bowling for Columbine” – we didn’t get too far in the movie since Ashley kept coming out with excuses – I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I had a bad dream, etc… At 10:30, she was finally asleep and we watched “The Daily Show International Edition with Jon Stewart” and “The Cumars at No. 42”, both were fun to watch.

We awoke at 3 in the morning to the bouncing and swaying of our apartment – it was an earthquake – three of them actually in a row. The main was one a 5.9, but it was only a 3 here in Taipei with the others being 2. Not fun in the middle of the night, but we managed. It took me a while to get back to sleep – I turned the TV on and flipped around for a bit. Anthony said he was fine with it, but he did have some dreams involving waves.

Today was bright and sunny. We headed out, called Angie and went over to her place to visit with them. Angie had her baby, Alanna, last week, so we got to see the new baby (SHE IS SO CUTE!!!!) and visit with Angie and Joseph. Liz and Joseph had a blast running around playing. They seemed to remember each other and gave each other lots of hugs and kisses. It was very cute. We ordered Dominos Pizza for lunch and I have determined that Dominos is MUCH better than Pizza Hut here.

We did some shopping the rest of the afternoon, going to an electronics store so Anthony could pick up a new chassis for the new computer he’s going to build. This one seems to be running a bit slow, so he’s going to be upgrading some things. We then went to IKEA, spent lots of money on stuff we needed for around the apartment and took the girls up to ToysRUs to run around and have some fun. After that, it was time to eat and Anthony surprised me with dinner at THE OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE. For anyone who knows me, you know that one of the places I have always said “If only they had one in Taiwan!” is The Outback and guess what? Now they do!!!! Anthony had heard about it opening and not told me, just said that we needed to go to IKEA this weekend and I wondered why, because they just opened the restaurant in between IKEA and AsiaWorld. We stuffed ourselves – it was SOOO good and happy hour, so we even enjoyed strawberry margaritas. We had fried shrooms’, salad, bread, ribs, Victoria’s fillet and brownie dessert. I was in heaven. MMMM. It is dangerous now that they have opened an Outback, just dangerous.

I’ve been a bit down lately, just being back here, away from family, missing ‘home’ and getting frustrated with being sick and miserable weather. I really needed this weekend to recuperate a bit, hang out with friends, do some shopping, see Angie, Alanna and Joseph, have fun with Anthony and the girls and eat at one of my FAVORITE restaurants! It was a good weekend.

Adjusting

2005-03-04T15:52:00.000+08:00

We are getting back into the swing of things. Anthony's been to work all week and Ashley started at school on Wednesday - for half days. She was happy Wed and Thurs, but today, she threw a major fit - screamed the whole way in. There were two younger twins going into school at the same time and they were crying also - but Ashley was screaming so loud - they both stopped and just stared at her and quit their crying. When I went to pick her up this afternoon, she was happily eating her lunch and told me that she missed me, but she had a good day.

I saw a man tweezing hairs out of his chin while driving a taxi yesterday, now I know I'm back in Taiwan. I'm back to driving around, I was nervous the first day, but am fine now. I still don't believe how horrible the driving is here - how the buses just go where they want, whether you are in the lane or not and how people on bicycles will be going down the middle of the street at 5 kmh, with no mind to the cars in the street.

Liz threw up yesterday, I think it was something she ate - she seems better today. I am doing ok. Still not feeling normal yet after my sickness and still coughing with a sore throat. I really wish it would all go away and I'd be healthy again. I can't wait until I'm not exhausted at noon and can go all day without a nap.

The sun finally came out today for the first time in what seems like weeks. It's been raining and miserable for a while now - it was really nice walking to pick up Ashley and not getting soaked in the rain.

Back in Taipei

2005-02-28T19:21:00.000+08:00

I haven't had much time to post lately. We are back in Taipei, we've been here for a week now. Got back last Monday - should have gotten back on Sunday, but for some unknown reason, our last flight from Tokyo to Taiwan was cancelled - so they put us in a hotel in Tokyo and we came back a day later. So, we can now say we've been in Japan - at least our passports are stamped for it. Anthony went to work on Tuesday for a bit, but then on Wednesday, I woke up sick and he had to stay home and watch the girls. I went to the doctor who said I had bronchitis and gave me some meds to take. That night, I got worse, and the next day we went back to the hospital, where the doctor decided to admit me. And wanted me to stay for FIVE days, due to the antibiotics. It was an interesting time for me, in a foreign hospital, with very little English spoken. The nurses were nice, I had no problems, except for lack of communication - why did I have to stay so long, what medicines were being given to me, what was wrong, etc. I even had the hospital food, which really wasn't too bad considering. Lots of noodles, soups and salads. Oh and coffee - I thought that was strange. Luckily, Anthony's work is very understanding, and he was able to take the whole week off to watch the girls. We also had some friends keep them a few times so Anthony could come visit me alone. The girls visited me a few times and they weren't scared at all - Ashley even asked if I was having another baby - she wants a baby girl. I left the hospital a day earlier than they wanted (on Sunday instead of Monday) but I really needed to come home and be with the girls and Anthony. It's the first time I've been away from them for more than one night - since they've been born. I am happy to be home, and doing better. The doctor sent me home with eight different meds (I'm not kidding here!) and I looked them all up on the net to find out what they were. Half are all for the same thing -cough and sputum - ugh - so I'm just sort of picking and choosing what to take - don't really think I need that many medicines in me.
We are looking forward to trying to get back to some semblence of normal life - hopefully this week. Today was a holiday, so Anthony had the day off, which was good since I definitley wasn't back to watching the kids all day. We'll see how tomorrow goes - his first real day back at work in AGES. We're trying to get Ashley back in school also - but she's pretty adamant right now that she doesn't want to go, so it's going to take some time.
We had a wonderful trip back in the States - it was refreshing, relaxing and wonderful to visit with all the family and friends.

Happy to be here

2005-01-27T06:08:00.000+08:00

that's the general feeling I have right now. In dealing with all the emotion and reality of our tsunami experience, I really am just happy to be here, with my family - my wonderful loving, caring and understanding husband and my beautiful, happy, sweet little girls. I am so blessed to have such a family and to all be here, safe and sound. My youngest, Liz, is playing in our sandbox on our deck right now and it feels so good. It's a gorgeous sunny day out, bright blue skies, around 70 degrees, slight breeze on my face. The sand reminds me of the beach, which reminds me of our trip and the tsunami, the dirty sandy water that surrounded our resort. I'm not as anxious thinking of it right now as I was weeks ago. I just feel a profound loss and sadness, not for me or my family, but for everyone living in the affected areas. I can sit here at our house, on our deck, enjoying a beautiful day, knowing that others are cleaning up, grieving, starting over, trying to come to terms with losing loved ones, friends. I pray for them all, hoping that they can find some peace and joy again. I've been reading websites, checking for updates of the areas affected, looking at pictures of the cleanup, the rebuilding. The tourists are starting to go back, which is good, it's a beautiful country (Thailand), that relies on the tourism industry. Although I don't think we'll go back anytime soon, I do still highly recommend Thailand as a place to go visit. The people are amazingly friendly and the place is beautiful. Many resorts were untouched or relatively untouched and will be back in operation quite soon. I've seen pictures of our resort, Merlin Beach, being cleaned up. It's pretty amazing - where you weren't able to view the resort from the beach due to trees and bushes, well, it's a clear view now. Just amazing. http://www.phuket-photos.com/frameme.php?page=phuket-tidal-wave-thursday6.htm (there are pics of Merlin Beach Resort on this page).

Elizabeth's 18 month appointment went well. She's back to normal on her growth chart and is doing great on her development. A little on the slow side for speech, although our doctor said that is quite normal with her hearing two different languages and having an older sibling who speaks for her and gets her what she wants (and a mom who lets her get away with pointing and saying UH, UH). She's getting so big and is very fond of dogs and babies. We've visited with a few friends with babies and Liz is just mesmorized by them (the babies, that is). She's got a cold right now, so her nose is quite nasty and raw, but she's still in good spirits the majority of the time.

Ashley is doing great. I keep trying to talk to her about our trip, about the tsunami, to see how she's feeling and what she's thinking. She seems to be dealing with it very well and I've talked with my therapist on ways to talk with her about it. She tends to talk about how she ran - too fast that her daddy had to pick her up. She's also still startled by unexpected or different noises and a bit clingy at times, but that is completely understandable. One of my friends commented how hard it is to see her startled response to things and it is hard, it breaks my heart, but she's such a trooper.

We're eating out a lot, at most of our favorite restaurants, trying to get to them all before we have to leave. Mexican food is number one, of course, along with real burgers, good fast food and yummy ice cream. We've had Italian a few times too - notably The Olive Garden and Macaroni Grill. Plus, the Outback - mmm, their basic ranch salad is my all time favorite side salad and Victoria's filet is so good (guess you can tell I'm definitely no vegetarian).

We're attempting to get our passports renewed also, but found out today that we had to have the girls birth certificates, so had to go get new ones of those. We've been meaning to get them renewed since we got here, but we're such procrastinators - although I was glad to learn today that even if we'd renewed them the day we got here, we'd still have to pay for expedited processing, since it takes 6-8 weeks for regular processing. Hopefully we'll get them ordered in the next day or two though and that will be one more to do off our list.

Our photo website - the album of the after tsunami photos - has been viewed almost 50,000 times. I find that utterly amazing. Thanks to everyone who has forwarded on our blog and our photo site to others.

Speech on Donating to Tsunami Relief Efforts

2005-01-24T01:18:00.000+08:00

I have a friend who currently lives in France. Her and her husband were visiting Thailand weeks before the tsunami hit - although luckily, they had already gone home when it did hit. My friend, Carmen, has written and given a speech to one of her group meetings in France. She forwarded it on to me and I found it to be a great speech on the people of Thailand, how they live and how they need international relief aid. Please take the time to read this if you get a chance.

Thailand Red Cross Southeast Asia Effort

In trying to think how I can tell you in 5 minutes why it's so important to me that people donate to the Red Cross Southeast Asian Relief Effort, I can only think about the Thai people and how it transformed me to be around them. You instantly notice their kind, gentle hospitable nature as soon as you step off the plane. This fact was pleasantly unfolding for me but really started to sink in the longer I stayed.

Our first two nights in Bangkok we took slowly and spent working through the logistics of the beach parts and the mainland parts of our trip. After discovering beach accommodations skyrocket starting Dec. 21, we decided the beach part must be done first... Since it's also supposed to be part of the experience of going to Thailand to get fitted by the Thai tailors for outstandingly priced suits, we did that before parting to the beach, so they would have time to complete them when we got back to Bangkok. Once on the plane to the beach I saw an advertisement in the a magazine showing that we could have gotten twice the volume of product for what we paid and was chewing my husband's ear about it all the way until we got off the plane and started heading toward our beach resort. As we traveled through the rain forest, we started noticing the very modest, poor-looking bungalows of the locals, many which looked half-finished and somewhat "makeshift" in construction. The doors and undressed windows were all wide open. As it was heavily dusk by that time, you could see into many of the homes -- as a tourist I am somewhat of a voyeur. You could see 3, 4 or 5 people milling around in small living areas with very little furniture, some sleeping fully clothed straight on bare concrete floors -- chickens on the porch, and a few mangy looking dogs and cats lying about. I turned to my husband and exclaimed, "My GOD I have GOT to get a grip on what's important in life.” The overpriced tailor no longer seemed so villainous. This feeling did not change the entire time we were there. From the makeshift food stands along side the roads, to the tiny rental business spaces selling goods and services to tourists, to the massage huts along the beach to the longtail boat drivers that fairy you from beach to beach -- these people seem somehow deprived by western standards, but just about every one of them are very enterprising, hard-working, dignified, polite and seemingly happy people.

The people working in the hotels bend over backwards to be polite and accommodating, providing little thoughtful details that I have not experienced in any other country. But who I think about more are the everyday people doing what they can to survive off the tourists: the ladies working the makeshift food stands attach a cage-like mechanism to their mopeds, complete with a flip-out grill attachment, flip-out countertop and attachable awning. They set up small fruit and beverage cases. They grill chicken quarters and corn-on-the-cob, and have little plastic chairs and tables set up behind their rows of food stands where they can serve you your food complete with silverware and sauces, mostly under a Euro. They bring in buckets of water for cleaning, and while the whole operation appears filthy by western standards, we ate at these stands half the time we were there and never got sick once. The longtail boat drivers who taxi you around the beaches, at first annoyed me because of the noise and fuel pollution, but you get used to it after a while and start to block it out. Plus, they are more than willing to find you a nice beach which isn't so crowded if you go at the right times. And, you can't get to many beaches without them.

One person really sticks in my mind the most and that was little NA. She was so adorable walking around selling her beverages and peeled pineapples on the beach to sunbathers with her little black bobbed hair and skin the color of the outside of a coconut. She couldn't have weighed more than 20 kilos, hauling around her giant sac of beers and sodas. Our first encounter she wanted to double charge me for a peeled pineapple. She wanted 50 baht and I knew they were typically 20 to 30 baht -- mind you, 50 baht is still less than a Euro. We haggled: "20 baht!" "40 baht!" "30 baht!" "40 baht!" By gosh, she was so darned cute she was going to get that 40 baht from me. When she came back by, planted herself firmly in front of me and exclaimed "40 baht,” I had the money ready, handed it to her and my husband and I enjoyed our deliciously peeled pineapple and beer lunch.

The next day we went to the same beach. We had chosen to kayak there this time and were nursing our sore arms by the time she came over to sell us a much-desired beer. She asked me probably one of the few English things she knew how to say: "How old are you?" I told her I was thirty-five and asked how old she was as she looked about 6. "Eight years old," she exclaimed. I said, well “in the country where I come from, you are what we call a business woman, and a very young one at that." She seemed to have no idea what I was talking about, and went off to sell more canned beverages to tourists, but this time she was joined by a very small child who seemed to be her little brother. He would probably be doing her job in another couple of years, as soon as he was grown enough to carry a big sacs of beverages. He was in nothing but a diaper and still had that very fluffy, spiky hair that babies have. He squatted and watched as she transacted. Since I was totally infatuated with her by this time, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Dad (or maybe Uncle), was walking around selling his sac of beverages about 100 meters in the other direction, probably with the 2 children in the corner of his eye the whole time. The 3 of them would periodically join together back at the tree-line, I imagine so he could give some sort of instructions. I would have taken Na home with me THAT day if the legal opportunity had presented itself.

The Thai massage ladies were lovely goddess saviors after a long afternoon of kayaking. The fabulous sunsets were healing, and the whole experience enchanting. Even though their simple life style by western standards appears "makeshift, less than organized and somewhat unsanitary" it is simply different from ours, and for them it works. OF COURSE they want a more comfortable life and better life for themselves and their children. And believe me, they are working on it in the way they know how. But this terrible disaster has caused some of them an unimaginable setback. No one, not any of us could have stood up to this. But you know what their are doing? They are trying to clean up and go back to work and they need some help to do it. I believe it is in as much the rest of the world's interest for them to be able to do this as it is in their own. We need them to go on DOING what they DO, LIVING the way they LIVE, and BEING the way they ARE. It helps us to understand who we are. It teaches us that life can be different from how it is for us, but at the same time wonderful… but not against these types of forces.

I just think about Na and her little brother and pray they were not there when the tsunami came around 10:30 that morning. On that particular beach, Laile, there would have been no where to escape. It was barricaded on each side by sheer rock-faced cliffs, and the forest behind the beach was about 300 maybe 400 meters deep, on the other side of which was another beach. That small area of forest was being completely filled up with bungalows, and the water would have rushed straight through all of it to the beach on the other side.
With that said, I am extremely fortunate to have enough money to be able to give the Red Cross 200 euros. As I have mentioned to some of you, other than tourism, Thailand relies on its agricultural resources. A majority of Thai people make and live on about 200 baht per day, which is about 4 euros... PER DAY! They need as much help as people have the means to give.

Update

2005-01-20T21:46:00.000+08:00

I haven't had much time to post while we are here in the States. We've been staying pretty busy during the time we are here. We've seen lots of family and friends and have been having a good time. The visiting family part is wonderful. It's so great to see Ashley and Liz with their grandparents - their little faces just brighten up whenever they see grandad, grandmom, grandma or grandpa, it's just so neat to see.

I have started writing about our Thailand trip, but haven't quite finished it. We did so much on the trip that there is a lot to write about. I'll try to finish it soon and get it posted.

Ashley has seen an orthopedic doctor about her legs. Ashley wasn't in such a great mood, so the doctor only had a chance to see her walk and touch her legs for about 3 seconds. She was able to determine that Ashley's calf muscles aren't as stretched out as they should be and one leg is worse than the other. So we are doing exercises every night and every morning which are helping to stretch them out. Ashley actually enjoys doing the exercises, so that is good.
Today is Elizabeth's 18 month appointment, I'll post later about what the doc says. I'm assuming everything will be good and normal. She'll get a shot or two, so we aren't looking forward to that at all.

I have been to a psychiatrist and a therapist for my anxiety after the tsunami. They both are helping greatly. After some exercises the therapist gave me, I'm able to calm my anxiety and relax a bit. I'm able to think of what happened or what could have happened without the fear and shakiness that I experienced before. So that is good. Everyday seems to be getting better too. Ashley is talking about waves, beaches and trees falling over - but she doesn't seem upset by it - just talks normal about it, like it's a normal occurrence. She even said she wanted to go to the beach yesterday, although Anthony and I definitely don't share in that sentiment. Anthony is doing good, working a lot of hours, visiting people for lunch and scheduling dinners with coworkers and friends.

It's been great being in our house again - I think that really helps in the healing process. We are so glad that things worked out where our house is currently free from "tenants".

I still think everyday of all those affected by the tsunami and hope that they are getting the relief aid that so many people have generously donated. If you still haven't had a chance to donate, please do so - there are so many people that need help over in the affected areas. I can't imagine those who lost their homes, their families and their livelihoods, how hard it would be to recover from that. I've heard that even $1 donated to UNICEF can provide a necessary medical shot for a child. It all adds up.

Lots of good news...

2005-01-11T06:03:00.000+08:00

I have become an Aunt! I'm so thrilled about this and can not wait to visit my little niece in a few weeks at the end of our stay here in the States. I was so excited for my brother and his wife before the tsunami and even more so afterwards, now that I think life is that much more precious. I know how much having children has changed my life and how wonderful it is to be a parent and watch your children grow and learn and develop personalitites - I am just so thrilled that my brother gets to share in the same journey now.

We are in contact with the couple who so wonderfully shared their 4th story room with us for a few hours after the tsunami hit at Merlin Beach. When we had been staying at the Merlin Phuket, I briefly ran into the woman who'd been so kind, we exchanged a few words, but I barely remember the encounter, as it was when Anthony had gone back to Merlin Beach and the girls were upset and I was not in a good frame of mind. I had posted a note asking them to contact us in our room on a window in the lobby area of the Merlin Phuket. I felt silly putting it up there, since it was a little note, next to other notes asking for information on lost and missing people. Nonetheless, I had wanted to try and get their contact information, but never did. I have often thought of them both, wanting to know how they were doing. Apparently, they remembered what company Anthony worked for, that we were living in Taiwan and all of our names. They contacted Anthony's work who then put him in contact with them. Anthony called me this afternoon and told me the news, we are both rather stunned and amazed that they were able to contact us and also really happy! Those cute little sandals that Ashley had on the morning of the tsunami - we didn't really have a place to carry them when we left the resort, so we left them in their room. Apparently, when they went back to get their luggage, they picked up the shoes and still have them. They are going to send them to us, Ashley will be so thrilled! She loved those shoes - as did Liz.

We sold our car in the States. We've had it listed for sale and have been trying to sell it since June of last year. Although the timing could have been better - someone offered to buy it the day before we got here for our visit - it is so great that we will not have to keep making payments on a vehicle we don't use, that just sits there.

I had more dreams last night, nothing as bad as the last ones, but all having to do with water and waves. None of these dreams involved the children though - all were just me or me and Anthony. I haven't been sleeping well, mix in jet lag with kiddos who keep waking up and bad dreams, that doesn't make for good sleeping conditions. Hopefully, the kids will start sleeping more hours at night, which will help Anthony and I in sleeping longer too. I am really tired and drained right now. I did have lunch today with friends, which was very nice! The girls actually sat and ate and were good for the whole meal, which is a rarity.

I posted some of information on an Asian travel website that has a forum where people are discussing the tsunami and requesting information on different hotels, people, etc. There was a post on Merlin Beach Resort, so I added our story and links to pics and blog. There have been a few people who also posted saying they survived from there or who had relatives who were there and some who've thanked me for sharing our pictures. I really never thought that so many people would actually see our photos and read our blog. I am continually amazed at the numbers and that so many people are getting what I had hoped they would get out of it, a more personal look into the tsunami and how it's affected so many different people from all over the world. I can not believe that it's been 2 weeks since the tsunami. It is such a strange feeling, knowing that we were there, that we were a part of this huge horrible massive natural disaster, and that we survived and are halfway across the world now.

To the States!

2005-01-10T09:45:00.000+08:00

We are home in the States! It feels so good to be here and the girls are so happy. When we landed yesterday in California on our way to Texas, I cried tears of relief, just to be on US soil. I was a mess on the plane ride over. My anxiety level was so high. I don't normally really enjoy plane flights, but I also don't usually have the kind of high anxiety that I had on these flights. I became teary-eyed very often whenever the plane had turbulence or if the girls were crying or upset. I was unable to sleep at all and couldn't eat that much. I watched two movies and read my book for the majority of the flight. The girls actually did pretty well on the flights. A bit of crying and crankiness, but we've come to expect that on long flights now. Ashley had some foot pain and we couldn't seem to console her. In the San Jose airport, I was able to get some anti-anxiety medication out of my suitcase, before it went through customs, so the flight from CA to TX was so much better for me. My anxiety level was so much less and I enjoyed the flight and was able to sleep a bit. Both girls also slept on that flight, so that was very nice.

We are staying at my parents house for a bit until we get things ready to stay at our own house. It's been great being here with family, and the girls have absolutely LOVED it (although getting their way everytime helps that) . It's been neat to see how happy the girls have been enjoying their grandparents company. Ashley already been to the park with them and Anthony and I have already spent quite a bit of money at Target - not even 24 hours after arriving here!
I appreciate all the comments and emails we've received about our blog, about our pictures and asking about us in general. It is so nice to hear from those who've been touched by our lives.

About Donating to Relief Organizations

2005-01-07T16:43:00.000+08:00

I just wanted to add that if you do decide to donate to a relief organization, please check with your employer to see if they do matching contributions. I meant to mention this earlier, but completely forgot. Many major companies will match employee donations to major charities. Anthony's company matches 100% of employee contributions to approved charities (up to a certain amount per year). If possible, it's a great way to make your donation mean even more.

Emotional Toll of Tsunami

2005-01-07T15:37:00.000+08:00

This morning was a hard morning. I don’t know why or what spurred it, except that I had some pretty vivid dreams before waking up, two in particular. One was that we (Anthony, Ashley, Liz and I) were at a beach, near some hotel, when a wave came up and pulled us out to sea. I don’t remember all the details of the dream, just that we all ended up lying on a sandy beach, completely battered and tired, but alive, with debris all around us. I don’t remember any other parts than that. Just the emotions, the fear, the pain (not physical pain), the despair.

The next was more of a “what if” scenario…what if the wave had of come at the time the earthquake happened. This has played through my mind, over and over again, perhaps why it’s actually become a dream. I had eaten breakfast with Liz in the pool side restaurant that morning, letting Ashley and Anthony sleep in. At the exact time of the quake, Liz and I were walking back to our room to wake them up. In my dream, I see the wave coming from the pool area and I grab Liz and start running, but there are two choices, run to the room (to the right) to try and warn Anthony or run up the stairs to the left. I choose to run up the stairs, to save myself and Elizabeth, hoping that Anthony will hear the noise and get Ashley and go to safety. But in my dream, he doesn’t, he and Ashley do not make it. I see them in the room, I see what happens to them in the room and I see them later and am devastated. It’s so hard for me to write this and it might be upsetting to some. But I feel that I really need to get this out, to write about what I’m experiencing emotionally throughout all of this. I was so upset this morning after these dreams and thoughts. I just hugged Anthony and cried, not able to voice why I was crying. It’s hard to believe that I can even imagine either of those scenarios, that I've been through something that would even put these thoughts into my head. I’ve heard stories of people who had to make the choice – survival stories of parents who had to let their children go and children whose parents rescued them only to be swept away. I can’t imagine what they must be going through.

While we were staying at our “sanctuary” place, there was a woman there who happened to work in a news station in Australia – I don’t remember her name or what station. She was going around talking to people, asking people if they were ok. I remember her coming up to me, looking me straight in the eyes and saying “are you ok?”. When I told her yes, we were all safe, she moved on to the next family/individual. We saw and spoke with her several times that day. She told us about a couple with a down syndrome teenage boy who’d been missing since the tsunami. One of the parents had a hold of the boy, but he/she got knocked out by furniture with the wave and had to let go of him. The parents were in the hospital, alive, but looking for him. This news lady was asking anyone and everyone to keep an eye out for him, to try and find him. (I saw a news article today about this and they had not found him) She also spent hours on the phone, calling every hospital, every outlet she could think of to try and find a missing wife of a man who was up with us at the “sanctuary” resort. She got a photocopy of the wife’s picture and was faxing it to the various hospitals to try and find her. She did so much, as much as she could possibly do, trying to help others find any information they could on relatives and friends – and she was on her honeymoon.

Sometimes I feel guilty, like I shouldn’t be having these feelings, I shouldn’t be this upset. We are all uninjured, we are all safe, it doesn’t matter what belongings we lost, they are all replaceable. We didn’t lose the irreplaceable, the loss of life, of a loved one. We have so much to be thankful for, yet, at times, I still feel such a profound sense of loss, of what, I’m not yet sure. I know that I will never look at another beach the same. My place of peace was a beach, whenever I was stressed, I would picture myself lying on a beach, drinking a cool frozen drink, or snorkeling at some wonderful coral reef, with thousands of colorful fish swimming all around me. But that place of refuge for me is gone. I have to find a new place to find peace, which is hard, because every time I try to picture serenity and peace, I see a big wave crashing up onto my beach.

Someone asked for the link to our picture site - here is it:
http://community.webshots.com/user/akaearmstrong

Visitors!

2005-01-06T22:13:00.000+08:00

I have no idea how people get things done with 2 kids, when they are young. Today, our cleaning lady was supposed to come and my such luck, she wasn’t able to make it. Our floors were a mess, despite the constant vacuuming. I had to clean them. So, I tried. Liz spilled a bucket of water on the floor (oh well, at least she got it wet for me), got herself soaked in cleaning solution and water from the bucket, ate a whole tube of chapstick, dumped out the drawers in the bathroom and in our room, pulled ½ the stuff off of our desk area where computer sits and after eating her pasta – threw enough on the ground that I had to remop that area again! Oh, the joys. Now, she’s finally taking a nap, and I’m trying to get Ashley to take one, but she is flat out refusing, and I’m so tired, I don’t think I can clean anymore. I’ve only done the living room. Being a mother is such hard work! It’s so much easier to just vacuum with kids around, but to have to mop, that’s so much more difficult. And once it’s wet, here you have to get on your hands and knees to dry it, otherwise they get footprints everywhere and slip and fall because it takes forever to dry on its own. UGH!

I did manage to get the living room done finally. Angie came over this afternoon with Joseph and it was so good just to sit and visit (although there wasn’t much sitting, more running around like crazy keeping the kiddos from injuring themselves). I really am so glad that I’ve made such a good friend here and will really miss her when we’re home (and she’s probably going to have her baby girl while we’re home too!!!). Joseph and the girls had fun playing, even though there was lots of fighting too.
After Angie left, Lili came over for dinner. She’s a Taiwanese that we met through some friends of our back home – she was over for Thanksgiving dinner here also. It was nice having company today. I made chicken parmesan with spaghetti for dinner. I had also made some Lemon Poppyseed bread for dessert (thanks to G-mom Armstrong for the bread mix – it made your son very happy) in the breadmaker – I just love that thing now, it’s so easy.

I did loads of laundry today too – we haven’t started packing yet, even though we leave in two days. I guess we just figure we’ll throw stuff in the suitcases and whatever we miss, we can buy there, no biggie anymore. We can travel pretty light now.

Our picture website has had over 9000 hits on it – I find that so utterly amazing! And our blog now has over 2000 hits on it, with new people everyday. I am so fascinated with the counter stat, Anthony says he hopes it doesn’t continue to climb because he thinks it odd so many people out there are reading about our lives and looking at pictures of us. For some reason, I don’t find it weird, just interesting.

Dreams, Apartment Issues and Care Packages

2005-01-04T19:25:00.000+08:00

Today, I was trying to get Ashley to take a nap (no such luck!) and I asked her if she’s had any dreams lately. She told me she hadn’t had any dreams. So I told her that I had a dream about a tree. Her reply – “did the tree get knocked over by the big wave?”. My heart just sank and I wanted to cry. She didn’t seem upset by it at all, just asked me. I told her that in my dream, the tree had lots of birds in it and an owl and it was big and round with lots of leaves. She then proceeded to tell me about a “dream” of hers with monsters in it, but they seemed to be good monsters.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned our apartment heating problem we had once we returned home to Taiwan. We arrived late at night/early in the morning (around 1 am) to our apartment in Taipei on Dec. 29th. We have a central air/heating unit, which is not very common here in Taipei, it’s rare for an apartment to have central heat. It was about 15 degrees Celsius in the apartment (that’s around 59 degrees Fahrenheit). We switched the air conditioning unit from cold to heat, and then turned on the thermostats in the rooms. After about 10 minutes, I heard this loud sound. It scared me, since I was already on edge. I asked Anthony what it was; he didn’t hear it since he was blowing his nose at the exact same time as the noise I heard. We walked around trying to find the source of the noise and outside (in the laundry area) where the air conditioning unit is, there was water pouring out from a pipe attached to the unit. Great! Just what we needed, more water. Anthony went and got the security guy, who came up and tried to tell us it was no big deal, it could wait until morning and he’d have someone come look at it, no one was awake to come fix it or look at it at that moment. Thank goodness Anthony was a little adamant that they do something NOW – that we spend enough in management fees that they should take care of this. They guy finally agreed to get someone to look at it, he left, then brought back another security guy (UGH!). They looked, talked, looked, talked, then finally agreed to turn off our water. So, here we are, back from Thailand, tired, dirty, cold with no heat and no water. The next day, one of the ladies from Anthony’s work got a contractor to come look at it. They got our water turned back on and the heat was fixed a few days later (they had to find parts, etc). Luckily, we have some friends here who loaned us some space heaters, which work really well here, so we weren’t left completely in the cold. Today, they finished the last of the repairs (replacing the thermostats in Liz’s and Ashley’s room) and it is so nice to have heat in the apartment.

Elizabeth doesn’t seem to be doing much better, her fever is down, but she’s refusing to eat, drink or sleep. I spent all day trying to get her to do any of the three. She cried a ton today and I felt so awful for her. I am really hoping that she is better tomorrow – I don’t know how I can handle another day of her being that upset. And since she’s sick, we haven’t been able to visit with any of our friends, which makes it even harder. We (Ashley, Liz and I) are all stuck in the apartment all day long. I haven’t taken Ashley to school in case she’s also carrying some sort of virus – plus, she doesn’t want me to leave her at school, she just wants to visit. Her teacher called today to find out how she was doing. I told her that Ashley probably wouldn’t be back to school until the end of February when we get back from the States. She seemed disappointed, but understood.

We got a care package from my parents last night – sent out right after we got home from Thailand. It was so nice to receive and really brightened our spirits. They sent some Junior Mints (mmm, my favorite) along with some chocolate for Anthony, some p’jammas for the girls, a few stuffed animals (Liz lost her favorite puppy and blankie in the tsunami) and some other little treats. Ashley was very excited to get to open more presents and she immediately named her white stuffed doggie – Noodle. It’s a poodle, so I don’t know if she is confused on the name, or if she just randomly picked noodle out?! Pretty cute though...

Please donate to the Tsunami Relief Efforts

2005-01-03T09:21:00.000+08:00

Thanks to everyone for their support and words of encouragement for us, it really has meant a lot to hear from all our friends and family. I would still like to encourage anyone that hasn’t done so – please donate anything you can to the relief efforts going on right now for this horrible disaster. I can not stress enough how much the people affected by this tsunami have lost. I know you see it on the news and you are probably hearing about it constantly, and it really is that horrible. There are so many people that need help right now. Please take a look at: http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/tsunami.aidsites/index.html
This is CNN’s list of places you can donate to. I’m not kidding when I say that even a measly $5 would help.

I can not believe that it’s been over a week since the tsunami hit. We are still just trying to catch up on sleep and get back into daily life. Ashley was sick, running fever with cough at end of last week. She still has cough, but fever is gone. Liz is sick, had very high temperature yesterday (103.5 F) that wasn’t being brought down by Ibuprofen or Acetaminophen. We took her to the doctor last night, she has an enterovirus – which is a common childhood illness, second to cold’s, I think. They gave her suppository, which helped break fever about 2 hours later. She slept on and off last night, and seems to be doing better today, just cranky, but no fever. I was running a fever last week too, I think from exhaustion, but it’s finally gone now too. Anthony went back to work, for a full day, today. The girls did good with him leaving, Liz cried a bit and was really clingy right before he left, but she was fine after he was gone.

We are making arrangements to come home to Texas for our visit. We leave this Saturday, the 8th, will be in Texas until early Feb, then we’ll go over to Arizona and visit more family, then back here to Taipei in mid February. I am excited to be going home, can’t wait to give everyone big hugs!

Soon I will post about how great our trip to Thailand was before the tsunami. I have posted pics up on our Webshots site, and you can pretty much see everything we did. We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the country and activities. The girls did awesome. We had no idea how well they would do when we were planning our trip. Anthony was a bit nervous about the whole sleeping in one room with them, but it worked great. There were usually so tired from their day out and about, they feel asleep fairly easily. We even had a babysitter (“See”) who watched them twice for us, once while we went out to dinner and another time while we had massages. See actually found us on the fourth floor after the tsunami and gave the girls a HUGE hug and lots of smiles. She spoke little English, but was able to convey her happiness at seeing all of us unhurt and we were happy to see her too.

We haven’t really celebrated New Years yet. We did buy a bottle of champagne, but have been so tired every night; we just haven’t bothered to open it. Don’t know if we will before we even go back to States, but that’s ok. We are just so happy to be here, with our family intact and safe.

Our Personal Experience of the Tsunami

2004-12-31T21:17:00.000+08:00

Our original vacation plans were Dec 20th - 25th, but we were enjoying Thailand so much we extended our stay until the 27th. We were staying at a resort called The Merlin Beach Resort in Phuket, Thailand. This resort is located south of Patong Beach and the only accessible road to it is through the Patong Beach area. Merlin beach sits on a piece of land that "juts" out from the main island of Thailand - so it's surrounded on two sides by ocean. The side near the pools is beach front and then the front side of resort is a "forest" where another beach lies. Anthony is guessing that it's about 1km from one beach to the other, with the resort being about 2/3 of the way away from the forested side and 1/3 from the beach front side.

We had just finished making our Merry Christmas phone calls back home on the morning of December 26, 2004 (14 hours ahead of most of our family, so still Christmas night for them), while we were at our resort. It was about 3 minutes to 10 am and we wanted to catch a resort bus to the town of Phuket to do some shopping. We had a backpack carrier for Liz, a small cloth bag with sunscreen and a shoulder bag with 3 diapers, some money, wipes, etc., and Anthony had his wallet with his ID and one credit card in it. We started walking down the slope of the resort driveway to catch the bus when we heard people yelling and pointing across this “forest”, and saying RUN, RUN, RUN. I turned to look and saw this mass of water rushing towards us – it wasn’t a wave, it was just a mass of water flooding the forest and coming towards us with extreme speed. I had Liz, Anthony had our stuff and Ashley was about 10 feet away. I screamed her name, and Anthony scooped her up and ran with her up to the lobby. We ran across the lobby area to the staircase on the side were our room was located and just ran up all the stairs, telling everyone around us to go UP and RUN. We got up to the 4th floor and looked towards the pool area, which was getting flooded with water. It hadn't even registered what had happened, what was happening, we had no idea. From the 4th floor, we watched the water come in from the beach area and engulf the swimming pool area, along with the rooms on the 1st floor (which is where our room was located). Anthony said he remembers getting to third floor, looking down and yelling "It's still coming, keep going!” Once we got to the fourth floor, we just held the girls and prayed that it would stop coming up and then we looked out over the pool area, I was looking for people that may need help, people that were at the pool or in the restaurant - I didn't see anybody.

My thought was first that we were going to die, that more waves were coming in and that the water would just get higher and higher. I hugged my girls and Anthony, told them how much I loved them and just prayed. After I realized that the water wasn't going to reach us, at least the initial wave, I was just so scared for those people that had been on the beach, in their 1st floor rooms or at the pool. I had no idea if people would have been able to survive that force of water.

People were banging on roof hatches, trying to get them open so they could climb out onto the roof, get to higher ground. We stayed on the fourth floor. There were several waves still coming in, but none as big as the first.

After about 15-20 minutes, I begun to walk around, looking at the damage, seeing cars piled up three high, smashed windows, trees scattered everywhere. I took a few pics, not many though as I was more worried about getting us and the girls to safety.
As soon as the first wave was done, Anthony went down to try and help people - see if anyone needed medical attention or help. He didn't find anyone and came back up to the 4th floor.

That was when I took pics of the forest side of the resort - the front side and the cars piled up. What I saw was complete devastation - people walking around dazed and confused, many people limping with cuts and bruising. The staff of the hotel were scared, had no idea what to do, what had happened. They were missing people too and trying to locate the staff and attempting to get information, but were pretty much cut off from any communication with the rest of the island.

Everyone was frightened, asking for information, when would another wave come, how to get out of there safely, where loved ones where. I remember one family next to us, they started crying saying their mother and father had been at the beach. After about 5 minutes, the mother came walking up to them, yelling "Franco, Franco" over and over again. Franco was her husband, the father. She said he was at the beach; she had no idea if he made it. She was crying, screaming his name. After about another 10 minutes, he came up - everyone was so relieved. They had some scrapes and bruises, but were alive.

A wonderful Australian couple invited us into their room on the 4th floor to help with the girls, try to keep them from seeing and hearing too much. We stayed with them for about an hour, occasionally venturing out, walking around, surveying damage, seeing what we could do to help. I was able to borrow their cell phone and leave a message with one of our family members, saying we were ok. It was the middle of the night in the States, but I knew that this devastation would be on the news by morning time and didn’t want any relatives to worry about our lives.

There were quite a few injured people that came struggling up after the main tsunami hit. There was a doctor going around checking wounds. He quickly ran out of medicine, so we gave him what we had - just a few tabs of ibuprofen and asked others to do the same.

I just kept looking out at the damage, watching the waves come in, praying that more wouldn't come, that it was over, thanking God that we were all safe and unhurt, thinking how lucky we were - had it been 5 minutes later, we would have been on bus, on road that got wiped out by wave, 5 minutes earlier, we would have been in our room and would have been crushed by objects and water forced through our room.

After about 1.5 hours, I was walking through the lobby, trying to find out what was going on - people were gathering their luggage and going to the lobby. Anthony went back to our room, kicked open the door and grabbed the one carry-on suitcase left and brought it back up to the 4th floor. I did not go back to the room, did not want to see that kind of devastation, didn't think I could handle it, and I refused to leave the girls without one of us for even one second.

When I was walking through the lobby, the staff was saying that another, larger wave was due to hit in 2 hours and we had to get out NOW and move to higher ground. We got the girls, and started walking across the debris littering the front of the resort and the road that used to be there. There were trees and seaweed and wood scattered everywhere. Both sides of the resort are surrounded by hills. We walked up the first hill towards town, with just the girls and the day stuff we had with us when we were going into town - a small shoulder bag with a few diapers, some money, etc. People were all taking their luggage with (if they were from 2nd - 4th floors). I was really amazed at this - all that disaster and people were taking their entire luggage with them, not just one bag with necessities, but everything they had brought with them. I really didn't (and still don't) understand that. Why not worry more about your family and your safety, take what little is important (passports, travel docs, one or two days of clothes, etc) and leave all the replaceable items?

At the top of the first hill, I asked around for extra clothes - I had a skirt on and it wasn't real good for walking or sitting down to rest in the shade. There were several people who offered us some clothes and I was able to get some shorts to wear plus some extra diapers for Liz since we had already used what we had back at the resort. We waited at one spot for about an hour, debating whether to continue on since the road dipped down again before going up. After a while, some staff members came and said we needed to keep moving. They had heard that a BIG wave was coming and we needed to get as high as possible (this later turned out to be another unsubstantiated rumor).

So, we kept walking, we walked for about another 1/2 hour, mostly uphill. Then we saw a roadside stand where a lady was selling fruit and water. Anthony went to buy some for the girls since they were hungry. The wave struck at 10 am and it was about 1 pm by this time.

As he was getting some food, a truck (covered with benches for passengers in the bed) came by and the driver saw me with the children. He offered to give us a lift up higher. There had been several trucks and motorcycles and cars driving through the area, picking up random people. There was really no order and many adults who were uninjured with luggage, took rides up the hill, instead of letting children and the injured go first. I was not happy to see this, I would much rather have seen the injured and the children being lifted to safety first. There were a few men who would stop trucks and try and get them to take the families with children, but usually they didn’t succeed.

We got in the back of the truck, and then some large man got in with his wife and SIX (yes, 6) pieces of luggage, taking up the entire rest of the space. Anthony and I were both flabbergasted, as there were children waiting right next to the truck to get on. Anthony told him to let the children come first and the guy said he doesn't see children, only himself. We were so mad and so upset at this side of human nature. At a time like this and there were people who only had eyes for themselves.
I forgot to add that when Anthony was buying food and water from roadside stand - the lady did not hike up prices, was charging reasonable amount for all food - helping any that needed it.

The truck took us up to a place called "Baan Nern Sai Resort" up in the hills, I call this place our sanctuary. It was a tiny motel with rooms surrounding an open little pool area and small restaurant/bar. They let everyone in, cooked us fried rice, gave us water, drinks, whatever we needed. They had no rooms available, but brought a crib out to the pool side for Elizabeth to sleep in. Up here, we were able to relax as much as possible and talk with others who were there. We met a wonderful family from Australia who let us borrow their cell phone. We immediately called our family, told them we were safe and uninjured, and tried to find a way out to a safe place in Phuket town.

Anthony called his mother and she answered - he explained the situation, asked her to contact the US Embassy since at that time we had no passports and no tickets and asked her to contact his work people to let them know what was happening, get our passport numbers and tell them that we were ok.

The family we borrowed the cell phone from was getting text messages on their phone from family and friends with news of what was happening, along with an oceanographer who was saying it was over, no more large tsunami waves were coming. That was never verified and rumors kept flying that more were coming.

The hotel had a generator and got electricity plus TV working, so we were able to watch CNN and find out what had occurred - an earthquake measuring 9.1 (8.9 was the word at the time) on Richter scale and large tsunami, with mass destruction everywhere. It was so awful. We were so lucky to be alive, to be uninjured, and to have our entire family together. It didn't matter that we'd lost physical belongings; besides, it made it so much easier to walk up that hill with no luggage.

There were a few seriously injured people at the hotel, and several people taking care of them. We ate fried rice, drank lots of water trying to keep hydrated and tried to keep abreast of the news. At one point, around 6pm, we got on a bus, that was going to take us to a place called Merlin Phuket in Phuket town (away from water), but after we went about 100 feet, the bus stopped, told everyone to get off, it wasn't safe to go on road because another wave was coming. There was fear and panic in everyone.
The staff at the Baan Nern Sai Resort were cooking for people and providing drinks. If you could pay, they were charging normal very reasonable prices and if you couldn't, that was ok, didn't matter. I highly commend that hotel! They gave us bread for the girls and milk.

At about 7pm, the Thai Navy showed up, along with staff from the Merlin Phuket hotel, and they started escorting people down into Phuket town. We waited until most of the people had been transported out. We were safe, and had no reason to rush getting out of the sanctuary we were at. Plus we were nervous, since any ground transportation that we took at that time would go past the beach. We were still very afraid of aftershocks and being caught near the beach. Typically, from what we knew, aftershocks of up to nearly the same amplitude of the original quake are quite possible within the first 24 hours. We were very tempted to stay the night by the pool with very limited food choices and comfort, but after checking news and talking to others eventually decided to go on.

About 8:30 pm, we boarded a bus and started down the road to Patong Beach. I was so nervous, my heart was racing, I just kept my eyes glued on the water, looking for any sign of a wave. The water was all the way up to the road, no beach left - full moon and moon was up, so tide was all the way in. It was utter devastation along Patong Beach - with cars, buses, trucks piled up, shops and stores wiped out. I just kept thinking how just the day before, we had spent the morning at that beach, letting the girls play in the sand and water, while we sat on the beach chairs and relaxed. One day earlier and we would have been there, would have been swept away. We turned right on a road away from Patong Beach and heard this awful scraping sound across the roof of the vehicle we were in - there were power and telephone lines hanging down, being held up by buses and cars that had been swept away by the tsunami.

They took us to a safe spot by the side of the road inland, then went back to pick up more people stranded about 100 meters up from the beach, trying to get as many people to safety as possible. Another bus came and took us to the Merlin Phuket hotel, which is in Phuket town, and we signed in, and were assigned a room with 2 other people - they were putting 6 people in one standard room and 15 people in a deluxe suite. They had taken top mattresses and laid them out in ballrooms for those who needed a place to stay - they were turning away no one. They supplied food - rice, fruit, water, tea and coffee - for any and all who were there. The lobby and hotel grounds were swamped with people. Everyone was trying to find missing people, trying to figure out how to get out, watching the TV’s set up everywhere, trying to call home – it was just utter chaos. We took the girls up to the room and got them down for bed. I went down to the lobby and called family.

We slept on twin boxsprings on the floor in the room, with Ashley sleeping on a pool mat I had grabbed and Liz in a crib we found in the housekeeping room on our floor. The girls were exhausted and fell alseep easily – they slept all night. I could not sleep - had so many images going through my head - mainly just the wave coming in. Any siren or yelling that I heard outside made my heart race and tears come to my eyes. I knew we were safe, there was no risk where we were, but emotionally I just couldn't conceive what had happened. I was able to call Anthony's parents, let them know where we were, they would let the Embassy know that we were safe along with all our other relatives.

The next morning, after breakfast, Anthony left on a bus returning to Merlin Beach Resort to see if he could get into the room safe and retrieve our passports (it had been broken and locked shut when he checked it immediately after tsunami). The girls were hard to take care of, they were both very cranky and upset that Daddy was gone. I was too. He left around 9:00 am and as of noon, he still wasn’t back. We went down to the lobby to walk around and to see if we could see him. Ashley wanted to wait outside for him, where the buses were coming and going, but with so many people there, it was hard to stay there with both girls. I decided going back to our room and waiting was the best option. I had to basically drag Ashley up to our room while she screamed “Daddy, Daddy” over and over again. It was so heartbreaking and I couldn’t handle it. I began to cry and for a few minutes Ashley held me on the bed and told me “it’s ok mommy”. I had no idea where Anthony was, if he was safe, how long he’d be gone, when we would get out of there. I then decided to go downstairs and go to a store to get diapers since we had run out. As we were in the elevator headed down, there was a woman in the elevator who obviously noted my distress. She asked where we were headed and I said we had to go to the store to get diapers and clothes for the girls. She said I could go with her to her room and take some diapers and clothes from them – they had a 2 year old little girl. So I went with her and she gave us some diapers, along with a pair of shorts and shirt for Ashley (who was wearing her underwear only by this time – her other clothes were so filthy). I talked with her and her husband for a few minutes, hearing their story, sharing ours and just having some much needed adult talk. Her husband had been to a resort near Merlin Beach Resort that morning to retrieve their belongings and he had only been back for a short time, so I was hopeful that Anthony would be back soon. We went back to the room and a few minutes later, as both girls were screaming, upset at the world, Anthony appeared. I don’t know if I have ever been so relieved in my life. He said that he’d been able to break into the safe and had found our passports and travel documents – soaked through, but still usable, at least for the time being. He also brought back some other items, the car seat, a backpack, our souvenirs (this is so odd – all the items we had purchased on our trip were untouched by the wave, they were on a top self in a closet far away from the patio area – the bottom of the bag was wet, but everything in the bag was fine – how’s that for irony?). We ended up trying to wash the backpack and carseat, but the stench was so bad, we left them at the hotel. Anthony said that there were bits of glass everywhere, so anything that had been in the water also had the possibility of having small shards of glass in it too. He said the room had been devastated. Barbecue grills from the restaurant were in the room, the beds had been twisted all around and were near the front door, the pack ‘n’ play was in the bathroom, the shower stall had moved, it was just a disaster zone. A hotel employee had helped him go through the room, mainly trying to find my eyeglasses, which they didn’t find, but the Merlin employee did find our Taipei apartment keys, which we hadn’t even thought of, and it wouldn’t have been easy getting new keys to our apartment when we arrived at 1 am.

Once Anthony got back, we then took a taxi to a shopping mall called “Central Festival”. We got Anthony some clothes, then me some clothes, then some toiletries and medicine, and then down to the basement to get the girls some clothes. As we were about to check out, people started running outside, saying “go, go, go!” They wouldn’t tell us what was going on, and it completely freaked me out (and Ashley too – “What’s happening, mommy? Is a wave coming?”). At first, we didn’t know what to do – we knew we were too far away from the beach for any sort of water to reach us, so we had no idea. Once we got outside, there was a rumor of an earthquake (why run outside?!) and Anthony feared there was a small chance it might be a bomb threat. We had no idea. After about 15 minutes of standing outside, Anthony went inside, bought the stuff we had picked out, returned the strollers we had borrowed and then came back outside to me and the girls who were waiting about 1 block away near a small building. Anthony was told that someone on 4th floor (top, restaurants) felt the building sway, thought it was an earthquake and panicked, which was a very contagious thing at this time in the country (likely still is) – that is the state of people over there, everyone is afraid of something else happening. And there isn’t really anyone to say “Everything is ok, nothing is going to happen.”

We then headed to City Hall, where all the embassies were set up, along with places for people to stay under shelter with food, water, phone lines and internet access. This was the saddest place we’d been too. There were thousands of people there, walking around, eating, drinking, looking dazed. We found where the US Embassy was set up (a room crammed with tables, people in line, and people sitting with make-shift signs saying what embassy they represented – U.S. guys had no one waiting to talk to them, but we had to break through another line to get to them), talked with the guys, who said that since we had our passports and our tickets, there was nothing they could do. They signed us in on a piece of paper, where they were recording all Americans that came by. Above our names were only two rows had been filled in, directly above our names a man had written his information, along with a statement about his wife and three daughters – all of whom were missing. Outside the building, there was a big bulletin board – on it, pictures of the dead and severely wounded, who needed to be identified. We sat down to eat some food and I spoke with a reporter from the New York Times. I don’t think we’ve been mentioned in any of his stories – there are just so many other stories of survival and hope that make for better news coverage – but it felt good to talk about our experience. As we were walking to get a taxi back to the hotel, we saw a poster, with a picture of a little boy in the hospital – and the words “Need to find my parents” – it was so awful, I started to cry. (This is the same boy that I’ve seen a recent news story on who has been reunited with his father – although his mother is still missing).

We got back to the hotel, called back to the states, asked for several things to be done, letting people know we were ok, try to get us back home, etc. The girls went to sleep very easy as they were exhausted. We tried to clean up the stuff Anthony had brought back, dried out our passports, etc. We decided we’d go to the airport the next morning and stay there all day if necessary to get out. Many people had left that day for the airport, but with the girls, we didn’t want to have to sleep at the airport overnight since we already had beds and were safe. My dad called us about 6am on the 28th, gave us a flight confirmation number they had been able to obtain on the 29th. This got us up and moving and we packed what little we had, ate some breakfast and headed for the airport. The airport was busy, but not as busy as I had anticipated it being. We were able to get on standby for the first flight out at 9:15 am and at 9:00 am, they called our name, checked our bag and we were on the plane! It was such a relief – knowing we were getting out. We flew to Bangkok while I read all the newspapers I could get my hands on, trying to get information on what was happening, why it had occurred, why no one had been warned (according to various news agencies, politics played a lot into why no one had been alerted about the risk). We landed in Bangkok, got off the plane and immediately, there was a US Embassy representative to see if any Americans needed assistance – a hotel, money, passports, etc. We already had everything we needed, so we did not need their assistance, but it sure felt good knowing that had we needed help, we would have gotten it immediately. The Bangkok airport was a zoo, people everywhere, a dozen or more embassy representatives for countries all over world holding up pieces of notebook paper with their countries names or little flags, TV stations and film crews, etc. We managed to arrange for a flight to Taipei around 3 pm that afternoon. We went to the Thai Air Executive Lounge, where they tried to say we couldn’t go in, but we explained that we’d been in Phuket, had two small children and needed a quieter place to sit. They then let us in. After eating a bit, I went to swing Liz by her arms (DO NOT EVER DO THIS WITH YOUR CHILDREN) and felt something click – she then started screaming and would not stop. We rushed her to the hospital clinic (where I basically had a breakdown and cried and cried and held onto her as tight as possible) and then they took us to a local Bangkok hospital, where they took X-Rays (holding your child down while he/she gets an X-ray and is clearly in pain has to be one of the top 2-3 bad experiences you can have and still have healthy children), popped her elbow joint back in (dislocated), gave her medicine and sent us on our way in about ½ an hour! Yes, ½ an hour – and this hospital was already full with people that had been airlifted in from Phuket. Can you imagine? And the cost – without any insurance – about $25 US dollars! Amazing. Liz was fine immediately after that, thank goodness, but we missed our flight. The next flight was around 6pm, so we made it back to Taipei around 11:30pm and back to our apartment around 1am. We called all our family, let them know we were home in Taipei, safe and sound and happy to be alive.

This experience is one I will never forget. Emotionally, it’s taking a toll on us all. It’s so hard to see all the devastation, to know that we were there, to think of all the possibilities, to wonder why? Yesterday I had the thought of what are we here for, why were we spared? What is our purpose on earth? I feel like we have been given such a great opportunity. I’m scared at little things. It’s hard to be away from Anthony – today was his first day back at work, just half a day. Angie came over and hung out, so I wasn’t alone. I think it’s going to be weird next week when he does go into work and I am alone with the girls. I’m jumpy and often just sit and stare. Not really thinking about anything, just trying to digest everything that has happened and we didn’t even see the worst.

Our story is so boring compared to many others. Yes, we saw it, yes, we survived, but there are so many other survival stories, reunited stories, etc - so many others affected greatly by this horrible tragedy. I just want others to know how horrible it is and that people over there need help - any donations they can give. So many orphans, so many lost homes, lost lives, lost jobs, complete devastation.

I feel like there is so much more to say - to try and get people to understand the devastation that has truly occurred there. I know you see it on the news, but it is just not the same as seeing it in real life. We didn't see the worst of it, we didn't see things that are unthinkable, but it still has had such an impact on all of us.

It happened halfway across the world from the US but will impact the entire world and they need our help. It’s pathetic what the US President is doing. He’s on vacation and can’t even give a statement in the aftermath – what an idiot. He’s just ruined any international relations he had with so many of these countries. Just because there weren’t thousands of American lives lost, there weren’t thousands of Americans injured, it’s of little mind to him? That is the impression that the rest of the world is seeing in this tragedy.

I am asking any and all of you, if you are able to spare any money, please donate what you can. The people of Thailand, India, etc… have lost so much, tourism will never be the same in those countries, dealing in the aftermath of this is going to be so difficult – people have lost entire families, entire villages, and their livelihood. Even $5.00, it may not seem a lot to you, but that $5 can add up to so much.

https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

Dealing with the situation

2004-12-30T15:25:00.000+08:00

We are attempting to deal with what has happened. Somepoint soon, I will post about our ordeal, from beginning to end, but you'll have to give me a few days. Although we were not actually physically injured, we did see the waves come in and did have to run for our lives, along with seeing mass damage and talking with others who were injured, had missing relatives, etc. I don't think this is too good for our psyches.

I wanted to let everyone know that we are handling it. The girls are doing good, Liz is wonderful and happy and helping us to smile. Ashley is nervous, easily scared and appears to possibly be having nightmares of some sort, However, she is still happy and playful during the day and wants to be with both mommy and daddy (and Claire, one of her friends :)

I am doing ok considering. Went to doctor today and have been prescribed an antianxiety medicine, a sleeping medicine and a stomach/GI medicine. Seems like a lot, huh?! Hoping it will help me calm down a bit and sleep some. Anthony is doing really good, although I don't really think he's allowed himself to think much about it. He's the strong one in the family.

We are in discussions about when we will be heading home (to the States). For sure, it will be soon, hopefully in a week or two.

I attempted to get new glasses today, but they said it would take about a week to get them in - so we are going this evening to another place to see if they can do it faster - sucks to have such a bad prescription!

Thanks to everyone for all your love, thoughts and prayers - they help! And it helps knowing how many people out there are thinking of us and wishing us well.

WE ARE SAFE AND UNHURT

2004-12-28T17:53:00.000+08:00

For those who don't know, we were in Phuket, Thailand when this horrible disaster occurred. We are safe and unhurt and headed home. Currently, we are in the Bangkok airport, awaiting our flight home to Taiwan. Thanks to everyone who was thinking and praying for us and for anyone who helped facilitate our transportation home. It is a horrific situation and we are very fortunate, as there are so many who are not as fortunate as us. Please keep all the people affected by this disaster in your thoughts and prayers and if you can, check into donating anything you can - blood, money, clothes, etc.

Much love to all our family and friends! We will be in contact with everyone we can soon. And I will post more when I have more time and have processed through some of what has occurred.

Kimberly

Almost Vacation Time

2004-12-19T15:20:00.000+08:00

I am feeling much better, not quite as homesick as a few days ago, although that probably has some to do with the fact that we are leaving tomorrow morning for Thailand! We are almost done packing, although we still need to decide whether to take the soft backpack carrier or the hard one – the hard one is more comfortable with Liz, but bigger and bulkier. We’ve managed to only have two suitcases (one of which is a carry on size) along with a backpack and a small pack, plus the stroller, pack n play and carseat, oh and a big huge duffel bag with all the swimming stuff in it. I thought it wasn’t too much, but now that I write it all down, sure seems like a ton! Traveling with kids requires a lot of luggage. Will be easier when Liz is three and we don’t need a carseat for her on the plane and she’ll be able to share a bed with sister. Ahhh, those will be the days (unless we have another kid, that would be scary!).

I’ve been doing quite a bit of shopping, for Christmas. Anthony is a hard one to shop for and I can’t buy games here (region specific) and he’s way behind on books, so that’s out of the question and he buys all the DVD’s he wants when we sees them. So, it was tough – I managed to find a few small things, but not really anything I wanted to get him. Oh well – he’ll just have to suffer. The girls are taken care of, they have plenty of presents from Santa – and Ashley wrote Santa Clause a letter today and sure enough, everything she listed, we had already got her, so Santa will have done a great job this year! I’m going to laminate the letter to Santa – it’s just too cute to lose. Anthony wrote down what she said and then she signed her name. I went for a walk last night trying to find some gifts for Anthony and found a night market about 15-20 minute walk from us – it’s mainly a food market with fish, chicken, vegetables and fruits. But, occasionally there were little shop stands with clothes and trinkets. It was nice walking through by myself, stopping to look at stuff without a stroller or fearing my child was walking away or getting lost.

The weather has been so nice here – although too hot to even feel like Christmas. Shorts and T-shirt weather, although everywhere you look, you’ll see the Taiwanese bundled up like it’s 30 degrees F out, instead of 70 degrees, which is the average right now. Kids are wearing parkas with scarves, hats and mittens – it is so funny.

I must go wrap A’s presents before we finish packing. We have to leave our apartment at 6 am, so we’ll be going to bed early tonight!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, with lots of time spent with family and friends. I know it’s hard sometimes getting together with family, having to spend time with that annoying uncle or bratty niece or boring in laws, just remember that family and friends are important and the holidays are a time to cherish seeing one another, however brief, and showing kindness towards others, even if you don’t really want to. It’s only once a year!

Wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas – we miss each and every one of you!

Being an Expat is not easy

2004-12-16T15:02:00.000+08:00

I am about to admit that this expat experience is stressing me out. I wondered when it would hit – and I’ve often heard that between 4 and 6 months is the hardest. Here it is, 5 months along and it’s hit. I miss home. Yesterday was the first day that I thought to myself “I want to go home”, not to our apartment here, but to our house, our pets, our family, our friends, our stores (if only a TARGET would open here, PLEASE!), our Texas weather, etc, etc. I know this is normal, especially for the expat wife, and I will get through it, but right now, it sucks. I can’t wait for our vacation and can only hope that both girls are good and we have a fun and RELAXING time. I have friends here, but for some reason I feel alone in this HUGE foreign city. I think about friends back home and for the most part, I have no idea what’s going on in their lives. I’ve read that this is another thing we, as expats, go through – losing touch with friends from your home country. I will honestly say that it’s hard. I feel like everyone knows what we are doing, how we are doing, the newest things going on in our lives – because I try to keep everyone up to date on this blog. But then, without actual conversations with people from home and very little email communication, we don’t get the other side, we don’t get to hear how others are doing. Whenever I see an email in my inbox from a friend or a family member from home, I am just so elated and happy – it’s so nice to hear from people back home. And to be honest, when it’s just a stupid email forward or a joke (and I’ve not heard from that person in ages), it’s very disappointing. I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy the email jokes, I do – but I also would like to keep in touch with a person more than that. It was easier before Ashley went to school because I could stay home with the girls in the morning and I could chat with people from home – almost everyday I was able to “hear” from someone back home. But now that we are busy going to playgroups and taking cooking lessons and language lessons, etc, I’m not usually home at the right times for chatting, due to the time differences. It’s been hard, not being in contact as much with friends and family.

We are supposed to come home to visit in January/February and I am contemplating coming home a week earlier than Anthony to have more time to visit with friends and family. I would leave Ashley here in Taiwan with Anthony. This would be the first time I have ever left Ashley for longer than a night. We have to make this decision by tomorrow since tickets have to be ordered and it’s a tough one to make. Spending more time back home versus the separation issues that may (or may not) occur with Ashley, along with traveling that far alone with a toddler. I think it would be good for me, emotionally, but then again, maybe it wouldn’t, maybe I would just be more alone back home without Anthony there, since everyone would be working and going on with their daily lives as usual anyway. What it feels like, when I think about us here and people back home, I think that everything’s changed for us (for instance, how we view things, who we are, how we do things, etc), while nothing has changed for everyone back home. So will that make it harder for visits? Will it be harder to communicate with people or with there be more to talk about because of it?

I usually find it so easy to write things down, but am having trouble – I keep typing then erasing what I type. I want to be able to write down how I’m feeling so others out there can see what this experience is really like, what one person is going through during this interesting journey in a foreign land, but at the same time, I feel I should censure some of my thoughts and feelings so that I don’t upset people back home or upset friends I’ve made here or make family worry more about me than they already are. It’s interesting when you put yourself out there into this huge vastness of computer space, where you know that people who have never met you will read about you along will those who love you and want to know how you are doing. I feel like I think more about what I write than I should.

Other than all this emotional stuff going on, we have been staying very busy this week. I took the girls to a Christmas party yesterday at the Community Services Center. They really had fun seeing Santa – although they were both scared of him and wouldn’t sit in his lap – Ashley sat next to him, and I sat with Liz next to him. Liz has been pretty cranky on and off all week since she’s still getting her teeth in. I think after his round she’ll only have 2 more teeth and she’ll be done. That will be nice! Ashley has been great going to school this week. I’ve taken her out early twice – so she’s liked that. On Tuesday, I took her out and we went over to Playspace to meet with some friends and then yesterday, for the Christmas party. She is going to sleep fine, in Liz’s room, but now she’s waking up every night, coming into our room, complaining that her feet/legs hurt and crying or just wanting to sleep in our room. So, we are going to take her to a doctor to try and figure the leg thing out. It’s becoming a nightly thing and I’m beginning to think there is something truly wrong.
Liz is waking up from her nap, so it’s time for me to sign off

Beautiful Weekend full of Exercise

2004-12-13T11:53:00.000+08:00

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.

I think we are just too busy...

2004-12-10T22:25:00.000+08:00

We’ve been so busy. It amazes me how busy we stay! While I was doing dishes this afternoon, I told myself that I really do need to have one day where I stay home all day and get stuff done around the house! Our cleaning lady did not come this week, so our place is beginning to look rather bad. Although I vacuum the floors every other day, they really HAVE to be mopped at least once a week, along with the dusting of everything in the apartment. It’s looking quite bad right now and I’ve been so busy running around, I haven’t had a chance to do it myself.

Thursday we took Ashley to school in the car – Anthony ran her inside while I waited out in the car with Liz. This seems to work well since he was able to just walk her in, say goodbye and leave, whereas I always need to stick around with her and play puzzles and visit with the hamster and read stories for about 15-20 minutes until she’s ready for me to leave. I then drove Anthony to work, dropped him off, and then met with Angie who showed me the way to her house. Her place is about a 10 minute drive from his work, so very convenient after dropping him off. We hung out for a bit, letting the kids play and letting Liz’s clothes and car seat cover dry – she had spilled water ALL OVER herself in the car when I gave her a water bottle to drink from – OOPS. We then ran over to the Costco in XiZhi (different from the usual one in Neihu) and picked up a few items there. I got Ashley a Christmas gift, along with a few snacks and a very cute decorative Santa Claus. I really liked that Costco better than the Neihu one – it’s laid out like the ones back in the States and is only one floor, which makes shopping there a bit easier. It’s only about 5 minutes from Anthony’s work, so we’ll probably start heading there more often than the one in Neihu.

My Chinese lesson is at 12:30 on Thursdays, so I quickly headed back to our apartment, feed Liz and put her down for a nap right when the teacher showed up. My lesson was on asking for Chinese names and introducing oneself. My teacher gave me a Chinese name based on my maiden last name and her “vibe” that she got from me at the first lesson. So, my Chinese name is “Bei” (for Bates, means ocean shell) Ning Xin (this is the first name and means calm joyful). Interesting, I thought. It was a pretty good lesson, although again, I still can’t remember hardly any of it. But I am understanding more when other people talk Chinese, so that’s good.

Liz woke up right after my lesson and refused to go back to sleep again – so she was pretty cranky for the rest of the afternoon. I picked up Ashley from school, brought her back home where we played for awhile and got stuff ready to go to Angie’s house that evening. We went and picked up Anthony from work and headed to Angie’s place for dinner and to decorate her Christmas tree. She thought it would be fun for Ashley and she was right. We ate “hot pot”, which is basically a boiling pot of water that you put a ton of stuff in (tofu, beef, chicken, mushrooms, baby corn, clams, taro, tomatoes, etc) and fish out with your chopsticks and eat. The pot is divided in two, so there is a spicy side and a no spicy side. It was very good and we just kept eating and eating until we were stuffed. I liked the clams the best and the chicken. I didn’t even try the tofu, just can’t get a taste for the stuff, even though it’s in EVERYTHING here. After dinner, we put up the tree and everyone helped decorate. We had a lot of fun, with Ashley probably having the most fun, throwing garland around herself and dancing and singing. Joseph and Liz had fun too, getting into stuff and messing with each other. The girls were exhausted when we left and slept well last night.

Today was our observation time at Ashley’s school along with parent-teacher conference. I also got a late invitation (Thursday afternoon) to a birthday party for one of Ashley’s classmates for Friday afternoon. So, Anthony stayed home in the morning, did a little work while I took Ashley to school. Then midmorning, we both headed up to the school for observation time. This was very interesting. We sat in Ashley’s classroom and just observed the class. For the most part, the kids ignored us and continued doing what they normally would. Ashley said a few words to us and tried to get us to play with her, but she did well continuing to do what she normally would do without us there. While we were in the room, Liz was upstairs in the younger kids room playing with them – she had fun and got soaked from playing in the sink. It was great watching Ashley in the classroom and seeing how the teachers interact with the children in a Montessori type school. Ashley polished silver and glass for a while, then got some big flashcards out and played with them, then started sewing some paper. She didn’t really seem to interact with the other children much, just occasionally she’d talk to them. She did seem to understand some of the instruction the teachers would give in Chinese. After our observation, we had a parent teacher conference and spoke with her teacher about our questions we had written down during the observation period. Ashley is doing well in the class and Ms. Christy said her use of the English language is really good compared to the other kids who also speak English. She said Ashley communicates her needs, thoughts and feelings well in English and they can understand her very well compared to other children. She has no discipline issues and actually goes to take a nap on her own with no prompting by the teachers – sure wish she’d do that at home! It was reassuring to us that Ashley is doing so well at school.

I took Anthony to work after this, then drove to AsiaWorld, which has a ToysRUs in it. I was very proud of myself since I did not use the GPS and managed to make it there without getting lost or making any wrong turns! Liz and I did some shopping for Ashley for Christmas, along with a birthday gift for the little girl’s birthday party. I then ran home, put Liz down for a nap and cleaned up a bit. It was around 3:00 and Ashley had gone with one of the other moms from the school to the birthday party at noon. Their apartment is very close to ours and to school. I woke Liz up early from her nap, then we headed over to join Ashley at the party. It was a fun time, visiting with friends and letting Ashley and Liz have some fun play time with other kids. Some of the other moms complimented me on having such well behaved and polite children. I really do think I have somehow lucked out on having great children. Even with all the temper tantrums Ashley throws when I’m around, she’s a wonderful child when I’m not around or in group settings and I am still very proud of her. She is such a girlie girl too. For some reason, I always had assumed Ashley would be a tomboy, but she’s definitely not. She didn’t really play much with the other kids at the party, she just found other things to keep her occupied – baby dolls, play makeup bags, play hair combs, etc. While the other kids were running around the apartment chasing each other, Ashley was quietly brushing her hair or “putting on lipstick”. We went home around 5pm. I was exhausted once we got home, so I put a movie on for Ashley, then tried to keep Liz happy until Anthony got home, around 6:30! Liz went to bed at 7:00 – she was so tired. And Ashley went to bed shortly thereafter. She was sitting at the dinner table, and I asked if she was tired and she said yes, I’m going to bed. She put her pj’s on and said goodnight and went into Liz’s room and went to sleep. It was too cute. Anthony was upset she didn’t want him to put her to bed, so he went and tucked her in good night. Thank goodness she’s gotten past the fighting bed every night – it’s so much nicer!

The Taiwan government elections are tomorrow – it’s been interesting here, with trucks driving around town shouting words in Chinese – political ads. There are also banners everywhere displaying the picture and voting number for the politicians here. It’s supposed to be a pretty crazy ordeal here and some of the foreign committees have advised foreigners to be cautious over the weekend due to demonstrations and political fights that can sometimes occur. Should be interesting!

It's just life

2004-12-08T21:21:00.000+08:00

Tuesday was my first day of Chinese language lessons, or at least my first one here in Taiwan. I had taken a few weeks of language back home in May and June of this year. I am so thankful I did because I wouldn’t even understand what they were trying to teach me at this first lesson, which is supposedly beginning Chinese. If I didn’t have a basis from my lessons in Texas, I would be completely lost, as it is, I’m just a little lost. The first lesson was how to say I am from America and how to ask what country someone is from. I have a VERY hard time remembering the language and words used, but I’ll learn eventually. I have the same teacher as Anthony, she goes to his work 2x a week and comes here to the apartment on Tuesdays and Thursdays for me. I have to remind her to not compare the two of us because he is SO much better at foreign language than I am. He’s truly very good, he gets many compliments by his teacher and by his coworkers.

After I picked Ashley up from school yesterday, we walked over to Taipei 101 and had some ice cream at McDonalds – for only 10NT, you can get an ice cream cone there! She’s just been so good this week; I thought she deserved a little treat. We also went to Jason’s and did some grocery shopping. Anthony picked us up in the car on his way home from work, so we didn’t have to get a cab. Once we got home, I made garlic shrimp and fried ice – they were both pretty good. The fried rice was a bit greasy – the cooking instructor doesn’t give us measuring units for cooking in recipes, just the ingredients, so we kind of have to play around until we get it right. The girls liked both of the dishes a lot though and the shrimp was so easy to make!

The Dallas Cowboys played on Monday football – which means it aired LIVE here Tuesday morning, but because of my language class and I had gone to Playspace in the morning with Angie, I missed the game, which is good, since then I didn’t know the score and wouldn’t give away the ending to Anthony. We ended up watching it last night – they usually replay the game again later in the day. We got to watch the whole game and it was a GOOD one. Anthony even made nachos during half time and they were yummy! We stayed up until the end of the game, which is really good, since Dallas ended up winning right at the very end. Great game! Go Cowboys!

Ashley has decided that she enjoys sleeping in Liz’s room – so they pretty much share a room now – no fighting her to go to sleep – she walks right in, lays down and closes her eyes. I think she likes being close to her sister. I thought that our kids would always have their own rooms, but looks like they may be sharing one at some point. Too bad our landlord won’t store some of the furniture here – they have really cute bunkbed sets here that would be great for them in about 6 months when Liz is ready for a real bed. Knowing them, they’ll probably just end up sleeping in the big bed together. Of course, this is all on the assumption that in a few months they still like each other!

Today was good – it was playgroup day, so I got the car – I took Anthony to work and then came home for a few minutes. After getting everything ready, I headed off for the Taipei Transportation Museum, which is pretty far away from our apartment. Luckily, Anthony was able to program it in again on the GPS, so I had directions on how to get there. I only took one wrong turn and made it there fairly quickly – of course, a screaming child in the background helped in the quickness factor. Liz wasn’t too happy to be riding in the car and was tired but wouldn’t fall asleep. After I took the one wrong turn, these scooter guys came roaring past me, definitely speeding. After a block though, they wiped out on the road – thank goodness no one was around them, just two of the speeders wiped out together. They didn’t seem too injured and as means as it sounds, they deserved what they got! Guess that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Liz and I had fun at playgroup. She ran around playing in the ball pit, down the slides, in the little cars, in the playhouses, etc. We even sat in this little “earthquake” room that shook as if an earthquake was happening. All I can say after that is that I hope to God that I never experience a REAL 7.0 earthquake! Angie and I walked over to Grandma Nittis for lunch since it is in the same neighborhood as the Transportation Museum. The kids were good, ate a bunch and were very tired on the way back to the cars. Joseph was asleep by the time we got back and Liz was asleep as soon as she was in the carseat.

Anthony had a business dinner tonight, so I took the girls to the Living Mall, where they played at the indoor play area and shopped a little with me. We had a lot of fun and it made me miss the days when I used to do stuff with both of the girls during the day. I am so glad that Ashley is in school, but I still miss her. This was the first night/evening that I’d been out with the girls alone without Anthony and with no real agenda, except for them to have fun and they did. It made me feel so good, having a relaxing time with them and having the freedom to hop in the car and drive home, without having to lug everything into a taxi and fight Liz to sit down, etc. Having a vehicle has really helped me feel better about living here.

We have been confirmed for our trip to Phuket, Thailand from December 20th – 25th. I am really looking forward to it! We’ll be in close quarters – one room for all of us – but it’s at a beautiful looking hotel, from the pictures anyway, with a kiddie pool, complete with slide and a kid’s playground and a secluded beach. I’m sure it will be jam packed with people, but that’s the way it goes. It’s supposed to be absolutely beautiful with excellent snorkeling and nice beaches. I hope so! If you want to check it out, here are some links:
http://www.phuket.com/island/beaches.htm
http://www.phuket.net/photo_gallery.htm
http://www.phuket-photos.com
http://www.phuket-photos.com/frameme.php?page=merlin-beach.htm (Merlin Beach resort, where we are staying!)

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

2004-12-06T20:17:00.000+08:00

And its Monday again…time just flies by. I am getting older very fast. The weekend was a good one. Went by too fast, that’s for sure. I don’t even remember what we did Friday night. It was raining, typhoon was headed our way. I picked up Ashley and we walked back in the rain. She really enjoyed it – had fun splashing through the puddles and singing in the rain.

Saturday morning, we had one of Ashley’s friends, Claire, over to play. The girls had a lot of fun playing and Ashley really enjoyed having someone over to play with. They were so cute together, playing PlayDoh, eating lunch and talking. I’d ask one of them about school – who’s your favorite teacher, what’s your favorite activity – and of course, they both had the SAME answers everytime. Too cute!

Saturday afternoon, I had a ‘Scrapbooking Class’ (yes, Faith, they have Creative Memories over here!). Hopefully, this will inspire me enough to finish working on Ashley’s babybook, which is still in the beginning stages (and she’s 3.5 years old!). There was a woman from the parentpages playgroup network that was having a scrapbooking class and I signed up to go. She also sells scrapbook supplies from Creative Memories (yes, in Chinese) so I figured I could buy some supplies I needed to. It was at her house and Anthony told me how to say it along with writing it out in Chinese for the cab driver. Lucky for me, he knows how to write some things since the taxi driver didn’t understand the address I told him. But with Anthony’s written address, he took me straight there. I had a good time, all of the women there, besides me and Dorota (the woman giving the class), were Taiwanese and spoke very little English. It was interesting and fun. Anthony then came and picked me up from their house and we went over to Toys R Us, which is in their neighborhood. We shopped around, letting Ashley show us what she wants “Santa” to bring her. We also found a really cheap fake Christmas tree and some ornaments and lights. We picked up a little baby doll stroller for Liz, which she absolutely LOVES. She keeps pushing it around all over the apartment and gets upset if Ashley plays with it. Too funny!

After we got home, we set up the tree and decorated it. We had a lot of fun and it’s nice to have a little bit of Christmas in the apartment. It’s strange though – whenever I walk into the living room, I’m surprised at the Christmas tree there – like it’s out of place, not supposed to be there. It’s just so warm here and there isn’t a lot of the “Christmas spirit” that you see everywhere back home. I’m missing all our Christmas decorations and all the ornaments that we’ve collected as a family – it’s always been a tradition to get ornaments every year and now we don’t have them, it is sad. We had thought that we would be home for Christmas when we packed all our stuff up, so we left it all in our garage back home and now we wish we had shipped some of it. Our Christmas stockings and some ornaments mainly. Oh well, guess I’ll scour the city of Taipei and see what I can find from here!

Sunday, we didn’t do a whole lot. In fact, I can’t even remember what we did in the morning/early afternoon. I know we drove out later in the day, we went over to the Taiwan Handicraft Mart, to pick up some gifts for family back home and then after that, we went to a place called “Grandma Nittis” which I’ve read about on others blogs and seen on one of the tourist maps. They have a lot of “western” style food – burgers, sandwiches, Mexican food, breakfast, brunch, etc. It was pretty good and Liz loved being it because there was a resident dog and cat. Now, I know that would be illegal in the States – having animals in your restaurant, but here, in Taiwan, it’s quite a common occurrence – at least these two looked well taken care of and weren’t street animals hoping to find a meal. The food was pretty good, not exactly like back home, but close enough. They also have a little book area and games to play. There were quite a few foreigners in the restaurant, it seems a popular hang out for the teaching community here.

Today, I had my Chinese cooking class with Angie (http://kitchen.j321.com/cooking-class.htm) at Jodie’s kitchen. We learned a few REALLY simple dishes. One which I will try this week is garlic shrimp. The kids were with us, so as usual, lots of interrupting during the lesson, but it’s a good way to learn about the different vegetables and produce here.

Liz didn’t really take a nap today, just a short one in the morning, she was pretty cranky the rest of the day and kept crying every time I laid her down. It looks like she’s getting 6 teeth in right now – 4 on top and 2 on the bottom – so I’m sure that’s not helping her mood. Ashley was great going to school and had a good time today at school. Tomorrow is her outing day and they are going to DaAn park, so hopefully, she’ll be happy to go to school tomorrow too!

And the days drive by

2004-12-03T14:52:00.000+08:00

Ok, let me just say…I LOVE having a car here. I know the traffic is horrible and parking is bad – especially if you aren’t really good at parrellel parking in TINY spots or backing into spots (no one pulls into spots here!), but it’s such a freedom to have a vehicle. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until we got a car. Just two days ago I said we wouldn’t be driving at night for awhile and what did we do last night? We drove to Costco.

Yesterday, I drove Ashley to school and then took Anthony to work. Then I drove all the way up to TienMu, which is FAR away. It took me an hour and a half. I was visiting a friend that moved up there from downtown Taipei. She said I was very brave for driving all the way there my first time. I was quite nervous on the way to Anthony’s work, but after my trip to TienMu, I’ve gotten over the nervousness. It can actually be fun driving here, lots of dodging of people, taxis, buses and scooters. It is definitely interesting! I am SO, SO, SO thankful that Stephanie was able to get us the GPS unit in the car. The map itself is in Chinese and so are the instructions, but with some help from a coworker of Anthony’s, we have home and AMD programmed into the GPS unit. I know how to turn it on and show me how to get home. It is THE COOLEST thing ever. I don’t normally get all excited about electronic gadgets, but this is pretty neat and I would be completely lost without it. Anthony managed to figure out how to program the TienMu destination in yesterday and without it, I would have been lost for hours in the backstreets of Taiwan. And I was able to get home in around 30 mintues, which is fast from TienMu to where we live. I picked Ashley up from school, then Anthony from work and we went to Costco after having the same coworker program it into the GPS Unit. Eventually we hope to have most of the places we visit saved so we can get around. Anthony thinks it’s cool that it’s in Chinese since he’s trying to learn the characters and this will help. I only know the characters for Taipei City and for Exit (very important in parking lots). It was wonderful going to Costco knowing that we’d have room to put stuff in the car and we could drop it all off at the elevator instead of the sidewalk.

Today, after walking Ashley to school, Liz and I went to Gymboree with Angie. There is one near her home in Neihu. Liz had a lot of fun. It’s set up the same as in the US, same posters, same slides, balls, ladders, tunnels, Gymbo – just with Chinese writing. Liz really enjoyed climbing on everything. It’s seems pretty expensive to me - $13104 NT ($436 US) for 28 classes – so I don’t know if we’ll join or not. I don’t remember what we paid back home.
Ashley did great going to school this morning, of course because it’s Friday and she doesn’t have to go to school tomorrow. She’ll probably be upset again on Monday, but hopefully we’ll get to spend enough time with her this weekend, that she’ll be ok with it.

We are desperately trying to book a vacation for Christmas time. You can’t just look online and book airline tickets yourself – maybe if you read Chinese, but not if you only read English. Chinese like to travel in groups and last minute, so it’s all done through travel agencies, but it’s hard to find agencies that will work with you and be reliable and thorough and get you good deals. We’re thinking of going to Thailand, Phuket – which is a beach area or to Singapore or Hong Kong. I’m waiting on prices from the travel agent now and hopefully we can have a trip booked by Monday. It will be nice to get out of here for a few days. We are anticipating Christmas as being really hard for us, the first Christmas away from home. I’m already missing the lights and decorations and trees and family/friend get togethers. We picked up some Christmas things yesterday at Costco, but it’s just not the same.

A Car, A Car

2004-12-01T15:38:00.000+08:00

I can’t believe its December already! Time just flies by so fast. We haven’t really done much of interest lately. On Monday, Ashley woke up coughing and said her throat hurt – so she stayed home with me all day. After her nap, she was fine and wasn’t coughing anymore – nor was she even acting in the least bit sick. It was a long day with both girls, but we managed. I don’t even remember most of the day or what we even did that evening – that’s what happens when you have children – they zap your memory.

Tuesday was a good day. Ashley went to school, not too happily, she was crying when I was leaving. Miss Christy said she stopped after about two minutes, not long at all. During Liz’s nap, I had an interview with a Chinese Language School to see where I’m at with the language for learning. The director of this school is very nice and she had great things to say about Anthony’s Chinese speaking ability – she said he’s wonderful and speaks very well. I told her not to expect that from me – I definitely don’t have the natural ability he does to pick up a language. It will be good to start taking lessons again; I’ll be having two lessons a week starting next week, with the instructor coming to the house during Liz’s nap. After school, we walked over to a small mall near us, New York New York 2, and did a little shopping. They have a GEANT store, which is similar to a Target or Walmart (except for the prices) and I thought they might have some Christmas decorations – no such luck. We haven’t done any Christmas decorating yet since we didn’t ship any of our Christmas stuff and it’s not too easy to find here. I did get three shirts for the girls on the kid’s floor of the mall though – 3 for $500 NT – that’s dirt cheap here. We stopped at bakery to get some bread and Ashley was hungry so I got her a sausage wrap – fresh from the oven – both girls LOVED it. Bakeries sell many different types of bread here – with lots of strange things in them. Usually they don’t like anything I buy, except plain bread, but they liked this.

When Anthony got home, we headed off to National Taiwan University to see if we could buy tickets to a futsal game for today. We made it there, although at the opposite end of the campus from where the arena is. So we walked through the university campus to get there. We walked through the sports area, with basketball courts, volleyball courts, tennis courts, rock climbing wall, swings, etc. It was packed with people. We found the sports arena where the futsal championships are being held, but they don’t sell tickets there until right before the game, which is tonight, Wednesday. So we jumped back in a cab and went to Chili’s for dinner. MMMM…

Today was playgroup day. I took Ashley to school this morning and it was a bit hectic. If we had lots of days like today, I would swear off ever having any more children. Ashley was just whiny, crying, upset, not moving, pouty, etc. Anthony stayed home late to help me get her to school. She kept saying she didn’t want to go, she wanted to stay home all day with me. I was not handling it very well, debating what to do. If we take her out of school, I don’t think it would be good for her or for me. She needs to have a structured environment with other kids her age. If we do ½ days, then I spend the afternoon fighting with her over lunch and taking a nap and we both end up miserable and tired. So, we just have to keep trying – see if we can make it fun for her to go to school. Once we got her there though, she was fine. As soon as she saw the street her school is on, she got excited and pointed out her school and ran there. Once inside, she showed me the hamster and we did puzzles together. She kept telling me not to leave – so I hung around and told her to tell me when she was ready. She went off and started doing her own thing, so I went over to her and said “hey, you forgot to say goodbye” and she looked up, gave me hug and kiss and said goodbye. That was easy. Too bad getting her there wasn’t as simple. I’m reading a book right now called “Playful Parenting” – which I highly recommend. It’s a great book about how to play with your kids, which may seem easy and natural for some (like Anthony), but not to easy or natural for me. I have a hard time playing with Ashley, and I feel like I’m always telling her what to do or what not to do. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s given me some good ideas for being with her and to make things into games, especially if she’s being difficult. So I need to come up with some way to make going to school into a game.

Angie saw me walking home from school, she said I didn’t look happy and looked like I was mumbling to myself – I probably was, talking to myself about dealing with Ashley. She came over and we hung out for a little while and then went to playgroup at DaAn park. It’s a nice park with a sand pit – although the sand pit isn’t really refined sand, it has some pretty large chunks of rock in it, so Liz didn’t like the feel of it. There’s a kids area, but the actual playground equipment is for much older kids and Liz is so adventurous I was constantly trying to prevent her form injuring herself. Didn’t get to chat too much with the other moms, but it was nice getting out anyway.

We got our car today. I’ll take some pictures when I get a chance and post them. They delivered it to Anthony at work, so he’s driving it home this evening – he’ll be leaving early so he will miss rush hour and so it will be light out. We won’t be driving at night until we get used to driving during the day. I’m very excited to have a vehicle now!

I’ve posted a lot of new pictures on the pictures website – some of our weekend hike and the field trip Ashley’s school went out – check them out when you can.

http://community.webshots.com/user/akaearmstrong

Ashley, The Hiker

2004-11-28T21:03:00.000+08:00

WOW – It’s been a LONG weekend (starting from Friday morning), but a good one!

Friday morning, Ashley and I went on a trip to the city of HsinChu here in Taiwan, with her whole school. We rode on a bus there for about 2 hours – no not a school bus, a double decker tour bus. The bottom is for storing luggage and the top is for seats. It was very nice, comfortable seats that even laid back a little with cup holders, trash holder and TV screens. We went to a Hakka Farm. The farm itself was not very impressive – dirty, with not many animals. Just a few pigs, ducks, chickens and some kind of cow/ox that carried a cart around for the kids to ride in. It was really hot when we got there and the whole place was crowded and very disorganized. We ate lunch there – Chinese box lunch with fish and rice and veggies. It was pretty good. Ashley enjoyed herself, although I think she was disappointed that I didn’t let you play in the dirt much. There were a few moms that were really upset with the field trip and complained a lot about it. It wasn’t what we had expected, but I had also been told to keep my expectations low, so I didn’t really know what to expect. They had some planned activities, which may have been fun, if it weren’t so caotic and disorgazined – but that’s Taiwan for you. Ashley got to help make rice noodles, Hakka tea and ride on the ox cart. A cold front blew in while we were there, so it got pretty chilly – and we were ready to get on the bus when it was time. The ride back was very nice since they played “Lilo & Stitch” on the DVD player. We were both tired and I managed a little snooze, although Ashley kept poking me and saying “wake up mommy, wake up”.

We got back home around 5:00 and Anthony had just arrived with the turkey. While we were on the field trip, he had taken Liz to a work meeting at the Hyatt in the morning, then met Angie at his work so she could take Liz. Liz stayed with Angie and went to Gymboree (which she LOVED) and then her house for a nap. Angie dropped Liz off at Anthony’s work around 3 and he headed to Jason’s to pick up our prepared turkey. I cooked some mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, carrots and gravy and we had a few people over to celebrate Thanksgiving. Molson (a friend of Anthony’s who works at AMD Austin and who was here working), Lili (our Taiwanese friend), Angie and Joseph. It was a lot of fun having people over to eat dinner with us – we miss that! We even had pumpkin pie – which the store had put Christmas decorations on – for Thanksgiving! Hahaha!

Saturday was another busy day. We took the girls to the Jade Market in the morning to find some Christmas gifts for family back home. We also walked through the flower market – saw lots of poinsettas – another market in the area. The girls got lots of attention and we met some US Futsal Team Members who are here in Taiwan playing in the International Games – Futsal is indoor Soccer – they are doing really well in the playoffs and hope to make it to the finals. For lunch, we decided to eat at a traditional Chinese restaurant. They had a semi English menu – meaning it said whether it was a chicken, fish or pork meal – but that’s about it. I ordered the fish, Anthony had chicken dish (ended up being chicken soup) and the girls had pork ramen. It was all pretty good. I got my fish plate – and it was a WHOLE fish – fried up. Meaning, they took a fish, straight from cleaning it out of the river and fried it – so head, fins, everything. Anthony didn’t think I’d eat it, but I was hungry and for some reason, that doesn’t bother me as much as a chicken head. It was good and I hope to become adept at eating fish and removing the bone – as is customary here in Taiwan. Angie laughed when I told her the story of our lunch and said she’d forgotten that it’s not normal in other countries to cook fish whole.

Saturday night, I went out for mom’s night out with 5 other moms from the Parentpages playgroup. We had a lot of fun. We started out bowling – and it was packed. We saw quite a few other foreigners there too. We played two games and although my first game was awful, I bowled a 140 on the second game – although Angie still beat me by getting 148 – and she’s 7 months pregnant! We then headed over the Kama, which is a lounge bar owned by Angie’s husband, Jason. It is a really nice place, with couches and tables where you can just sit back, relax, talk and have some drinks. Jason treated us to some great food too. We sat for quite a long time, all sharing stories of life here with the kids. I didn’t get home until around 1:00 am.

Today, we decided to try out hiking. We’ve heard that there are some great hiking trails around here, due to the very mountainous region that this is. One nearby place is called “Elephant Mountain”. I bought a used backpack carrier this weekend and we figured we should try it out. We left the apartment, thinking we’d take a taxi to the entrance, but no taxi seemed to be able to understand the words elephant mountain hiking (in Chinese) – so we asked the guard at our apartment, who then asked a few other people and found a guy who walked with us towards the mountain. He then pointed down a street and said some stuff in Chinese, so off we headed. We passed a park and let the girls wander around a bit. Then headed up some stairs and up this alley/street and after walking uphill at a very steep angle, finally found a trail. It was steep – many, many stairs, straight up, it seemed, so we headed up. It was a very interesting trail – along the way up, there would be little sitting areas, with roof covers and courts for playing badminton (BIG sport here). There was even an area with slides (for kids) on the mountain! It seemed a bit dangerous to me, so we didn’t let Ashley go on them. We stopped quite a few times on the way up to rest. We had ended up taking a middle trail up to the top, not one of the main trails, which are nicely paved, instead of unevenly paved stairs. At the top, we had a gorgeous view of Taipei City and some of the surrounding areas. It really was beautiful. The trails were really nice up there, little bridges, steep stairs, signs in Chinese writing, little sitting areas to picnic and even a little workout area complete with chin-up bars. We are both very proud of Ashley, since she walked up the entire way. From what we can tell, the top of Elephant Mountain is only 180 meters, very small for a “mountain”, but it was good for us first time hikers, with 2 kiddos. We really enjoyed the hike and hope to continue to take the girls out for some more hiking.

The rest of Sunday was spent recovering from the long weekend. We did go over to Taipei 101 for a little shopping and noticed they are starting to decorate for Christmas. They have a big reindeer and gold Christmas tree outside and lots of lights inside. It’s nice to see all the decorations.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

2004-11-25T21:21:00.000+08:00

This will be short…HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone back home. We miss you all and wish we were there to celebrate with family and eat lots of turkey. Tomorrow will be a big day for us – I am going on a class field trip with Ashley to a farm somewhere in Taiwan and Anthony is taking Elizabeth to a business meeting in the morning, then she’s off to Angie’s house for part of the day while Anthony goes into work. Once we’re all back home, we will celebrate Thanksgiving by dining on a cooked turkey (from Jason’s Marketplace) with a few friends. It should be a FUN but busy day. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!

I hate Colds!

2004-11-24T22:10:00.000+08:00

Liz threw up after her nap yesterday – I don’t think I’ll be eating Chinese noodles for at least a week. I wasn’t feeling well and Liz had trouble napping, she kept waking up screaming. By the time I finally got her down to sleep, it was almost 3 and Ashley needed to be picked up by 4. I called Anthony and he was able to leave work early and pick her up. I then settled down for a rest myself. Liz woke up right as Anthony and Ashley walked in the door and Anthony went in to get her and that’s when she’d thrown up – ICK. I cleaned up her bed and gave her some water to drink. She was fine after that. She was in a good mood and so was Ashley. I think Ashley enjoyed her daddy picking her up and talking to her on the walk home. Anthony was meeting a colleague who is visiting from the Austin AMD office (Molson) for dinner and so we all decided to go. The girls were great during dinner, we ate at Ruby Tuesdays. Liz kept it all down, although I didn’t feed her too much. I took Liz back right after dinner while Anthony and Ashley walked over to Jason’s Market to order our Thanksgiving turkey. Yes, we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving, but since we only have a little toaster oven there is no way we can cook a turkey, so I ordered one. Liz went to sleep right away and I laid down to rest since I was starting to really feel like I had a head cold. When Anthony got back, he got Ashley to bed and then started playing his game, Halo 2. It’s now become Anthony’s “job” to put Ashley to bed, since she’s become such a handful. She really seems to hate going to sleep now, no matter how tired she is. I am going to get a CD player for her room and see if some soothing music will help.

Today was a good day for me although I didn’t feel well most of the day. Thankfully, Liz took two naps today, from 10am to noon and then 2:30 to 3:45, which means I got to take two naps too! It was so nice to be able to rest a little and hopefully kick this cold! Ashley did well going to school – they got a hamster in her class (although she calls it a mice). I don’t think they know how to translate the Chinese name to an American name, so the teachers were calling it a mice. It’s made going to school a little easier since I ask her to show me the hamster every morning. She also took a book that she has 2 of (thank you Carolyn for the 2nd Princess book, it came in handy!) to school to share with her classmates and since it’s her favorite, the Disney Princess, she was happy to have it at school with her. I missed my first PTA meeting though – it was today at 3, but I was sleeping and so was Liz and I didn’t want to get anyone sick. I really wanted to go since they were talking about Christmas decorations and I was hoping to help out. Guess I’ll have to contact one of the mothers on the PTA board and find out what I missed. I made beef stew/soup for dinner again, although this time I added more veggies than just carrots. It was VERY good – I think it’s one of my favorite things to make, because it’s so easy and good for you. I went to Carrefour after dinner to get some things we needed around the house while Anthony got Ashley to bed. He said it wasn’t easy again – a lot of crying and screaming, but she was asleep when I got back. Molson is over here to play some Halo 2 with Anthony, so I’m off to get some sleep. I’m sure they’ll be up for a while – but I’m glad he has someone to play with – I don’t think he socializes enough with people here, so I’m always happy when someone from home comes to visit and he gets to have some fun.

Tonight, on my way home from Carrefour – I told the cabby our address, he seemed confused, so I then said 200 in English (when telling cabbies address, I say the street name first, then 200 lane, which tells them which lane or alley off of the main street) and he says oh, yes, Er Bai. I had said Liang Bai. Which is 200. Apparently, there are 2 different ways of saying 200 – Er Bai and Liang Bia – and each cabbie is different, some prefer Er and some prefer Liang. It can get rather frustrating, since they will all say theirs is the right way to say it and we are saying it wrong. Same thing happened with the Hyatt – there were 2 names for it and some cabbies used one, some used another. I guess it keeps things interesting…

Screaming Fits

2004-11-23T13:40:00.000+08:00

Another cool thing about our apartment – instead of door stoppers on every door/wall like we have back home, there are little metal plates and magnetic “domes” behind every door. So not only do I not have to worry about Liz playing with and subsequently losing or eating the little white caps, but the doors STAY open! I assume they do that more for earthquakes than for the actual point of keeping a door open – since during an earthquake, doors tend to swing easily. It also can be really windy when the windows are open, so those really help keep from slamming shut all the time. Sometimes even the littlest things are so neat.

We have two air purifiers and one dehumidifier in the house. I am amazed at how much water our dehumidifier collects in a 24 hour period. Granted, we keep it in the bathroom, but it’s a lot of water. I am looking forward to having it back home in our bathroom, which is a breeding ground for mildew and is always damp. The air purifiers are nice – sometimes I think they aren’t doing much, but then I realize what a difference in dust between the rooms that we use them in and the rooms that we don’t. They really do make a difference.

Yesterday I had a horrible afternoon with Ashley. Let me just start out by saying I love my child with all my heart and soul. There are just times when I do not understand her in the least bit and that would be yesterday. I picked her up from school; it was drizzly and miserable outside. She was in a good mood, or at least I thought so. I was thinking since she was great when I dropped her off that it would be good to reward her, so I told her we were going to go somewhere for a treat (maybe ice cream). She was excited, so we started walking. I also had another plan that involved meeting Anthony near 101 since he was in the area meeting with some tax people. I thought we could go for treat, meet Anthony and then finally open up a bank account here so we can quit relying on cash withdrawals every few days. As we were walking, Ashley starts complaining her legs hurt (this is becoming an everyday occurrence) and she starts screaming at the top of her lungs. She refuses to talk to me, only screaming, crying, and thrashing around. It is now raining and she won’t hold umbrella, I have Liz strapped to me in carrier and I have the stroller with too (in case we stopped at grocery store, so I would have a way to carry groceries). We are all getting soaked since Ashley refuses to move and if I try to walk around her to find shelter, she pushes her whole body onto the stroller so it won’t move. I can’t pick her up because I have Liz (26 lbs!) on me. Ashley throws herself on the ground (in the rain, in a puddle) and thrashes about, kicking and screaming. This whole ordeal went on for about 25 minutes. Me trying to talk to her, reason with her, find out what is wrong, how I can fix it, what I can do to help and her just crying – not answering me, just screaming. I finally said, that’s it – we are going home, get in the stroller. She climbed in and I had to push her (36 lbs) in the stroller (which is very hard to steer one handed), while having Liz on me, and holding an umbrella. Ashley refused to hold her umbrella, so by the time we made it back to the apartment, she was soaking wet. It was such great fun. Once we got to the apartment, she was fine. Talking, chatting, happy. I tried to talk to her about what happened but I don’t think she understands. Anthony took charge when he got home and once the girls were fed and bathed, he took over putting Ashley to bed. She started whining as soon as he mentioned brushing teeth. So, he ended up in her room with her – she was screaming, crying while he sat on the floor – ignoring her. She did not like this and kept getting closer and closer to him until she was right up in his face, screaming. I was locked in our bedroom, trying to not intervene. She finally calmed down, he laid down with her and she eventually fell asleep – when he got up to leave – she barely opened her eyes and managed to whisper “I’m not tired” as she fell back asleep. It took 45 minutes from start to finish – much better than 2.5 hours, but still! It never used to be this difficult.

Today I went to a nearby park with Angie and Joseph. Angie has a full time helper now – Sumi (don’t know if that’s how you spell her name), she’s from Indonesia and speaks Chinese only, no English. She’s helps out with Liz too when we’re out so it’s nice to have her along. It is interesting to see Angie adjust to having someone around full time to help her. She’ll hopefully rely on her more when baby #2 arrives (you know what I mean Angie!). After the park, we went to Taipei 101, stopped by the bookstore, where I got a book on disciplining your preschooler. I don’t really know if our issue is understanding a preschooler or disciplining a preschooler, so I’ll read this and see if I get any insightful messages out of it. We then ate lunch in the food court there. It always amazes me how many tourists are there during the day and I no longer go there on a daily basis, as I did when we were at the Hyatt, so I’m not used to seeing them all the time. People taking pictures and getting all excited about being there, while we are there just to get our shopping done.
Liz is down for a MUCH needed nap right now, so I’m going to rest some. I haven’t been feeling well lately, I think just a cold, at least I hope so.

Weekend

2004-11-22T15:06:00.000+08:00

I took Elizabeth to the doctor this morning for her flu booster shot. She did really well and stopped crying as soon as the nurse gave her a lollipop! Lollipop, you say? What is a 16 month old doing with a lollipop? Well, apparently, due to the fact that this is not a suing nation, it is ok and advisable to give small children things like candy, stickers and balloons. She got all of these from the doctor. She loved the lollipop and was very upset when I took it away. I did let her suck on it for a while and she did fine – and loved it, of course.

Ashley went to school this morning, no problems. It helped that they had bread and peanut butter and jelly out for the kids to make their own morning snack. She can’t resist that. We had problems getting her to bed last night – it took 2 hours to get her to sleep and many, many screaming tantrums on her part. Anyone have any ideas for us to help get her to sleep at a decent hour? We’ve tried laying down with her, letting her lay in our bed, letting her lay on couch in living room (hey, we were desperate), letting her cry it out, taking toys away – nothing seems to be working. She just screams “I’m not tired” and you know she’s exhausted. It’s been going on for a few weeks now, off and on. Some nights are easy, some nights are ok and some nights are horrible (last night!).

The weekend itself was a good one. On Saturday, our friend, Lili came with us to the European School Christmas Bazaar. We thought it would be lots of Christmas crafts for sale, but it was mainly food and kids entertainment. It was fun though, something different to do and it was bizarre seeing all those foreigners (meaning…white people) in one place. It’s rare to see that many together at once. We ate lots of food and let the girls play around for a bit and then we decided we’d had enough of the crowds there and we should go to the opening of the Miramar Mall and see what kind of crowd tolerance level we had. I had bought movie tickets online that morning, so we also needed to pick the tickets up for the evening showing. The mall was PACKED – people EVERYWHERE. I thought the escalators surely weren’t made to hold that many people at once, but they didn’t collapse, so I guess they are. It is a very cool mall – lots of good kid stores, so I’m sure I’ll be back there. The main attraction of this mall is a HUGE Ferris wheel that loads people from the 5th floor. It is pretty neat. The lines were so long though, we’ll wait until the crowds thin out before attempting to get on the Ferris wheel. Ashley is very excited about it. They also have an IMAX theater there – pretty cool.

Anthony and I had date night Saturday night, so we headed back to the movie theater at Miramar after the babysitter arrived. We left the apartment around 5:10, thinking we could make the 5:40 show easily. No such luck. Apparently, traffic was horrible in the area around the mall due to the weekend opening. Luckily our taxi driver did some maneuvering and had us at the mall entrance at 5:43. We ran up to the theater and of course, our movie was showing on the top floor – 9th floor. We made it though, with previews still playing – and Anthony even had time to get me a popcorn and go to the bathroom before the show started. We saw The Incredibles – VERY GOOD movie, I highly recommend it. The theater was great – big seats, lots of room, big screen, good sound, we’ll definitely go back there again. Some foreigners here complain about the fact that you get assigned seating in a movie theater when you buy tickets, but we think it’s great! We were late for a new movie and we didn’t have to worry about it being sold out or not being able to find good seats. We ordered them online and chose our seats then, I really like that.

After the movie, we caught a cab and went to a restaurant called KiKi’s. It’s supposed to have good Chinese food. We ordered a chicken dish and shrimp balls. The shrimp balls were great, the chicken wasn’t very good. The chicken dish had chicken cubes (still with the bone ), mint, ginger and some other strange items. The flavors just didn’t mix for me. The girls were both asleep when we got home – although they both went to bed VERY late considering neither of them took naps during the day.

Sunday was another good day. We went to Costco to get groceries and a bread maker! So now I just need to find the ingredients to try and start making my own bread. I’m very excited. So if anyone would like to send me some of those prepackaged bread making kits, that would be cool. Nothing fancy, just plain white and wheat bread, banana bread, cinnamon bread, that kind of stuff. We then headed out to Chili’s for lunch – mmmm, Chili’s. It wasn’t a very fun walk since Ashley was in a BAD mood and threw lots of little tantrums along the way. I almost thought we weren’t going to be able to eat there since she was behaving so badly. But once we sat down and got our food, she cheered up. The food was DELICIOUS. I really do praise Chili’s here for the way that they have been able to keep all their dishes tasting exactly like they do back home. It just gives us a little reminder of being home, which is so nice. For dinner, we had rotisserie chicken from Costco and veggies and mac n cheese. The girls loved all of it, especially the veggies. I’m so proud that both my kids will eat their vegetables. We keep telling Ashley she’ll grow big and strong by eating them and she takes it literally – she put her arms up in the air and showed us how big she was getting. Now the chicken, although it was very good, I almost could not eat it. It comes packaged up, just like you would get a Rotisserie Chicken back home at HEB, in the little plastic containers, but when I took the top off and started taking the chicken apart for the girls to eat, I realized that it’s a little different than the ones back home – IT STILL HAD ITS HEAD ON. Fully cooked chicken head – with beak and everything. I found it a little disturbing, although I managed to get past it and still eat the meat.
After getting Liz to bed, Anthony and I played Scrabble, in between dealing with Ashley. I managed to pull off a win! Yes, that’s right, I won (which is pretty unusual in Scrabble). It was a very nice way to end the evening.

It's Friday!

2004-11-19T14:59:00.000+08:00

Today marks the official day that Elizabeth said something to a Taiwanese person who distinctly heard and understood what she was saying. Every morning and afternoon, we walk through front security gate in our building and the security guard says Hello, Good Morning, Zao, whatever is appropriate for the time of day. He always smiles and tries to get Liz to talk. Well, this morning, she responded by saying “HELLO”. It was great – he really enjoyed it and I got a kick out of her saying HELLO instead of Hi or Zao, which would be so much simpler for her. I think she prefers bigger words: lizard and turtle are two I can think of that she’s said. It’s also her phone voice – HELLO – she says this over and over whenever she plays with a phone, it’s too cute.

Another sight to behold here, people peeing in the streets! On our walk to school this morning, I see a man standing next to a tree, peeing. He’s a taxi driver, he’s next to his taxi, but man, that is so bizarre a sight – right out in plain view and across the street from a REALLY nice upscale apartment complex, wonder if that even occurred to him. I’ve heard (and seen) that little boys growing up here are taught to pee on trees and in drainage areas on the street. I’ve seen little boys in parks just pull down their pants and pee (great, makes you wonder how “clean” all the parks really are!). Now, I must admit that Ashley has peed once at a park here, standing up, but with all her clothes on and it was the first time we were here – she refused to use a squat potty.

One other thing that I don’t think I’ve mentioned before that is different here are the lights. You turn them on and it takes several seconds, sometimes a minute or two, for them to “warm up” and brighten. Interesting, yes, especially at night, when you think you have the room dimmed and then it just gets brighter and brighter.

Thanks for the comments on the blog – I really appreciate hearing how much everyone actually does enjoy reading about our life. To have my life compared to a soap opera – that’s pretty cool!

Random Thoughts

2004-11-18T21:17:00.000+08:00

(WARNING THIS IS REALLY LONG!)

We got to look at some vehicles today for test driving. We had asked to see two different cars, the Toyota Wish and the Mitsubishi Savrin. Both are basically small minivan/SUV type cars. I had thought we would have to schedule time to go to leasing office or car lot, but nope, they brought the vehicles to us at Anthony’s work, complete with salesmen – quite funny, I think, but oh so convenient. Anthony drove both around the block and I drove both in a circle in the area right in front of his building (not on the road!). We had Liz and no car seat, so it was just easier that way. We liked both vehicles, but I think we have decided on the Wish. It can seat SEVEN (yes, seven people) but it rides like a car, not an SUV. It has cameras on the front and rear of the car, which you can watch in the center dashboard, for parking and seeing what is behind you – quite amazing! It also has DVD player, GPS Nagivation System (all in Chinese, UGH!) and some other awesome features. All leather interior – seems the norm here, rarely do you see cloth seats. I don’t know how long the paperwork will take, but it will be great to have a car! We do need to get our ROC license at some point, which involves a VERY hard road test and an EASY written test. For example of written test see http://www.tcmvd.gov.tw/d8k/english/k.idc. I have been told it’s best to go to driver’s school where you can do practice driving same as on the test. We are considering that since we’ve both not driven much lately and the test involves a lot of parallel parking and S curve driving, staying within the lines.

It has been fun getting used to this new found freedom of being able to do things during the day that only involve one child. It’s easier to go places and get things done – since Liz usually takes at least one nap a day that gives me an hour or two where I have some down time. So far, I haven’t really done ANYTHING productive, just spent a lot of time on the computer, reading about other peoples experiences here in Taiwan. It is so interesting to see what others think of this place. I really have no idea how I portray this city/country, whether I sugar coat it or not. I know that at times I am not completely honest how I feel about certain things that happen here, but it’s not usually aimed at locals, it’s aimed at other expats.

I find this place to be very different than home, at times very frustrating and inconvenient. People can be downright rude and inconsiderate here. Since I don’t understand the language yet, I don’t even know half of what they are saying – I do know that we get made fun of and talked about wherever we go, but it doesn’t really seem to bother me. We get our pictures taken and the girls get a ton of attention. We even had a lady stop driving her scooter, get off, walk over to us and ask to take a picture of Ashley – it’s the blonde hair. That would never happen back home and just seems so odd, but I don’t really consider it horrible here. It bothers me occasionally, but only when the girls seem upset by it or don’t want to be looked at – and then I tell people no. It seems from what I’ve heard that other expats think it’s horrible and rude that people here do that. I don’t really understand that. There are so many things that I could just rant about and complain about being here, but I don’t see this as an opportunity to complain about the differences between here and back home, but as an opportunity to see how another culture lives, even one that really seems to be quite a bit backwards from the “Western way” of living. There are supposedly phases one goes through when relocating to a different country. I forget exactly what they are, but there is the initial honeymoon phase, then I want to go home phase and then the acceptance phase in the end. I feel like I have passed all the phases and have really just accepted that we are here and I want to make the best of it. I never really have felt the “I want to go home” part (this DOES NOT mean that I haven’t missed our family and friends though!). Who knows, maybe I haven’t even made it over the honeymoon phase. I think that finding a friend within the first month of being here really helped and getting out every day, seeing the sites, walking around, meeting other expats – all of those things that I did in the beginning really helped. Also, the fact that my main friend here has been here for over 5 years, is married to a Taiwanese man and has made her home here (in other words, is not planning on going back to her home country) helps too – she helps me see the good things here and doesn’t complain about all the weird behaviors here. I find it so strange how much time is spent on expat boards complaining about the cultural differences here. I know that it’s a place where people can go and vent, but sometimes it seems to go beyond venting. I couldn’t imagine if there were sites were people were complaining about Americans (I’m sure there are sites like that), and I’m sure Americans would be appalled at what other countries think of us.

Don’t really know why I’m sort of rambling on like this. I don’t get many comments from this blog or questions about our life over here, so I either am covering all the bases or people aren’t reading it or it just isn’t that interesting. I wouldn’t mind a few comments from people – friends, family and even strangers – on what they like hearing about and any questions about what it’s like. I don’t really want the blog to become a daily log of everything we do, I can’t imagine how boring that might become once we just start sitting around the house.

On to other stuff – the one major thing that I think I get frustrated most with right now is the measurement system! And this isn’t even against Taiwan, it’s against the US. Why in the world does the US have such a different measurement system than the majority of the world? (I could be wrong here too since I am just assuming that most of the other countries use the same as Taiwan and China). So everything is in meters, grams and Celsius. That simple – but since I don’t know the conversion and I’m so used to using feet, inches, pounds and Fahrenheit, it can be VERY frustrating for me. For instance, trying to buy meat – I usually buy 1 or 2 pounds of meat, but I have no idea what that converts to in grams and it doesn’t occur to me, until I’m at the meat counter, that I need to know how many grams – UMMM, can you just put some meat in a container for me? – I just kept telling the butcher, more, more, ok, that’s good. Guess I need to carry around a handy little conversion chart or something. I did print out a Celsius to Fahrenheit sheet for the kitchen and for the temperature, so I can tell if it’s chilly outside or hot. Amazing what the difference is between 20 Celsius and 24 Celsius.

Oh yea, since I couldn’t tell how to operate the Japanese Rice Cooker (Zojirushi brand), I emailed the companies customer service department, inquiring about a PDF manual for the rice cooker and do you know, within 2 days I had a PDF manual emailed to me. I find that extremely incredible, since I never really expected a reply in the first place due to me never having ever heard back from any other customer service I’ve ever emailed. Thank you Zojirushi!

We finally had some homemade Mexican food! The other day, I went to Jason’s (in Taipei 101) and found the Old El Paso taco kits – complete with tortillas, taco sauce and taco seasoning – just add meat (hence the I need meat from butcher, but don’t know how much). It was SOOO good. I had found Mexican shredded cheese blend at Costco the week before, so we even had good cheese to go with! MMMM…too bad I can’t find the green or even regular enchilada sauce; it would be great to make some enchiladas too! Someone told me that I can find tortillas at one of the bakeries here so I’m going to have to look for that. The kit at Jason’s cost 299 NT (roughly $10 US!) that’s a bit steep, but it’s so worth it every once in a while – right?!

We took the girls to Page One bookstore this evening; I wanted to get Ashley some books on being different. I realized today that since she’s the only “white” girl in her class (there are several other children from America in her class, but they are of Asian descent, so she’s the only fair skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed kid), she may start to have some issues about being different. This came to my mind after I saw a classmate of hers touching her hair and talking in Chinese while Ashley just looked at me with the expression of “please make her stop”. Someone on one of the boards I frequent offered me some great books as suggestions. So we went and picked up several tonight and I plan on reading them to her everyday and hopefully getting her to talk to me a little about it.

See what happens when I don’t post for a few days, it just goes on and on and on….

Getting Used to Living Here

2004-11-15T19:43:00.000+08:00

Ashley was much better by Saturday evening although we still cancelled our date night since we didn’t know when she’d be better. We didn’t do much on Sunday – just hung out at the house all day. We thought we better keep both kiddos inside and out of the public so they didn’t pass around anything they were carrying and so they didn’t pick up any new viruses. It was a LONG day due to the fact that we were inside all day. The girls both took short naps too, which didn’t help.
I am so glad that I shipped over my crock pot. I made beef stew for Sunday and it was SOOOO good! Carrots, Potatoes and Beef (Australian beef over here), mmm…good.
Since I’m staying home now, I try to cook almost every night. It’s nice to eat in, but it’s also quite difficult here since you have to go out every day or every other day to get the necessary ingredients for dinner. Plus, since I’m new to cooking all the time, I never remember enough for more than one or two meals. Guess I should start working on some kind of system.

Ashley was adamant that she didn’t want to go to school this morning. I bribed her by telling her she could watch a movie after school and Anthony came with us to drop her off this morning. She didn’t cry and after I went in to her room and did one puzzle with her, she hugged me and said good bye. That was so much easier than listening to her scream my name over and over again. Tomorrow is their outing day, so she should be happy to go tomorrow without a fight, I hope.

While Ashley was in school, I went over to AsiaWorld, which has IKEA and ToysRUs in it. I shopped for some things we needed for home along with some other things. They also have a really nice Home Store, similar to HOLA with bedroom stuff, bathroom stuff and home decoration stuff, called PINN. There was some nice stuff in it, but Liz was cranky and didn’t want to sit in her stroller, so I didn’t shop there too long. I’ll have to go back someday.
Anthony got home late from work, I’d already made dinner, fed the girls, bathed them and was just waiting for him to come home to put them to bed. I made chicken and green beans and rice, simple enough. I love the rice cooker here. It’s a Japanese brand and although they sell the exact same one in the US at Bed, Bath & Beyond (for $200!!!!), this one is all in Chinese. I really have no idea how to operate it, so I just press what I figured out is the on button and it works – cooks the rice. If I get different rice though, like brown rice, I think I’ll be in trouble since I don’t know how to change the settings. Anthony brought me some flowers. I haven’t had flowers since moving here (well, except for one he bought me one day when we were still at the Hyatt). It was a very nice treat and I love them!

Sickness

2004-11-13T16:49:00.000+08:00

I picked Ashley up from school on Thursday and although she remembered that I had left her, she said she had a fun day and liked school. She told me how she cried when I left and screamed for “mommy”. I told her that I heard her, but that she needed to go to school to learn and play and make friends. After school, I took the girls for a walk so we could get some fruit at the local fruit stand. We stopped at the stand and the ladies there are beginning to recognize us since we go about once or twice a week. They immediately take Liz out of her stroller and pass her around, cooing and ahhing and playing with her. She loves it – big smiles all around. Ashley also gets attention in the form of candy – every time we go there, they give her some. There are three ladies there – one has the fruit stand, one has a little flower shop in the back and one has a fruit drink stand – all together in one area. The fruit is good, although it does seem a bit expensice. After buying what we needed, we headed off back home and stopped at another playground in our area – so far, I have found three playgrounds within a 5-10 minutes walking distance of our house. The girls had a blast running around, playing, sliding, bouncing and running off some energy!

Friday was a holiday for Anthony, so he got to stay home from work. We kept Ashley out of school too so she spend the day with us. It was drizzly and muggy so no going to the beach, which is what we wanted to do. We took the girls over to Playspace – and we walked there which took about an hour. Long walk, but it felt good to be out and getting some exercise. Everyone had fun at Playspace and Anthony enjoyed seeing the girls play around. He doesn’t get to experience all the places we go since we go when he’s at work. We then went to McDonalds and had lunch (Ashley’s choice, of course!) and walked back home. The girls took good naps, probably due to all the walking and playing they did. We then went to HOLA after naptime to look for some stuff for the house (bedside lamps, bread maker, etc). We found a few things and headed back home. By this time, it was 6:30 and we were in rush hour traffic – UGH! We were hungry so we decided to stop off at the Warner Complex to get something fast to eat. We ate at a place called SOUPER, which has some delicious soup. Liz ate very little and Ashley ate nothing. I wanted her to eat, but now I am glad she didn’t eat anything or I would have seen it all again this morning when she got sick. She came in our room last night, crawled into bed, said she didn’t feel well and threw up – ICK. And we only have one sheet set for our bed – ICK. We covered it up with towels, then kept a towel near her for the rest of the night/morning. She didn’t keep anything down until early afternoon. She’s running a fever too, although it’s not too high. She’s been so tired, sleeping on and off and just laying down, not really doing anything – not like her at all. I just hope that the rest of us don’t catch whatever it is she has. It’s been a long day, Anthony’s at the store now getting some groceries with Liz, who desperately needed to get out of the house. I didn't think Ashley would pick up something that fast from school, but apparently she did. They take the kids temperature everyday at school and they are sent home if they have a fever, but that doesn't catch all the sick ones, especially since many viruses are contagious before and after symptoms are present. I'd much rather her have a cold though than the stomach virus! It's so hard to see your little one sick and not able to keep anything down. They don't understand what's going on and want you to fix it! I sure wish I could.

School Blues...

2004-11-11T13:40:00.000+08:00

I took Ashley to school yesterday morning and she told me she wanted to stay all day, she wanted to eat lunch there and take a nap there, so I talked to her teacher, Ms. Christy and she said if that’s what Ashley wanted, then we would try it. So, I didn’t get her until 4 pm! WOW! I missed her during the day, it was strange not having her with me. Angie came over and picked me (and Liz) up and we went to playgroup at 228 Park. It was nice having only one child to watch while we were there. Liz had fun and I got to swing with her and go down the slide with her and run around with her, which I don’t normally get to do. It is still so hot here, temps in the high 80’s and low 90’s. The kiddos were sweating up a storm and hot.

Liz took a nice long nap in the afternoon so I was able to post some pictures up on our photo site. It was lovely to have a whole afternoon to do things with no kids running around. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my children! It is just so nice to have some ME time and to be able to get things done. I picked Ashley up at 4pm and she was very happy to see me. Ms. Christy said she did good, although she didn’t eat any of her lunch (Chinese food). She refused to leave her blankie and clothes there overnight, so we brought them home. She said she had a fun day and liked her school. When Anthony got home from work, we all went to Costco and did some much needed shopping. The girls were good, although Liz was a bit cranky and was screaming at the end, I think she was having some gas pains or stomach discomfort. She slept fine last night though.

Today, I took Ashley to school and she was fine at first – there were very few kids there and I probably should have just left when she was ok, but I had stuck around, letting Liz play upstairs in the toddler room while I talked to some of the other moms. By the time I was ready to leave; Ashley was clingy and didn’t want me to go. They took her hand and led her to class, where she started having a melt down, screaming “I want my mommy” over and over again. It was just awful for me, I was almost in tears leaving her. This has happened before back home at daycare, so although it’s not new to me, it still causes a pain in my heart. On the way home, Liz and I stopped at the park and I let her run around a bit, while hoping that Ashley was doing ok. I called the school soon after I got home and they reassured me that she was fine, that it’s normal the first few days for her to be upset.

Since I am walking Ashley to school, we go by the same little shops and schools and apartment buildings 4 times a day – so we see the same people over and over again. I smile and say good morning in Chinese and they usually smile and either reply in Chinese or even say good morning in English – usually to Ashley and Liz. The girls get lots of attention and greetings, along with “so cute” (in Chinese, of course). Someday, I hope that I’ll be able to converse just a little with them.

Angie came over this morning and we hung out before going to the Living Mall so she could exchange some baby clothes. Liz enjoyed playing around at the mall, although she did fall down the slide there (no worries, she’s fine). It didn’t even phase her, she got right back up and wanted to do it again! She’s such a little trouper. She’s down for a nap now and it’s so quiet here. I need to get some material so I can start sewing some cute little outfits for the girls (thanks to Pansy for the patterns!).

There was another earthquake last night – a little before midnight – I woke up, knew it was happening, but it was over fairly quick, I didn’t wake Anthony this time and he didn’t even notice. It was over a 5 at the center and around a 2 here in the city, no biggie. Then this morning, around 10am, there was another one, same strength – I didn’t even notice, but Anthony did – he called me right away, but I didn’t even know one had occurred. Strange how that is. I think being on the 2nd floor, we may not feel some of them like we would if we were higher up. Those who live on the higher floors say even a 2 or 3 really sways their building while we just get shaking and creaking, not really swaying. We do have a few cracks in our wall, one in Liz’s room and one in the living room. They just keep getting longer and longer.

Another Earthquake/First Day of School

2004-11-10T06:33:00.000+08:00

November 9, 2004

Another earthquake last night – I woke up around midnight to some very loud creaking going on and the bed shaking. I woke Anthony up and we both went to check on the girls. Liz had woken up and was crying but Ashley was soundly sleeping. We calmed Liz down, put her back to bed and then we went back to sleep. I was so tired, even with my heart racing a mile a minute, I fell back to sleep quite easily. It didn’t even phase Anthony, his comment was “why’d you wake me up, I would have slept right through it”. This morning we found out it was a 6.7 quake (a 3 in Taipei) and lasted 58 seconds – much longer than the 30 second one last month.
This morning was Ashley’s first day of school – she’s going ½ days for now and is very excited. She was dressed in a sundress, socks and her new black boots – yes, a fashion statement she was! Turns out they are going on an outing – every Tuesday is an outing and they are going to a park today, so she’s not exactly appropriately dressed and I forgot her water bottle and hat, but oh well, she’ll have fun anyway. Just hopefully, she won’t come back pink from the sun! I am home now with Liz and our housecleaner. I don’t quite know what to do with myself, only have one kid to watch J

November 10, 2004

Ashley had a great time at her outing to the park. She told me that she had to hold hands with her new friend when they were at the park and that she got to ride a bus to and from the park. She was very excited and did not want to come home for lunch. Which also means she did not want to take a nap. So I spent the afternoon attempting to get 2 girls to take a nap – unsuccessfully, I might add. I finally gave up and we went to the Living Mall to get Ashley some indoor shoes for school. After coming home, I decided to go ahead and feed them dinner early and by 7pm Ashley was asleep in my arms and Liz was ready for bed. They were both so tired. And so were Anthony and I. I think I was asleep at 8:30pm! We wanted to watch Carnivale on HBO at 10:30, but there was no way we were making it that late.

Need some sleep

2004-11-08T17:00:00.000+08:00

It was a LONG night last night – Ashley wouldn’t sleep. She woke up around 3am and didn’t go back to sleep at all. I finally just said to play in her room so I could go back to sleep and she played until morning. Anthony went in around 5:30 to try and get her back to sleep but she refused. UGH! She was going to start school today, but without any sleep, we decided that would be a bad idea. She has been told that she can start tomorrow if she sleeps tonight. I hope and pray that works since I need a full nights sleep sometime soon. Liz was also up at 3:00 – so I made her and Ashley some sandwiches. Liz played for about an hour and then she went back down until 7 JAngie came over this morning and we hung out talking while the kiddos played for a little while. We then took a walk and went to a local park where the kids played for a bit in the sand and on the playground equipment. I had to get them out of the house, keeping them busy and letting them use some energy. We ate lunch at a little café right next to the park. It was pretty good Chinese food and they even had a menu in English – pretty rare for a little café here. They even brought us a fork instead of chopsticks, which is kind of annoying since I would have liked to have used chopsticks – just kind of get used to using them here. We came back to the apartment and Angie headed home so Joseph could nap. I got Liz down right away, she was tired and ready for nap, but Ashley is a different story. She still refused to sleep! After watching a movie though, she was so exhausted that she finally crashed. It’s 4:30pm and I can’t wake her up, poor baby, she’s just so tired and so am I. I love traveling and visiting home, but this jet lag thing sucks. I get so tired, I’m just dizzy. I thought yesterday that we were having an earthquake, I got so dizzy from being tired and out of whack, strange what your body will do

Home again, Home again

2004-11-07T13:05:00.000+08:00

We have arrived safe, sound and sane back home (here in Taiwan) after our 2 week visit to Texas for Anthony’s work. The flights went remarkably smooth, with Liz being cranky on occasion and Ashley being in a great mood the entire time. We flew American from Austin to Dallas, Dallas to Tokyo and then Cathay from Tokyo to Taipei. I really enjoy the seats and service on Cathay. We had one hour layovers in both Dallas and Tokyo and although it was plenty of time to get to the next plane, it was not enough time to relax and let the girls run around and get some exercise. Despite that, they still did well.

Our trip to Texas was great. We had a some inconveniences dealing with our house, but other than that, Anthony’s training went great at work and I enjoyed running around visiting people and shopping (I bought too many clothes for Ashley, I sure hope it cools down for a few months so she can wear them all! They were just so cheap at places like Target and Old Navy, I just couldn’t resist!). There were a few people we didn’t get a chance to visit with (Grandma Bootsie, Grandma Craig, Aunt Linda and Lauren (along with others)) so I’m hoping we’ll get a chance to on our next visit.

It was nice coming home to our apartment and our stuff. The girls really enjoyed coming back to all their toys. They immediately started playing as soon as we walked in the door. For some reason, our air conditioning is not working, and although it was nice outside, it was quite hot in our apartment (25-26 C). We will have to figure out how to go about getting that fixed but since today is Sunday, I don’t think we’ll be getting it done soon.

The girls slept fairly well last night. I was completely exhausted, having only snoozed for about two hours during the flights. Liz was up around 2 am and Anthony got up with her and he played Xbox games while she played with her toys for a few hours. I’m glad he got some new games that he can play around the girls to help keep him occupied while watching them. Ashley, Liz and I were up at 5:30 this morning. I’m still pretty tired, but it will take a few days to get back on this time schedule. We have already been out to the grocery store this morning to pick up some things and we stopped by one of our local neighborhood parks to let the girls run around. To our surprise, it’s been completely redone and they have planted some beautiful flowers and plants, along with laying down a stepping stone path and a picnic table and they have installed a sandpit. Very cool. I remember going to that park a few weeks ago and although it was nice and the girls had fun, I thought it was dirty and dusty – but not anymore.

A few things to write of since I’m thinking of them. Lots of people have asked about winter weather. It should be getting into the 40’s and 50’s at some point soon. And although that isn’t really cold, most places do not have HEAT here. Apartments usually don’t have heat, stores don’t have heat and some restaurants don’t have heat. So although it’s not really COLD out, the tile and wood floors keep the coolness in and so it’s cold and damp. Luckily, out apartment does have heat. It’s one of the rare ones we found and I have a feeling we’ll be very happy in another month or two to have it.
Airports – Did you know that here in Taiwan – they have luggage carts for you to use FOR FREE! I think it’s about $3 or $4 to rent one of those at the Austin Airport to go from the curb to the counter, which isn’t very far. But, here, they have hundreds of them lined up in the baggage area and you just throw your luggage on it and go. It’s so great. Something small, I know, but I think it’s very cool.

I should be packing...

2004-10-22T15:10:00.000+08:00

but Liz is alseep and Ashley is resting, so I'm on my own and can freely type without either of them pushing the off button on the computer, which has become the new obsession of them both. I think they like to see my reaction when they do it.

It's been a wonderful two days here, with absolutely gorgeous weather, in the 80's during the day and cool at night. Yesterday, Angie and I took the kids to a mall with an outdoor play area and played there for awhile, then went to a park right next to the local airport. They ran around chasing birds and blowing bubbles. The planes were coming in for landings right over our heads. The first few were neat to see, but then the noise got to be too much and the girls got scared and ran to me and covered their ears. It was pretty loud! We got back home and went to get on the elevator and Liz got her hand stuck in the doors - OMG, it was so scary. She's fine, her fingers and hand are fine - no problems, just a little redness. But I was scared when it first happened. I always tell them to keep hands away from the elevator doors but I just wasn't quick enough this time pulling Liz back away from the doors. Poor baby! I'm just so glad she's ok. We did laundry last night and started packing for our trip after eating leftover meatloaf for dinner. (Yes, I can make meatloaf here and cook it in our little oven :)!

Today, Angie came by and picked us up again (I'm so thankful I have a friend with a car, it has made it so much easier to go do things, she's even let us install Liz's carseat in her car so we can go around town in safety) and we went to the Taipei Children's Recreation Center (http://www.tcrc.gov.tw/ENGLISH/AMUSEM%7E1.HTM). We had a lot of fun and so did the kids. We rode the ferris wheel, the carousel, the train and the boats. There are several playground areas spread throughout the park also, so they got to play on those too. There is one playground with a little "maze" connecting several stairs and slides. There were many school kids there playing and we let Liz and Joseph climb up the steps, thinking they would slide down a slide right next to the stairs - but no, they decided to take off in the maze and we couldn't see them. I had to crawl up in it (definitely not made for adults) and find them both. They were happy as could be walking through the maze, seeing kids go all around them, but we couldn't see where they were and with all those kids running around and not knowing if they were going to try to slide down the slide on their own, it was a little scary for us. I found them though and Liz and I slide down the slide together, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

I should go finish packing to visit Texas now...before Liz wakes up. We are looking forward to seeing everyone while we are in Austin. Ashley is very excited about seeing the grandparents and going to a Halloween party where all "her friends and the mommies and the daddies will be" (as she puts it). Don't know when I'll post again, but probably not until we get back from our trip.

Internet Access

2004-10-20T21:56:00.000+08:00

We have finally joined the 21st Century and have internet access at home! I only had to wait until 2 pm today (appointment was from 10 am to noon) to get it! I am so happy, you all will never know how much I missed being in contact with everyone.
This will be short, we are preparing for our trip home, packing and making a list of things to buy from home that we can't get here. We leave on Saturday morning (early) and arrive there Saturday evening (although we will have been traveling for 24 hours, not 12!).
I've posted some new pics up and will try to get some more up tomorrow if I get a chance.

Boo-Tih

2004-10-19T09:46:00.000+08:00

Today, Ashley had a great development. We were sitting around the breakfast table (slash dinner table, but we were having breakfast), and Ashley pointed at the ground and said something like "Mommy, Daddy, look at my kitty cat". We looked around for a while until we were both sure, there was nothing there (like a stuffed animal) that she was pointing at. We asked her what color it was, and were told it was pink with brown spots. She then 'picked' it up, and carried it around. When told to wash her hands, she went in saying "c'mon kitty" and took her kitty with her to wash up her hands.

From there on to her room to show the kitty her fish, and then to the play area in the living room. She would walk around with her little arms wrapped around her chest petting one of her arms and talking to her kitty cat.

We asked her the kitty’s name, she said “boo-tih”. We made a couple of guesses as to what she said, but got it wrong, and she kept correcting us. Finally we said ‘boo-tih’ (pronounced like "Boo!" and the 'i' sound like in the word 'it') and that’s apparently correct. Too damned cute.

This is first time I can think of that she's ever had an imaginary animal. All previous animals/babies/people were based on stuffed animals and toys that she had. This is purely air.

Especially like the name, never heard anything like it. Best I can figure, is it's a made up Chinese name, since pronunciation sounds more Chinese than English.

Further amusing about the name - mentioned it to a couple of people, who each had they're own take on what it was based on. Grandmother thought it was based on "Beauty", male friend thought it was based on "Booty". HAHAHAHA

Last week of stuff - from Kimberly

2004-10-18T09:20:00.000+08:00

Editor's Note: Yep, it's me, and we still don't have internet access. You'll know when I know, I'll have my people call your people. Until then, you'll get massive data dumps from my wife, via me. So just be prepared to read and read and read. Good info in there, as usual. I sometimes think our life is boring until I read about it. P.S. I'm keeping an eye on the typhoons, and I don't think they're going to interfere with our trip home. We'll be arriving this Saturday early evening. Hope to get to see everyone while we're back in Austin. -anthony

October 14, 2004

Today was another interesting day in our lives here. We woke up this morning to Liz screaming, went in and got her and poor baby, she looked like she’d been beaten up – eye lids so swollen she could barely open her eyes and when I took off her pj’s, she had a horrible rash on her legs and butt. It was awful. She was breathing fine and was in a good mood, so we decided to wait until Dr. Bear’s office opened right down the street from us at 8:30. We took her to be seen and the doctor said she was having an allergic reaction to something, probably ingested, but she didn’t know what. We went through list of food she’d eaten the last 24 hours, but she’d had everything before and we couldn’t think of anything new or different. The doctor gave us some syrup medicine, along with powder medicine to mix in with the syrup to give to her three times a day for 5 days. She was better after taking a nap and by one pm, her rash was gone, but she still has the puffy eyes. Anthony stayed home with us this morning to help keep an eye on her since we don’t know what caused it (and also to watch the 3rd presidential debate).

I’ve thought of everything she ate and just can’t fathom what would have brought that reaction on, especially since it started this morning and she hadn’t eaten since the night before. Or other thoughts are clothing/sheets (stuff from our shipment) and being bitten by something. We have these ants in the apartment that have bit me and caused me to swell up and itch at the bite site, so maybe she got bit and is severely allergic to them? We have no idea? Just have to wait it out and see, I guess. Poor baby! I washed all her bedding today, along with stuffed animals and have started on all her clothes too, just to make sure. I haven’t seen any ants in her room either, but they are the little buggers, so I may have missed them. She was in a pretty bad mood starting around 5 pm; she hadn’t taken an afternoon nap, so that didn’t help. I made some really good veggie soup (with a little leftover chicken added) that was great for dinner this evening, and then Anthony got Liz to bed while I played a game of Sequence with Ashley. It was a nice evening with her until I mentioned bedtime, then it all went out the window. She starts crying and throwing fit, but I managed to get her to bed at a decent time tonight.

October 15, 2004

An earthquake today – a 7.0 at the center and a 4.0 here in Taipei. This makes me very glad to only be on the 2nd floor since I’ve heard its worse the higher up you are. It was at 12:08 pm, this afternoon, right after lunch with the girls. I was in the kitchen; both girls were in the living room. I heard a thud and then some weird noises and I saw Liz on the ground, doing what seemed to be hitting her head against the wall (it was later that I realized she had fallen and couldn’t get up because of the quake). I picked Liz up and then realized that everything was shaking and Ashley asked me what was happening. That’s when I knew it was an earthquake. I grabbed Ashley’s hand and we walked over to the front door (I’ve heard you are supposed to stand in/near door frames, away from windows). I counted and watched the living room chandelier sway. It was only after the chandelier stopped moving that I knew it was over, since my body was still moving and I felt like it wasn’t over. My heart was pounding and I was dizzy. It was very strange, since I’ve never experienced a quake before. The girls were fine, in fact, Ashley was excited, asking what that “bumpy” was and then wanting to sleep in the living room because it was “bumpy” there. I called Anthony and he didn’t answer his phone, but he called me right back to make sure I was ok since he knows how freaked out I am about the earthquakes here. I’m glad to know that it was a fairly decent sized one and I got through it just fine, without letting the girls know how nervous I was. Helps me know that I can handle it in the future. And Taipei 101 is still standing J I think many people here are afraid of having the tallest building in the world where there are earthquakes.

Liz is doing better today, the rash and redness is completely gone and her eyes are slowly returning to normal. I was trying to get her to drink a lot today since the doctor said it would help “clear” her system out of the toxicity.

We went by the Taipei Montessori School this afternoon and spoke with one of the teachers who speaks English. We both had a positive reaction to the school and have signed Ashley up. She will start going ½ days once we come back from our visit home. She is very excited and so am I J It will be in Chinese with ½ hour of English per day, but she will have one teacher who speaks English and there are at least 2 other kids in her class that are foreign (French, I believe).

We also went over to Beth’s house this evening (Beth has two kids, 3 years and 11 months). Anthony got to spend some time seeing how Ashley and Liz play with other kids (there were also some other children there – some other friends of Beth). Everyone had a great time. Beth asked us about our earthquake experience and told me that I should be glad I’m on the 2nd floor since they are on the 12th floor and were “rocking and rolling” during the quake. She’s also from California, so she’s been through a fair number of them before. Ashley had great fun playing with Claire and didn’t want to leave. We eventually managed to get her out and we headed over to Chili’s for dinner. It was very good and the girls got a lot of attention. Some of the waitresses are beginning to recognize us and even remember the girls names. They get quite a few foreigners in there, I always see others when we go, so they are used to seeing them and yet, they still declare our girls beautiful and cute J

October 17, 2004

This weekend was a good one. Yesterday, we walked to a supermarket called “Geant” in a mall called “New York, New York 2” to buy some necessary supplies for the apartment. We have a cleaning lady (Frances, also babysitter) coming once a week to clean the apartment and she had a list of things I needed to buy for her to clean. Along our walk, we also realized there is a street market near by, within walking distance, that sells fresh fruits, veggies among clothing and odds n ends. It’s a good place to buy produce since it supports the locals and is usually a bit cheaper than in the supermarkets. The girls took good naps once we got home and then around 5 pm, Frances came to watch the them. Frances is a woman that I found by posting a wanted ad for babysitter on one of the English bulletin boards here. She will be cleaning our apartment once a week (with all the dust and all tile plus wood floors, I just can’t keep up!) along with babysitting once a week so Anthony and I can get out. We both were pretty tired and didn’t find any movies worth seeing. We had dinner at the Dining Room, my favorite Chinese restaurant and split a bottle of wine. It was a great meal. Then we just walked around the Mitsukoshi mall near by to take up time and enjoy some relaxing window shopping with no children present. We got home early, around 9pm and both girls were asleep and apparently had been very good all night.

Today, Ashley and I went to the neighborhood Wellcome store to grab some groceries (very small store, not a large selection and almost no imported foods). She rode her bike there and back, which makes it a bit faster than her walking. After everyone took an afternoon nap, we headed out to find a park nearby, we walked through our neighborhood and came upon a little park a block off our main road. The girls had lots of fun playing and Ashley got lots of attention from a group of school girls there. She gets along well with other kids, even if she can’t understand them. After the park, we walked some more through alleys and lanes throughout our neighborhood, attempting to figure out where we were and how to get places. It’s amazing how easy it is to get lost in the alleys of Taipei. We saw some great shops and little stores along the way and I realized how you can survive without big chain stores, you just have to find all the little shops that specialize and remember where they are. I like our neighborhood a lot. It’s been a nice weekend weather wise, with some sprinkles, but the temps have been great, cool enough to walk around without breaking a sweat and breezy too.

I still have no idea when I’ll get internet access. I am not very happy with that situation but there is nothing I can do about it. I’m trying to wait it out patiently, but Anthony can attest to the fact that I haven’t been very good at that. I did find an internet café nearby, so I was able to check my email this weekend, although I didn’t have time to write any. I miss everyone from home and I am looking forward to our visit next week (although I have some anxiety about flying with the girls again on such a long trip and the jet lag, at least they are on some sort of schedule, so hopefully that will make it easier!).

You likey shakey-shakey?

2004-10-15T13:21:00.000+08:00

Earthquake. First real one.

We had that little shake one time we were in the hotel, but this is the first full blown one. Around noon today, I was at work in my cube, Kimberly at home with the girls. THings just kinda started shaking, and didn't stop for a while. Last a good half to full minute (I'll try to time the next one:) ). Pretty damn good shake.

At work, most people kinda did the prairie dog thing and popped their heads up to look around. Not much to see really, but hey you never know. I got a few catcalls - since they knew I was the foreigner who hadn't been through a real one before. Certainly does make your heartbeat jump up a bit, even while you know it's probably fine and not much to do if it isn't, anyways...

Kimberly said she saw Liz sitting and bumping her head against the wall... Then after that realized everything was shaking. Later she figured out that maybe Liz fell down from the shaking and it was the wall that was bumping Liz's head. Anyways, headed for front door, Ashley asked "Mommy, what's going on?" - don't know response, but they weathered it, watching chandelier sway back and forth, Kimberly being all stoic (while she was totally freaking out on the inside), until that too passed.

Later when Kimberly was putting Ashley down for a nap, she said "I want to take a nap in the living room where it shakes, Mommy." and then "I want it to be bumpy!" Yep, we now have a girl who loves typhoons AND earthquakes. Pretty soon we'll have child saying "Daddy, I want the chickens to sneeze on me!"

So - after the fact, we now know it was 7 at epicenter, which was about 75 miles off coast, about 4 magnitude in Taipei. Nothing crazy, but nothing to sneeze at.

Oh, and in the "what else is happening seeing as your in the land of constant natural disasters" department - we have another typhoon headed this way, and maybe another one behind it.

Good news, to temper - we should finally be getting internet access at home today. So Kimberly's non-self-imposed exile from all things WWW & email should finally be over by the time you good people wake up (Friday morning, your time).

That's about it for this edition. Keep watching the skies - and we'll see some of in just another week or so! (pending approval by any typhoon that might be over us at the time)

-a

UPDATE - The telephone people are at the apartment, so hopefully Kimberly will be online soon!
New Update - ARRGGGG. Someone at AMD gave them wrong address. :( So looks like no internet this week. Dammit.

Barbecue, 10/10, & Taipei Zoo

2004-10-12T08:47:00.000+08:00

Hey, y'all. (husband post)

Real quick post sense I'm at work.

Still don't have internet - hopefully by today I'll find out when we should be hooked up and the horrible isolation of Kimberly comes to a close. She's holding up really well, you should all be proud of her. :)

For the weekend, Saturday we cleaned up the apartment a bunch, it's looking quite liveable. It's just about totally done as far as being squared away. Beautiful day, so we went for a walk in the afternoon, went pretty far, stopped in one of the tiny pet stores they have everywhere. Very cool, bunch of rabbits (which Liz really loved), turtles, fish, etc... They had clown fish, saltwater fish tanks, lots of live corral - some of which you just don't see in the U.S., had to be illegal, or something. Quite beautiful, even had puffer fish in one tank, and some other weird things. Went to a downstairs grocery store on way back (had to carry damn stroller all the say up - probably 30 steps), got back around 5pm, when babysitter showed up (Francis). Kimberly and I went and saw movie at Living Mall. Had dinner first upstairs, then to movie (Sky Captain & World of Tomorrow). They had 'VIP' and normal tickets. We went for VIP. It's about 10% more ($10US vs. $9US/ticket). It's a totally separate section of theatre, with different concession, theatres, and bathrooms. Nice and clean. Comes with free popcorn, smaller theatre with leather seats (swear to God). Quite remarkable. I think we'll be back. :)

Back home, got in right around 9:45pm or so, Ashley was still awake - obviously tired but nicely enthusiastic to see us.

Sunday was 10/10, celebration of independence day or equivalent for Taiwan. We went to CKS memorial, saw the presidential motorcade being prepared. Two convertibles and about 50 motorcycles with officers all riding. They got the bikes, mounted and road off to whistles from an officer with military precision (btw, no president at this point, they were leaving from CKS to go pick him up, I believe).

Then back to apartment for naps for girls. At 3pm, went to Angie and Jason's house for barbecue on their back deck. Very small by Texas standards, but nice regardless, and first well maintain grass I've seen in Taiwan. Great steak, fun time, and the kids had a blast. Liz likes playing/fighting with Joseph, their son who's same age. Stayed there pretty late (Liz was asleep in pack 'n' play by the time we left).

Monday morning went to Taipei Zoo, took MRT there (the subway). The zoo is quite huge with some very nice exhibits. Lots of animals - and the cost? $60NT ($1.80US) per person - kids under 6 free. Drinks and other toys and stuff were cheap, too! Ashley got an elephant hat from vendor ouside gates for $4.50US! And then the lady gave her free thing of bubbles. Guess she thought she was cute. Had lunch at McD's just outside zoo, met Angie and Joseph there, then back to zoo. Walked around for about 5 more hours. Ashley walked the whole time, and only had 1 time out (that's got to be some kind of record, especially with all the possible distractions). Kimberly will be back, no doubt. They had parts closed, including lion area. But plent of monkeys, elephants, zebras, tortoises (sp?), fish, penguins, tigers, leopards, bears, bats, giant flying squirrels, deer of all kinds, camels, snakes, lizards, kangaroos, koala bears, couple of wolves, etc, etc...

Had dinner at Zoo mall after, at Ponderosa (like Golden Corrall. Toddlers made a huge mess but had fun. Back home, Liz slept most of way, gave 'em baths and put them to bed. All in all a very good weekend. I'll post short note when I find out when we should expect internet access. Until then, take care!

-Anthony

The Move

2004-10-08T16:33:00.000+08:00

Editor's Note: This is being posted by the dutiful husband, since the poor sweet wife at home is still without internet access, and probably will be for another agonizing (for her primarily, but listening to her complain about it, it's agonizing for me, too :) ) week or so. Again, if you need to tell her anything, you can always write me for now. She wrote this post on her laptop, and gave it to me via USB keydrive at work... So, without further ado, on to the post!

What a blur the past couple of days have been. Last Friday, I went to a store called Hola, which is similar to a Bed, Bath and Beyond (although not as nice stuff), to look for bedding for our apartment beds. It is a bit confusing here since the sizes of beds can really vary. Along with the normal variety you find in the States of King, Queen, Full and Twin, here they also have Taiwanese King (shorter than US), Double and Single, all of which we have in the apartment. It is hard to find the right sizes and I’ve found that you have to go to several different stores to find what you need. Anthony met me at Hola and I was pretty confused by the time we finished looking - so much so that we didn’t buy anything. We headed over to RT Mart to see if we could find Ashley some bedding – she specified that she wanted a Hello Kitty room so we were trying to find a Hello Kitty bedspread. We did manage to find one at RT Mart, of course. It’s definitely not one I’d have preferred, all cute and pink with small Kitty’s all over, no, it’s pink with one HUGE Hello Kitty in a bathing suit on the beach, with lots of bright colors on it. But, she likes it and since she was complaining that she didn’t want to move out of the hotel, we’d do just about anything to make sure she liked her new room. By this time, we were all exhausted and knew we’d have a long day moving on Saturday so we headed back to the hotel for our last night of luxury living.

We packed all our hotel stuff up on Saturday morning and a small moving van, along with Dories (DTZ rental agent) and her husband, moved us over to the apartment. We had Dories order us some pizza for lunch since we had no groceries at the apartment. After lunch, we got Liz down for a nap and I headed out (in the rain) to the Wellcome store to pick up some groceries. Wellcome is a chain grocery store here found just about everywhere. The one nearest us is a few blocks away and is pretty small. I found some basics, milk, yogurt, grapes, some drinks…whatever I could fit in the backpack. Since I couldn’t remember if we had shipped pots and pans, I didn’t buy anything that would have to be cooked. I headed back to the apartment where the moving men had shown up and were unpacking all of our shipped items. It was a MESS! But, it was so nice to see all our stuff, mainly the toys, it was like Christmas for the girls, they were so excited! Part of Ashley’s day was also spent sitting in front of the MASSIVE TV in the living room, with drool coming out of her mouth, watching her movies on the big screen. I think she must have thought she was in a theatre, she really enjoyed watching them (and staying out of our way :) ) We managed to unpack most of the boxes so the movers could take them with so we wouldn’t have to deal with it. Of course, the one item that can’t have a value put on it was broken in the move, and that’s the chalkboard easel that Anthony built for the girls. It snapped in half (just the stand, not the chalkboard itself). One other item, a small wooden letter (H) that I had painted for Ashley’s room (spells out Ashley) was broken. The movers are taking both items to a “craftsman” to fix, so that’s cool. It also turns out that they shipped a dresser that we had specified for storage. Thank goodness it actually fits in Liz’s room. We may keep it for additional storage or attempt to sell it, since it’s a cheapy dresser from Target and not necessary to keep if we don’t need it. We also now know what we should have shipped and what we could have stored, but we knew that would happen at some point. It is nice to have our stuff though, mainly the toys and the clothes.

After we tried to make sense of most of the stuff, we had a babysitter come over to the apartment, her name is Miss Woo, and she only speaks Chinese! She came highly recommended from some friends and they helped set it up since they had asked us to join them for dinner. Beth and Ingo had tickets to a jazz dinner at the Hyatt (of all places!) and so the Miss Woo came over while we were giving the girls baths and took right over – she got them both out and dressed for bed. Liz was crying, not wanting me to leave, she’s become a bit clingy lately, since she’s at the separation anxiety stage. But, we made it out the door, with Liz screaming and Ashley quite happy. We joined Beth and Ingo and had a very enjoyable evening having dinner and listening to a live jazz band play. We had Ingo call and check on the girls after about an hour and half and Miss Woo said they were both good and hadn’t been crying. Ashley had wanted some food and had eaten whatever she could find in the fridge. We got home (yes, home :) ) at about 11:00 pm and both girls were sound asleep. Miss Woo said she had no problems getting either of them to bed, although Ashley did stay up later, until about 9:30. And then Miss Woo even picked up as much as she could in the living room, cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed. It was so nice to come home to a fairly clean apartment and totally unexpected since we still had boxes about and stuff laying around everywhere.

Sunday was another day of running around trying to find stuff we need and make some room by putting away stuff. It was a long day and I can’t even remember all that we did that day (even though today is only Tuesday!). After our shopping trips, we did manage to have our bedding completely taken care of, along with a few towels and some bathroom rugs. So, that was good. After the long day, we decided to eat dinner at Chili’s – of course, where else would we eat? After Chili’s, I remembered that Anthony needed to go by the Hyatt to settle our account since we hadn’t done that after checking out on Saturday. He took Ashley with him while I walked around Misukoshi, looking in the grocery store. I didn’t buy much there due to the fact that almost everything is in Chinese and is Chinese food, so I didn’t know what most of it was. I did notice a section of imported pastas from Italy and some Hunt’s Spaghetti sauce, so once we have some pots and pans, that will be our first homecooked meal in the apartment. Anthony met up with us and we took a cab back to the apartment. The cab dropped us off, then took off, just like normal, but a few seconds after he turned the corner, Anthony started freaking out…he’d left his wallet in the cab! And due to the fact that we’d been shopping at Costco, which only takes cash, he had quite a bit of cash in it. We didn’t know the cab number or even the cab company, since we are always taking cabs and really don’t pay attention. There are many different cabbie companies here and with the city being so big, it would be impossible to find it. So, after waiting about two hours, hoping maybe the cabbie would return to the complex with it, Anthony called and cancelled his credit cards and cash card. Thank goodness that I have a credit card that he doesn’t have so we have one usable card. Only the credit card companies will send them international, so he should get them in a few days. He’ll not have a cash card for a while though since they won’t send it international, only to our local address. Frustrating. After all this, I was not in a good mood. I was frustrated at not having a vehicle, having to take cabs everywhere, having to take the girls shopping with us, not being able to find things we need (laundry baskets – who knows why they don’t have them here!), not having a stocked kitchen yet, having to take two cabbies back from Costco because we all don’t fit in one cab with the stuff we buy, and the lost wallet was just my last straw. Anthony was very happy to be in the apartment and didn’t’ seem to understand my mood. He takes everything in such stride, without getting upset or being in a mood.

Anthony headed off to work on Monday and I headed up to my friend Angie’s house. I had a wonderful time at Angie’s, with her and Joseph and another lady, Jane, and her two girls (3 years old and 18 months old). Angie has a very nice place outside of the city, more in the mountains, and she even has a small backyard (unheard of here in Taipei). She had a kiddie pool set up and everyone had fun playing in the water and running around outside. Both Jane and Angie commented that I looked exhausted and needed some sleep. I knew I was tired and exhausted too. We headed home after lunch and both girls went down for naps. I rested awhile, although didn’t sleep, couldn’t fall asleep. Anthony did call with some wonderful news. Someone had turned his wallet into the police station and so a lady from his work went down to pick it up. The person who found it did not leave a name or contact information. The wallet contained EVERYTHING that was in it when it was left in the cab – ALL OF THE MONEY! Can you believe that? From what I hear, the amount of money in his wallet was comparable to a few weeks pay for a cabbie. I am in complete shock that it was all there. It made my day though – to be in a country, where you can lose a wallet with money in it and have it returned to you, with all credit cards and all money, how great is that? Shows you how great people in this country can be. I am so thankful that it fell into the hands of someone who is honest and trustworthy and whoever it may be, I am so thankful to them.

We went to IKEA when Anthony got home, hoping to find some laundry baskets, trash cans, hangers, etc. We found some of the stuff we needed, but not as much as I had hoped. I like shopping there though since we can drop Ashley off in the front and then only have one kid to deal with :) And she loves the play area there. It’s got a big ball pit and a kiddie bathroom and a TV room with little stools to sit and watch weird Chinese cartoons. We also ate dinner at IKEA, since we still didn’t have pots and pans. We picked up some cheapy ones there though, they ought to last until we can find a decent set.

To be continued…only had this much written by Friday (hard to find time to write this week, I’ve been so busy!). Hopefully we’ll have internet access set up this weekend so I can get online. Anthony’s going to post this at work today if he can get a chance.

I miss being in touch with everyone through email and instant messaging! I can’t wait until we have access again at home!

Good News...Finally

2004-09-30T10:18:00.000+08:00

We will have our apartment by the weekend! The paperwork went throught this morning, we will get the keys tomorrow morning (Friday) and the movers will bring our shipment of stuff on Saturday! We're going to stay in the hotel until Saturday, mainly for the girls, so they'll sleep Friday night and have the weekend with both of us there to help them transition. Tomorrow (Friday) most of the day will be spent getting things we need like sheets and towels and silverware! I am so excited, you have no idea! Finally, a place we can call home! I don't know when we'll have internet access, so after tomorrow, I may not be on for a while.

One other note, last night we ate dinner at a little Italian cafe and Ashley ate escargot - yes, she loved them. I don't know if she knew that she was eating snail, but she kept asking for more. Pretty cool. She's a strange one - sometimes she refuses to try anything new and yet, other times, she loves new foods.

Smell from home

2004-09-29T17:16:00.000+08:00

The girls were taking a nap this afternoon (well, Liz was taking a nap and Ashley was watching a movie) and I was on the computer, attempting to find a babysitter for us to use once we leave the hotel. I got cold and went to grab one of the girls blankets to wrap up in. I grabbed Ashley's Pooh Bear blankie out of the closet, pulled it around me and took a deep breath. I was so utterly surprised to smell home! She hasn't used the blanket since we got here, so it's been sitting in the closet and it hasn't been washed, so it still smells of home. It was so wonderful that I sat there sniffing the blanket again and again! It was so nice and relaxing and gave me such an uplift during the afternoon. Of course, then I went to lay down with Ashley and snuggled up to her and got a whiff of the Taiwan smell. It seems to permeate the girls hair everyday we are outside and since we spent the morning at the park, it's especially prevelant today. Thank goodness they both LOVE baths!

Still no Apartment...

2004-09-29T08:06:00.000+08:00

Well, it's now Wednesday and we don't have our apartment. "Why?" You ask...well, I really don't know why, except that AMD didn't get authorization in time for payment to the landlord to be sent, and it's been a holiday week/weekend, so that has complicated matters even more. I am waiting to hear today when this all may be completed. I sure would like to move sometime soon! On the bright side, every night we stay here is more hotel points for staying at a Hyatt related hotel elsewhere in the world :)

On Monday, Anthony went to work, both girls were cranky, Liz was still not feeling well - she didn't throw up anymore, but she was tired and didn't want to eat much. She took a long morning nap, which is nice in that Ashley and I got to spend some time alone together. Then I took the girls over to 101 to eat and get out of the hotel for a bit, it was still rainy and icky out. We got back to the hotel and all took naps - long ones, so I think we were all recovering from the weekend and whatever sickness we all had. Anthony got home right after we all woke up. We decided to go eat at TGIFriday's, since we know we won't eat there once we've moved (not worth the money if it's on our dime). The food wasn't the best, never is there, but at least the girls ate some and were in a pretty good mood for most of the meal. When we tried to put the girls to bed that evening, it was utter chaos. Neither of them wanted to go to bed, so we had a lot of crying and screaming going on. I don't think Ashley actually went to sleep until 10:30pm and Liz finally fell asleep for good at around 1:30 am - from 10:00 to 1:30, she was up on and off crying and screaming. We tried Motrin, Teething Tablets and Orajel, none of which seemed to work. The only thing that would help in any way was nursing her, and that's when she finally went to sleep. Poor baby, it'll be nice when she can be a little more communicative so I can understand what is hurting her when she's upset.

Thank goodness Tuesday was a holiday and Anthony didn't have to go to work! We all slept in until after 8am! We had ordered room service for breakfast the night before and they delivered it around 8am, waking us all up. It was nice though to eat breakfast in our room instead of upstairs on the 22nd floor as we do almost every other morning. It was nice just laying around in jammies and not having to shower and get dressed and ready just to eat breakfast. We watched the Cowboys play the Redskins for Monday night football (we call it Tuesday morning football here:) and it was fun to see them win! I had even bought Tostitos Chips and Salsa to celebrate the fact that we got to watch the game (I found them at Jason's supermarket in 101 - expensive, but well worth the money just for a little nostalgia). It was great taking those first few bites of chips and tasting their wonderful saltiness and crispness. A taste of home!

After the game, we decided to go somewhere, it had stopped raining and the girls seemed to be feeling better. So, we took the MRT originally intending to go to a park, but it was a little hot and humid out for that, so we went instead to see one of the other hotels that Anthony had toured here months ago when he was out on a visit. Not as nice as the Hyatt, but they have a Duty Free Shop on their basement level, along with HIGH END shops such as Louis Vutton, Chane, Ralph Lauren, Mont Blanc, etc. We did a little shopping in the Duty Free area and then ate lunch at one of their Italian buffet restaurants (it was ok). There is a park next to the hotel, so after lunch we let the girls run around there a bit (it was starting to cool off in the late afternoon so it was very nice out). There is a ToysRUs next to the park also, so we had to visit it :) We've been to one other ToysRUs store here, in one of the malls, but this one was much bigger and had more stuff. Ashley had fun running around getting into stuff and pointing out everything she wants - which is a lot! She did get in trouble a few times for running off where we couldn't see her, which is one of her favorite things to do. I don't think she does it on purpose, she just gets to caught up in the excitement of seeing all the toys that she just keeps walking without realizing that she isn't anywhere near us anymore. After ToysRUs, we were heading back in the direction of the MRT and decided to visit on the malls (Mitsukoshi) that I'd been to before, with an indoor play area, to look for shoes for Liz. We also had gift certificates to spend there (Anthony had gotten them as a gift at one of the holidays when he first got here). So, we headed there and Ashley and Liz had great fun running around on the indoor playground. We did find some shoes for Liz too - nice thick walking ones, in red. I wanted pink, but they didn't carry them in pink and Red seemed to be the only other color that might stand up to the dirt and filth of the streets here - we'll see! She's just walking so much now that she needed some good shoes to wear since I'm tired of cleaning her black feet all the time. It was late after the shopping, around 7pm, so we took a cab back to the hotel, gave the girls a bath, put them to bed and ordered room service for dinner. I'll be so glad to have a kitchen so I can make myself a sandwich or soup or pasta for a quick dinner, instead of having to order room service and wait for a meal that isn't always good.

Weekend Trip

2004-09-26T20:46:00.000+08:00

This weekend, we decided we needed to get out of the city and do something touristy. We didn’t plan far enough in advance to actually take a train or a plane somewhere else on the island, since it’s considered a holiday weekend and everything is booked weeks in advance. So, on Saturday, we decided to take the Northern MRT route to the end, to an area called DanShui in Taipei County, on the coast. The MRT ride took about an hour to get there and it had been raining when we left, but we were hopeful that it might clear up for our journey. It didn’t. We arrived in DanShui and it was pouring. So, we sucked it up and basically got wet, decided we’d come all this way, we might as well see it. We started out walking along the edge of the river/ocean inlet (we think), where there are little boardwalk type shops and game areas set up for tourists. We ate lunch at a sea food place, which had fairly good food (although all of us feel a little off today – Sunday – so maybe it wasn’t so good after all). It was here in the restaurant that Ashley made a truly momentous comment:
I read a label out loud that was on Liz’s onesie she was wearing that said “keep away from fire”. Anthony and I were talking about it and laughing since we thought it was funny that they have to make labels like that on clothing. Minutes later, after we are all eating, having moved entirely aware from that conversation, suddenly, for no apparent reason, Ashley stops what she’s doing, eyes wide and blurts out “Mommy, Daddy, don’t put Liz in the fire, I like her!”. Very sad, but cute, funny, and nice to hear one of the only unsolicited comments of true affection that Ashley has ever made about Liz (it actually might be the ONLY fully unsolicited comment we’ve ever heard from her).

After lunch, we walked again along the boardwalk, going into little shops and trying to stay dry in the off and on again rainy day. We went into one shop and looked around for awhile – it appears they import African tribal stuff here, very interesting, not something you’d think to see here. I was buying some little trinkets, when Anthony picked up something to show me, and broke it – dropped the glass on the floor and it shattered everywhere – OOPS. We ended up having to buy it, although for a discount since the shop didn’t have glass to replace what was broken.

We found out that they have ferry rides across the river/ocean inlet to the other side, called Bali. We decided to check that out and got on board. It started pouring down rain, but luckily they had a covered deck area so we could move inside and not get completely soaked. They have a nice wooden boardwalk down the entire side of the “coast” on Bali side. We walked down that a ways until we came upon a play area. We let Ashley run around a bit, getting totally wet in the rain. They also had pony rides, so Ashley got to ride a pony for a short bit, too. Probably would have been longer, but it started pouring down rain again. We found a building to go into and wait out the rain. It was some sort of look out building with a little history of the area – all in Chinese, so I’m not positive that’s what it was, but I think so. Once the rain slowed, we headed back on the boardwalk to the ferry. We let Liz walk most of the way and she really enjoyed splashing in the water and getting lots of attention from the onlookers calling her cute. We had a few minutes waiting for the ferry, so we watched all the crabs run around in the mud next to the shore. They were EVERYWHERE, THOUSANDS of them, about 1 – 2 inch crabs, looked like the mud was moving, but it was the crabs. Ashley had fun checking them out.

Once we got back to DanShui, we walked along the boardwalk again, and found a really interesting place that had a snake, parrot and iguana on display. They had an entrance fee, so we paid and went inside. They had some interesting animals on display – two other yellow and white snakes – one was HUGE, looks like it was either extremely fat or had just eaten something the size of a dog. There were piranhas and other sea creatures, some turtles, insects and a komodo dragon – yes, a komodo dragon, with smears of blood in it’s cage nonetheless – EWWW! Check out the pics on our picture site to see some fun ones Anthony took of Ashley in there.

At this point, we decided to head back to the MRT station and head home. We walked back through a market street, with vendors and little shops to look in. We stopped in a traditional Chinese dress store and picked up a cute dress for Ashley and a shirt for me. I tried on a traditional dress, which Anthony would love to see me in, but those things are made for stick women, not for anyone with any sort of hips whatsoever, so unless I can get one handmade to fit, that won’t be happening.

We started our long journey back on the MRT with both girls exhausted, since Liz had only taken a small nap during our walks around. Liz got very cranky, so I ended up having to stand up, with her strapped on in the sling. She finally fell asleep once we arrived back near home. We had decided to eat dinner at Chili’s, so walked there from the MRT line. Liz slept through the walk and through the wait for dinner and through about ½ the meal, she was pretty tired.

We stopped on the way home and bought a movie for Anthony and I to watch. “Somethings Gotta Give” with Jack Nicholson. Pretty cute movie, had some funny parts. It was nice and relaxing though after our long day out.

Liz didn’t sleep well, woke up around 4:30 and then again at 6:30 and then slept until about 8:30. Anthony woke up feeling ill to his stomach and I didn’t feel very well either. We ate breakfast, hoping that would help, but it didn’t really. We ventured out of the hotel only for lunch and dinner and because the girls were driving us insane inside. Liz ended up throwing up at dinner, so it’s either what we ate yesterday, or she’s teething, or she’s just plain sick. I feel better this evening and I think Anthony does too. After a pretty miserable evening of alternately between the sick Liz and the cranky Ashley (who kept having time out after time out), we finally have them both asleep and are ready to call it a night for ourselves.

We may be getting our apartment keys tomorrow! That’s the good news. We won’t move our stuff from hotel until Tuesday and then our stuff from home that’s been in storage will arrive on Wednesday. I am so excited and although I will miss the daily maid service and the help from the staff, I will be so happy to have a kitchen!!! It will be so wonderful. The bad news is that a typhoon is headed our way again, expected to hit tomorrow or Tuesday, so that may put a damper on our plans. There is a chance that it will head north and just clip us, which would be better. Although I could do without the rain, since it’s been rainy everyday here for what seems like weeks. Wish us luck with the move. I also have no idea when we’ll be able to get internet access set up at the apartment, so it may be awhile before I’m able to post again or get online.

Happy Birthday AMD

2004-09-24T10:07:00.000+08:00

Last night, was AMD's Birthday party for the Athlon 64 product, here in Taiwan. Anthony and I went, while the kids stayed back at the hotel with a babysitter. There were several other AMD - Austin individuals here in town that came with us. It was nearby at a club/restaurant in the Neo 19 building, same building as Chili's :) We walked in, and the door greeters put those glow in the dark sticks around our wrists as bracelets. Then, we were handed party "hats" or other type of headband hats to wear and then had a photograph taken. Then we went into the club, where they had a buffet line set up, with a stage up front and a space cleared out for dancing. They started the evening out with three scantily clad women dancing - I have no idea what that had to do with AMD, I mean, they weren't even wearing the AMD colors! (It's interesting here, at trade shows and anything where they are promoting a product, there will be scantily clad women with the product - say for example, a vehicle or new game on display, and there will be people taking photos of it. It's strange.) Anyway, after the dance, there were some speeches by some of AMD management and then the band started. During the evening, they had these little tubes near the stage that occasionally shot fire up out of them, yes, fire, in the basement of a club. Doesn't seem real safe to me. They also had confetti dropping from the ceiling occassionally. So not only are there fireballs coming up from the floor, there's confetti falling down from the ceiling, hmmm...seems to me that wouldn't be a good combination. But, nothing happened, just something that I doubt you'd see back home due to fear of lawsuits. The band was interesting - singing a variety of English songs - not very good, I might add - but it was still fun. There was also a movie made by some of the people here in the Taiwan office for the Birthday celebration - they did some skits and then had people in the AMD office and customers of AMD saying Happy Birthday. It was very well done, although we suggested English captions next time for those of us who don't understand Chinese. Anthony was in the movie, saying Happy Birthday in Chinese. I'm so proud :) I got to meet many of the people Anthony mentions, so that was good. We had a fun time, even did some dancing, which I don't think we've done in years. We stayed the entire time, until around 10:30. That's late for us these days!

Football Time

2004-09-21T13:53:00.000+08:00

On Sunday, we were really bummed to be missing football season - our regular Sunday afternoon relaxation game time with nachos is no more, very sad. But, I did find out that we are able to watch LIVE Sunday night and Monday night games! So, I was very excited to find that out - ESPN Asia airs them Live on Monday mornings and Tuesday mornings (our time) and also repeats it again at some point throughout the day. So, this morning (Tuesday), the Vikes were playing (for those who pay no attention to football whatsoever, that is the Minnesota Vikings, who I am known to root for) and Anthony even stayed home from work to watch with us (although, he rarely actually watched the game as he was on the computer, working, but at least he was in the room). The Vikes lost, probably because I was watching, but it was cool nonetheless that we got to see the game! And next week, the Cowboys are on, so Anthony is very excited! We are even hoping that we'll be in our new apartment, the cable will be working and we'll be able to watch it on the BIG screen TV! That would rock! We'll see.

Speaking of the apartment, we are almost there, I think...one side (the rental agent here) is saying that everything is a go and we should be ready for move in on Saturday - this weekend. The other side (AMD) hasn't confirmed, so we aren't positive and there last estimate was the end of this month. But, we are CLOSE, which is AWESOME.

Sunday, we switched from the 8th floor to the 13th floor, here in the hotel - boy, do we have a lot of stuff! Took the bellman three trips with two carts to move everything, but it's done. And now Ashley has a king size bed in her room instead of two twins, so she's very happy - she loves her new big HUGE bed.

Monday, I met up with another expat here from California (Beth), to see where her daughter goes to preschool - at Taipei Montessori School, which is within walking distance from our new apartment. The school is nice, very different from schools/daycares back home. Everything is in Chinese, although they do teach one hour of English a day. A few of the teachers also speak English, but mostly Chinese. There are a few expat children that go there, several are French children too. Ashley really enjoyed herself and didn't want to leave, she wanted to stay all day - she really misses school. All of the school information is in Chinese, so I'm having the hotel staff translate for me, so we know if we can afford to send her there. I'll keep you posted. After looking at the school, we headed back to Beth's apartment to let the girls play with her 11 month old boy. We all had a fun time and both Ashley and Liz really loved playing with all their toys in all the space they are unaccustomed to from being in the hotel. Beth also made us a simple lunch of pasta and sauce - it was delicious and so nice to not be eating in a hotel room or a restaurant, it's been so long! Anthony was jealous when I told him, it's just been so long since we've had a simple meal, made at home, where you sit at a dining room table and eat.

Tomorrow there is a citywide drill going on, the hotel has given us a letter with instructions to stay in the hotel and respectfully close the curtains (hmmm...you know I'll be peeking through the curtains to figure that one out). It should be interesting. Seems like they've been having "drills" every day or so at City Hall with fire trucks, bomb squads and police cars all out in front. It's very strange.

Funnies

2004-09-18T10:06:00.000+08:00

So, before I forget this, as I often do with my children’s most funniest moments, I am writing it down. This morning, both girls slept in until after 8 am! I can not believe it, most days we are up sometime between 6 and 7:15 am. Must have been the babysitter last night who fed them candy and cookies and let them do whatever they wanted  So, Ashley comes into our room, wakes us up, goes with Anthony to get Liz, Liz comes into our room and immediately points to cookie tray – every night, we get “turn down service” here at the hotel, which includes a small little tray of cookies or chocolates. Liz KNOWS what the plate looks like and what is usually on it and immediately wants it. So, me being the coolest mom on earth, lets her eat a cookie, in bed, nonetheless, just because I’m so happy to have her sleep in and most likely the real reason is because I don’t want to nurse her, which is the other option she’d want.
Ashley is standing on the bed talking with us, when she crosses her hands over her PJ’s and declares – “I drew on my jama’s, don’t look.” We ask her “what?”. She repeats, “I drew on my jama’s, don’t look.” We ask her “why?”. She says “because I did it on purpose”. Sure enough, after having her remove her hands so we could look, she had drawn with pen on her princess PJ’s. She got a timeout, since she knows she’s not allowed to use the pen without us around. Last time she drew on something it was the wall of the hotel room (thank goodness the wallpaper is brown with blue and tan marks all over it, you can hardly tell there’s black ink on the wall.

We went up to breakfast this morning on the 22nd floor and were notified that Ashley is a “TV star” now. She was on the news last night (as were Liz and I also). Yesterday, Angie and I were going to go to a park for the afternoon, but it looked like rain, so we decided to go to the Living Mall, which was having a grand opening for it’s kids floor. They’ve just redone it with a jungle theme and a kids play area and a “Nursling Area” (no, I didn’t misspell that, the sign they have says nursling, not nursing). We were in the nursing area, which is a play area for toddlers, with benches for parents and a sink for washing kids stuff, and 2 rooms with big cushioned chairs to use for nursing and a diaper changing area, which also has a toddler toilet – this toilet is tiny, green and in the shape of a frog – IT IS SO CUTE! So, we are in the mall, the girls are in the first play area and a TV news camera crew starts filming them play in the jungle gym. No biggie, I’m fine with that, although it’s weird, since they don’t ask permission or anything. Then, later, we’re in the nursing area, since both Liz and Joseph needed diaper changes. The girls were playing and the camera crew has come into the area and is filming everyone, but from what I can tell, seem to be focusing on the girls. I’m playing with Liz, when I notice that I don’t see Ashley or the camera crew – UHOH, I go find Ashley, who is going potty on the frog toilet, with the camera crew FILMING her! I immediately asked them to stop and they kept saying, “ok, ok, will use respectable footage”, then Ashley blurts out, “I have to go poo-poo” and proceeds to scrunch up her face and grunt – I am so embarrassed, but it’s hilarious at the same time because they are filming a kid going to the bathroom. Thank goodness, Ashley didn’t really need to go poo, she was done quickly and got up to flush. Then went over to the sink and washed her hands, then dried them. The crew said she was so proper and filmed her doing all of this. Ashley even looked into the camera and said “I wash my hands everyday after everytime I go potty” as she was drying her hands. They asked her name, to which she replied “MMMMRRRR” in a big growl – I think she was tired of being followed around by this point. So, she ran off and left me in the room with the crew who tried asking me all these seriously ridiculous questions like “Do you find this a respectable and proper place for children?” – WHAT? So weird. I don’t think I do well in front of a camera and mike, I just freeze up and go yes, no, yes, no. So, I ran out of there, back to the kids, where they continued filming while we all played a few more minutes. So, apparently, this footage made it on the news, the girls playing and Ashley going to the bathroom – I asked how much they showed and the lady upstairs said it was just from head up, showed her getting up from toilet and flushing, washing hands and what she said after that, although she couldn’t understand the words. So, we are famous right now, in the hotel anyway. Too funny!

Still waiting...

2004-09-16T14:09:00.000+08:00

...not much exciting has been going on here. We are still waiting on the apartment. We do think that we are getting the one that I've posted pictures of and talked about - we have a possible move in date of September 25th. We are very excited and can't wait to have a kitchen, I sure hope I can remember how to cook and do laundry :) I just can't wait to get our stuff from storage, the toys for the girls and clothes that we haven't seen in ages, I've forgotten what most of my clothes look like, so I guess it will be like Christmas!

Something weird is going on at the moment...in front of our hotel is Taipei City Hall and close by is Sun Yet San Memorial. I was coming back to the hotel from lunch with a friend, when we were diverted by police cars and fire trucks, all surrounding city hall. And there are people in bomb threat gear (air masks and white body suits) walking around and in buses outside the buildings. At SYS Memorial, there were fire trucks everywhere. As I'm typing this, I hear helicoptors flying all about. Now, I'm seriously hoping that whatever is going on is just a test, a rehearsal, a practice for anything serious that actually might happen. The hotel hasn't used their emergency broadcast system (which I know they have only because we've been here two months and they test it once a month) and everyone around the area is going about their daily business, no crowds are accumulating, no people are running away screaming, so I'm assuming that there's nothing wrong and it's just a test. Weird.

I've just been trying to go day by day, finding things to keep the girls occupied, since that's what life is all about these days. Yesterday, we had to get out of the hotel, girls were going stir crazy, so we walked to MRT line, took the MRT to a shopping area of town with a few department stores, went into one that I knew had an indoor play area, got there, took shoes off, started playing with Liz, Ashley went up the stairs, through the tunnel, down the slide, then declared she was done. Yup, all that way (about an hour, with Liz cranky and screaming on the MRT) for one minute of playtime. Fun, Fun, Fun. We walked around the mall a bit, letting Liz walk and crawl and get into lots of stuff she probably shouldn't have gotten into. Then went outside, where lo and behold, it had started raining, so no catching the MRT back home again, since that would mean walking for at least 20 minutes in the rain with a stroller, a kid that loves rain and no umbrella. So, we caught a cab, our first female cabbie, and went back to the hotel. Ashley got a timeout in the cab, for hitting her sister on the head, so there was quite a bit of screaming and crying going on during that RELAXING trip back to the hotel. Sometimes, I wonder why I venture outside with the kids, then I realize that if I didn't, surely, I'd go insane just sitting in the room listening to them scream and cry rather than making sure others get to see them throwing fits and wondering why I'm just standing there and not comforting them. They took long naps, which was nice, so I did have some time to relax a little on my own, which is quite enjoyable.

Today, we met Angie and Joseph (1 year old) at Playspace and had a very enjoyable time. It amazes me how much Liz can play on her own at that place. She'll just wander around, climbing on and over toys, sliding down this ramp, then back up again, then over to the book and puzzle area, where she'll pick up a book and "read", then back to the baby area, where there's a rocking horse she loves to climb on. Ashley found a princess costume and wore it the entire time, declaring me "king" and ordered me to dance with her (too cute!). Afterwards, we ate at a place called "Subbers", which used to be Subway - they've kept the same Subway colors (green and yellow) and the same wallpaper, and the same bread type and just changed the name (so they don't have to pay franchise fees?). It was pretty good. It was definitely a nice afternoon spent with the girls and Angie and Joseph. Now the girls are napping and I'm going to relax and play around on the computer for a while.

Ashley and Elizabeth Accomplishments

2004-09-14T16:47:00.000+08:00

Some things about the girls we thought you’d like to hear about:

Elizabeth –
She’s now walking, it’s slowly becoming her preferred method of getting around, although crawling is still faster, so she reverts to it often.
She says “Zao” in Chinese, which is good morning, every morning when we go upstairs to the 22nd floor, that’s what she hears and she repeats it (well, for the last 2 mornings).
She says bye-bye, I love you (or at least we swear that’s what she’s saying), night-night, hello, ahahahahahah (I want, I want, I want or Give me, Give me, Give me).
She hums along when we sing to her and sways back and forth as if dancing.
She understands the word No and can follow simple commands, such as Go Get Something or Shut the Door or Bring Me Something.
She sleeps with blankie, at least 2 stuffed animals and a baby doll. (She can go without, but this is her preferred method of sleep)
She will hug people when prompted.
She hugs stuffed animals and baby doll all the time – we try to carry one around with us wherever we go since it makes her happy.
She can blow kisses.
She will “read” along to books, making sounds as she turns the pages.
She loves phones (including cell phones) and will say “hello) when she picks it up.
When she’s really upset, I can give her my cell phone and a stuffed animal and she’ll hug both of them tight and lay her head down on my shoulder (too cute!).
She loves bathtime and tries to take off her clothes when you mention bath and then tries to put her leg up over the bathtub (which is as tall as her shoulder).
She eats anything in sight - still only has 8 teeth - 4 on top, 4 on bottom, but can eat an apple, a hamburger, chicken, pizza, etc.
She says "vroom,vroom" when she's riding her little ride on bike.
She talks to herself when we put her down in bed at night, sometimes humming like she's singing.

Ashley –
She asks us how to say things in Chinese all the time.
She can say thank you, your welcome, hello, good morning and a few other words in Chinese and her pronunciation of the words is outstanding.
She is starting to understand what words are and that letters form words that we read.
She loves book and being read to and is beginning to use her finger to “follow along” with the words.
She walks everywhere with me in the city and is no longer stopping and crying for me to pick her up (well, most of the time anyway).
She loves parks and playgrounds and shopping and bookstores – basically anything to get out of the hotel.
She can ride her bike now – it has training wheels – and she loves to wear her pink bike helmet with Hello Kitty stickers on it.
She rides in cabs all the time now, with seatbelt if available, but I don’t think she’ll ever want to go back in a carseat again!
She plays doctor with her stuffed animals and baby doll and plays mommy too, wrapping them up, putting diapers on them and taking care of them.
She loves tea sets and likes to have tea parties.
She “calls” people all the time on the phone (we’ve unplugged a phone in the room) and has very long conversations – at first, they were just hi and bye, but now, she’ll talk about anything that pops into her little mind.
She wants friends, talks about meeting her friends at the park and playground. We haven’t had consistent outings with the same people her age, so she’s missing out on that.
She LOVES the rain and puddles of water – loves splishing, splashing and playing in water.
She still LOVES dresses and wants a “wedding dress” (just bought her a white dress today, so I’m hoping she’ll be satisfied).
Her hair is a mess all the time, it’s very fine and she tends to take any ponytail holders or braid holders out after a little while. She prefers to wear her hair down and to “tuck it behind my ears, mommy”.
She eats one thing (or sometimes two) of Plain yogurt every morning – no flavored yogurt because it has pieces of fruit in it – Yuck, according to her.
She likes to eat cheese and drink apple juice when we visit the 22nd floor.
She pretends to be a puppy dog about 90% of the time we are on the 22nd floor – everything is said in puppy language – woof, woof.