What did we see.....

We went walking what did we see...

These pretty Chinese paper umbrellas hanging in one of our new neighborhood restaurants.

 

These very fragrant purple petunias, my favorite, blooming in the park across the street.

This bumpy and very intricate rock path in a new park we found.

Chinese New Year decorations are down and the department stores are getting ready for Spring....these kites are hanging in the lobby.

More goats.  I like this one a lot and he has this cute candy stripped zebra on his back.

Zane has been working on his animal sounds.  He does the normal barnyard animals and like any good Asian boy he knows what a dragon and a scary Chinese lion say too!

I've mentioned before and shared them with you that Bears are everywhere....these two were at the Lantern Festival.  Captain American and Iron Man.

We had to make a stop at Miyahara this week.  It is an old Eye Clinic that has been turned into a Dawn Cake shop.  We went there to get their traditional Pineapple Cakes for the visitors that John was hosting this week.  Dawn Cake is the most famous Taiwan Pineapple Cake company. They only use pineapple from Taiwan. I'm not a fan of pineapple cakes, but they have lots of other very yummy products to offer!  The building reminded us of something from Harry Potter.  

Thanks for walking with us this week....

English Menu

Eating out is a challenge.  Not because we don't like Chinese food, but because we can't always order at a restaurant if we go alone.  Slowly we are adding new places to our list that either have English menus or picture menus.  We do a lot of hand gestures and pointing to finally get a meal in front of us.  This week we found 2 new places, very close to home that have exactly what we like to eat and both had English on their menu, SCORE!!  

John's boss was in town and he actually has an apartment in the same building as us.  He is Taiwanese and doesn't totally understand my reluctance with some of the food.  For me it is mostly a texture issue, plus I don't eat feet, internal organs, things with the head and especially eyes still intact, or anything still moving.  What's not to understand? Anyway...he called Saturday afternoon and said he had found the perfect place for us, close to the building, and our kind of food AND English. He invited us to dinner for that night.  

I know it looks like a lot of food...and it was.  But it was a small table and there were 4 adults. WE didn't eat it all, but it was SO good! 

It was fantastic!  John is easy, but he liked it.  I liked it and amazingly enough Zane loved it!  It was dumplings and potstickers and noodles....perfect for us.  They had a variety of flavor combinations.  I think our favorites were the Thai spiced dumplings.  Zane loved the pork and veggie potstickers and the noodles.  We will definitely become regular customers there!

I wish i could have gotten a shot of him eating the noodles...it was very funny!

Lantern Festival take 2

I was actually worried we wouldn't get to make a visit to the largest location of the 2015 Taiwan Lantern Festival.  Between the Chicken Pox and work visitors from the States, it seemed like it might not happen.  We DID make it and I am so happy that we did...it was AMAZING!  The weather cooperated, we took one of the visitors with us and we saw the most beautiful lanterns.  For those of you who might not have seen a lantern like this, they are basically structures built out of fabric and then illuminated with LED lights.  They are huge, full of detail and awesome.  

The Tiny American was in a trance the whole time we were there!

Something I find very interesting and obviously different from the States, this was free to attend.  There is NO charge at all. They want everyone that can attend to do so, and they DO!  We got there just a few minutes after they opened and anticipated it being very crowded.  We had plenty of room to walk around for the first hour we were there and then it really started to get crowded, elbow to elbow people with no personal space boundaries.  Fortunately I was really into the lanterns and it didn't bother me too much. By not too much, I mean, my throat only sort of closed up and I was only slightly sweaty....but it was totally worth it!

Zane loves Bee's right now.  He laughs every time anyone says the word.

The year of the Goat

There isn't a lot to say.  I just wanted you all to be able to see them.  The Lantern festival happens right after the Lunar New Year, make your plans now to join us next year!  We will even treat you to some stinky tofu, or chicken feet or any of the other  delicacies available from the food vendors.

Stop and Smell the Roses....or build with rocks

It's been a long couple of weeks.  John has had visitors in and that means he leaves earlier and gets home later than usual, which makes for long days for me and Z. He does try and sneak home, even for a few minutes, to see us before his evening activities if he gets a chance. Zane has had the chicken pox so that has limited our outings and interaction with others and has totally goofed up our routine! We, and by that I mean me, are very much about our routine so when it is disrupted it can be challenging.  

Zane is feeling better now.  John's visitors start leaving tomorrow and life will return to normal....well as normal as it gets around here. It has been so humid the past few days that our time outside has been limited to early morning and late afternoon.  I can only imagine what it will be like this summer when it is REALLY hot! This morning, since we were up early anyway, we decided to just take a walk around the path at our apartment and then we wandered around in the courtyard.  The courtyard is beautiful and the buildings block out the harsh sun, but there is a lot of water to attract the Tiny American's attention, so we don't spend a lot of our time there.

One of Zane's favorite things to do is play with rocks.  In the courtyard there is a flower bed that is full of bamboo plants and the base is full of these big stones, just the right size for his hands, but not small enough to go in his mouth.  He loves to stand there and build with them and just throw them back in the pile. We stood here for 20 minutes today, just piling rocks up and then throwing them back in the the bed.  He couldn't have been happier! 

Sometimes I think my need to be busy, to have things planned out and scheduled gets in the way of just being.  As a mom I don't want to  push our days in one direction, making sure to get it all done, that i miss these moments.  I want to make sure that we take the time to just stop and be present.  I want to make sure that we stop and build with rocks, pick up every leaf that he sees, or enjoy whatever he is thinking about.  I want him to know that being with him is what is important, not what we are doing or how quickly we do it.  

So today take the time to stop and smell the roses or whatever it is that makes you happy.  Today don't let life get in the way, just enjoy the moment.

Not an SUV

I won't lie I LOVED my expedition.  I loved how high up I sat.  I Loved that I was one of the bigger vehicles on the road.  I loved how safe I felt.  I loved that I could load the dogs, the boy and all his trappings up and go wherever we needed to go.  And  even though I thought I would never use it I loved the built in GPS.  And don't even get me started on the seat heaters and coolers!  I miss it.  I miss being able to load up and run to the store really quick if I just need one thing.  I miss how easy it was to shop and have room for whatever I bought without worrying if it would fit or not.  I was spoiled, I admit it.  I took the convenience  for granted and I am not sure I appreciated how nice it was until it was gone.  It would not be a good fit for Taiwan.  First of all it would be a beast to parallel park, and that was if you could even find a hole big enough to try and put it in.  The regular parking spaces...no way!  The car we have, is considered big for here and it's a sedan.

I don't mind walking. I like to walk, which is a very good thing because I do a lot of it.  I walk to the store almost everyday to pick up one thing or another.  We walk to restaurants if we want to go out to eat.  Zane & I walk to the park to play.  I walk around to just explore our city.  I have seen lots of things that I would have otherwise missed by driving or riding in a car.  Zane loves it!  I don't miss driving, but I miss how much easier some things would be if I did drive.

 John came home with a TON of orchids from the International Orchid Festival.  The Flowers were beautiful but just in little plastic pots that you would find at a greenhouse so I needed to repot them or at least put them in containers for display.  I had nothing to do any of this with at our apartment.  I knew that I could ask Eric to drive me and we could run to Home Box (think distant relative of Home Depot) and pick up what we needed.  I also knew that Eric was busy with the visitors that were in town this week at John's office so I didn't want to ask him to drive me a couple of blocks when  I could walk it.

This is the part where planning comes into play.  If I am going to buy more than I can carry in my over the shoulder shopping bag I have to make sure that it can fit in the under basket of the stroller, which isn't very big. Before Zane and I leave the apartment we have to make sure that the stroller is empty of any non-essential things. Kinda like a mom's car, our stroller becomes a catch all over several days.  You'll find donut wrappers, extra shoes and jackets, a stray fry here and there, goldfish swimming loose, and water bottles.  Of course I always have to have diapers, wipes, packages of kleenex (for noses and public restrooms), Zane's water cup and sunglasses.

SO before we head out for a planned trip that will require extra space I strip it down and then we head out.  Route is important as well. Some of the sidewalks in our neighborhood are great, some are ok and then there are some that are just not even useable with a stroller.  I have to think about traffic at the time of day we are going and what the sidewalks are like on the way to my destination. I can get to Home Box a couple of ways, one of which has no sidewalks which would not be my first choice in the afternoon - early morning, no problem, there is no traffic.  So I chose the second route which includes all categories of sidewalk.  We have great sidewalk in front of our building and then there is about a block with no stroller friendly sidewalk so we are forced to walk in the street.  Now  if everyone followed the rules and only drove or parked their cars and scooters where they are supposed to, walking on the street would be no big deal....they do not.

There is a red line between the sidewalk and street that lets you know you should not park there, but they do.  I could be pushing the stroller on the street, dodging parked cars and scooters but still kind of off the road,  and someone might decide to parallel double park next to the sidewalk just beside someone else illegally parked which makes us walk even farther out into the street.  Yikes!  I'm even fine with that most of the time now, until a bus doesn't want to even move over an inch.

Once we survive that block and so far we always have, there is a nice stretch of sidewalk for the last block of the trip.  By nice I mean it's wide enough, even with the scooters parked on the sidewalk to get the stroller through, and there are only 2 places where the sidewalk has a step down and back up. And then we are there.  This particular day, when I loaded up, I even surprised myself with how much I could get in the stroller and carry home.  Luckily my companion was in a good mood , which is a huge plus.  He also knew that McDonald's was just around the corner.

This is what I bought!

With the stroller packed full, my shoulder bag with as much as I could carry and happy meal balanced on the handle bars we made our way back home.  We made it upstairs.  Unloaded our purchases and had a cheeseburger.  Repotted some orchids and had a nap! I miss my Expedition, but I'm enjoying my adventure.  Almost everyday I surprise myself with how I can adapt and make things work that otherwise I would probably not try.  Don't get me wrong when we get home I will most likely be seen cruising to Home Depot in some sort of SUV; but I also know that if I had too,  Zane and I could head out with our stroller and pick up what we need.

Orchids are everywhere in the apartment now.

With all the marble and the flowers it feels a little like a funeral home! 

I ran out of pots and had to use a mixing bowl....I like it.