Bree’s favorite word these days is, “Mo!” This is her way of saying “More!”, and it’s usually accompanied by the ASL sign for “more”. (Bree unfortunately makes this sign the same way she makes the sign for “pain”, leading to frequent confusion.) Bree says “Mo!” all day long. After being tossed up in the air: “Mo!” After we sing a song: “Mo!” After we read her a story: “Mo!”
We’re getting ready for our trip to Taiwan at the end of the month! We only have another couple of Mandarin lessons to go, Angela’s bought the tickets, and Angela’s folks have an itinerary put together. Jan is considering writing a script of the most likely conversation he’ll have with the Chen relations in Taiwan. This would include such conversational bits as: “Your daughters are very cute” and “You’re quite tall”.
Go go GoToob! With 3 girls, I am always searching for ways to make life easier for me. Usually this takes the form of (on my best days) encouraging and enabling the girls to be more independent. And while you’d expect a 5 and 7 year old to be able to take their own showers and baths, surprisingly they still need help–opening flip top shampoo and conditioner bottles. While I haven’t done a thorough product comparison, we do have our favorite shampoos and conditioners. Unfortunately, they’re geared towards adults, so while I’m shepherding one girl through her nightly ablutions, I often hear another one yell out, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” (If I’m lucky, I’ll also hear the phrase, “I need help!” Then I run into the other bathroom and find that the child is freaking out over her inability to open the shampoo or to squeeze the bottle hard enough to get any out.
Enter the GoToob. Made by HumanGear for traveling, they are a small, satisfyingly squishy feeling tube with a very-easy-for-young-hands-to-open flip top. The plastic comes in several pretty, yet transparent colors so that the girls can tell just by looking which is shampoo (the clear liquid) and which is conditioner (the white liquid). The tubes are easy to open, easy to squeeze, and don’t leak. I also like that the opening is big enough so that I can use a small brush to clean out the inside and refill with something else, if I really want to. But for now, I am stocking up on GoToobs in every bathroom.
I wonder how they would work for toothpaste…
Everyone in Anya’s class had to make a poster explaining what they would do if elected class president. Anya’s poster said:
“As your class president I promise to help people learn how to not interupt.” [sic]
The irony here is almost palpable.
Parent-teacher conferences at SCDS today. Denise Leunow showed us a great picture Liya had drawn. The kids were supposed to complete the sentence, “If I had a rainbow of my own…” Liya wrote: “If I had a rainbow of my own, I’d tie the ends to my street.” The picture was beautiful! Everything in the picture–the girl, the sun, the clouds, and even the rainbow–was smiling.
Packing for our trip. Angela spent a good chunk of day packing everything, so at 9:30 pm the night before we go, we sort of have things under control. Nutmeg’s been sent off to spend the next two weeks at Mom’s. Angela’s parents are with us. We have a small mountain of luggage. The new Kipper DVDs are packed in a carry-on. All looks good. (Jan only wishes the weather forecast for Taipei didn’t show rain for the next 10 days.)
Travel Day to Taiwan. The departure is surprisingly leisurely, something that’s never really happened on an overseas trip (even when we didn’t have kids). Our flight’s in the afternoon, so we finish up the final bits of packing in the morning, Angela’s mom E-moon has time for her habitual grande triple hazelnut at Starbucks, and so on. A van comes around 11:30 am, and we’re off.
It’s a good thing we’re early to the airport, because we need the time to get new seats. Northwest Airlines’ age-blind seat assignment program has split the seven of us into four separate groups. Angela manages to get this consolidated to a more reasonable arrangement of two groups of seats.
While waiting for the plane, Anya and Liya take turns taking Sabriya for a walk—on a leash. Angela bought the tiniest little backpack for Sabriya so everyone could have their own carry-on. (We’ve got most of Bree’s stuff in a separate bag.) Bree loves the backpack. When we had let her try it on at home, Bree wouldn’t let anyone take it off. The backpack comes with what can only be described as a little leash that clips on to it. Bree doesn’t seem to mind the restraint, although Anya and Liya occasionally stop and, a second later, Bree comes jerking to a halt and falls on her bottom.
We’re flying on Northwest 007 to Japan (the same flight Jan took to study abroad over twenty years ago). The 10 hour flight goes about as well as could be expected. Highlights: opening a care package from Grandma; watching some brand new Kipper movies Jan had purchased just for the trip; discovering that the space in front of the bulkhead wall made a great place for Liya to stretch out and sleep. Low points: Anya lifting up her tray with a cup of ginger ale still on it and dumping it over Jan; Bree similarly dumping milk on Angela; none of the adults really getting any sleep. Sabriya takes a 1-2 hour nap around her normal naptime, then refuses to sleep for the remainder of the flight.
We arrive in Narita just as the sun’s going down. Jan changes Bree in a bathroom with more high-tech equipment than most third world hospital operating theaters. Jan also has fun using Japanese to buy some sundries in the Narita mall. The girls watch sumo wrestling on the airport TV.
The second 3½ hour flight to Taipei is hard. Sabriya is completely exhausted. The plane waits for a long time before taking off, but at least they dim the lights, and Jan manages to sing and soothe Bree to sleep. When she finally closes her eyes, it’s around 4:00 am home time, so she’s essentially pulled her first all-nighter as a toddler. So it’s disappointing, to say the least, when they turn on all the cabin lights to serve dinner and thereby wake Bree back up. It takes forever to get her to sleep again.
Immigration at Taoyuan airport is quick, and customs consists of us walking past a guy in a uniform who doesn’t pay us any attention. We’re met at the arrivals area by Dr. Lee and his wife—family friends from Washington, DC, who have moved back to Taiwan. They help pack us on a hotel van, and we drive off. We feel guilty to realize that the Lees waited for us to arrive, only to spend five minutes with us before we left the airport.
The van takes us to the Agora Garden Hotel. The original itinerary had us spend the first night at an airport hotel, then decamp the next day for Taipei proper. Since we’re all exhausted anyway, we’re enormously relieved to just head into Taipei, where we’ll spend the rest of the week.
The Agora Garden is fairly nice, an odd combination of 80s glassy pink/green architecture, a Greco-Roman pavilion, and a patina of tropical rain and dust. Our rooms are nice, with a view of the Worlds-Tallest-Building-For-At-Least-The-Next-Year “Taipei 101” skyscraper.
We finally get everyone in bed at something like 1:00 am. Five minutes later, some lights come on all on their own—and we can’t turn them off. We eventually figure out it’s the hotel emergency lighting. Later we find a slip of paper in the sheaf the hotel handed us at check-in, explaining that the power company is doing maintenance on the hotel’s electrical system for half an hour in the middle of our first night. Ugh.
The girls won’t sleep, so Angela feeds them a snack. Thankfully, the Lees had given us a bag of fruit. The girls snack on bananas, renbu (bell fruit), and some other fruit we can’t identify. Angela’s parents take Bree so we can get a bit of rest. Anya and Liya won’t sleep either, but at least they can amuse themselves while we collapse. They stay up most of the night playing. Jan gets Liya to sleep at 6:00 am, but Anya reads through the night.
Taiwan, Day 1. Jan, Anya, and Sabriya head down to breakfast with the Chens around 7:00 am. The main hotel restaurant has a huge, cuisine-spanning buffet: eggs and bacon alongside dim sum and noodle soup. Jan notices the muzak is playing an orchestral version of “The Holly and the Ivy” three months after Christmas.
Angela and Liya have their own breakfast afterwards, then Angela wants to rest, so Jan takes all three girls down for a morning swim in the indoor pool. The bad news is that Bree’s too young to use the pool, but she makes do by throwing a little squishy ball around. Anya and Liya spend nearly an hour playing in a little waterfall by the kids’ pool.
After lunch we head out for a walk to Taipei 101, currently the world’s tallest building. We’re amused by the animated “Walk” signs at the street corners. These show a little guy walking, who then starts sprinting as the light gets ready to change. We walk down one pedestrian street lined with decorated cow sculptures, which turn out to be a promotion for an upcoming “Taiwan Cow Parade” event.
We enter the shopping mall at the base of Taipei 101, then ride up in what is described as the world’s fastest elevator. The whole ride only takes about half a minute, and Bree’s mesmerized by a quick planetarium sort of light show displayed on the elevator ceiling. We get off on the 89th floor. We pick up audio tours, and Anya sets about listening to all the stations. The weather’s misty, but it’s still neat to see everything from high up. We laugh at a little sign next to the windows: “If you find the windows are frowsy, please allow us a time for preparation.” (We look up “frowsy” later, and are surprised to find it’s a real word.)
The coolest part of the observation level is the viewing area for the “Super Big Wind Damper”, a gigantic 660 ton steel ball held in place by giant cables and pistons. This apparently reduces the movement of the building due to wind or earthquakes. The ball is covered in sparkly gold paint, but the signs don’t explain how this helps it stabilize the building.
On the walk home, all three girls are exhausted, so Cheng-nan pushes Anya in the stroller, Jan carries Liya on his back, and Angela’s got Bree in the carrier. Everyone crashes for a nap around 4:00. Jan wakes up from the nap for dinner, but everyone else is still zonked. He tries to wake up Angela. Jan: “Angela?” Angela: “Yes?” Jan: “Shouldn’t we get everyone up for dinner?” Angela: “zzzzzzz”.
We end up eating separately. Jan has a small adventure ordering at the hotel’s Chinese restaurant on the B2 level. He manages to use his tiny bit of Mandarin to try to ask for chili sauce. The response is a long clarifying question he can’t understand or answer, so he shrugs. The waitress brings a plate of sliced chilies.
After Jan’s back in bed, Angela and the girls wake up at midnight. Most of the restaurants in the hotel are closed, but the nightclub is open and still serving late snacks. The girls eat a light dinner, but what makes the biggest impression on them is the disco ball. The band had been about to leave, but sticks around to perform for them. Bree dances a bit.
Taiwan, Day 2. On previous trips we’ve learned that hard way that we shouldn’t do more than one big outing a day with the kids. For today’s outing, we head to the Children’s Recreation Center, park of some sort a bit northwest of the hotel. Jan’s surprised that Google Maps has transit coverage of Taipei, but it seems the metro’s a good way to get there, so we walk to the Taipei City Hall metro stop. It takes us a few minutes to negotiate the automated ticket vending machine, then another minute just to figure out how to get through the wicket. The little coin tokens we got turn out to be RFID tokens, so we just need to wave them in the right spot. Anya and Liya like the metro. It’s only slightly embarrassing when they start swinging from the hand straps as if they were on a playground.
We get off the metro in a section of Taipei that feels older: narrow streets, jumbled shops, mystery odors. It’s just a short walk to the Children’s Recreation Center. At the entrance there’s a vending machine, and Jan buys a juice box which he figures we can all share. Nope, the girls each want their own, so there’s much discussion of whether they want peach, passion fruit, Muscat grape, etc. Even Bree demands her own, which she drinks enthusiastically.
The first section of the park is a small village of buildings showing off traditional crafts: weaving, print making, and so on. Every so often a busload of little kids on a field trip goes through, but otherwise it’s not crowded. One building is dedicated to an explanation of how rice was milled. A bunch of kids inside are turning the cranks of some old hand-turned grindstones which milled rice into flour. Unnoticed by the kids and the tour guides, there’s a collection of T-shaped wooden implements on the wall above the grindstones. These are unlabeled, but Cheng-nan explains that you’re supposed to use them with the grindstones: you insert a hook at the long end of the T into the grindstone crank, then hold the bar at the top of the T in your hands. By pushing and pulling on this bar, you can more easily turn the grindstone while standing in one place. It’s a lot more efficient, because you can use your whole body to turn. Cheng-nan remembers using these as a boy, explaining that you always worked in pairs—one person cranked, the other poured rice into the grindstone. A common outcome of the work was some kind of rice cake, which may account for his happy memories.
Another group of buildings are dedicated to old toys and pastimes. There’s a building showing off Go and Chinese Chess, and Anya has fun playing a quick mini-game of Go with her grandfather. Another building holds wooden block puzzles. We spend the most time at a courtyard that has hula hoops, and Anya shows off some of her hula-hooping tricks. Anya also handily manages a pair of stilts that a group of kids had tried unsuccessfully to walk on. This part of the park ends with an open area that has a box of iron hoops for rolling on the ground. Angela’s dad surprises us with his facility rolling a hoop along, something he remembers from his childhood. We all eventually get the hang of it.
This area is followed by one with a maze, which the girls enjoy running through. There’s also a waterfall you can walk behind and a pond surrounding “Monkey Island”, but the monkeys are long gone. The pond is stocked with koi, though, and the girls sacrifice the last of their goldfish crackers to feed the koi.
The last part of the park has a reproduction of an old house. Cheng-nan comes across a large wooden old-style bed like the one he remembers sleeping on as a boy. It’s a big piece, with a raised wooden platform, wooden walls on three sides, and a ceiling. He recalls how hard it was as a young child to climb up into it. Before leaving the park, we get another round of juice boxes for everyone. There’s the expected range of strange-sounding beverages, including one called “Hey Song Sasparilla”. Jan tries this, hoping for root beer, but it turns out Hey Song Sasparilla is to root beer what Vernors is to ginger ale.
On the way back to the metro station, we stop for lunch at a tiny hole-in-the-wall fried rice and noodle joint, which turns out to be good. Back at the hotel, E-moon has arranged massages at the hotel spa for herself, Angela, and Jan. The spa experience is pretty nice. We come back to the room around 5:00 pm, and plan to just hang around for a bit before dinner. We make the mistake of lying down, for a few minutes maybe. When Jan wakes up, he can tell we’ve all been asleep for hours. It’s now 11:00 pm, and once again the hotel restaurants are closed. As fun as the nightclub was, we don’t see the point in eating there again. The room service menu indicates that the “Dinner” section ended at 10:30; the only section we can order from is the snack section. (The section is labeled “Snaker”, which doesn’t seem like a good sign.) Angela finally heads out with her dad in search of an all-night store, and returns with sandwiches from an all-night bakery. The girls are delighted with a pink strawberry sandwich. Bree eats a little hot dog in a bun. Jan has something poppy seeds, veggies, and an unidentifiable meat whose kanji includes the radical for “sheep”.
Angela figures that, since she’s up, she may as well navigate the complexities of the hotel’s coin-op Laundromat. Anya can’t sleep, so she keeps Angela company. They don’t fall asleep until 4:00 am or so.