Texpat in Taiwan

Toto the Too Small Toilet or How to Know It's Time to Go Home

2009-06-26T05:31:00.001-07:00

We've known it was coming, first, because that was always the plan and then more definitely as McLeod's company began the process. But somehow, until recently, leaving Taiwan for good was just a date on a calendar. Even when our U.S. house went on the market mid-March, it wasn't really sinking in. Afterall, we haven't lived there for three years, so it didn't really feel like our house anymore. But then small things, little "for the last time" moments, started accumulating and bigger things started happening like turning in official school paperwork to withdraw the kids. Then one day, quite suddenly, you make a mental shift, and it's time to go.

My mental shift happened with a cracked toilet. For the last 6 months, we've had an annoying leak in the apartment. Clearly some pipe in the bathroom was leaking beneath the tile and seeping out to the wood flooring in the bedroom. We'd go away for awhile. The engineers would fix something, replace boards and then pretty soon the water stain would show up again. When we came back from our final big trip to Palau, they assured me it was fixed. Yes, I'm happy to report that leak WAS finally fixed. But with the first post-vacation flush, water started seeping out of the porcelain itself and puddling on the tile floor. Someone cracked the toilet. Not a happy day, mostly for poor Mr. Lee, the hardworking, kind-hearted head engineer. How sad he looked to tell me, "No use it. Tomorrow... plumber." The kids and I made a nice out-of-order sign.

Tomorrow came. Two plumbers and an engineer walked into the apartment. It didn't register with me that they had a medium sized cardboard box on a trolley outside my door, so I proceeded to do what I always do when working with repairmen here: go into a kind of interpretive dance to explain the problem. I am suddenly having flashbacks to that day, specifically the point where I got down on all fours in our small bathroom to point out the leak on the toilet. This elicited an embarrassed, "Yes, yes, yes, ok, ok, ok" from the three men who I now realize were getting a view of my rear end. It was soon revealed that they were not there to repair the leak. They were taking away our toilet and replacing it with a smaller version.

Gone is our nice, big (read: wide-seat) Kohler. Sitting in its place is Toto the Too Small. It is narrow, and it is low. Parts of you hurt if you linger too long. Your magazines fall off the back because there is a 6-inch gap between the tank and the wall. Suddenly our castle is without its throne. And so it's time to move to another castle, a Texas-sized castle with well-equipped bathrooms.

Now we are knee-deep in preparations. We sold one house and bought another after a whirlwind trip to the States by McLeod. I have a notebook full of lists and a folder full of paperwork. There are pages in the notebook where I've scribbled things like "Rattan Chairs--cheaper in Taiwan" and "Get instructions for sprinkler system" along with many much more important items. McLeod comes home each day to what he calls the beaver dam at the front door, the fruits of my labor as I clean out every drawer and cabinet. Heaps of stuff sorted to toss, pass along, or donate get distributed and then replenished. And I keep finding things I didn't even know we brought to Taiwan--McLeod's antique pocket watch, a plate that says Chicago on it, candlesticks--and of course, things that don't even belong to me. That thing you thought you lost? Don't worry, I'm sure it's sitting in a bag with your name on it at my front door.

And somehow, perhaps because my brain is so full of lists and plans or maybe because it's starting to become all-American again, I find myself making rookie mistakes. I took the wrong bus twice in 10 days. I tried to make a special order at McDonalds--something I know better than to try to do--and ended up with a sausage egg burger with mayonaise. I took something on a toothpick from a lady passing out samples at the grocery store, and guess what? It was STILL, after three years, a weird, squishy, fried unknown substance from the sea. The only difference was that I actually chewed it up and swallowed it and didn't even stop to think what I'd eaten until I was at least three aisles over.

Most fitting of all, though, McLeod and I recently had a movie night to rival our very first movie night in Taipei. Out to see Star Trek, our brains bubbling with trivia and critical buzz about the film, we walked up to the counter and asked for tickets to the 9pm showing. (By the way the kiosks for self-serve tickets seem to be permanently broken--perhaps too many big American meat hooks pounded on the screens?) Up, up, up the escalators, checking each floor against our ticket and being ushered ever higher by the helpful staff. At last in our seats, we settled in for the previews, finding them a tad violent but not unusual for Taiwan. At last the movie began. A strange sepia-tinted sequence flickered on the screen with tinny piano playing. Were these the young Kirk's family photos? A death in the family perhaps as the series of stills from a circa 1900 funeral flashed on the screen. Back story to what he will become as captain of the Enterprise? But when the images started to cut away to someone oozing big drops of the red stuff, we grabbed up our tickets and stared at the Chinese characters willing them to make sense. By then the title came up on the screen: The Haunting in Connecticut. We bolted from our seats. Down, down, down the escalators we went to hand off our tickets to a perplexed manager and say, "Wrong Movie! Star Trek? Star Trek?" Turns out there wasn't a 9pm showing of Star Trek so we'd been sold the next best thing. There was, however, a 9:10pm showing of Star Trek, so they traded out the tickets and ushered us immediately into theater 1 on the main floor. Just in time for the previews to start. We had a great night, made all the better by our near-haunting in Conneticut.

But now the credits are rolling on this expat adventure. In a few days we board the plane, bags full of trinkets, hearts full of memories. We've taken time over the last month to see favorite places. Yingge, the pottery town, successfully emptied my wallet as I stocked up on "just a few more" dishes, tea cups and vases. We spent a weekend at McLeod's beloved Green Island with my dive buddy Cathy and her family. While Cathy, McLeod and I were 20 meters under on those fantastic, ancient coral beds, Cathy's husband Wei-Ai drove 4 kids calling themselves the Spriters all over the island in a golf cart now known as the Adventure Truck. The locals would grin, wave and make way for the bunch who would serenade them with "Hey now, you're an All-star! Get your game on. Go Play!" We've also had a few last meals of dumplings, along with more than a few visits to Chili's, and we made a final trip to Taipei 101, the now almost-tallest building in the world. These last weeks have been blessed, too, with time to savor moments with friends. We will be forever grateful for the friendships that changed us from strangers in a strange land into neighbors and friends, living happy lives in a place they became proud to call home.

Zai Jian, Taipei! The Texpats are so very glad they came.

Trips Part II: Palau

2009-04-01T01:58:00.000-07:00

For our final big trip in Asia we traded the fresh powder of Nagano for the jungle achipeligo of Palau. Fans of the Survivor series may remember the island chain from a few seasons ago. I never watched it, but hearing that an island was the featured site for a rough and tough adventure left me wondering what to expect. I was pleased to find out I would not be roughing it by any means--Palau Pacific Resort ain't too shabby--but we did get out there and have some once-in-a-lifetime adventures. The shortlist of our activities reads like this:

dive coral reef gardens, deep holes, and wrecks

kayak archepeligo while marine biologist points out birds, bats, and sea critters

visit cave full of bats and do small cliff dives into ocean

manoever through a tunnel at low tide to swim in completely hidden lake

hike to WWII Japanese bunkers, climb inside and look at old helmets, bottles and an elegy to a fallen soldier (talk about history coming to life!)

swim across a lake so full of stingless jellyfish that they bump against your body and face

catch 200lbs of yellow fin tuna and have a feast with friends

When people ask what I thought about the trip, I think I must get faraway look in my eye. "Ohhhh, it was goooood." It was a nature- and history-lover's paradise. We spent one complete day on an eco-tour with marine biologist Ron, snorkeling reefs, kayaking into caves, and finding weird creatures like the sand-crunching chiton. He also took us to the barnacled wreckage from a downed WWII plane and to Japanese bunker sites where the soldiers had planned to bombard US amphibious troop carriers with ammo, grenades and homemade molitov cocktails. A favorite moment for all of us that day was when just as the tide was reaching its lowpoint, we paddled up to a small green mountain rising from the sea The lowered water level revealed a tunnel, perhaps 12-15 feet, that opened into a hidden lake. Reclining in our kayaks, we pulled ourselves through the tunnel, careful not to cut our fingers on the jagged limestone above our heads. The salt-water lake sheltered ancient basket corals. Layered on top of each other with no strong winds, waves or currents to disturb them, they had grown to enormous sizes. But what took my breath away was gazing up at the walls of lush primaeval forest around me where white-tailed tropic birds chased one another, swooping and wheeling in the expanse of sky. And each day was pretty much like that, with a new experience bubbling to the top of my favorites list.

Jellyfish Lake was surreal. You don't know whether you are in an episode of Spongebob or Fear Factor. Snorkeling to the middle of the lake you are in a blizzard of jellies. They are pulsing all around you, the grape-fruit sized ones pumping slowly, gracefully, the dime-sized ones fluttering like strange round butterflies. Your kids are picking them up and wanting to adopt them as pets (and my sweet little girl came to me solemn faced later and whispered that she accidently squeezed "hers" too hard...oops). I was surprised that I liked it.

The diving was world-class. For someone with only a dozen dives under her belt at that point, getting to dive Palau was like skipping to the front of the dessert line. If you'd told me 6 months ago that at 50 feet underwater I would attach myself to a coral reef with a metal hook and a piece of rope, I'd have thought, "That's an odd training exercie." If you'd then told me I'd do it on purpose so that I could watch sharks and baracudas swim around me, I'd have laughed in your face. But I did it. And like that little kid on the tricycle from The Incredibles all I can say is, "That was totally wicked!!"

So enjoy some pictures--most courtesy once again of photographer extrodinaire John Heinneman--but even more, if you ever get the chance, GO! It's like no other place on the planet.

Bunkers and Caves

Diving and Fishing

Trips Part I: Japan

2009-02-01T04:37:00.000-08:00

The last few months have been packed with travel. Our first big trip of the winter season was Japan. We prepped for weeks since we didn't have much cold weather clothing and this was to be our first ski trip ever. We ordered two small ski suits and sweet-talked a Taiwan-bound US colleague into shoving them in his suitcases. But for the bulk of the gear, I tapped the Tai Tai network to beg, steal and borrow. My Kiwi friend Nicky leant out two giant Costco bags of jackets, ski pants, gloves, socks and warm base layers. Now, while Nicky would probably say the most precious item she bestowed was her lovely, toasty, trendy ski jacket, I know that in her heart, her grandpa's wool socks and grandma's long underwear were actually the most sacred. And I swear I treated them with all the reverence they deserved and felt warm and fuzzy every time I wore them!

We began our Japan trip with one week visiting Tokyo, Kyoto and Nagoya, and then headed to Nagano for a week of snow skiing at the site of the '98 Winter Olympics. Ah, Kyoto! What amazed me was seeing how the flamboyant Chinese-style architecture we've been used to--and is still evident in some of the Kyoto sites --had morphed into the more somber structures of Japan's temples and palaces. I snapped endless pictures of wood, stone and iron, and I loved the way dark rooflines looked against the cold blue sky. We got there just in time to see the last of the fall leaves, too, and I realized how long it's been since I've breathed in the damp, leafy smell of autumn. Wandering through Gion, the geisha district, plunged me back into the pages of Memoirs of a Geisha, and seeing the Golden Pavillion at Kinkakuji took my breath away.

Below: Grounds at old Imperial Palace, grounds at Ryoanji zen temple complex, Nanzenji zen temple, apprentice geisha in Gion, Kinkakuji (Golden Pavillion)

Nagano was cold, snowy goodness! We were blessed with heavy powder by night, and sunshine on the slopes by day.The kids fell in love with the snow and were champs on the ski slopes. McLeod, ever the natural athlete, went from novice to pretty good in no time. I've blocked out some of the less pleasant moments of me actually trying to ski. I have a blurred memory of saying, "Hey, this isn't so bad!" while on the near-flat training area, followed by a painfully embarrassing series of falls from the moment I exited the lift chair and begin attempting S-turns. Wait, sorry, I think that was some other girl in borrowed woolen socks. I was the rosy-cheeked lady happily snapping pictures of husband and children on the slopes and learning that if you lock eyes with a novice snowboarder, she will come sliding right toward you at increasing speed, apologizing profusely in Japanese and desperately trying to turn away. She will finally wipe out in a snow bank at the last minute and you will pretend you didn't notice. Evenings were bliss in the onsen, the traditional Japanese bath which includes first completely cleansing in the shower area, then dipping into the steamy waters for a long soak. After her first trip to the ladies onsen with me, Caroline had me send a note to her grandmother that read: We just went to the hot tub. We were NAKED. And I LOVED it! McLeod and Barret's onsen experience was a little different - while C and I pretty much had the place to ourselves other than one or two quiet Japanese ladies, the men's side was overrun with mohawk-sporting, snowboard zealots from the Western hemisphere. Every third word was "Dude!" while every other word was an obscenity. McLeod kept Barret engaged in a loud, lively conversation about his day at ski school to mask the Dude-talk on the other side of the hot pool. But what McLeod missed in relaxation at the onsen, he found fireside in the lobby where Joe, the clerk-waiter-driver-handyman-doorman (and son of the owners) turned out to also be the bartender. He produced some glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels and said, "You pour. All same price." So, toasty inside and out, we'd deal with the mounds of wet things, prep gear for the next day, conk out in our row of small beds and wake up to do it all over again.

Below: The view from the top, courtesy of John Heinemann, videos of the kids

The Art of Tai Tai Living, Part II

2008-10-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

It’s Starbucks Wednesday! That’s the day I do “Library Time with Ms. Cassia” at Caroline’s school, and I pop in for a latte just beforehand. The dose of Starbucks makes me a read a tad fast, but the caffeine-induced sense of well-being aids in my recovery from Crazy Tuesday. That’s the day I hot-foot-it around Tienmu, shuffling the kids to activities while hauling most of their stuff on my back.

Today it will most likely be in the high 80’s, but I will still pretend it’s autumn and that I need hot coffee to warm me up. I’ll also pretend to people-watch, but I’ll actually be playing a game called “Spot someone I know on a bus.” No, not in the bus. I like scanning the ads that wrap the buses, looking for the faces of my “famous” friends.

Or rather, my friends’ famous children. Because as my good friend Nicky says, “You know you’re an expat wife when a picture of your kids goes past you on the side of a bus or you see a poster of them on a random building.” And here’s the real Tai Tai twist… You’ve taken pictures of the pictures, especially with your “famous” model kid standing next to himself.

Of course, you can’t let fame go to your head. Tai Tai’s have a constant mental battle to distinguish between what’s real and what’s gone a bit into fantasy land. For instance it is real for an expat to stick out like a sore thumb. But it is just a bit weird that it no longer bothers me when people hand me their cameras and have me take pictures of them with my all-American cuties. Someone stop us if we start signing autographs. It’s also real that we have to improvise to make holidays happen – buying decorations during summer home leave, spending a mint on a frozen imported turkey – but who in the real world has a serious discussion about whether we can post the housekeepers at vacant houses so the kids can have more places to trick-or-treat? Tai Tai is definitely a frame of mind, girls!!

So for a twist this week, we’ll answer the question, "You know you might have been an expat wife too long when…"

You no longer think anything of going to shady run down studios to model for 1000NT ($30) per hour. Ana

You actually start to like having your underwear ironed by the amah (can't speak from experience on this one). - Liisa (It’s the perfectly folded “panty packets” sorted and stacked in rainbow order that sold me.)

You describe your child in a group by saying, "He's the blond." Kerri

You give your 3rd grader a cell phone because it makes life more convenient for you! - Janell

Your kids start singing the refrain to the latest "Bed world" commercial...in Taiwanese. - Liisa

You refer to flagging down a taxi as "hiring a car" and the cabbie as "my driver." – Cassia (Seriously, his name is Enrico and I think all cars should be yellow.)

Although you and your family are Chinese American, your 7 year old looks at you and says, "Mommy, you don't look like you would speak Chinese because you have freckles." - Cathy

You have your own "pearl lady" in the market because you’ve bought jewelry from her so many times. She knows your name and where you live. She tells your friends she saw you today! Karen

You walk to your kid’s school with your helper, and she insists on carrying your purse while shading you from the sun with her umbrella. (I had to tell her to stop really.) Ana

You suspect that the real reason your friend adopted a dog from the Buddhist monks was so her kids will have something to keep them busy while you're all catching up on Facebook. - Cassia

You actually prefer drinking warm water to ice water. Janell (And when the temp drops below 85, you start looking for your jacket.)

You think it's normal to have at least one authentic designer bag - doesn't everyone have a Louis Vitton or Gucci? - Christine (And you bought said bag a mere 50 yards from home because you live next to a high-end shopping mall and pass by it everyday.)

You are so completely mad because you can only get your usual cleaning lady for 2 days this week instead of the usual 3! Janell

You see every other Expat wife wearing the same outfit as you because the one store that caters to normal sizes just got a new shipment in. - Christine

You let your 7th grader take a taxi back home. - Milena

You have the phone number of the Knock Off watch/purse guy on you cell phone. All you do is call and in a few hours a whole load of illegal items is on your Dining room table. - Marsha

You find that storage space is at such a premium that you now store your Christmas tree in your second bathtub (yes Ana that one is for you) :) Christine

Even though you (still) don't speak Chinese and the person you are communicating with doesn't speak English - you both know exactly what the other is talking about. Janell

Aren't we a good looking bunch? A few of the expat faithful celebrating "Tai Tai'" Mary's birthday!

The Art of Tai Tai Living, Part I

2008-10-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

No, Tai Tai is not yoga or martial arts (though it does require flexibility, skill and raw survival instinct). It's basically the Chinese term for "Mrs." as in The Lady of the House, and for the (usually) unemployed expat wives, it's become a great way of explaining the weirdness of our life here. The strangely formal social interaction with our husbands' companies. The shortcuts that make life easier. The ways we've recreated home-country customs. The struggle against bone-wearing busyness. The sheepish looks when we admit our dependency on household help. The days of solo-parenting while husbands travel. The sheer pleasures of parties, charity balls, or just catching up over coffee. The realization that girl friends are a necessity to combatting isolation, self-absorption and homesickness.

Tai Tai's are resourceful. They are daring. They are manicured and pedicured.

And despite how much we tease each other for "living the good life" of travel, household help, and shopping jaunts, Tai Tai's give back to Taiwan. These are the ladies that open their homes to stray animals and their hearts to foster children. They coach the sports teams and lead the pack hikes. There's even a touch rugby team called "The Tai Tais" that formed to give the high school girls someone to practice against. But oh, how we do love to tease and joke about our expat life! In their lovely, funny, self-deprecating way, the Tai Tais filled in the answer to "You know you're an expat wife when..." just so I could give you a glimpse of the Art of Tai Tai Living.

Up this week, the battle for food! Who knew that you CAN'T get everything you need from one store no matter how big it is? Unless, that is, you're willing to cook stirfry A LOT, use toilet paper that should be called Sandy Wipe, and believe toothpaste from mainland China might actually be healthy.

Grocery Shopping and Food: You know you're an expat wife when...

You grocery shop at 3-4 different stores and still can't find all the ingredients to make your favorite meal. - Liisa
Grocery shopping takes a full day. You walk to Wellcome to get fish, eggs and dairy. Then you go home to unload your rolling cart and head back out to the bakery to buy your bread, the fresh market to buy fruits and veggies, that only last a week and finally return home. Oh and..... your children flip coins to see who gets stuck shopping with mom! Grocery shopping used to be so much fun! - Karen
Other shoppers at Costco constantly peep into your shopping cart. You threaten to run over the lady who has stopped in front of you and leaned over to get a better look at what you bought. - Gwen and Janell
You walk 20 mins from the grocery store with heavy bags, but when you get home, the guard insists on carrying them on the elevator and putting them in the kitchen for you. Where is he when I'm struggling down the road with them? - Elspeth
You ask your driver to take your Costco purchases home where your amah is there ready to put it away... meanwhile you head off shopping with your friend! - Mary (Mary has truly embraced the Tai Tai life, I'd say!)
You go to the wet market and see all those weird meat cuts hanging on hooks, and it actually starts to look good to you! - maybe that is when you have been in Taiwan too long... - Janell
Your week runs the following way....Monday PTA meeting, Tuesday hike the mountain and Costco, Wednesday Coffee morning, lunch at ACC after choir practice, Thursday Ladies Tennis League, Friday - date night, Saturday - TYPA, Sunday - church and dinner at Chili's. - Liisa
You have been here less than two years and have probably been to Chili's well over 100 times. Sometimes twice in the same week. - Ana
Sometimes you go to Chili's twice in the same DAY. You know of friends who bring Chili's take-out Margaritas into the movie theatre. (You know who you are.) - Cassia
You go back to America, walk into a convenience store and do not hear "NIN HUANYING" (Welcome) in a high pitched voice, and you begin to wonder if something is wrong with Americans. - Jennifer
You have cookie sheets that are too big for your oven, you have an ancient post-it with temperature conversions on the wall, and you debate with friends whether the oven setting with the chicken picture or the cake picture actually cooks the food more evenly. - Cassia
You order McDonald's 24-hour delivery at 5am for pancakes and hot coffee because you are jet lagged and starving and have nothing in your apartment. You convince a taxi to take you through the McDonald's drive-thru for Happy Meals. - Ana (One of my favorite Ana-isms is, "I don't need a driver. I have 10,000 drivers in yellow cars all over Taipei." That's the Tai Tai spirit!)

Coming up next: Tai Tais in the Fast Lane - more "You know you're and expat wife when..."

A-Scouting We Will Go

2008-09-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

We have a cub scout! Yes, Boy Scouts of America reaches all the way over to Taiwan via the Far East Council. Barret is loving it, and somehow I ended up a den leader so it's fun working on Tiger Cubs together. Things aren't quite as conventional as I imagine they would be in the US. Somehow I always thought of Scouts as more of a Dad-Son kind of thing, but with so many expat men traveling and working at odd times, it's the Mommas that seem to keep things running. And this Momma even has a badge of her own that says "Trained." I've so wanted something like that since I became a mom! Now it's official. Since I have no uniform other than a bright yellow Pack 91 t-shirt, I usually just stick it to my forehead to remind my family that I now have credentials=) Here are a few pictures of Barret and his fellow Tiger Cubs at our first big Pack meeting. We took a hike at a camp area on Yangming Mountain. I know you are thinking rustic trail through the woods and it was sort of that but with the typical Taiwan Stairmaster event of climbing huge rock steps hewn into the hillside. We also had the typical crossing of a street adventure in this country where drivers never seem to imagine that a crosswalk might have people actually crossing it. Basically, if you're on foot, you better haul it. After the short hike we returned for hotdog roasting. Here I had to laugh since 50% of the time involved trying to start a fire from damp wood, and like the minature men that they are, the cub scouts all stood around and gave advice to the leaders and older scouts who were trying to get the durn thing lighted. Cuz that's what men do.

Diving Update - Open Water Certified!

2008-09-18T21:53:00.001-07:00

While the kids' school year started with a bang as usual, my own "Scuba School" finally wrapped up two weekends ago as I finished my open water training dives. I was so thankful to have had a gorgeous weekend to do 4 dives on the north coast of Taiwan, especially since last weekend seemed to be Worldwide Hurricane Day, with stormy monsters menacing both our homes. (Still waiting to get more information on our Houston home, but from what neighbors could see, damage seemed to be trees and fence.)

The dive sites were about an hour drive from our part of Taipei so we were suited up and in the water by about 10am both days. In an "only in Taiwan" moment, we had to swap locations for the dives because when we pulled up to one of the dive sites, a religious festival was in full swing complete with clanging cymbals, firecrackers and people dressed up like dieties. Would have been a little tough to push through the throng in a wetsuit and scuba tank. Once we got to the other dive site, though, things went smoothly. The two biggest challenges honestly were walking across the parking lot and out onto the rocky outcroppings with my 70lbs of gear--I am not the buffest of gals, as you know, so "heavy" is an understatement--and then getting from the rocks into the water. For our first dive at Pitou harbor, I was supposed to do a classic roll back into the water from a squatting postion. Unfortunately, I hit a slick patch on the rocks when I got to the edge, busted my tail and just scooted in from where I was so gracefully seated. I did manage the roll back on my second dive, though.

My memories of the first day of diving are a little hazy. It was all about kicking properly and mastering bouyancy control, learning to descend and ascend at a gentle steady rate, and practicing some of the basic skills like recovering my regulator if it got knocked out of my mouth. Day two saw us able to dive at Longdong Bay--the festival was over. The drama for me was a giant stride (i.e. free fall) into the water from a small cliff. I know it was only about a 6 foot drop but I kept thinking, What if I smack my the back of my head on my tank valve or something? It took me a few minutes to psych myself up and actually, it was kind of fun plunging into the water like that. The highlight of that day had to be finding the octopus on the coral reef. By end of the second dive I was pretty wiped out. To exit the water I had to pull myself up onto the jagged, volcanic rocks--I was so thankful for no waves that day. I heaved myself up and lay there for a few moments, then removed my mask and wiped my face, not realizing that I had silty mud all over my glove. I also learned from my instructor that I had a nice trail of blood and snot coming out of my nose. Ummm, pretty.

Here are a few pictures from the dives. I was ecstatic to meet this personal goal, and we're already planning dive trips for the remainder of our time in Asia. Thanks to everyone who encouraged me!

Top Ten Best Things about an Expat Summer in Ye Olde Country

2008-08-20T21:52:00.000-07:00

It wouldn't be the expat life if we didn't do the annual home leave trip to the US for the summer. Once again, we who have no house to go home to joined the ranks of the expat faithful who sleep in hotel rooms, spare bedrooms, and living rooms with pull-out sofas for 4 to 8 weeks of the summer. Our lives were part summer camp, part nomadic herdsman (the herds comprised of small children and huge piles of luggage), and though it's nice to be in Taiwan again with suitcases stored and our heads on our own pillows, the summer in our home country was truly wonderful. So before I start blogging about another year in Taiwan, here are my top 10 favorite things about the expat summer:

10. Stocking up on Benedryl, Sudafed, Aleve, Advil, and Robitussin CF. Seems mundane but I get really excited about buying my annual rations of OTCs because it means I get to go to Target, order a Starbucks, and wander down all the other aisles between me and the Health and Beauty section.

9. Stocking up on cosmetics, which I forgot to do while stocking up on OTCs. Means another Target trip. Darn.

8. The Summer Eat-a-Thon (which will now be followed by the September Hit-the-Gym-a-Thon). We are Southerners, plain and simple, and so when we get together with family, we eat the best food known to man. Not only homecooked (thank you, Moms, Dads and Nana) but restuarants that are as good as homecooked. I feel a special salute is due to Mrs. Johnnie at the Kountry Kitchen in Eclectic, AL, who outdid herself not only at the Sunday Fried Chicken buffet but personally catered for us a potroast to end all potroasts. Honorable mentions must go to Jim-n-Nick's of Birmingham for BBQ and chocolate pie, Johnny G's (or just "The Pig" as we call it) of Tallassee for general southern buffet and peach cobbler with icecream, Veggies-to-Go of Auburn for southern veggies and cornbread, Milo's of Birmingham for tea that's sweet enough to induce a diabetic coma in an normally healthy person. I have to stop writing now. I'm drooling.

7. Finding ways to save money and pay off all the trips we took this year. Some might call it mooching off kind-hearted relatives. I call it good fiscal policy. In truth, we did find some other ways to save besides just living off the family. For instance, at both of our hotel stays this summer, I raided the breakfast area for everything from Otis Spunkmeyer muffins to a tiny 1-inch bottle of Tabasco sauce. I think I remembered to put the Tobasco in my quart-size "liquids-only" bag for the airplane...hmmm, where is it? I also drove around Houston with all my wet laundry spread around the rental car to dry in the free sunshine.

6. Having friends ask, "Wow, did you buy that sundress in Thailand or Bali?" Why no, no I didn't. It's from the Wal-mart Juniors Department. $12.

5. Being as RED as I want to be. And by red I mean redneck girl in the heart of Dixie. Lake Martin where we are blessed to spend a good deal of our summer vacations is far, far away from the preppy university campus in my hometown of Auburn or the shopping/dining venues of Birmingham where McLeod was raised. Lake Martin, and more specifically Kowalgia Bay, is the real deal Alabama, and I love relaxing in my worn-out lake bathing suit with my hair in a ponytail. True, it is hard to look very redneck when you pull up to a rural gas station in a champagne-colored Mazda minivan and step out in some mighty pricey Keen's surf/shore sandals. But if you wear your thread-bare, too-tight lake shorts that make your belly bulge beneath your tank top with the sparkly American flag across the chest, you can still pull it off. By the way, gas at that Eagle gas station was around 3.89 and falling so I would drive on fumes rather than fill up anywhere else.

4. Back to school shopping with my mom-in-law. We had the best shopping trips ever because Caroline now picks out her own outfits and Barret will wear anything with camoflage on it, which seems to be everywhere. Also, my mom-in-law has a motorized wheel chair which means free rides for the kids when they start getting bored. And when we're all going down the aisle at Wal-mart, me in front with my giant list, kids running serpentine-style after me, and Marie rolling along behind to keep the kids from doing any real damage, we are our own parade. We stop traffic. We love it! Thank you, Mom Marie, for joining us on some funny, memorable moments!

3. Impromtu children's church. Being the mobile family that we were didn't really lend itself to organized religion. So we had disorganized religion instead! The kids picked the songs from the VeggieTales Bob and Larry Worship CD, I read passages from the book of Acts (great for any traveling families), and we pulled together some pretty great applications. Both sets of parents got to join in on this new summer custom and add their own hearts and voices to our little services. By far the best props used to illustrate a lesson were the leftover sparklers and fireworks from the 4th of July. "This Little Light of Mine" was truly blazing!!

2. A special date night with McLeod. McLeod spent most of the summer doing his everyday job, hosting conference calls at weird hours, traveling away from us to log time at the US office, and trying to keep the emails at bay. The last week of the summer was pure vacation, though, and one night the parents kept the kids while we took the boat out to our own deserted island for a long, lovely evening. Honey, I'd follow you to Taiwan all over again. Hmmm, seems I've done that.

1. Being reminded that we have family and friends that love us and will pick up right where we left off whenever we get back to our home country. This was an especially meaningful summer because we got to see our grandmothers. The kids picked blueberries in my Nana's garden and played with toys at McLeod's Nanny's house. Life is sweet!

To our dear parents who hosted us for weeks at a time and our dear friends and siblings who made special arrangements to see us this summer, a heartfelt thanks. We have a collection of good memories to carry us through the year.

Motivation

2008-05-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

No, that's not me diving the Blue Hole...yet. I recently got several CDs worth of pictures from our friend John Heinemann which included spectacular shots from the Guam dives. These pictures and the stories that went with them were my original motivation to get my own scuba certification. Since April, I have been working diligently toward that end. I am priviledged to be training with one of, if not the highest ranked PADI instructor in Taiwan, and let me just say, he's been putting me through my paces in the dive pool lately.

I told my mother I was facing several childhoold memories and fears at once. My old dislike of that stomach-turning-as-I-fall feeling surfaces when I must roll backward or giant stride forward into the water wearing 70 pounds of gear. My only recourse is to almost always go first before my dive buddy so I can get it over with. Also, I continue to need several minutes to adjust to the sensation of water pressing on me on all sides while I try to breath normally and not hold my breath. As a child I had a water phobia that would send me into thrashing, flailing, screaming fits of panic if anyone tried to draw me out into water above chest level. Feeling the water press against my chest would trigger a sensation of suffocation that was absoloutely terrifying. I was eight before I was able to work past this fear and join my younger brother in the deep end of the YMCA pool. It was a pivotal moment of letting go and trusting, and I find myself remembering those moments a lot.

Now, though, the main issue is not so much fear under the water as much as feeling awkward, clumsy and inept. More than anything, I hate looking foolish and can say that this dread of embarrassment, of holding up the rest of the group with my fumbling, has often kept me from persevering at learning new things. This is compounded by my old nemesis: I am, for lack of a better term, "spatially challenged." I am never 100% sure which direction is left or right and often have to look for a birthmark on my right hand to double check. Also, I will look at a mechanical object and have no idea how to make that object attach, open, or operate. I am sometimes unable to translate an instructor's directions into the motions to perform that task.

What I am saying is that while my dive buddy is diligently adjusting her buoyancy under the water, I am flailing around and floating away. When the instructor is telling me to kneel on the bottom and watch him demonstrate something, I am slowly, unstoppably falling onto my face because he's also just told me to stop flailing around and floating away. Thursday, we worked forever on getting me to hover in the mid-water, and when we surfaced, my teacher began to point out what I was doing wrong...again.... So, I did what any frustrated, emotionally-in-touch woman would do. I started to cry. Just a little. No sobbing, just a few tears and an inability to get anything out of my mouth except, "I need a moment." My poor teacher had the look all men have when a woman starts to cry. Sheer panic. He kept trying to make sure I was ok which only made me want to cry more. I just had to go take a hot shower and get a grip.

I did, of course, get a grip, and feeling a bit sheepish, resolved not to let my frustration keep me from my goal. Thursday night I got out the underwater pictures again, the pictures that had convinced me I was no longer content to paddle at the surface. They were all the motivation I needed. This lionfish is one of my favorites. Extremely dangerous but absolutely gorgeous. And underwater photography gives a second chance to be surprised since John's camera is able to restore the colors that become washed out beneath the water. What look like grays and browns are really vibrant reds and blacks, for instance. And the colors get even more shocking, with orange and neon green hues showing up on the tiny, slug-like nudibranches.

Hope you enjoy diving into these great shots as much as we have! First up are a nudibranch and a pygmy seahorse. Sometimes the tiniest creatures are the most amazing. John is able to find the details that others miss, like the seahorse camouflaged in the coral. He also photographed a clownfish hovering over its eggs. The close up shows the baby fish developing. Click to enlarge and see if you can spot what we think are their eyes. Finally, McLeod grabs a rest stop on a massive anchor and a sea turtle cruises out to open sea.

Diving Update

2008-04-15T18:37:00.000-07:00

In the Guam post, I alluded to the fact that there would be a new diver joining the ranks of the Taipei expat scuba faithful. I am now well underway with my certification, and I recently made a trial "discovery" dive off the coast of Bali, Indonesia. As first dives go, I have to say, IT ROCKED!! On the van ride up to the dive site, the folks with me asked if I was nervous. I told them I was actually more anxious about leaving my kids back at the hotel kids' club, so I think that took my mind off the descending-30-feet-breathing-air-from-a-tank thing. Upon arrival, I got 20 minutes or so of basic instruction from the Balinese guide. Unfortunately, I could not understand a word he was saying. If you have ever watched Finding Nemo, you'll remember the scene where the young sea turtle is giving last minute instructions for exiting the East Australian Current. In a panicky voice Marlin says, "Wait, I know you are trying to tell me something but I can't understand you..." before plunging into the unknown. Yep, kind of the same feeling. In truth, I could tell from his hand motions what he was talking about regarding equalizing ears and mask, not holding my breath, etc., and I did ask him, "You are going to stay with me the whole time, right?" And with that reassurance we began our descent.

Well, sort of. The instructor and fellow-novice diver Lance began deflating their BCD's and descending. My buoyant self continued to float at the surface without sinking. Then to float with my rear end at the surface like a neoprene buoy while my head descended. Then to flip unceremoniously onto my back with my fins in the air. The instructor worked with me on buoyancy control but finally just grabbed my hand and pulled me slowly down under the water with frequent reminders to clear my ears. At one point he reached down to the gently sloping bottom and began picking up rocks to shove in my BCD to add more weight. I cracked up, then wondered if laughing under water would harm me in some way and stifled my giggles.

At last I stopped thinking about the mechanics of the descent and began to explore the reef, soft fan corals waving gently, crabs and urchins clinging to the hard coral, fish everywhere. At about 10 meters, we kneeled on the sandy bottom and simply watched the life around us. I was in the middle of a school of gray and white fish who seemed suspended like I was, simply watching the reef. I looked up through them as one might look up through falling rain drops, and I felt the strange sensation of being in a child's snow globe at a moment just after someone has shaken it but before the glitter falls down. Spectacular.

After about 30 minutes we began the gentle ascent. I had experienced a few moments of over-awareness of my surroundings--in other words, too much realization of where I was and where my air was coming from--but was pleased that I had been able to slow my breathing, relax and force myself to focus on the marine life. It seemed to take forever to reach the surface and my calf was cramping a bit from kicking the wrong way. Just as I was about to point this out to the guide, I noticed a familiar face looking smiling at me around his snorkel. I realized it was McLeod and that I was at the surface without even knowing it. I found myself laughing into my regulator again. This time I didn't stifle it or the whoop of triumph that came out when I popped above the surface.

Now back in Taipei, I am fortunate to have my buddy Cathy taking certification classes with me from a great PADI instructor located only a short walk from where I live. My hope is to complete everything including my open water dives on the north coast before I leave Taiwan for the summer. Not sure how much diving I'll be doing in central Alabama but I hear there's an old cargo plane sunken on the bottom of Lake Martin...

With the instructor and fellow-diver Lance from Boston.

Orangutans, Giant Lizards and the Royal Treatment in Kota Kinabalu

2008-04-10T00:36:00.000-07:00

If Guam was McLeod's scuba playground, then Kota Kinabalu in Maylasia was my day spa, with just enough adventure to keep me from being permanently cemented to my lounge chair. Referred to simply as KK by the expat community, this beach town on the island of Borneo was the perfect escape from Taipei's incessant winter rains. We settled in at the Shangri-La Rasa Ria Resort for the week of Chinese New Year and found it to be a good choice for families with young children. We were enchanted by the orangutans living in the protected rainforest area next to the resort. The resort works with other conservation efforts on the island to care for orphaned or injured orangutans and then reintroduce them into the wild. The kids and I have put together a Voicethread for you on our time at this beautiful, jungle-covered island. Flip through the pictures using the arrows or play as a slideshow to hear the commentary.

McLeod's Theme Song

2008-03-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

This is McLeod rocking it after he finished his half marathon. He set a new personal best time at 1:56:54 so he was very excited.

If the video below doesn't work use this link.

http://www.fordvehicles.com/cars/2008focus/index.asp?section=ThemeSong&mid=26512099

Happy Easter!

2008-03-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

Up early and remembering my high school days of shivering at the 6am sunrise service. The cadence of a youth choir piece is drumming in my brain:
HE is alive.
He is ALIVE.
He IS alive.
HE is alive.
He is ALIVE.
He IS alive.
I turned 33 last week so this is probably my 29th Easter to know that truth with my innermost being. To know that because the ultimate hero willingly laid down His sinless life to rescue me from sin, He defeated not only the curse of sin but death itself. Yes, He IS alive!

So how will we celebrate today? McLeod is running a 1/2 marathon, starting in about 60 seconds, through drizzle and 20 mph winds! GO BABY GO! He told me and the kids he'd be having some special time on the road with Jesus this morning--he just hoped it wasn't going to be like the road to Damascus where Paul was knocked on his proverbial behind and blinded for 3 days by the light of the risen Lord! The kids are starting to stir in their beds and will no doubt be pouncing on Easter baskets soon. I found a note from sweet Barret last night that read, "Dear Easter Bunny. I love all the Chreets (treats)!" Then, we're off to church with our visiting friends, the Georgsons, with maybe some Chili's take out and a little egg-dying to follow. To be here in a country that allows us to celebrate the resurrection is a good thing, and I can't help but think of the home groups in other countries that will be quietly celebrating under the radar, so to speak. Can you imagine, though, how those precious voices must sound to the angels? A multitude of hearts ringing out, "HE is alive! He is ALIVE! He IS Alive!" in some shape or form? And listen: the angels are singing back!!

Happy Easter from all the Texpats!

Guam-erica the Beautiful

2008-02-26T04:57:00.000-08:00

Oh, to see the day dawn on your own country, even if it's a tiny spot in the Pacific Ocean! Just a 3 hour flight from Taipei, Guam gave us a great taste of Americana (24-hour Kmart, Macy's, Lone Star Steakhouse, Wendy's Old Fashioned Burgers) and for the divers in our group, some fantastic underwater scenery. In fact, the divers saw so much underwater scenery on so many of our vacation days, that at least one of the non-divers decided she felt left out and has since started her own certification. I'll let you figure out who she is in future entries, assuming I...er, she goes ahead with the plan discussed with her scuba instructor. Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. I'm still hoping to get some of John Heinemann's underwater shots posted but until then, here are some pictures of our other Guam pursuits.

A Birthday with Backup Dancers

Barret turned 6 while we were in Guam, so for his birthday dinner our family invited three other families to join us at Hard Rock Cafe. Since coming to Asia, we've always had one or more other families traveling the samevacation itinerary, so it makes for an instant party where ever we go. The birthday dinner was no exception. Kids and grown-ups alike jumped up on stage to dance and sing to "YMCA," and we even convinced McLeod to do his famous breakdance move, The Worm. When it was time for the cake and candles, Barret was the center of attention with the fair Alexandra, Sydney, Grace and Caroline as go-go dancers to the Beatles "Birthday." ("You say it's your birthday. It's my birthday, too.")

All I can say is, someday Barret's gonna look back at pictures and think, "I used to be so cool!" Honey, you'll always be cool to us!

Here I have to rag on our buddy Tom--he was the most enthusiastic dancer of anyone out there. See how hesitant everyone else is with which letter of YMCA they are on? Not Tom. Nope, he's larger than life with that, ummmm, J?

Breathtaking

Guam has some of the most gorgeous volcanic cliffs and blue lagoons I've seen. We were able to snorkle with ease in the sheltered waters next to our hotel. Caroline was content to float along in a small plastic sea kayak tied to McLeod's wrist so that he and I could snorkle with Barret and show him the coral reef and tropical fish. Mc and his diving buddies also did several days of boat dives including Guam's famous Blue Hole, a limestone vertical shaft that descends over 300 feet. I rode along on the boat that day and got a chance to snap photo's of the beautiful (above water) scenery, watch several pods of spinner dolphins playing around the boat, and talk with the boat captain and dive master. These guys cracked me up. They will never, ever go anywhere else but Guam--and why should they? I especially enjoyed talking to the captain who, when he's not hauling tourists around, spends time free diving to spear-fish monster grouper and playing drums for both an alternative rock band and "a badly out-of tune" country-western band (his words). McLeod's dive highlight for the week would have to be swimming with sea turtles. Trumps my dolphin encounter from last summer=)

The divers were McLeod, Kevin, Kathleen, John and Tom. And doesn't McLeod look cute in his wetsuit!!

Typhoon damage is frequent in Guam and evidently hard to clean up. We saw several boats like this one.

Santa and Seafood

A few more pictures to share from our tropical Christmas. The kids were delighted to pose with Santa--who had to have been sweating in the near-90 degree weather! Though the setting was very different than any past Christmas, we still managed to incorporate some traditions. We had a great stocking surprise--the kids each hung one of their sandy little socks on the TV cabinet and woke to find them mysteriously replaced with the real things. The kids also acted out the Christmas story in the hotel room while I read the account from the book of Luke. Abby the baby doll got to be the Baby Jesus, Caroline was Mary, and Barret was everyone else. We even had a Wise Man showed up bearing a gift...for his wife. A lovely diamond bracelet with 17 stones, which he explained was one center stone for our love, 12 stones for each year we've been married, and 4 stones for each of us in the family. Cue the "Awwwww, isn't that sweet...." I really was blown away. For Christmas luncheon and dinner, we enjoyed some great seafood buffets and being the pyromaniacs that we are, we got a thrill out of the Polynesian fire show. Barret was so captivated by the ladies in the grass skirts and coconut bras that he followed them off stage, clicking away with his camera. McLeod had to go reel him back in!

Expat Gals in Hong Kong

2008-01-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

One of my highlights of 2007 was a three-day shopping trip to Hong Kong with five other ladies: Kris, Dawn, Karen, Ana and Kim. All of us are moms, and all of us needed a trip during which we were not enforcing curfews or bedtimes, not cutting up anyone else's food, and not visiting sites marked "family friendly" in the guidebook. We were ready for the essentials of a good Girls' Weekend--Shopping, Dining, Pampering, and More Shopping--and we wanted to go somewhere that most of had visited before (albeit while wearing our "Mommy" badges) but had never really gotten to explore from an urban expat gal's point of view. Hong Kong was the perfect fit.

Departure time
Once we'd picked a date and bribed the husbands into spending three days with the kids, brave soul Ana worked with a local Taiwanese travel agent so that we could get a decent deal on hotel and flight. There were quite a few rounds of Itinerary Hokey-Pokey while we shopped rates and times (bless you, Ana!). In the end we nailed down the Sheraton and a reasonable rate with EVA Airways since we were all Taiwan residents. We were actually designated as a Taiwanese tour group with special check-in service at the airport. We got a few stares and some sympathetic help at the ticket counter since a) only one of our group could even pass as Taiwanese, b) we didn't have a tour guide to help us figure out where to go in the airport, and c) heaven help us, we didn't bring a multi-colored flag to hoist and follow, marking us as a guided tour. We did end up buying funny matching t-shirts, but nope, no flag. Of course we didn't actually need a flag since two of the gals, Kris and Kim, are 5'10" blondes. We just followed them through the sea of small, dark-haired folk. Kim was recovering from a series of hair coloring mishaps--a common occurrence for blondes living in Asia--and boasted a particularly brilliant sunshine-y hue that made our group the toast of Taoyuan International Airport.

A side note to any gals looking at life overseas: if you are or plan to be any hair color other than black, brown, auburn, or purple, you should NOT ONLY bring your own color with you from home, but you should have your hometown hairdresser check it and swear on her life that is actually the right shade. In the weeks leading up to our trip, Kim nobley survived being a brunette, a red-head (twice), and a truly shocking, crispy-fried-bleached-white-blonde along the road to her current golden locks (which I must say, suit her quite nicely).

For me, no girls’ weekend can properly begin without a visit to Starbucks, so once we'd checked our bags, we headed to that heavenly latte spot on the upper level of the terminal. For my travelling buddies, though, no girls’ weekend can properly begin without some kind of shopping. So before we even got to Hong Kong, there was shopping at the Taipei airport gift store followed by duty-free shopping on the airplane. During the ninety-minute flight, we also passed around Born to Shop: Hong Kong, a must-have expat gal’s guide by Suzy Gershman that’s organized both by city area and by item (jewelry, electronics, shoes, etc.). Yes, we were about to take the city by storm and couldn’t wait to touch down and begin our adventure.

The Purse Mavens of Monkok
Though we had a great time visiting various stores, malls and markets during our trip, it was our first several hours in Hong Kong that were the shopping pinnacle of our weekend. As soon as we could get from the airport to our hotel, we dropped our bags as quickly as possible and then ran, not walked, to the cab stand to get taxis to Monkok Ladies Market, or as I now call it, Ana’s Land of Copy Bags. This three block stretch of alleyway was crammed with stalls featuring cheap watches, trinkets, toys, belts, watches, t-shirts, and most of all, knock-off versions of luxury brand purses (though few of these are openly displayed).

“Hey missy, copy bag,” chanted the hawkers, eager to shuffle us to the back of the stall and shove catalogues in our hands to see what might tempt us. Were we Gucci girls? Coach fans? If we took the bait, there were cell phone conversations and the arrival of a black trash bag with the selected items. Seemed simple enough, but as I was to discover, this was only round one of purse acquisition. A few ladies bought bags at a few stalls, and we continued to wander down the road, stopping to look at belts, watches (“Hey missy, copy watch.”), cashmere wraps, and Chinese silk outfits.

About an hour into our exploring, I noticed that my friend Ana had a strange gleam in her eye. She had been slow to buy purses at the main stalls, sure she could do better on quality and price. “I’m a girl looking for a deal,” she said, shaking her dark pony-tail, and so far, she hadn’t found it. Later, I was to learn from her husband that her powers of haggling are legendary: here was a woman who, with pit-bull tenacity, could convince sellers to lower their lowest price and then to accept other kinds of currency when she ran short. So she was still seeking the holy grail of copy purse inventory, the stash of A++ quality copies being sold by someone ready to negotiate.

Half-way down the market street, we opted to break into pairs with some time/place instructions for meeting up later—instructions that went completely out the window when Ana began to get her good deals. I began to get a little concerned around 6pm when Ana and Karen seemed to have disappeared from Monkok Market. Fortunately, Ana and I had the only working phones in the bunch and after several tries to reach her, I finally got Ana to respond in a hushed voice, “I’m in the middle of a transaction…I will come out in a moment.” Come out? Where was she? And WHAT was she buying??? I was now about to be initiated into Level Two of purse buying – the back room. Just as Ana and Karen suddenly appeared *poof* like magic back with the group, each carrying new bags purchased from someone named May, our group was approached by one of the sellers who said, “Hey missies, BETTER copy bags, not far.”

No siren’s song could have been stronger. Ana, fresh from her own back room buying experience, and Kris, who had a mental Christmas gift list at least two feet long, immediately set off to follow with the rest of us in tow. Through a door, up stairs, along a hall, (with nervous me memorizing landmarks like “mop bucket and mop on the left,” “Halloween poster on a door to the right,” “flickering fluorescent bulb”, and checking my cell service constantly), we wound our way to what looked like a run-down apartment. Inside, it actually was a run-down apartment but with no furniture other than a long table and shelves upon shelves of bags and wallets. And on a three-legged wooden stool, sat a gaunt, weathered man going by the name “King.”

Shoving a cigarette behind one ear and pulling a calculator from his back pocket, King began to answer the barrage of questions from our group as we pulled bag after bag from the shelves to check zipper and buckle quality, sniff for that “leather scent” and examine the labels for misspelled brand names. Bags under consideration were piled onto the central table while those of us who were new to the game asked about price and whether he had the same bag in other colors. But the seasoned buyers, notably Ana, were asking, “But what is your BEST price?” “Were these bags made in China or Korea?” “Where are the A++ bags?” No matter what price King quoted, the purse mavens would counter with other offers or raise a doubting eyebrow about the quality.

At one point, Karen—Ana’s original back room shopping buddy—pointed to Ana and said, “This woman has five kids to feed. She needs a better price.” This line seemed to work so well, it became a standard bargaining tool over the weekend. So much so that Ana herself later had to stop and think about how many kids she actually did have. (She has three.) At another point in the haggling, King brandished his lighter and held a purse to the flame to prove that it was indeed leather, not synthetic. (For the rest of the trip, Ana wanted to light purses on fire to check the quality. We wouldn’t let her near matches, candles or lighters after that.) By the end of the bargaining, the pile of purses on the table had grown quite large since the gals had decided to buy in bulk for the best price leverage. A bewildered, middle-aged Brit, hoping to find something for his wife, stumbled into the room, took one look at the raucous, purse-crazed females circling their prey, cursed and said, “Where AM I?”

There would be other back room forays that evening, but nothing would match the adrenaline-laced, primal purse hunting of our visit with King. Ana and Karen attempted to find their original purse connection, May, so the rest of us could see her stock. Walking through the crowds, forlornly yelling, “May? May?” they actually conjured up one enterprising young seller who said, “I know May! I take you!” The woman running THAT back room was not May and kept shaking her head “No” even while the hawker continued to insist that she was the May they were looking for. While the group applauded itself on being able to tell Fake May from the real May, they were not so successful at remembering landmark details. Remember my mental notes on the way to King’s? Two more times the girls let themselves be led by different guides past the same mop bucket and mop, Halloween poster and flickering fluorescent bulb, only to be surprised to find they were back at King’s place. No surprise that King wouldn’t let us back in!

We finished the evening at Monkok Ladies Market carb-loading at California Pizza Kitchen and planning for the next two days. Not much of an extreme shopper, I was ready for some pampering at the spa (I had a fantastic facial), some fine dining at Felix in the renown Peninsula Hotel, several more lattes, and some tame department-store browsing. But I will never see or hear a price anywhere again without wanting to ask, “But what’s your BEST deal?” And I will never see another luxury purse without wondering whether it came from King’s copy stash or not.

Thanks to my dear friends for an incredible trip, and I hope those purses are still holding up!!

12 Days Video

2007-12-24T22:12:00.000-08:00

Two friends each sent me the link to this men's a cappella group from Indiana University --thanks to Kris and Joanne for some wonderful holiday cheer! Merry Christmas everybody!

Things to do while your spouse is traveling

2007-12-14T06:31:00.000-08:00

As of December 14, we're on day 16 of McLeod being out of town, and I have to say, we are ready for him to come home to us! Not that we've had a bad time. It's just time to move out of my "hold down the fort" routine and into the more balanced family life we love. I am beyond blessed to have a network of fellow moms who know the ins and outs of life as an expat gal. They understand those crazy weeks when hubby travels to the far flung reaches of the galaxy or has to work extremely weird, late hours because the US is just waking up while everyone in Taipei is calling it a day. When the grump-inducing exhaustion kicks in, there is nothing like having a friend that will kick you in the pants if needed, remind you of how good life really is, and then meet you at Chili's for some comfort food with your squirrely, sleep-deprived, daddy-missing kids. I did, in fact, have just such a meal with friends last night, a meal during which my daughter spent most of the time either climbing on me, hanging upside down over the bench, or crawling under the table. Barret, meanwhile, hand-cuffed himself to his friend Aiden and devoured half a grill cheese and half a hamburger.

Of course, I haven't spent all my time eating at Chili's and being consoled by friends. I have also taken the kids to McDonalds for "Liang ge Happy Meal" - that's how I order two Happy Meals using Chinglish and gesturing toward pictures of french fries, burgers and yogurt drinks. We also made the trek to Jake's Country Kitchen, which is styled after a U.S. truck stop/hole-in-the-wall. Here the wait staff serves up pancakes, bacon, eggs and burritos but secretly eats rice noodles and dumplings behind the counter. And there have been multiple visits to the American Club for mac and cheese or grill cheese sandwiches, bowls of applesauce, and ice cream for dessert. When we aren't eating out, we consume peanut butter sandwiches, hot dogs or pizza with random side dishes of broccoli and carrot sticks. Since the dining table has been covered by craft projects, Christmas goodies, soccer paraphenalia and library books for the last three weeks, we have eaten most of the "home meals" at the coffee table in front of various Disney movies. Yes, nutrition and wholesome family conversation have taken a back seat to surviving the spiraling-out-of-control hours between 5pm and bedtime.

One would think that just getting kids out the door in the morning, getting them home again, feeding, bathing and putting to bed would be enough of a job while on my own. Yet, somehow, though I always vow to keep life simple while McLeod is out of town, I have once again managed to do a lot of stuff anyway. So if you are looking for ideas to keep busy while your spouse is traveling for weeks at a time, feel free to use a few from my list:

Take your child to his first modeling shoot - 3 hours of outfit changes, hair and face touch-ups, posing, and bribing with candy. American and European kids get tagged for all sorts of ads here from clothes to cars. More on that in another entry.
Rehearse and sing at two Christmas events, during one of which a teary-eyed daughter should come on-stage and stand there holding your hand and sniffling because she needs her smelly pullup changed in the middle of Silent Night and you can't exactly help her right then. I had to laugh (later) at this reminder of the first Christmas. You know, the one where another child shows up at an inopportune moment (think, "there was no room for them in the inn")?
Run a Coloring Contest and Letter to Santa booth at the elementary school Winter Wonderland. Now, this was truly eye-opening for me. There were a lot of standard "Dear-Santa-I'd-like-a-bike-please" letters but there were also quite a few "Please-give-me-good-grades-so-I-can-get-into-Harvard" letters in there, too. Did I mention these were K-5th grade kids?
Plan a class party. Thank the Lord that this was quite easy since Barret's teacher, Mrs. Winter, is like the fairy godmother of fun, easy crafts and party ideas, and she is blessed with a great teacher's assistant who does a lot of the prep work ahead of our get-togethers. We had tons of parents pitch in, so I basically mananged the train of confirmation emails and showed up with the teachers' gifts. We had a fun time of activities, cookies, ice-cream ("snow") and a great music performance by the kids. Since I was busy with Barret's party, I opted NOT to volunteer to do anything for Caroline's Christmas party other than show up with a bowl of popcorn and my camera. She was a doll singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"!
Find extra time for standard Christmas shopping/holiday gatherings/card and stocking-stuffer exchanges/stuffing your face with your kids' candy late at night after they go to bed. One of Caroline's gift bags from school had really high-end dark chocolate in it. Wasted on a three-year old, I say. Much more appreciated by three-year-old's mother, which was no doubt the giver's intent!! I definitely believe chocolate should be a staple of any mom's survival kit.

McLeod gets home on Dec. 15, and then it won't be long before we are having a little beach bum time in sunny Guam. (Yikes, gotta pack for that!) I think I'm good for one more round of Easy Mac and carrot sticks until then...

Southbound to Kenting

2007-12-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

We've been experimenting with Voicethread.com so thought you'd like to see and hear a slideshow about our recent trip to Kenting, Taiwan. We had a blast at the very family-friendly Howard hotel, swam a lot, ate lunches concoted from things at the 7-11, played arcade games and generally relaxed. We managed to snap a few pictures, so click on my smiling face beside the image to start the commentary and the arrows to browse through the pictures. The kids add their own thoughts later in the show (you'll see their icons appear)--Enjoy!

During the voicethread, I mentioned our cramped return journey to the train station, but I had to quote from my friend Kim's account to her extended family:

It was a great vacation. Well, until we all decided to pile 8 of us in a Ford Escape for our 2 hour trip to the train station. Yes, our friends who had rented this very compact SUV somehow convinced us that it would save on having to hire a driver to take us back to the train station 2 hours away. I have a 6-letter word for that, STUPID. But we all climbed in, 2 men in front, and of course, since the ladies have smaller derrieres, we got to sit in the back with a kid in each lap and 2 in between. (Remember there are no seatbelt laws in Taiwan and in most cases you can't even find the seatbelts in the cars). I will never get in a back seat again unless I have checked for air vents. Cassia and I both gave it each other the “what the heck have we done” look after about 30 minutes of driving. I was already nauseous from the magnification of heat through the sunny window , 98.6 body that had fallen asleep on top of me, and lack of air circulation, when Barret announced he might get sick. We quickly had to shuffle kids around so that should he need to hurl he was closet to the window. Air quickly got turned up from the front. You can only imagine after trying to entertain kids in a sardine can for an hour and a half how well-mannered and calm they are. While we still had the “I’m a little bit nauseous” feeling going on from 2 of us, Nick woke up and decided he should be able to get up and play in the ½ inch space I had between my knees and the drivers seat. Then, Caroline started crying that she was hungry and (I noted) she was drenched with sweat, when Jacob announced quite loudly with his hands over his ears, “These people are annoying me. When can we get in a nice quiet cab??” It continued to escalate at that point only to hear from the front, “Did we miss a sign?” Shoot me now was all I could think. I am, however, happy to say it was a very minor error, and as we pulled up to the train station my hand was on the door handle awaiting the great “escape” from the nightmarish journey into the fresh, polluted, but cool air of Taiwan. What a relief, and we are all still friends.

Poor Kim! She was so traumatized that she forgot to mention that McLeod faced his own bit of trauma while driving. He ran over a pigeon in the road. But never fear. After the thump-bump under the wheels, he looked back in horror to see the bird pop up like a weeble-wobble or one of those blow-up clown boxing dummies we all had as kids. Yes, it was a fake: a rubber pigeon placed in the road by an enterprising veggie-stand man as a ploy to slow motorists. Then, he could wow them with his bins and bins of onions. With the carsick moans, kiddie bickering, complaints about the air vents and general unpleasantness in the backseat, I can see why McLeod didn't brake for the pigeon, much less the onion stand. Just get these miserable people out of this car and on the train!

Caroline turns 3

2007-11-28T19:51:00.000-08:00

Our Caroline is a three-year-old! This was her first year to have her very own party--not a family celebration or a joint gathering with Barret but a bona-fide birthday party with her friends. She decided to have a Little Mermaid Princess Tea Party. I decided it would be at the ice cream shop near our home since it's new, it's usually empty during the early afternoon and it has gorgeous ice cream cakes. Fortunately, Caroline told me what theme she wanted while we were in the US this summer, so I was able to buy Little Mermaid party supplies. Otherwise she'd have had a Hello Kitty-meets-Snoopy party, as those seem to be the main heroes here. She invited five girl friends to dress in their finest princess attire. They had a luscious strawberry ice cream/red velvet layer cake (with a Mermaid candle on top, of course) and enjoyed pouring each other "tea" from minature tea sets. Yes, extreme girliness at its finest. It always amazes me that I, the girl who played more in the mud puddles than with the dollhouse, should have a daughter that dresses head-to-toe princess or ballerina everyday, loves pink nail polish, sleeps with a collection of Barbies and baby dolls, and takes great delight in matching her shoes, hairbows and outfits for preschool. While I was typing this, she just came in, took a look at my baggy sweatshirt and old jeans, and sympathetically offered me her golden crown. (I'm wearing it. It is a vast improvement.) Of course, I've always had a thing for make-up and gorgeous evening wear (I've been known to play dress up on more than one occassion). So maybe, despite my pony-tailed hair and uniform of t-shirt and jeans, there's some girliness in me, too.

Here is a video of some post-cake, sugar-induced spinning with her friend Sarah. It really was a nice party, thanks to our dear friends and our funny, fiesty, Princess Caroline:

Thanksgiving 2007

2007-11-21T17:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope it was a great one for all of you. Here's how ours went:

On Thursday morning I walked the five blocks up to Barret's school to pick up two pumpkin pies ($18US) from the school sale--I truly am thankful for this resource in our land far, far away from Krogers and Wal-mart! I wasn't sure how to get to the school kitchen and started wandering around, for some reason heading down to the basement and up a back staircase where I found an employees-only entrance. The kitchen staff were quite startled when I appeared among the industrial mixers and wire racks like Alice in Wonderland popping out of her rabbit hole. But they were happy to give me my pies--two greenish brown circles that tasted kind of funny but filled my mandatory Thanksgiving requirement for pumpkin pie. Walking back from school, I grabbed a coffee from the newly opened Dunkin Doughnuts (another thing for which I'm thankful!), then dropped by the vegetable stand at the street market for carrots and cherry tomatoes for our nibble tray. I began the final two blocks back to our apartment, nobly balancing my two pies, bag of veggies and coffee, congratulating myself on how well I function without a car these days. Then, a gust of wind hit me, and I had to sacrifice the coffee to the wind in order to hold onto the pies. There was a time when I would have felt embarrassed by the dramatic splatter of latte all over the walkway in front of a nice shop. But considering the offerings of doggie doo also on the sidewalk, I figured the coffee smell was an improvement.

Once home, I thawed out some lasagna for our lunch, then pulled out my horded supplies, procured from 3 different stores at a cost of $9.00US , to make one medium-sized green bean casserole--again, I was grateful not just for finding the can of French's french-fried onions but for this reminder of "back home." At 3pm, we loaded the family into a taxi with our pies, veggie nibble tray, green bean casserole, bottle of wine, McLeod's laptop and projector for watching recorded football games, our outfits for changing into for the annual Christmas photo, and various things the kids might need to stay clean, dry, thirst-free and happy. We headed over to another expat family's apartment, where we spent the next few hours enjoying time with the two other families there, snapping photos, pulling together a fairly traditional meal including a real turkey that did NOT have its head or feet still attached, and getting ready for some football. Then, the obnoxious neighbors decided our group of seven kids (all but one of whom were under age 5) were too loud playing in the courtyard at 5:30pm.

What option did these disgruntled not-so-thankful neighbors choose in dealing with our unpleasant noise level? Did they call or go talk to the building supervisor? Did they yell down from their third-floor balcony? Did they send the local cops to issue a warning to those squealing two-year-olds? Nope. They turned on their garden hose and sprayed the little guys. Poor Caroline came running in with a puzzled look and said, "Mommy, why did it rain on my dress?" I just scooped her up and made a quick check to verify that it was indeed only water that had been sprayed on her (add that to the thankfulness list, though I can't say I was exactly happy at that moment). Next began an exchange of remarks in English (our side) and Chinese (their side) about noise, children, and water hoses--with my friend Mary throwing in a valiant, "Ting! Ting!" (which means both Stop! and Listen here! in Chinese). Kim, the friend hosting us at her apartment, came in wide-eyed after a few moments to say, "Maybe Steve (Mary's husband) needs to go out there with Dana (her husband) because he is getting really angry." Steve, the prototypical strong, silent type, went out as moral support for Dana, but when the balcony water-blasters began shouting even more loudly at Steve's wife, he had suddenly had enough. In a voice I never imagined our quiet friend possessed, he boomed, "You better stop right now or I'm coming up there." Which he, Dana and Dana's landlord did. Armed with a digital camera.

Things get a little fuzzy at this point. All I know is that two hours later, the men returned having gotten both the local police and the Foreign Affairs police involved. Our friends decided not to press charges but are hopeful that a report has been filed somewhere if something should happen again. They are also holding onto some lovely photographs of the two people trying to hide their faces, which will be circulated around the neighborhood if needed. Meanwhile, as the drama played out across the courtyard, McLeod had been diligently fighting a losing battle with wireless Internet to set up the football game he'd taped via Slingbox--Dana's last words before heading to the errant neighbors' were, "I'll give you the Wi-Fi code as soon as I get back." So for two hours, instead of watching football, we kept the kids entertained with a slide show of our last vacation including movies of Barret and his friends feeding fish from the pier. By the time all the real-life drama was over, we were ready to load up another taxi and head home--after all, who needs football when you can have it out with crazy neighbors? Truly memorable evening in good ol' Taipei. (Dana and Kim, we'll be sure to bring the Super Soakers and water balloon cannons next time we visit. Thanks for helping us celebrate Thanksgiving, even if it wasn't how we imagined it would be. But sometimes that makes for the best memories later.)

I had planned to update the blog with notes and pictures from a few recent trips, but this weekend's Thanksgiving excitement kind of sent me in a different direction. I'll try to get those up in the next week or so, though. In the meantime, love and blessings to all of you.

Cleaning Up after Super Typhoon Krosa

2007-10-07T00:48:00.000-07:00

We are relieved to be bidding Super Typhoon Krosa goodbye. Equivalent to a category 4 hurricane, this big baddie began roaring in during the wee hours of Saturday morning, surprising everyone with intense, unrelenting wind and drenching downpours. More than one family reported that the shrieking gusts and rumbling sustained winds sent all the kids running into mom and dad's bed for reassurance. Looking down from our window during the daylight hours, we could see the wind-driven rain spiral and snake its way through alleys like a misty-white Chinese dragon. And we all kept saying, "This can't be it. It isn't supposed to be here yet! It's supposed to be here on Sunday!" That's about as lame as telling a woman in the final stages of labor that it's not her due date so she can't have her baby yet.

This was my third typhoon since I've been in Taipei, but the first one during which I could actually feel the building sway from the force of the wind. A little unnerving. We also had a minor ceiling leak, as did most of the apartment complex residents. The poor ladies at the front desk dispatched engineers with buckets all over the building and were logging the leak reports in a spreadsheet. I'm guessing maintenance is going to have a busy week ahead. One friend had water steadily flowing out of her light fixtures in both her bathrooms and was dumping full buckets about every three hours. In the lobby water was trickling out of the electrical outlets which is just a little scary. Our building had some minor damage - I heard an unconfirmed report of broken windows in the health club area - with the biggest loss seeming to be window screens. One friend called his wife over to the window of their 16th floor apartment and said, "Honey, do you see that rectangular thing way down there on the street? That's our screen door."

We were fortunate, though, that we only lost power for about half an hour, unlike friends in other parts of town who were without electricity throughout the day. When the power went down in our block, McLeod had taken Barret and a friend Aiden to the movies next door (remember, we all thought we were only experiencing the outer bands and not THE typhoon). They got through about two-thirds of the movie, when everything went dark. Another kid was having a birthday party at the theater and had given all his buddies glow sticks, so of course, what else would you do in a blackout but play tag up and down the aisles of Cinema 2? Barret and Aiden, who weren't blessed with glow sticks, had to sit out that rollicking good time while McLeod got them bundled up to come home. I heard some great stories from the boys about their adventure including 1) climbing down the stalled escalators, 2) seeing a chair fly across the road, 3) getting stuck in our apartment elevator as the power cycled on and off and of course, 4) NOT getting to play glow stick tag with the other typhoon-crazed six year olds. They did get rainchecks for the movie so guessing McLeod or I will be taking them back to finish the movie later this week. I wonder if they'll have a different perspective of the film, Evan Almighty, after actually seeing some flooding around town?

This morning I got out with the camera to check the damage around our area. As you would imagine, there were lots of trees down, some broken windows, and signs blown away. What amazed me, though, was the speed with which the clean up was happening. Not only were the city garbage crews out early picking up the stacks of debris, but everywhere, people were pitching in to clean up the common areas. I recognized several senior citizens brandishing brooms and rakes as the group who regularly meets for Tai Chi in the park behind our house. Elsewhere, families were out sweeping up broken glass, pottery shards and leaves from in front of their businesses and homes. And as soon as they could, everyone was getting back to business as normal, whether that was frying up eggs in rice wrappers at the breakfast shops or selling knock-off sportswear in the market.

Below is a clip of the storm as it rolled in and more shots of the aftermath. We are thankful to be safe and dry. Please pray for the folks who lost property, had injuries, and the few families that lost loved ones. Near us, one house on Yangming Mountain (the mountain behind our home) collapsed on the eight people inside. One person was killed, others injured. Landslides are still a big issue until things dry out. McLeod just walked in from touring the mountain area on his bike and said the roads are strewn with rocks and trees. That will take a little more time to set right.

Brag Blog

2007-10-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'll admit it. This entry is really for the grandparents so bear with me while I brag on the kids! First up is Barret. He did chores forever to earn a set of building dominoes (the kind you set up and knock down). He cashed in his chore chart recently and has had fun setting up the dominoes with help from Mom and Dad. Last night, though, he painstakingly set them up on his own, using the box top as a guide, and after three tries finally got them to collapse as planned. (I did help a little setting them back up after the test runs.) Take a peek at the end product:

The second brag is on Caroline. She officially kicked the thumb habit four weeks ago, and after proving herself for a month, she got her own reward. Wednesday, I took her to George Pais Beauty Salon to have her nails painted and hair trimmed. The staff there absolutely treated her like a princess as she sat primly in the grown-up chair. She picked out a lovely, sparkly purple shade for her nails and afterward had a blast telling people, "My nails are painted....Wanna see 'em?" Then, we joined friends Nicky and Anne for coffee (and apple juice) at the corner cafe. Caroline, what a nice grown-up girls' day we had! I'm proud of you!

'Tis the Season for School, Baseball and Typhoons

2007-09-17T02:01:00.000-07:00

School is underway at last, and both kids are doing great. Caroline, my confident pre-schooler, spends two days each week playing, singing, tumbling and learning a little Chinese. At first, she was confused when her teacher switched to Mandarin during the language lesson time. Caroline kept asking, "Why aren't you talking in English?!?" and when the teacher would say something like "Ping guo is the word for apple," Caroline would insist that "apple is the word for apple!" She has since caught on, though, and seems to be enjoying learning some new words and songs.

Caroline is the oldest in her group, and I think she really enjoys NOT being the baby sister for a change. In fact, within the first hours of Day One, she'd pretty much taken charge of the class. Her teachers were singing "Twinkle Twinkle" with the kids during circle time. When they finished, Caroline stood up and said, "Let me show you how it's done." Miss Ruby laughingly vacated her cushion for Caroline to sing for them. As you will see in the video, Caroline experienced a moment of uncertainty then plunged right into her version. Hope you can catch her comment at the end of her performance...

So what she said at the end was, "That's how you do it!" Her teachers cracked up and have loved her ever since!

Kindergartner Barret is in his second year at Taipei American School, so though his day is a bit longer than in junior kindergarten, he really feels like an old pro. One difference for him, though, is riding the bigger bus. Last year he rode on a little bus with just his classmates, but this year he rides home on a double-decker coach with the K-5 kids. No bumpy yellow school bus for this kid. He sits up top in a plush seat with a great view of the metropolis.

His first day home on the bus was so unlike what I imagine it would have been in northwest Houston. There, I would have walked across my yard and down to the stop sign, perhaps dodging the spray from a neighbor's errant sprinkler. One or two other moms might be there. A dog would bark from inside his fence while we waited. At last the yellow bus would bring me my child, and he and I would chat casually as we headed back to our house for a snack.

Here, I took a short cut through a department store (stopping only briefly to look at a jewelry display) and ended up in the midst of a Ghost Month celebration. The sidewalk where I was supposed to wait for Barret was blocked by an eight-foot table piled with offerings to departed ancestors said to roam during the seventh lunar month. Arrayed on the table were burning incense sticks, trays of fruit, pyramids of beer and canned food, and whole dried fish, duck and chicken with all fins, feet, beaks and coxcombs intact. At the curb where the bus was to drop off the kids, two fires were blazing in large wire trash cans while people pitched in paper ghost money for restless spirits in need of some currency in the afterlife. The fires were getting slightly out of hand and threatening the tree branches above, so of course, people on scooters and in cars were stopping to watch. Thus, when the bus arrived, there was no place to really pull up, so all the parents were dodging ashes, people, and scooters to get their kids and usher them back to the sidewalk. Barret's eyes were popping as he climbed down the steps from the top deck of the bus--look, fire! look, food! What more could a little boy ask for at a bus stop!

Baseball Season

Barret's other big first for the year is baseball with Coach Dad. McLeod and fellow dad, Coach Dana, work with a team of twelve boys and girls called, you guessed it, the Astros. They have a half-hour practice on Saturdays followed by their game, so it works well for both of the coaches, who are usually travelling around Asia during the week. They do a few drills and learn important things like how to jump up and down in unison while Coach Dana yells, "What time is it?" to which they reply, "It's Game Time!"

There are only a few official rules: there is no score and everyone gets to play, everyone keeps swinging until they get a hit either from the coach's pitch or off the T, and if the ball ends up in your hand, throw it to first base and first base throws to home. (The kids recite this last one constantly, but sometimes in mixed up order.) I have also noted a number of unofficial rules:

No matter where the ball goes, the whole team should run after it.

When the ball is finally stopped, the whole team should pile on top of the ball and each other.

If your nose starts bleeding, you have the option of leaving the blood on your face if you think it makes you look more menacing.
Gloves can be worn on either hand or on top of the head during a game.

When running to first base, you should take the bat with you and brandish it like a sword.

All base runners should meet up at third base and race each other home.

Going to watch these little sluggers is absolutely one of my favorite things about Saturdays. Goooooooo Astros!

Typhoon Season

We are currently bracing for Typhoon (hurricane) Wipha, slated to brush by us in the next 12 hours. This will be our second typhoon since we got back to Taipei--the first one, Sepat, ended up being milder than we thought, though we did get some good views from our window of the wind stripping leaves off the trees and sending signs flying. I know TX and LA have had some weather themselves recently, so you know what it's like waiting and watching as these spectacular systems inch their way toward the coast. The first bands began impacting us yesterday. I shot some video from our porch of the clouds coming over the mountains.

As I don't watch the local news here, the sky was my first indication that I might want to check Weather Underground to see whether a typhoon was out there. By 10pm last night the expat phone and email cascades had started as we passed each other word that schools and businesses would be closed today. As one of my Mandarin-speaking friends from Singapore said when she called, "I thought I should call some Americans because I know you don't watch the local TV." She was right! Anyway, we will stay safe and dry at home today, with flashlights, radio, and lots of snacks at the ready. Until next time, Zai Jian!

Reflecting on the Summer

2007-07-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

Ni Hao to my sweet friends and family around the world. It's late August (ignore the weird July date stamp on this post) and we are back in Taipei, excited about the year ahead. What a gift to have some lazy (and not-so-lazy) summer days with family and friends in the States! And what a warm, happy feeling we had to see familiar faces in Taiwan upon our return.

If you didn't catch the update on my June trip with the kids to the States, check it out at this link. Our trip back to Taipei, this time with McLeod accompanying, went like this:

We board airplane. Kids sleep and eat.

We change airplanes. Kids sleep and eat and sleep some more. McLeod also sleeps.

I become nevous during jet stream turbulance and don't sleep.

Still-nervous and now-tired, I knock over glass of milk and sit on a nest of soggy magazines for last hour of the flight into Taipei. We land.

We pick the slowest immigrations line ever. Man in line behind us erupts into some kind of waiting-induced fit and begins loudly cursing in English. Caroline begins singing made-up songs at the top of her lungs.

We get through the line, head to baggage to add our 5 checked bags to our 5 carry-ons.

Long ride home but at least everything looks crazily familiar. We drop off our bags and head straight for Chili's to scarf down food.

We return to our lovely apartment, and I finally sleep. (I have no idea what the other family members did at that point.) Really extremely uneventful flight for which I am truly grateful.

Alabama Adventure
Now comes the part where I feel like a kid starting back to school with that evergreen assignment, "What I did on my summer vacation."

June started with the journey for me and the children to Sweet Home Alabama. Here we first checked in at my parents' home on five-acres of wooded bliss, complete with trails easy enough for little explorers, lots of feathered, scaly and furry creatures, a new tire-swing hung by Barret and Doc (my dad), and close proximity to Target. Did I mention there was a Target? I was there within 24 hours of arrival, just roaming the aisles and drinking a Frappacino. Heavenly.

My parents were the jet-lag calvary while we all re-adjusted to the time zone. I will never forget waking at 1a.m. to find Doc and Barret playing Go Fish in the kitchen. Once we'd gotten over the worst of the jet lag and taken care of our yearly check-ups, we headed to Lake Martin for a little boating, swimming and fishing. Due to draught, the lake was the lowest I'd ever seen it, and a tornado had blown through just before we got there, so things were a little torn up. I love the lake at every season, in every circumstance, though. With the low water level and churned up surroundings, we had a chance to explore wide beaches and hunt for "treasures of the deep," our term for the flotsam and jetsam that washes up, or in some cases, comes floating by. We have a tie this year for best finds: a He-Man style play sword that warbled out an other-worldly tune at the press of a button and a Lake-Martin-chilled can of Budweiser that Doc snagged as it floated by.

While we were lounging at the lake and tromping through the woods, McLeod finished up in Taipei and then headed State-side for business travel and a golf weekend with his dad. He also got to make some customer visits to New England this summer and met up with our recently re-patriated friends John and Rhonda Adams. [Adams Clan: We miss you so much. We keep expecting to see your smiling faces around TienMu, and it's just not the same. We will strive diligently to be as kind to the new crop of expats coming in as you were to us!]

In July, the kids and I reunited with McLeod at his parents' home for a great visit with his family. One of the highlights was a trip with Grandmommy and Aunt Rachel to Birmingham's McWane Center for hands-on science fun. With cousins Sydney and Zachary, the kids got to race minature boats, meet Bob the Builder, shake a robot's hand, see a fiery display about combustion, watch me ride a counter-balance bicycle suspended a few stories above the ground, and laugh at McLeod's transformation into the frozen Han Solo from Star Wars lore. I was so pleased that our home state now boasts such a classy, fun science center that still managed to capture a bit of what it meant to be in Alabama--afterall, where else would you have a massive model of our unofficial state mascot, the large-mouth bass, for the perfect photo op?

Relaxing in the Florida Keys

After tearful goodbyes to our Alabama friends and family, we made a brief stop in Houston to check on our house, visit our church, and let McLeod stop in at the office before we were once again traveling. This time we joined friends for a vacation in the Florida Keys. We stayed at the relaxing Hawk's Cay Resort on Duck Key. This was a great family-oriented place with fun water areas for the kids to play with their parents, a kids club with a parents' night out program, and nicely furnished condo's with washer and dryer (very important to us!). It wasn't a beach vacation per se, since the Keys don't really have the crashing waves and stretches of sand you would find on the Atlantic or Pacific coast, but it was nice mix of relaxation and activity with chances to golf, explore the reefs, boat, fish, and eat seafood at the local restaurants. On one of our days there, we drove to Key West to shop, visit the aquarium, tour the pirate museum, and stop off for food and drinks at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville and the Hogsbreath biker bar. Another day the ladies indulged in some pampering at the resort's Indies Spa while the guys took all the kids to feed massive tarpon schooling at a near-by dock. Check out some video of these armor-plated monsters snacking on bait fish:

Since it was spiny lobster mini-season, McLeod also got to go on a lobstering dive in hopes of bringing home something for the cook pot. His catches were too small to keep but he had a blast luring them out from under the reef while continuing to enjoy his new-found passion for SCUBA diving. While McLeod was diving, I got to take Barret snorkling on a coral reef where the mast and a cannon from an old shipwreck were still visible. I was immensely proud of my brave five-year-old. He has come so far from the kid who only a year ago wouldn't go into water past his chest. To be out there in the ocean with him was amazing. The swell was a little intimidating--this was not like snorkeling in the pool or the lagoon--so we made two short swims and then rested on the boat with Captain Kelly. Barret even suffered a painful jelly-fish encounter but was brave enough to get back in the water and try again. Of course, having some fierce jelly-tentacle stripes to show off almost made the encounter worth it! McLeod rented a boat later in the week, and we were able to make a second, easier snorkle trip on our own to a sandbar where the kids could touch bottom and hunt for sand dollars. Caroline had a blast bobbing up and down in her swim vest, and Barret and his friends got to play with some large hermit crabs sporting crusty barnacles on their shells.

My personal highlight from the Keys was a chance to swim with several dolphins who live in their own lagoon at Hawk's Cay. This is something I've been wanting to do since I was about 16! The resort offers a special Dolphin Discovery program that lets visitors accompany the trainers into the water to feed and play with Nemo, Sebastian, April and their buddies. I was amazed at how big these guys are up close. Nemo, the largest and one of the oldest, is over 500 pounds and has three or four chubby "chins" on his neck that he likes to wiggle up and down to make the trainers laugh (or maybe it's just to make them give him more fish). Of course I have to share a picture from the amazing encounter! Special thanks to Kristy, Paul, Kayleigh and Colin for a fantastic trip. It was wonderful.

Home to Houston One Last Time

We ended the summer back in Houston to visit friends and even managed to squeeze in some short weekend trips to see additional family. I shared lots of hugs with my gorgeous Colorado neices, Sarah (2) and Rachel (1 month), and the equally gorgeous cousin Madelynn (3) in Austin, TX. While in Houston, we were able to catch an Astros game, which they won, and share some delicious meals (love the Tex Mex!!) with friends. Thanks to everyone for some great memories to hold us over for another year.

I'm already at work on the next update as school starts up and we get back into the rhythm of life in Taipei, so see you online again soon!

Quick update on our travels

2007-06-15T02:19:00.000-07:00

The kids and I made it safely to the US! This was my first trans-Pacific solo flight with the kids and they did great. Not much sleeping--my little guys were too wired--but Barret happily gamed away at his PSP (Lego StarWars rocks!) and Caroline kept us both busy with a steady stream of requests:
"I need to go potty."
"I need my drink."
"I need food."
"I want to watch Cinderella."
(20 minutes later.) "I want to watch Dumbo."
(20 more minutes) "I want Sleeping Beauty."
(Once again, 20 minutes into the movie) "Where's Little Mermaid. No! Little Mermaid 2!"
United probably could have given my seat to someone else because I pretty much spent 10 hours crouched down in front of Caroline or walking around the plane with her.

Of course, then she konked out the last hour or so of the flight, and I had to wake her up so she could walk through the San Francisco airport. We must have looked pretty cute going through SFO: me pushing our bags and hunching under a bulging backpack, Caroline sporting OJ splattered pj's and total bedhead and holding tightly to Barret with one hand while sucking her thumb on the other hand, Barret shouldering his red backpack and dutifully shepherding his sleepy sis.

We made our connection no problem. Barret promptly went to sleep for four hours, but C got a second wind and transformed into monkey-girl. Just as we started taxi and take-off she decided to wriggle out of her seatbelt and start trying to stand on her head in the seat. I was across the aisle from her (we were in the front seats of the plane) and the flight attendent and I were sweetly yelling at her to get back in her seat belt. Which she did...except she scooted back under it upside down with her legs up the seat back and her head hanging off the edge of the seat. Imagine the impish grin on her face. As soon as the wheels lifted off the ground, the flight attendant convientiently turned his head the other way and I jumped up, re-positioned her and cinched the belt as tight as it would go for my little Houdini. Per her standard airplane MO, she kept up her antics until we began descending into Atlanta and then konked out again. So, once again, I had to wake her up and watch her zombie walk with Barret through the airport.

What a relief to see Mom and Dad and know I could finally get some rest after pulling an all-nighter! I dozed in the car, ate a little dinner and went straight to bed. The kids somehow managed to stay up giggling and watching movies with Doc and Gran until midnight. Since then we've been slowly getting back on schedule so I'm guessing by next week jet lag will be a distant memory. We did find a sure-fire way to keep kids awake during daylight hours, though: When they start to fall asleep, feed them ice cream! Then, when the sugar rush wears off and they start crashing again, feed them more ice cream!

That's it for now but thought you'd like to know we made it safe and sound.

Flying the Coop

2007-06-07T05:41:00.001-07:00

It's leaving time around here for the expat community. Hordes of people--primarily moms with kids--will depart the Taipei airport over the next few weeks to visit extended family around the world. (Working spouses left behind in Taipei become the lifeblood for a hundred deli's, pubs, and food stands, I'm told.) The travelers are joined by all of the families who have finished assignments and are moving back to their home countries or on to new assignments. Even the animals are on the move. The kids and I have been watching with fascination over the last six weeks as dozens of swallows built elaborate mud nests under the overhangs of the concrete buildings, brooded over their eggs, fed the ravenous hatchlings and then booted them out of the nest. Barret became particularly adept at spotting the "splatter patterns" on the sidewalk that gave away the location of a nest above. These four fat baby birds cracked us up. Quite obviously ready to leave the nest, they were still insisting that their parents feed them while they hung out in the cramped quarters of home. By the next day, they had finally decided (or perhaps been convinced by ma and pa?) that it was time to strike out on their own, and all that was left was their empty nest.

Buffalo Ahead!
Barret's class recently celebrated the end of the school year with a trip to Buffalo Meadow in Yangmingshan National Park. It was a great chance to get up into Taipei's mountains, and we made a family day of it. The temperature was at least 10 degrees cooler, and the lush grasses, ferns and trees made it seem like we were somewhere completely different from the traffic and smog of our city. We even got to see first hand why this section of the park is named as it is. While walking down one of the stone paths, we were startled to come face to nose with a massive water buffalo. In the 1930's the occupying Japanese government introduced herds of the animals to the area with the intent to farm them. Most have been relocated, but a few thousand still roam the park with some basic care from the park service. Warnings are posted about not getting too close--our favorite said something to the effect of, "Violators will take care of own safety"--so we didn't hang out with our buddy Buff for too long.

Taking a Blog Break

With summer here we'll be resting from our blog "homework" until school starts up again. Hope everyone has a safe, fun summer. We've so enjoyed hearing from our friends and family around the world and look forward to catching up with you in the fall!

Tragedy at Virginia Tech

2007-04-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

While I was sleeping Monday night, a disaster was unfolding on the other side of the world. By the time I clued in to what had happened at Virginia Tech, my Tuesday was half over. How strange that life could be going on as normal here, while in my heart-and-homeland, a young man's insane rage, his psychosis, was exploding, destroying. I keep looking at pictures of students grieving on campus, most wearing their hooded college sweatshirts, and can't help but imagine the faces of my own BSC classmates from over a decade ago had something like this happened to us. I remember our shock and sorrow when a fellow student died of cancer, our questions to God when another died in a car crash. We grieved. Found solace. Moved on. But this? This is a Columbine, a 9/11, a Katrina-type ripping into our reality. A time for screeching to a halt in horror.

But we don't stay there, do we? Inevitably, we wake up from the nightmarish moment when we learn of disaster. Then comes the processing, the analysis.

I am amazed at all of the talking, all of the words we have come up with in the wake of this disaster. How can we all have so much to say so soon? The same interviews babbling on websites and news shows, re-quoted in bits and pieces across the globe. Experts and non-experts weighing in on what must have driven Cho to methodically gun down his peers and teachers. Everyone nodding and sighing and talking and talking and talking about how the signs were clear, how no one heeded the warnings. Gun control debates. Security debates. All of us flailing around to find answers, coming up with explanations because we can't stand the unknown. If I, on the other side of the Pacific, can nearly exhaust myself scanning news stories, reading blogs, I can only imagine what it must be like in the States. And I cannot begin to imagine what it's like for those who are there in Blacksburg.

So for those who've been directly affected - faculty, students, family, police, you are wrapped in my prayers. I pray for peace and comfort to roll like a mighty wave into your hearts, healing the broken places, sustaining you, washing away the intense pain, anger, and fear. For the rest of us who feel the ripples of their pain, I pray for our hearts to open, really open, to the people around us, including the people in our own homes. I hope you'll join me in those prayers.

SCUBA Diving and Elephant Riding

2007-04-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

McLeod is my hero! Here is a man who loathes swimming in lakes, oceans or rivers because it gives him the heebee-geebees to think about what's swimming in there with him. He attributes it to a few too many viewings of JAWS while spending childhood summers at Panama City Beach, FL. (Jon Bell, if you're reading this, you'll remember those marathon sessions of watching the Jaws video while eating a pot of Nanny's campfire stew.) But facing his own Fear-Factor issues, McLeod recently completed his dive cert and has since been diving off the coast of Green Island (near Taiwan) and then again on our vacation to Phuket, Thailand. YEA!!! MCLEOD!!!

The Green Island dive trip was a classic guys weekend. The menfolk roughed it on tatami mats in the rooms above the dive shop. There were no showers (really, really stinky laundry and hubby came home from this one). They sped around the island on motorscooters. They nearly boiled their skin off in a geothermal salt-water hotspring. And most importantly, they got an up-close-and-personal view of one of the oldest living coral reefs in the world. It amazes us that more of the local Taiwanese don't seem to know about the ecological wonder at their doorstep. Part of the issue may be that Green Island is like the Alcatraz of Taiwan. The now-defunct prison there was the home not only for hardened criminals but also for political prisoners at odds with the government prior to democracy. So a bit of an image problem. It also lacks much of an infrastructure for tourists, but according to diving enthusiasts, the lack of tourist traffic is part of what keeps the reef protected and a truly fantastic dive site. McLeod's friend John was able to capture some great shots that he graciously let us post for you to enjoy. By the way, that's a scooter tire in McLeod's hand, proving that motorscooters really have taken over Taiwan.

Spring Break Escape to Thailand

About two weeks after McLeod's Green Island adventure, we headed to Phuket (pronounced puh-KET by those in the know, which we weren't for awhile and so were afraid to announce where we were going, lest we embarrass ourselves). I don't really remember the trip there. To be honest, we'd had a week of pouring rain, frenzied finishing of projects, and general grumpiness at our house. This seems to merge together in my mind with our 6am ride to the airport, scramble to get ourselves and our bags through check in, the change of planes in Bangkok and the general exhaustion of air travel with small children. I'm always amazed at our bag count. For this trip it amounted to 1 suitcase, 1 bag of swim/dive/snorkel gear, 1 set of golf clubs, and 3 carry-ons stuffed with toys, electronics, diapers and all the various medicines we might need (non-liquid, of course, due to airport rules). But Hallelujah, we didn't have to take the stroller!! This was our first non-stroller vacation in 5 years and somehow, that seems like a milestone.

My first technicolor memory of the trip is the ride from the Phuket airport to the Laguna Beach Resort. Bouncing along in a shuttle van, I suddenly realized the sun was shining and we were all smiling. Strangely, the ramshackle collections of buildings that interrupted the pastures and tropical forests looked exactly like the tiny rural towns we'd grown up passing on the way to the Florida panhandle all our lives. We were really going to the beach at last! This thought was interrupted by the sight of water buffaloes cooling in mud puddles and munching grass. OK, we were definitely NOT in Florida. (However, at one point on the trip, two-year-old Caroline pointed to those long-horned creatures and exclaimed, "Hey! We're in Texas!" This is the first time in the 6 months since we've moved here that I've heard her make any specific Texas remark so it was good to know she still has memories of living there.) Once we got to the hotel, we changed into bathing suits in record time and began alternating between the pool and the beach. I was still pretty keyed up from the harried week--I had squeezed 3 interviews in for some articles I'm writing on local artists which meant a whole lot of arranging babysitters, trying to get food cooked up ahead of time for everyone's dinner, plus packing for the trip. McLeod was convinced that I was having a miserable time the first two days because I was so jumpy and generally short-tempered. Honey, I promise you, I WAS having a good time--I'm just sometimes kind of like a Coke bottle that someone shook up, and it takes a bit of time to slowly release the pressure so I don't spew my contents all over everywhere. (By the way, if you read the "Random Funny Things" post, you'll see yet another reason why the pink shirt is so fitting.)

By the end of the second day, though, fortified by a 2 hour visit to the spa for some pampering, I was in vacation mode. I stopped caring what I looked like, became concerned only about things like whether I wanted my lounge chair in or out of the sun and when the 4-year old elephant who lived at the hotel was coming out for her next visit. Relaxing by the pool or walking down on the beach were the top priorities, but we also managed to squeeze in some sailing and kayaking on the lagoon, a Thai cooking class (me), diving and golf (McLeod), and several Kids' Club activities for the kids.

On the topic of elephants, we are completely enchanted by them! Anna, the hotel elephant, was a doll. She'd take bananas out of your hands to eat and then give you a big "kiss" by suctioning on your face with her trunk. Sounds kind of gross but really quite cute. Each morning she'd visit with the guests, and then her caretaker would lead her down to the beach so she could play in the waves. We also got to ride one of the adult elephants during our stay and watch them working, eating, and bathing in the lagoon. Definitely an unforgettable vacation.

General Updates
So now we are back to real life again and counting down the days until summer vacation. This week, I registered Barret for kindergarten (wow) and now we're trying to figure out some extra activities. His top choices are karate and in November, soccer. Might be fun to actually take martial arts from real Chinese instructors. We'll see. Caroline is going to continue with Saturday morning gymnastics in the fall (or "mastics" as she calls the class) and will start 2-day-a-week preschool. That's plenty for us. We like to keep lots of time open to play in the park or just do nothing. We still like having occasional "Totally Pajama Days" where we do things like watch Disney movies and eat toaster waffles at every meal. Those precious times with my babes won't always be here, so I want to savor them.

UPDATE: This video is finally working. Here's the latest of Caroline. She often walks around (or twirls around) the house singing "That's what I do. That's what I do," or her other favorite self-composed song, "I am a PRINCESS." I thought this particular version was funny because a) she mixes in "We Are the Dinosaurs" from the Laurie Berkner Band and b) her motions look like a happy version of her having a two-year-old tantrum meltdown. Even the roaring seems oddly familiar...

Random Funny Things

2007-03-24T00:24:00.000-07:00

Fairly often we come across things that seem bizarre or just plain funny. Occasionally, I actually have the camera handy. Here are a few recent examples.

I purchased this shirt because I felt like it truly represented the real me - Authentic, Positive, Creative Gas. Fuel efficient? Yep. Full of hot air? Sometimes, but at least it's authentic, positive and creative hot air.

These next two were spotted while on a field trip with my son. Barret and I have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia so here was an excellent example of a Faun. Except, well, this one kind of needs a sports bra. And as for the sign? Just made me laugh.

More random funny things to come. Yep, still trying to learn how to post videos. Please let me know if you know why when I embed the link in the html, I just get a black box with the play button but no image.

UPDATE: OK, Video seems to be working again. Here is the very low-tech Mannequins dressed as Pigs to welcome the year of the pig. Again, not big-budget special effects here but the kids liked it.

Kuandu Temple, Language Class Update, and Thoughts of Home

2007-03-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

March has roared in like the proverbial lion (in this case, the fierce Chinese lion/dog, imitated here by Barret) and finally, it's seeming like spring! Azaleas are blooming, and I've heard that there are fields of calla lilies in the countryside so I'm hoping to get out there soon. Now that the weather is starting to improve, the Kindergarten A class got to take their first real field trip. "Real" to Barret means he got to ride a big double-decker tour bus versus the "not real" field trip we took to the market by walking just around the corner. The class and available parents visited Kuandu Temple to see the elaborate lanterns, carvings, paintings and sculptures. I went as a "surprise guest" with my fellow-moms Nicky and Anna. I call us "surprise guests" because we didn't ride the official bus with the kids. That way we got to ride in Nicky's cushy new van, drive through a McDonald's on the way, and most importantly, bring along Anna's and Nicky's scrumptious babies. The school has a no-siblings-on-field-trips policy (bus liability issue) so, "Surprise! We just happened to be wandering around this temple. Fancy seeing our kids here!"

One of the things that makes Taiwan temples unique is the sheer volume of decoration. Kuandu Temple is built into the side of a hill and seems to have some kind of ornamentation on every square inch of it. One of my friends recently gave me a reference book called Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs, and it points out that traditionally, the Chinese have a "dislike for bland undecorated spaces in their works of art." This seems to match up with other comments I've heard regarding the local belief that empty spaces are places where evil spirits can lurk. I had plans to demonstrate this principle of horror vacuii (art term I still remember from Art History at BSC) by cramming in as many pictures as possible into this post. However, Blogger makes it very difficult for me to control exactly how these pictures get posted and sadly, there are always empty spaces lurking around. You get the idea, though. If you click on these images, you'll get a better idea of the intricate details. It really is a bit overwhelming.

Outside of the temple were some other attractions for the kids that were strangely entertaining. There was the mythological creatures gallery (hard to explain, just see the pictures below), a display of mannequins performing various traditional jobs (collecting rice, repairing shoes, making pots), and my favorite, mannequins dressed as pigs welcoming the Year of the Pig. I have the Pig-Men in a video clip but am still learning how to upload, so check back later. We also got to walk through some nice gardens where it just happened to be toad breeding season. All the moms got asked curious questions by our five-year-olds as to what the toads were doing. Ummmmm, playing leap frog? Nope, I'm not putting any Animal Planet footage of that on here.

Playing Hooky

With all the fun Spring stuff going on like field trips, swimming lessons, and generally being outside until dark, I've decided to take some time off from my Mandarin Chinese classes. I had two classes in a row where my teacher looked at me sympathetically and asked if we should stop early because my mind was quite obviously somewhere else. I'm not sure if I've lost momentum because things are busier or I have just hit some plateau where no matter how many times I go over vocabulary words, they just won't stick. Definitely time to take a break. However, I thought you might be interested to know that I have learned a few things and can say the following advanced phrases:
"Your dan bing (egg tortilla) is in the bag."
"My husband would like some ice water."
"I need a highchair." (OK, so technically I should say, "My daughter needs a highchair" but I get confused about the word for "daughter" versus "son." Maybe that's why the hostess gives me a funny look.)

Despite my obvious fluency, I still have trouble making the taxi drivers understand my address. I end up rummaging through my purse for the business card for our apartment building so they can read the address in Chinese. The driver then says, "Ohhhh, Zhong Cheng Lu," and I want to shout, "THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING." Instead, I just laugh and bob my head while the kids start chanting, "Zhong Cheng Looooo, Zhong Cheng Loooo," to the delight of the driver. Evidently, a lot of expats have these kinds of problems because the international Community Center sells a pack of laminated cards on a ring with the Chinese addresses of major stores, attractions, hospitals, and restaurants. We call them the Magic Taxi Cards because you just say "Hi" to a driver, shove the appropriate card into his hand, and within ten minutes you appear at that location. Still, though, after 20 lessons in conversational Chinese, you'd think I could at least get myself home.

(On a tangent, wouldn't it be nice to have other Magic Cards? Instead of having to say, "Get dressed. Yes, that means shoes, too," you could just hand a kid a card. Or how about for hubby a card that says, "If I don't hide away in a big bubble bath right now while you put the kids to bed, I will lose my mind." I could probably go days without talking if I just had the right set.)

A Taste of Home?

Since we are coming up on the 6 month mark of being in Taipei, I thought you might also like to know that though we are adjusting quite well, we still have moments when we long for the familiarity of home. I mentioned that en route to the field trip, my girlfriends and I went through a McDonald's drive thru. That was the first drive thru window I'd been at since about September 30th, and I was so excited that when Nicky asked me what I wanted, I couldn't even think what to order. I finally blurted out "Small Coke." Then, Anna got a Sausage McMuffin and I thought, "Why didn't I order something like that?" I think I was just so blown away by the fact that I haven't driven a car in 6 months, much less gotten food while still in a car, that I was speechless.

Along the same lines of "so excited I turn goofy," this week I made a purchase that in hindsight was just a little bit pathetic. I am not much of a salad dressing eater, but every once in awhile it is nice to have some Ranch for dipping fresh veggies. I have checked Costco, two importers, and three grocery stores repeatedly over the last six months and never once seen a bottle of Ranch. Then, this week I saw a single bottle back in the organic foods section of my favorite grocery, and without even checking the price or the expiration date, bought it. Later, I noticed that I'd spent roughly $10 US on this bottle and so, told my family that we needed to save it for a special occasion. ("Cassia, it's not wine," was McLeod's comment.) However, I then happened to check the expiration date and saw that it expires April 2007 (as in, a few weeks from now). We cracked it open. Sadly, it smelled just like latex paint and tasted, as I imagine, the same. So, when I make my huge Wal-mart trip while in the US this summer, I think I will stock up on the dry packets of Ranch dressing mix. It might not taste like Hidden Valley out of the bottle, but at least it won't taste like paint, and hey, sometimes it's just nice to have a few of the comforts of home.

Coming Attractions...

With help from Amy, my sister-in-law, I will finally figure out how to upload video clips so I can show you things like the Animatronic Pig-Men and Caroline's original song, "That's What I Do." I should also have some pictures of McLeod's very first scuba experience off the coast of Green Island, just east of Taiwan. Interest piqued? Good! Until next time, Zai Jian!

Ringing in the Chinese Lunar New Year: Feet, Fireworks, KTV and the Tundra Zone

2007-02-23T13:37:00.000-08:00

Goodbye, Year of the Dog and Hello, Year of the Pig! There's nothing quite like celebrating the new year with friends and a foot massage! With schools and offices closed for a week, we've had a chance to try some new things. Yesterday, McLeod (happily) endured his first traditional Chinese reflexology foot massage, and while there were some moments when he nearly yelped with pain, his feet felt fantastic afterwards.

February 18 marked Day One of the Chinese lunar year and the first day of Spring, and though it is now nearly the end of the month, the celebrations continue, with fireworks and loud, crackling strings of Chinese firecrackers sounding off all day and most of the night. Chinese tradition holds that the fireworks scare away monsters, but I'm pretty sure most folks also think it's a whole lot of fun. We even launched a few fireworks ourselves on New Year's Eve, with a certain group of expat hubbies deciding to sneak down and set off the leftover stockpile at 2am a few nights later. They thought they were blending in with the other Taiwanese revellers. However, American voices shouting "WoooHooo!" and "Fire in the Hole!" pretty much gave away who they were. They were only in the doghouse (pighouse?) a little while, though, because it was awfully funny. Though offices and schools are only shut down this week, the festivities continue for 15 days total, ending with the Latern Festival on March 4th. I'm guessing that March 5th will be the first night I sleep really well! The kids have had a ball, especially since friends have given them red envelopes of money and that people everywhere have candy sitting out. They even agreed to dress up a bit for some CNY pictures. Getting a picture of them both standing still and smiling at the same time is always a bit of a challenge, especially since they make me laugh and so, jiggle the camera.

Singing our hearts out at KTV
Leading up to Chinese New Year, I was busy on assignment for Centered on Taipei magazine, writing about KTV, the much-beloved Taiwanese past time of singing with friends in a karaoke studio. I really wasn't sure what to expect as I arranged a Girls' Night Out at PartyWorld KTV. I had been assured by sources (i.e. the COT editor) that we would find PartyWorld to be a fun, safe, classy environment. I still imagined a rather smoke-filled lounge with American Idol Wannabe's stumbling onto stage, propelled by liquid courage. Instead, fellow moms and I were pleasantly surprised to be ushered into our own private party room where we could dine, chat, laugh and of course, sing our way through roughly 60 songs over four hours. Since most of the music (at least the songs we knew) was from the 80s and early 90s, we also had a great time talking about albums we'd wanted to buy as kids, laughing about prom themes, and remembering all those late nights at college. It was a nice break from the daily routine of fixing dinner and helping with homework, and it turned out to be a great bit of bonding for a group of strangers in a strange land.

Salt and Bread (and only a little frost bite)
Last night brought another new experience for us: Russian cuisine plus drinks at sub-zero temperatures. As our final hurrah before returning to work, several couples decided to try out Salt and Bread. This Russian cafe featured good food (lots of saurkraut-and-potato-garnished beef and sausages, caviar appetizers, and tummy-warming soups) and a first-rate bakery and ice cream bar. The highlight was a freezer-turned-vodka-bar where patrons could bundle up in giant parkas and get a feel for those Siberian nights. My Deep South constitution allowed me to last about 5 minutes in the ice bar, even with the parka, before I headed back out to my warm sausage dumpling soup and beef stroganoff, but some of my New England counterparts were braving the cold in their shirt sleeves by night's end. (I'm pretty sure I heard them say something like, "We're from New England. We laugh at the cold.") As an added bonus, one member of our party won the lucky draw for roughly a case of Russian Baltika beer for our group to take home. Perhaps we'll break it out and reminisce about those long, cruel months in the salt mines?

Combatting the January Blahs

2007-01-11T18:55:00.000-08:00

Hello, dear friends.

It's that lovely time of the year I've always known as the January Blahs, which usually last into February but abate with the promise of spring. Do you know the feeling? Christmas has been packed away for another year and the credit card bills are rolling in. The weather has been generally gross. The cough and cold season is in full swing with everyone pulling out their bottles of hand-sanitizer and their face masks. (From what I've been told, Taiwan even made the international news recently from a stomach virus that turned epidemic. Thankfully, we've only had some minor sniffling around here.) Everyone is looking for something to shake things up, to break up the monotony of work, school, and dreary weather. Right about the time Houston was having its history-making ice storm, I actually got to feel a mild earthquake, so that provided some excitement for a day or so. Then, wouldn't you know it, the Blahs came back and we're all kind of moping around waiting for the sun to come out!

But lest you think we've lapsed into complete depression around here, we have had some fun things to celebrate. We've now passed our first 100 days in Taiwan! This was a mental milestone for me, partly because I have clung to the belief since we moved that if I could make it through the first 100 days, the next 100 would be easier. This seems to be true, in that I do feel much more at home in my surroundings and a lot of the shock has worn off. Secondly, passing the 100 day mark was a perfect excuse for creating our own holiday. We decided to mark day 101 of our new life here with our own Taipei 101 Day celebration, complete with a skyscraper cake meant to be the Taipei 101 building downtown. Yes, it does look more like an Aztec pyramid, but it was the best Barret and I could do! You'll also note that the kids are still in their pajamas at 4pm in the afternoon. Occassional all day pajama fests (Mom and Dad included) seem to be part of our prescription for the Blahs.

Another important family date this month: McLeod and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. In Taiwan, the year is 96 rather than 2007 because the Taiwanese use their founding year, 1911, as year one for their calendar. So that means that our anniversary fell on 13 January 96, which apart from the 19- before the year, is our actual wedding day. We celebrated with an American meal at Dan Ryan's Steakhouse, and I wore some sparkly-new, terribly uncomfortable but very cute shoes. Those of you who know that I live in running shoes will appreciate the effort. I looked very tall and svelte as long as I stood still and didn't try to hobble around too much.

McLeod and I also attended a Taiwanese-style wedding banquet recently. The wedding ceremony was a family-only affair followed by a large feast at one of the hotels downtown. Per custom, we brought along a red envelope containing an even-numbered amount of money (hong bao) for the couple. We had some help from the front desk staff here at the apartment in preparing the right amount (certain numbers are taboo, other numbers are extra lucky) and making sure that our bills looked new. When we arrived at the banquet, we gave this to a wedding attendant who sat at the front door and dutifully recorded the names and amounts of each gift-giver. Once inside we were seated with some of McLeod's colleagues and had a great time learning the meanings behind the different foods that were served. Each of the twelve courses was meant to help ensure good luck, prosperity, etc. for the couple. I was very brave and tried almost everything except for the bamboo fungus. (I have a hard time eating things that look like two-week-old leftovers from the bottom shelf of my refrigerator.) There were a few speeches and the majority of the toasts were made by the bridal party, who walked around to each table to raise glasses with the guests. We were very honored to be included, and I had fun comparing cultural notes with one of my Taiwanese friends.

February is already looking interesting with a visit to a KTV (Taiwanese karoake) coming up, an all-day cross-cultural training class for McLeod and me, and preparations for Chinese New Year. I've started writing some for a magazine that caters to the expat community here, so we're hoping that will spur us to explore the island more in the upcoming months. Hope all of you are making it through the winter doldrums with visions of spring dancing in your heads. It will be here before we know it!

Happy New Year!!

2007-01-03T03:38:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it's 2007! We rang in the New Year here in Taipei watching fireworks from our balcony, and we even got to call a few loved ones just after midnight here to let them know 2007 had actually arrived and looked great so far. Now we are slowly getting back into the routine of school and work after a wonderful three weeks off. We are also still reliving memories of our fantastic Christmas trip.

On December 20th over Barret's birthday pancakes, we finally got to spill the beans to the kids about our plans to take them to Hong Kong for a week. We were there from Dec. 24 to Dec. 30th, and it still amazes me that we just saw The Actual Hong Kong! Incidentally, we missed the Taiwan earthquake on Dec 26th, though it virtually destroyed Hong Kong's Internet service for the rest of the week. For us, having a forced break from email wasn't a bad thing, and we were relieved and thankful that the quake wasn't devastating to Taiwan.

While in Hong Kong, we pretty much did EVERYTHING. We rode ferry boats, sky trams, cable cars, subway trains, and scary-fast taxi cabs. We saw the view from Victoria Peak, the giant pandas at Ocean Park, the laser light show on the harbor, and all those crazy vendor stalls at Stanley Market. One lovely afternoon we stopped in at a British pub called the Boathouse for a quick thristquencher then headed for the beach at Repulse Bay just before sunset to capture some pictures (and quite a bit of sand in our clothes).

Did I mention that I also got to go to Hong Kong Disney, ride on stuff with my kids, and see the fireworks show that included real fire shooting off the top of Sleeping Beauty's castle? I'm a bit of a fireworks (and Disney) junkie, so at one point I must have let loose a particularly loud, "WOW!" because the Asian families around me all turned around and started laughing. It was a pretty great Christmas present. We'll be thanking "Santa McLeod" for quite awhile.

As for Christmas in Asia, we were surprised at how much Christmas spirit there was here in Taiwan. Most of the stores and our apartment complex put up trees and strung lights and banners with things like "Hearty Christmas!" and "We are open Christmas and Happy New Year!" For our friends in the computer industry: we found out why there was that global shortage in blue LEDs this year. They used them here in all the decorations. No, not blue Christmas light bulbs but actual computer LEDs that blinked in complex patterns all over town.

Santa is very big here, too. One of our favorite department stores decorated around the roof and sides of the building with several long, skinny Santa's made of parachute material. They kind of looked like they were either escaping over a prison wall or perhaps preparing a ninja assualt on someone inside, but we were happy to see the guys in the red suits nonetheless. McLeod, as honored Meiguoren (Chinese for American) and the only one uh...statuesque enough to pull it off, was drafted to play office Santa at the Christmas party complete with snug red suit and white beard. Poor guy had just gotten off a plane from the States after roughly 24 hours of travelling and had lovely red eyes to match the suit. (By the way, he wants me to mention that seeing his belly in a Santa suit has motivated him to start running again and that he has Nike+iPod shoes that are tracking his progress on nike.com for anyone that wants to compete against his running totals.)

As for the real reason for the season, the references to Christ and his birth were small, but we were very blessed by them - a live nativity scene at the park, free Chinese Bibles placed in a lobby, Christmas carols (the real ones like "O Holy Night") playing at Disney, gatherings of people at the few churches. One of the most moving memories for me was at a small ladies bible study I visited in mid-December. Ten or twelve of us were gathered at a table, women from all over the world. We decided to sing some Christmas carols together and when we got to the German carol "Silent Night," I glanced over at one of the ladies from Germany. Tears began streaming down her face. That combination of being far from home in body yet close in spirit got to me, too, and by the time we were singing one of my favorites, "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," I was fighting back tears. There is also nothing quite like singing the phrase, "Joyful, all the nations rise; Join the triumph of the skies," with friends from across the globe!

Thoughts on Green Oranges, Black Chickens and a Talking Two-Year-Old

2006-12-07T17:25:00.000-08:00

Green oranges are here! Autumn marks the green orange season on the island. When I first saw bins of mottled green fruit, I assumed they were unripe. But after a produce vendor tore one open to give me a slice, I realized that these large, tangerine-like oranges never lose their green color. A post on ramblingspoon.com remarks: “In tropical regions with no winter, citrus fruits remain green until maturity, hence the tropical ‘green orange.’”

Caroline especially loves this sweet fruit with a slight sour aftertaste. She usually bites into a section, sucks all the juice out, and leaves a hill of pulpy remains behind. She also gets bits of pulp all over herself, and then, later, as she discovers it in her hair, on her feet, or between her fingers, she freaks out and runs to me saying, “There’s a boogey on meeeeee. Get it off!”

Barret likes eating green oranges as well, but he is more fascinated by the fact that there are trees growing near his school playground with fruit hanging from the branches. I guess when you are used to seeing fruit only in its natural surroundings of the Kroger produce aisle, spotting it hanging above the jungle gym is pretty amazing. His favorite citrus product here, though, is the fresh squeezed orange juice sold by the street vendors. The juice is made from a different kind of local orange that is small, tart and extremely juicy. The juice is paler than the Minute Maid or Tropicana variety in the States—closer to the color of lemonade—and has a pleasant tart taste that is very refreshing.

Citrus trees, in general, are pretty common around the area. In fact, McLeod recently discovered them at the Kuo Hua golf club, thanks to his caddy. I have to take a moment to explain that golfing in Asia is a much more formal event. It generally takes all day and ends with a trip to the steam room and showers before changing into fresh clothes for dinner at the club. Female caddies are provided, but lest visions of buxom, short-shorts-wearing drink cart girls float into your head, the women at Kuo Hua are shrouded head-to-toe in purple garments, gloves, and face masks that leave only their eyes peaking out from beneath huge Chinese straw hats. Imagine McLeod’s surprise, then, when his demure, purple assistant suddenly grabbed an iron and began viciously attacking the limbs of a tree. Was it a snake? Was she frustrated at his Chinese? (In trying to ask his yardage, he kept mistakenly asking her “What am I?” to which she replied helpfully, “American?”) But no, at last she brought him the fruits of her labor, a fat green orange. Better than a candy bar from the clubhouse any day!

Family Time for the Glasses
At the time of the last post, we were preparing for our first overseas Thanksgiving. It was a quiet affair featuring chicken and stuffing in the crockpot, cranberry sauce “shaped-like-the-can” as our family calls it, green bean casserole, fruit salad and pumpkin pie with Cool Whip. The ingredients were purchased for exorbitant amounts at my favorite import shop and worth every New Taiwan dollar! But don't think that just because we had an American-style Thanksgiving that Taiwan is not rubbing off on us. I had a weird “where do I live?” moment on Thanksgiving Day when I opened up my US-based MSN.com home page. The lead photo for an article on cooking disasters featured a platter with a charred turkey. My first thought before reading the caption was, “Hmmm, black chicken recipes.” No, not “blackened” like spice-encrusted red-fish, nor burnt like the turkey in the article, but “black chicken,” a Taiwanese delicacy. They have a hybrid chicken over here that literally has blue-black skin beneath its feathers, so in the meat section of the grocery store, you will see a black-skinned whole fryer right there next to the pig knuckles and stir-fry beef. No, that’s not the kind of chicken we had for our Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe next year.

On Thanksgiving Day, we also had our family celebration of Caroline’s second birthday with a few gifts and some long-distance Happy Birthday songs from the grandparents. Since she’d already had a big cake at her party, we had blueberry muffin bread for her birthday breakfast. (Long story, but I ruined my muffin pan so I’ve been pouring the muffin batter into a bread pan. Works pretty well.) One of her gifts was a two-foot tall Strawberry Shortcake fabric doll that she thinks is a real person. She talks to her and has tea parties with her, but Strawberry is not allowed to share her pillow or stuffed animals at night and has to sleep by herself at the bottom of the bed. Caroline is just a wee bit protective of her turf around potential competitive threats.

Carolinese
In addition to blossoming into a feisty but still completely lovable two-year-old, our resident princess has had a language explosion over the last few months that leaves us shaking our heads in wonder. And it’s not just the quantity of words and phrases, though she must be learning a dozen words a day. The drama with which she delivers her lines, especially with her slightly husky voice, would make Bette Davis proud. For instance, this week McLeod is traveling, so if you ask her where Daddy is, she responds matter-of-factly, “My Daddy on a BIG airplane.” (Evidently, in her mind, he never actually gets off the airplane, just circles the globe for days on end.) Then, with a knowing nod of her head, she’ll lean forward and say, “My Daddy CALL me.”

During these phone calls from Dad, she holds various items up to the phone for him to “look at” while she provides a running commentary. Recently, it was pieces from the Little People Nativity Scene play set: “Look Daddy! It’s the BABY! Her name is called ‘BA-BY JE-SUS.’ (Yes, in her world all babies are female). “Her in her BED! This her MAMA. Her is called, ‘MA-RY.’ Look at this one. He named….he named… ‘Hat-on-his-head.’” (Poor Joseph gets no respect. In the play set he has a kind of generic shepherd look, so he ends up in the “fields by night” with the plastic sheep sometimes. No wonder she can’t remember who he is.)

We also have a family game called, “Get Caroline to say words beginning with sp.”
“Caroline, what’s that you’re eating with?”
“That my foon.”
“Caroline, what do you do with toothpaste?”
“I fit it! I fit bubbles in the water!”
Sometimes we don’t even have to try. She will simply walk into a room and say something like, “Where my farkle bow?” while she hunts for her sparkly hair ribbons. This week she added a new phrase that she picked up from Barret. He had made a tent with a blanket and announced that it was spooky inside. Caroline thought that was great, so now everything is “FOOOOKY, Mama! FOOOOKY!”

It’s not just the entertainment factor, though. I love that she talks to us about everything, and that I can finally know what’s going on in her head. When she says things like, “Mama, GO LOUDER!” meaning she wants me to go faster, I get to see her light up with glee as I swing, spin, or run faster with her. When I find her on the laundry porch sitting dreamily on Barret’s bicycle, I find out that she would really love a “Caroline Bi-th-ycle” of her own. That's definitely on her Santa list.

But my all time favorite moment is when a sleepy Caroline comes to me and says in her funny toddler way, “Mama, are you hold me?” Then, I wrap that bundle of energetic, two-year-old loveliness in my arms and all is right with the world.

Next post: Shèng dàn kuàilè! Reflections on Christmas in Asia and Barret becoming a bona fide five-year-old.

More "Firsts" as We Head toward Thanksgiving

2006-11-19T18:57:00.000-08:00

Halloween is well behind us and Thanksgiving is THIS WEEK! I can't believe it's been a month since my last update. Here are a few of the highlights from the last few weeks.

Since the kids' Halloween costumes accidently went via ship rather than air and didn't make it across the Pacific in time for trick-or-treat, we got to shop for new costumes here. Halloween is surprisingly big in this part of Taipei, and the department stores rolled out costumes, candy and decorations. Our apartment building had a trick-or-treat night, and Barret's school had a massive parade through the buildings for all the children in costume. To quote our friendly neighborhood Spider-Barret, "It was the best Halloween ever!" Of course, last year he had a barfing stomach virus, and it poured down rain, so the bar was set pretty low. We enjoyed going from floor to floor with a mob of little goblins and fairies. I carried my high-heeled Princess Caroline down several flights of stairs since her shoes, though pretty, were not exactly functional. Later, we had some good laughs trying to figure out the identity of a few strange food items in the kids' buckets. It was a great way to round out our first month in Taipei.

At the beginning of November, we kicked off the kiddie soccer season. McLeod calls it bee-hive soccer: imagine a swarm of 4- and 5-year-olds chasing a ball through other kids' games, across the track, and into the weeds every few minutes while parents yell, "Come back! Come back!" The children's jerseys have corporate logos all over them - think: NASCAR drivers - and the jerseys are at least 2 sizes too big so the kids look like they're in dresses. There are no goalies. Players keep running off the field to eat pizza, drink juice or use the bathroom. It is adorable and hilarious.

McLeod opened, closed, and re-opened a local currency bank account. The bank initially opened the account at the wrong branch--a fact that he pointed out to them almost immediately. However, in order to change to the correct branch, he had to first complete the entire process for opening the original account, including having his picture taken for an ATM card, so that the account could then be closed and a new account opened at the correct branch. And yes, he had to have his picture re-taken for his new ATM card. We just laughed.

We are in the midst of our first sniffley-snuffley family cold plus one sinus infection (mine) that sent me dragging into the family doctor last week to get medicated. I was pleased with how easy and inexpensive a doctor visit was--a big relief since at some point I will have to take one of the children in for something. I called at 9am, was scheduled for 11am, and was finished before noon. The only thing that was a bit unnerving was that I didn't actually see what any of the doctors or nurses looked like. When I arrived for my appointment, I was greeted by a receptionist wearing a surgical mask. After filling out a brief intake form, I was given a number and asked to be seated. Within a few minutes, my number flashed on a screen and a mask-clad nurse escorted me into the exam room to see the doctor, who was also wearing a mask. Are you starting to spot a trend here with the masks? It's a bit like interacting with a mouthless puppet. We talked symptoms, and he checked my nose, breathing, etc. and agreed with me that I had a sinus infection. He prescribed 4 different medicines, and though he was a bit muffled-sounding behind the mask, I am quite sure he told me to wear a light jacket in this unpredictable weather and perhaps consider wearing a mask in public places.

A related "first" was my trip to the pharmacy just a few doors down from the doctor. When I arrived at Whale Drugs (their slogan is "Whale wish you always well!"), my prescriptions were already prepared for me. I am having a tough time describing the packaging so I'll refer you to the picture. Each segment in the long paper strip contains one set of pills. For each dosing session, after each meal in this case, I simply tear open a package and take what's inside. Since I also have a set of pills for twice-a-day rather than three-times-a-day, they are packaged separately in a tiny ziplock bag. All in all, a very efficient way to dispense medicine; however, as another expat recently warned, better not try to board a plane to the US with them. Afterall, a plastic baggie with instructions sort of scrawled across in Sharpie marker looks a bit suspect. I was also somewhat alarmed when Caroline pointed and said, "I want some candy." The meds are definitely on a top shelf now.

In the midst of Sinuses Under Seige and the Creeping Congestion, we were able to pull off a birthday party for the kids. We opted for a joint party with a Cars/Incredibles/Bob-the-Builder theme since it was unbelievably difficult for me to find the themed birthday party kits on which I've always relied. I unearthed a package of Bob the Builder invites from my stationary box, and we hand delivered them to our friends. Barret and I decorated a chocolate cake with red, yellow and green M&Ms and two of the Cars characters (Caroline's "Sally" car and Barret's "Lightning THE Queen" car, as he calls him). I made a giant birthday banner to hang in the room we reserved at the apartment complex. I also had the good fortune of discovering two ladies at a craft fair who make and sell pinatas--their buisness cards are printed simply, "Pinatas and Latin Food," followed by their phone numbers. They sold me their last in-stock item, a massive Incredibles orb that looked a bit like a big red and black bomb. It was fantastic! I was, as usual, scurrying around in a panic to get everything pulled together. We'd even had to change the time at the last moment because I didn't realize we had an evening dinner engagement for McLeod's work. But when the party guests showed up, when little kids began chasing each other and sneaking M&Ms, when other moms jumped in to help with serving and clean-up, I calmed down enough to realize something important: We actually know some people now. Maybe not well yet--I'm not even sure of some last names--but at least well enough to laugh together at Caroline's chocolate-cake-beard and Barret's attempts to break the industrial-strength pinata. It's really quite nice.

Fresh Perspectives, New Routines, and Some Firsts

2006-10-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about moving to a new country is that you see the world with fresh eyes. Everyday things are simply surprising. The streets here alternate between tree-lined boulevards with chic modern buildings and shabby alleys where laundry flaps from sooty, cement balconies. The grungy garbage truck plays Beethoven’s Fűr Elise to signal its arrival--think Dukes of Hazzard car horn here not gentle melodic strains. Women wearing Prada high-heels and carrying Louis Vitton purses (likely the real things, not the knock-offs from Shanghai) zip down the street on their exhaust-spewing motor scooters. I love the incongruities, the surprises I discover on a daily basis. I laugh (usually) that I sometimes head out to complete a normal task like going to buy sliced sandwich bread and instead return with a baguette, a half-dozen cookies and a loaf of what turns out to be some sort of raisin toast.

As you can imagine, setting up our home and our daily routines has been different as well. Things are still a bit bare since we are still awaiting our shipment from the US, but we are slowly adding a few personal touches to the apartment. Our very first house warming gift was a lovely plant from McLeod’s corporate office. I was excited to hear there were flowers in the lobby for us but a bit overwhelmed when the house plant turned out to be a 3ft tall arrangement of purple orchids. These absolutely gorgeous flowers are indigenous to Southeast Asia so perhaps no more uncommon here than a peace lily or a rose bush in the States. But never in my life have I cared for something so exotic. I Googled “orchids” and also asked a neighbor for advice. The general consensus seems to be to leave them alone as much as possible and they will be fine.

We have now moved the flowers to the perfect spot in our bedroom--partly so that little hands would stop pulling off the blooms. I truly love waking up to see my very first “pet” orchids greeting me each morning. I then stumble to the kitchen to microwave some water for what we call “Fakee” (instant Hazelnut Latte flavored coffee) since our coffee pot is still somewhere over the Pacific. Fortified by this bland drink, I make sure Barret is dressed for school and then head downstairs for continental breakfast (and a cup of real coffee). It’s a new routine, but I like it—especially the breakfast provided by the apartment each day. I don't really care what they are serving as long as I wasn't the one who had to get up early to fix it. Kernal corn and chicken with cucumbers on the side? Dried pork "floss" with milky rice porridge? Yep, right next to the Frosted Flakes and hard-boiled eggs.

Barret’s biggest change in routine has been school. Going everyday, eating in the lunchroom, having PE and library time—it truly is real school a year earlier than we’d planned. But he is loving it, especially the trip on the school bus each morning. Riding on a school bus has been one of his life-long dreams, and when we found out that the 4-year-old kindergarten has their own exclusive bus complete with a kindly bus monitor named Mrs. Pang, we decided to let him start riding in the mornings. So each morning after breakfast, we walk him out to the sidewalk in front of the building where we wait with another classmate and her family. At 8:00 a.m. the bus rounds the corner while Barret and his friend both yell, “It’s the bus! It’s the bus!” The doors open and Mrs. Pang hops down to help the two children load up quickly and safely. However, the first morning I didn’t realize that Mrs. Pang would load him up quite so quickly. I didn’t really get to say goodbye before he was whisked away. I returned to my apartment and sat by the phone for awhile just in case the school called to say a sobbing Barret hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to his mommy. The telephone didn’t ring, of course, and when I walked up to the school for pickup time, Barret’s first question was, “Why can’t I ride the bus home in the afternoons?” Just to reiterate, he really, really likes riding the bus and going to his big-kid school, and I am really, really learning to let go and let him enjoy it!

To Market, To Market...
Another “first” for me has been shopping at the open market behind our building. The wet market—called this because it sells predominately fresh food items instead of clothes or other dry goods—is located in a nearby alley between adjoining six-to-ten storey buildings. This is good because the buildings keep things from getting too warm and stinky. I didn’t even know this market existed until one of the nannies in the building mentioned that she was going to buy vegetables at the market for her employer and asked if I'd like to accompany her. Pushing our strollers, we wove our way through the taxis, scooters, and subcompact cars that slowly motor through the back lanes. I think the smell of fresh fish was my first clue that we had arrived. I looked around a bit and laughed to see a padded-bra-stacked table sandwiched between a dried nut-and-bean display and a vegetable stand. I wasn’t quite ready to buy off the street yet—fish and raw meat at 8am was a bit daunting—but glad to at least know the market was here.

The next day I returned on my own to make my first purchase. I made up my mind to buy bananas and set out with Caroline once more in her stroller. As I approached the alley, I spied a very blonde woman examining framed prints at a table where the padded bras had been the day before. We struck up a conversation over the Joseph Miro paintings, and I learned she was the wife of the Nicaraguan ambassador and that they lived in our building. She gave me good advice, “If you see something you like on the street, run and get your money to buy it immediately. These people are here one moment and then disappear.” So I did—I hot-footed it home, grabbed a few extra thousand New Taiwan dollars and returned to purchase four prints for the apartment walls. That done, I bought the bananas. Then, I was feeling so brave and excited that I splurged on 1kg of purple grapes that turned out to taste exactly like the tangy-sweet wild muscadine grapes I picked in the woods as a child. It was a banner day for me! We have since returned to the wet market every three or four days to buy produce and even a few goodies such as new princess shoes for Caroline. I still haven’t worked up the courage to purchase meat or fish, but who knows? That will be another first for me to try.

Survival Chinese
We have not begun our language lessons in Mandarin Chinese yet, but this hasn't stopped us from trying out a few words here and there. At this point, my vocab is limited to Thank You, Hello and three all-important Taxi Chinese phrases: Right Turn, Left Turn and Stop. I was recently amazed, though, when Barret leaned forward over the cab driver's seat and told him "Zho Dwan then Ting" (Left Turn then Stop!) in his cheerful Texas twang. The cabbie and I both burst out laughing at both the mostly-Chinese phrase he'd uttered and the fact that he'd given the correct instructions to our apartment building. Encouraged by his success, Barret now asks his school friends to teach him new words in Chinese so he can try them out. The latest phrase, courtesy of a cute, “older” six-year old girl, is the one for “Excuse me/I’m sorry.” Unfortunately, this turned into the “Dui Bu Chee” game – he and his friend began to intentionally bump into people on the sidewalk and then say, “Dui Bu Chee!” before being overcome by fits of giggling. Caroline, not to be outdone by Barret, has also picked up a few words. I swelled with parental pride the other day as she said, “Shay shay” (thank you) to a young sales clerk who had given her a treat. But when the woman walked away, Caroline turned to me and asked, “Where Shay Shay going?” Not sure, honey, but if she makes a Zho Dwan (left turn) or a Yo Dwan (right turn), we’ll be sure to let you know!

We made it through our first week!

2006-10-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

We're settling in slowly but surely. Last night was the great shining moment we've been waiting for all week: EVERYONE SLEPT ALL NIGHT. No children up requesting food in the middle of the night. No grown-ups checking email or talking on the phone at odd hours. We all slept, though I somehow passed out watching TV at 10pm and thus, slept peacefully on the couch. I even had about an hour of quiet this morning before the rest of the household awoke. I used this to laugh on the phone with our moving company contact regarding our air shipment problem and to reassure her that we are managing ok without our things but looking forward to them like Christmas.

Nutshell: air shipment hasn't left the U.S. yet because it turned out to be too bulky. A portion is having to be re-crated for a sea shipment--a.k.a. the slow boat to (Republic of) China. We're managing fine except that the kids have watched the same 5 DVDs one too many times and our clothes are literally wearing out as evidenced by the fact that due to a critical waistband elastic failure, our four-year-old son's pants fell down while walking to dinner last night.

We're in good shape though, thanks to the wonderful woman who furnished our apartment and also left us a generous housewarming gift including kitchen basics, toiletries, towels, snacks and a couple of celebration beers in the fridge. We packed bedsheets, so all I had to buy for our first night in the new apartment was some pillows.

So... How did the kids do on the flight?
And the answer is...they did great! Our 13 hour flight from San Francisco to Taipei was amazingly easy, though certainly long. We flew a Taiwanese airline, EVA Airways, and went ahead and maxed out the credit card to fly business class. ("DISCOVER the card that pays you back" with a pittance that you can apply to your gigantic balance and at least feel like you are doing something positive about it!) It was completely worth it to have the roomier seats, better food, and fewer passengers to climb over during the roughly 30 trips to the bathroom by our family. The highlight for the kids was receiving Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel backpacks from the flight attendants just after take off. These contained stickers, crayons and coloring books. Caroline still carries hers with her everywhere, so I've now turned it into her own little diaper bag for our many trips around the city. Hello Kitty and her masculine counterpart Dear Daniel are without question THE reigning couple here in Taiwan. Remember the Beanie Baby craze? Middle-aged women stalking McDonald's workers to get the promotional Teeny Beanies? A bit more orderly than that here, but Hello Kitty plastic cell phone strap charms are going like hotcakes at the Taiwan McDonalds... So, yes, the backpack from EVA Airways has the added bonus of getting my rosy-cheeked, very American daughter even more attention from the curious locals, which, of course, she loves.

Shine on, Shine on, Harvest Moon
Upon arrival, we spent two days at the Grand Hyatt. We got in at about midnight, and McLeod and I were completely zonked because though the kids slept a good portion of the flight, we didn't. So when we finally stumbled into the hotel room, we did what every good parent would do: made the kids a bed of pillows on the floor in front of the portable DVD player and loaded up Madagascar. At least that way we could half-snooze until they got tired enough to fall asleep on their own.

Honestly, I can't tell you much about those first 36 hours here except that at some point we got the keys to our apartment and gave the kids the grand tour of our new home. Highlights for them are the L-shaped sofa, which has a divan-style section for watching TV and (for me) snoozing, the cool view from their room, and the indoor play area on the first floor of the building. It truly is a lovely apartment and feeling more like home every day. The view is spectacular--we're on the 23rd floor--and I'm getting used to the appliances with all the buttons in Chinese and the little quirks like how NOT to blow the fuses (only run one thing at a time) and how NOT to get shocked by the dryer (get it properly grounded asap).

One neat thing that stands out from the past week is that we moved into the apartment on Friday, which coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday here. The festival celebrates the Harvest Moon and the legend of the goddess Chang E. One version of the story, which I read to the kids that night from the Discover Taipei magazine from our hotel room, is that the earth was once scorched by eleven suns until an archer named Hou Yi shot down ten of them. The hero then ascended the throne to rule the earth and married the goddess Chang E. Over time, Hou Yi grew selfish and evil, a despot instead of a noble ruler. He also became obsessed with gaining immortality and set his wise men to find the magic elixer of life. A kind and noble goddess, Chang E feared what her husband would do to earth's people should he become an immortal like herself. When the wise men discovered the elixer, she stole it and drank it rather than let Hou Yi have it. The potion made her float high above the earth (indigestion, perhaps?) until at last she came to rest upon the moon, where she looks down upon the earth to this day.

Of course, after I read the story we had to sing the kids favorite bed time song:
I see the moon and the moon sees me.
The moon sees someone that I'd like to see.
God bless the moon and God bless me.
And God bless the someone that I'd like to see.

And we do take comfort in the fact that you all see the same moon that we do, even if it's 12 hours later, and that the same God watches over and blesses all of us.

3...2...1...blast off!

2006-09-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

We did it! Well, sort of. We've made it to San Francisco for a few days of rest and sightseeing before our flight to Taipei. The movers came on Thursday and Friday of last week and we shut down everything in Houston. I think we were more relieved than anything. We weren't sure we were going to make it out of town at all. The final two weeks in Houston brought some unexpected challenges...

We have discovered a fascinating game we're calling Docu-nopoly. To play, you first head to the Houston branch of the Taiwan consulate (called the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office or TECO), where you file for a Visitor Visa to Taiwan. Then, when you return to pick up your family's passports with newly added visas, you find a tiny yellow note in Chinese affixed to the top one. You have now officially entered the phase of the game in which you will interact with the administrators there every day or so by having them tell you other things they would like you to do so that your Visitor Visa can Pass Go and Be Converted to a Resident Visa once you've moved to Taiwan. Here are some of our favorite "moves" on the Docu-nopoly board:

Please submit marriage certificate and children's birth certificates to TECO office for authentication. (This was something we overlooked in our original instructions so we were thankful for the reminder. But there is more....)
Please translate your marriage certificate and children's birth certificates into Chinese.
Please find your own translator because TECO is not allowed to recommend anyone.
No, you won't need a form to allow the agency translating your documents to present TECO with the documents on your behalf.
Yes, you WILL need a form to allow the agency translating your documents to present TECO with the documents on your behalf.
Please download the form from the TECO website. (They were shocked when we told them all the forms were in Chinese and we couldn't read Chinese. Email from their office was not allowed but they agreed to fax an English version.)
Please have the faxed English version notarized, one form for each document, each one notarized.
While documents are being processed, please go to Houston PD and get a copy of husband's criminal record.
Criminal record for husband is unnecessary. Please go get a copy of wife's criminal record.
Please have the (non-existent) criminal records notarized by the police department. (Unfortunately hearing the last three statements had the effect of making me laugh hysterically and then start crying. Shortly after my fit, we received word from our immigration assistance contact in Taiwan that this was an unnecessary requirement as was the translations of everything, but by now we were already well into the game.)
TECO needs to verify that your notary is in fact a real notary (the stamped seal and notary number could possibly be a forgery?). Please fax additional address and phone number information for the notary who notarized the Document Authentication Forms.
TECO has called the number for the notary and determined it was invalid because a woman answered the phone. (McLeod explained that the notary WAS a woman...)
All documents can now be authenticated.
Sorry, marriage certificate cannot be authenticated by TECO office in Houston because it is not a Houston marriage certificate. It must be sent to TECO office in Atlanta. (Since we were now one day away from leaving, we had our agent gather everything up in whatever state it was in and return to us with hopes that the American embassy could help us over there.)

BUT, there were some bonus points when we got our package of documents back! Other than the marriage certificate, they had authenticated the kid's birth certificates (relief) PLUS their immunization records. I had accidently sent over the immunization records with the original batch of documents and requested that they just be returned to me by the courier. I laughed when I saw the cool authentication stamp on them. So basically the kids are Officially Immunized but McLeod and I are Not Officially Married. Did we win the game? Was it a draw? Who knows?

And frankly, now that we're happy San Fran tourists, who cares!

Packing up

2006-09-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

We are in the final three weeks of packing and prepping for the move, and indeed, it is a move, not a trip. I think the moment of realization came when I began sorting through the toys. With a small, though lovely, apartment waiting for us, we simply cannot take everything we own. Each day brings the agony of choosing.

For my four-year-old, choosing which toys get to come has been particularly hard. Obviously his things represent the known world to him. So each mangled Happy Meal treasure we unearth from the toy box brings up all the emotions of moving.

I find myself stealthily shoving odds and ends into black garbage bags while he’s napping or engrossed in a movie. I’ve boxed up toys on the sly and hidden them in the closet just so he won’t have to choose from among them. However, I am nagged by the feeling that I need to allow him to learn to let go of some of his things. This came to a head when he realized a long-broken dinosaur-shaped race track was no longer anywhere to be found.

“Where is my T-rex?”

“Honey,” I said, feeling the guilt again from the moment I buried T-rex in the outside garbage can, “T-rex is no longer with us. He was just too broken and missing too many parts.”

His voice cracked and wavered as he said, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“You can say goodbye right now, just into the air!” And he did. And I realized that kids can and need to say goodbye, and perhaps I don’t need to shelter him so much from the pain of leaving.

So that leads me to today. We were going to be visiting his preschool for the last time. I decided to go through the children's books to find some that were in good enough condition to donate to the school. Somehow knowing that they were going to someone else made it easier for my little guy, though he still had to lift each book near his face and say goodbye. (And there were some to which he just couldn't say goodbye. So you know what? They will go in storage with my blessing along with the tiny baby clothes to which I just couldn't say goodbye either).

How to watch a movie in 4 to 10 easy steps

2006-08-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

My husband and I are in Taipei this week locating an apartment, visiting the American school, and generally trying to learn our way around the city with assistance from a relocation company. Because we are comfortably ensconsed at the Grand Hyatt downtown, it is tempting to see this as a vacation--children safely and happily staying with the grandparents in the States, room service breakfasts each morning, beauty salon on the 5th floor for his and her cuts and manicures--and truly, I am taking advantage of the second honeymoon aspects. It's just that, well, things are so different here. Simple tasks tend to take me three times as long to complete.

For instance, after a few jam-packed days of apartment hunting, we took some time off to see Pirates of the Caribbean last night. It took us several attempts to purchase our tickets and combo snack from the kiosk. My husband couldn't seem to get the touchscreen to work for him beyond the first screen. Thankfully, the first screen was a language option, allowing us to select "English" so that we could not know what we were doing in our own language. He would get to the next page and then in trying to choose our movie, send it back to the beginning page all over again. My theory on the touchscreen? His giant American meat hooks overwhelmed the computer. After several tries, he let me try with my smaller fingers--I would peck away at the screen while he read off the instructions. We still pushed some wrong button and had to start over at least one more time, but finally with our movie selected, we viewed our seat selection. Should we change our assigned seats? (Nope, we'll keep them. No way would we risk messing up and having to start over.) Now, we were zipping through the Snack options. What exactly is a churros? we wondered as we selected combo 1 from the menu. (Don't know but we'll take one...and only one because trying to buy 2 combos was "Sorry not an option.") Payment time. Why won't it read our ATM card? (Just keep swiping until it finally does.) "Your ticket is printing." As we stood there, dumbly staring at the machine that seemed to be doing nothing, hubby McLeod muttered under his breath, "Please let them be in there," and tentatively reached into a little slot at the bottom. Success! Two tickets and a Combo voucher. It felt like winning the jackpot of a slot machine.

Of course, we then had no idea how to get to the right theater at the multi-plex (understanding the Chinese movie stub was not happening), so with our "dumb American" looks plastered on our faces, we simply held out the tickets to various staff people who waved us in the right direction. Arriving outside the correct theater, McLeod approached the snack counter with the Combo Voucher. The teenager at the register fired off something in Chinese to which McLeod responded hopefully, "Coca-Cola?" The young man efficiently filled a cup and asked something else. This time McLeod gave the deer in the headlights look and the guy shifted to English, "Sweet or Salty Popcorn?" Sweet! And the mysterious churros turned out to be a kind of cinnamon stick similar in taste and texture to a funnel cake.

Inside the theater we settled into Row L, Seats 9 and 10, and I felt quite a sense of accomplishment. We watched as 10 or 12 other patrons wandered in and dutifully took their seats in rows K and L, all of us huddled together in these two rows against menace of 24 empty rows around us. I laughed like a crazy woman at the series of service announcements and advertisements before the movie. (Strange anime characters passing out from green sewer gases as they descend into manholes without the proper oxygen equipment, etc.) I then checked out of reality for a few hours as we watched our movie. Afterwards, I was overcome by the strangest wave of shock as I exited the theater and suddenly remembered that I was not in fact at the AMC movie theater back in Texas and had no idea where the exit was. Ahh, there it was: the exit sign with the green stick figure running for his life for an open door. Evidently when you exit here, you exit with gusto. And so, we did just that, rushing with the crowd into the steamy night air, thankful to know how to do one more thing in our new hometown.

Why Taiwan?

2006-07-20T03:26:00.000-07:00

When we first tell people that we are moving to Taiwan, we generally get the same questions: 1) Why exactly are you moving there? 2) How do you feel about it? 3) What are you going to do with your (TX) house? In the course of the conversation, we also usually get an apologetic question about where Taiwan is located. So, here are answers to those questions!

Geography first: Taiwan is an island off the southern coast of mainland China and north of the Philippines. It stradles the Tropic of Cancer so it's the same latitude as the Bahamas and Egypt. We will be living in Taipei, the capital city at the northern tip of the island. (I bet you've already launched Google Earth now and found it!) That leads into the question of why, exactly, we are moving there. Taiwan is centrally located within Asia-Pacific, so it makes a great home base for us as my husband works to develop market opportunities in the region.

As for how we decided to go - for that is the real question, isn't it?--about 3 years ago, we began to discuss whether we would like to live outside the U.S. at some point. I had lived in Finland with my parents when I was 12, and I was forever changed by the experience. The world--or at least Europe--became a place to explore, to make myself at home, and I was able to make two more European trips over the next two decades. When we began to discuss pursuing an expatriate opportunity with my husband's employer, I was all for it...as long as it was in Europe. Perhaps Munich or London or Zurich. I never imagined Asia would be on the radar. I will never forget when my husband mentioned (about 12 months ago, now) that his division was seriously investigating their presence in Chinese and Indian markets. I knew what was coming. Yep, he asked me what I thought about living in Asia. Honestly, I wasn't sure.

It took a year for the details to develop. Singapore was mentioned; then, Taiwan. Other people were offered the job. We thought the opportunity had passed us by. We both felt strongly that God was leading us toward a major change for our family - perhaps a new position inside or outside the company or a chance to move to a new home - so we had been preparing our house and personal affairs. We had even had a discussion on Memorial Day, prompted by watching a fascinating bio on George Washington, about moments in our lives when we are faced with a choice of paths: one path that attempts to maintain the status quo and meet short-term desires and another path that "follows where history is leading" (a quote from the movie) toward a larger, global purpose. Then, the day after Memorial Day, my husband was offered the opportunity to move to Taiwan, and we were researching, discussing, preparing, agreeing to go. Our hearts and minds were ready. Now we just have to get those suitcases packed.

As for the house, we are still not sure we are meant to sell it. It is in a fantastic location, and we have discussed in the past about turning it into a rental property. I believe God is opening that opportunity for us with a chance to rent it out in the short-term, and I am thankful that it will still be in Houston waiting for us if we need it. This seems especially important for our young son--he needs to know it is there--and frankly, so do I. But one of the fascinating truths I have learned this year as I've prepared the house for eventual sale is that a house is just a house. A home is where I choose to make it. That gives me great peace.

So, why Taiwan? Because it is there! Because Asia is a vastly under-appreciated region, brimming with possibility on all fronts. Because it is where history, and more importantly, God, is leading us. Because we are ready to go.

Lists, Logistics and Launch Dates

2006-07-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

The countdown has begun - though we are still a bit vague on our official move date to Taipei. Most likely we fly over the last week of September. I am learning that I can actually still function without knowing all the details ahead of time. For those of you who know how I rely on fixed dates and definite plans, you will agree that this is a big deal for me. That being said, I still have a pretty big to-do list of things I do know about. Children's passports applied for, vaccinations on schedule, rental plans (both for our Texas house and our flat in Taipei) in progress. We got a giant document from the corporate relocator with requirements for Visas, Alien Resident Certificates, and the like - they relish checklists as much as I do. Then there are random things that I think about in the middle of the night like, "What should I do with my piano?" and "When was my last dentist appointment?" I look forward to getting the logistics behind me and settling in. At the same time, I am soaking up these final two months in the States. What a blessing to laugh with old friends even as I eagerly anticipate new friendships on the other side of the world.