Pooh bear and piglet

There are a couple of other pictures I want to put up from the visit with the Jaglinski's.

Merry Xmas cont.

Ho Ho Ho - Torben loves beer too.
Christmas dinner at the 'Surf Shack'

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Merry Christams everyone. Sorry we are a couple of days late. We didn't get any days off for Christmas so we didn't celebate until the weekend.

Back seat touring

'OMG, I am soo tired. All this touring is getting me down, maybe if I close my eyes for a second then I can regain my energy and run ... around ... some ... snoooooozzzzeeee'

Torben spent the second half of the tour in the back seat snoozing away...he missed lots of cool stuff.

Taroko Gorge

This was right before he took a nap.







This is maybe the most famous of sights in Taiwan; Taroko Gorge. It was quite fabulous. In this picture you can see Torben (just barely) taking in the sights.

Flirt

We went to a traditional dance performance on the East coast of Taiwan and before the performance Torben friended some of the dancers. It appeared to be a mutual fascination.

Hualian Pier

After we traveled along the Pingjie line we spent one night in Taipei and got on an early train the next morning to Hualian, reportedly the 'most beautiful place in all of Taiwan'. It was very lovely. That afternoon we took a walk along the beach.

on the train

Taipei friends

In Ruifang we ran into some nice kids from Taipei and they helped us figure out where to go on the Pingjie line (we are still on the Pingjie line). It was because of these kids that the day was so much fun. On the train back they had a great time with Torben.

All aboard!

Torben was trying to get a free ride on the train by sweet talking the train conductor.

Lantern Lighting

The second stop on the line was a place that had a lantern festival every year. I had heard about these 'lantern festivals' but didn't really know what they were about. As we walked into town we kept seeing these balloon looking things floating up in the air - as we got a closer look they turned out to be miniature hot air ballons. Then before I knew it Marlene had one in her hand. They are paper lanterns and the idea is you paint on the paper 'wishes' and then you light the lantern and send it off. Torben got a crack at the first painting, which almost instantly turned into a photo shoot.


The picture painting could not be complete without eating some paint.

Sausage

The first stop on the Pingjie line was 'food'.

Pingjie Line

Torben meets someone his own size.

After we got back to town Ken and MArlene spent a couple of days touring Tainan. After that we all headed north to Taipei in search of a 'tourist' train. Details on this train were vague at best but we knew it was accessable from Taipei main station. After much going around and around trying to figure out what was what and through the gratious help of some Taipei kids (they took this photo) we finally got on the train by around 3 in the afternoon. We only had three hours until it got dark but we managed to pack in a lot of fun stuff in those three hours.

Back to Taiwan...

We went to dinner at this restaurant called Fu Lou - I wanted to take my mom and aunt here while they were visiting but we never got the opportunity. Tim and I had been here once before shortly after we arrived in Taiwan and I had remembered it being really delicious. As it turns out, it was 'ok'. The Big Happiness restaurant down the street from where we live is much better (so Mom and Marilyn, you didn't miss out on anything). The beer companies send young attractive girls dressed in what I would have to describe as cheerleading outfits to certain restaurants. They go from table to table and sell beer and then once you order beer they continually refill your glass in hopes that your drink more and then order more. This 'beer girl' really liked Torben - not so unusual.

In Macau - a monkey enjoys a panda

Panda1: hey, you awake?
Panda2: yea, what's up?
Panda1: I think there is some crazy monkey touching my butt.
Panda2: That doesn't happen everyday, does it?
Panda1: I can't say that it does.

Macau wharf

We spent just one day in Macau. It was interesting to see the contrast between HK and Macau. The most unexpected thing for me was it was under Portaguese control up to ten years ago - so lots of signs were in Portuguese and some really nice achitecture was from the early Portuguese. The new part of Macau developed just in the past 10 years were the huge hotels (the MGM Grand is the building in the background of Torben), massive 8 lane bridges and substantial infrastructure. Torben has a great time...more pictures to come.

Bye HK

On the Star-Ferry to Macau, bye-bye Hong Kong. Hello casinos.

Monkey hat

I had to make a close up so you can see the complete frustration with having a hat on, my god, you would think we were torturing him!!

Two things Torben hates : sitting still and things on his head. He got a monkey hat for his birthday so he was trying it on for size. This was about the best picture I could get.

birthday party, a week later

We had a small B-day gathering in HK at the hotel. The festivities included a swim in the pool, presents, horns and hats.

big bear hugs small monkey

Strange things can happen in Hong Kong; while this big city has very little in the way of wildlife, I did get a photo of a big bear hugging a small monkey.

Hong Kong

Torben visits Buddah...and waves hello.

A star is a year old

Check it out
http://www.urbanbaby.ca/ although I have to say, Torben has taken MUCH cuter pictures than this one. I thought that even some from the same photoshoot were better than this - but still cute.

For you Vancouver people...if you see a copy at a Safeway, can you grab me one or two?

Torben got a stool for his birthday!

One day to go!!!

and then I am no longer technically a 'baby' - phew, that is a stupid title, I am not a baby. I am a toddler and have been a toddler for at least three months now, baby - stupid.

night out

We went to dinner with the people from the 'Biofuels' conference, Torben tagged along. Here is Tim and Torben waiting outside the restaurant and also Tim, Torben and Yun-Che in front of a temple close by the restaurant. Birthday is tommorrow and we still have no plans!

Hey look, I can feed myself!

Can you believe it, four days short of his one year birthday (wow are we getting excited) and Torben can now feed himself. Next thing you know he'll be running - oh wait, he can do that too. He is such an amazing little person. When he is not outside running around and eating dirt, his favorite thing to do right now is to turn the light switches on and off. We have a light on the bedside table and he will turn the light 'on' and 'off' and 'on' and 'off'... he thinks it is super fun. He has also been in the habit lately of getting out of bed at night climbing into bed with us and deciding that the middle of night is as good a time as any to see if the light switch still works.

Boring weekend

Picture of the day - Torben and the spatula. I haven't been great about taking Torben pictures this week. We've both been really busy playing catch up after last week's conference and lecturing and we had a very boring weekend. Tim worked on Saturday and I worked on Sunday. On Saturday while Tim was working though we did manage to make it to Wu's Gardens and Torben ate some dirt and pointed at some turtles. Next week - Ken and Marlene are coming into town and we are off to Hong Kong and Macau so I might not be updating much again next week. I'll see if I can update a bunch this week.

B-day celebration #1

We had a little pre-birthday celebration with Grandma Marilyn and Grandma Joan. We bought four different pieces of delicious cake. Torben didn't agree and spit each out immediately after each try. I found this to be particulary funny considering he seems very fond of eating dog poop or any other disgusting thing he can find on outside on the ground, but give him cake and you'd think we were poinsoning him! We'll have birthday celbration #2 when Tim's parents arrive next week. We'll give the cake a second taste test as well.

at the beach, cont.

It can't all be about Torben. Here is a nice picture of the sisters at the beach. The hotel we stayed at had a very lovely room with a nice porch with a table that we spent a lot of time at. It was a great weekend and a nice break from the city.

Kenting, what a great place

We went to Kenting with Grandma Marilyn and Grandma Joan. Everyone had fun. The monkey had lots of fun running around and eating sand.

Big feet ... little feet

animal contained

I debated whether to post this very pedestrian 'baby' picture on the blog but I just wanted to share that we recently bought Torben a baby seat for eating. He has turned into a wild animal. If there is food around, he will run around trying to grab it from you while eating and grab plates off the table. Marilyn inadvertently started calling him Tracker (their black lab, which is also very much 'food-oriented' but there is no mistake, Tracker is much better behaved than the monkey. Anyhow, here he is - contained, and hopefully more under control.

Longshan Temple – Taipei

One of the sights not to miss in Taipei is Longshan Temple which is the largest temple in Taiwan. It was quite wonderful. Torben per usual was a hit and attracted a crowd. He was gracious with the attention and signed a few autographs

Back home but with Grandmas!

We got back from Taipei and then relaxed for an evening of catching up in Tainan. Next day we went to ‘About Coffee’ then came home and Torben took a very long nap – maybe two hours. We took advantage of that and did laundry and unpacked and organized. After the nap we packed up and caught a taxi and hit Shin Kong Mitsutoshi which is where ‘Yu Kids Island” is. Grandma Marilyn and Grandma Joan took Torben in – as usual, he had a blast. Lots of running around and screaming.

Bali, Taiwan

After Taipei we headed a bit north to Beitou - an area known for it’s hot springs. We stayed at the SweetMe Hot Springs Resort for three nights and took day trips around the area. One day included a short boat trip across the Danshui river to the town of Bali.

Emporer Torben

National Palace Museum- Taipei

Torben got quickly bored with the Ming ceramics and the jade carvings so I took him outside to get a little air. Very quickly he was surrounded by the ‘Chinese paparazzi’. He graciously allowed an impromptu photo shoot on the grounds of the National Palace Museum. After the Museum we hopped into cabs, Tim, Torben and Kris into one and Dawn, Marilyn and Joan into another – we were all bound for Taipei 101. We had plenty of time to take a quick trip to the top and hit the food court. Who knew the taxis would drop us off at different places in the building and I suppose only really ignorant people would assume it would be easy to find each other amongst thousands and thousands of Taiwanese and Chinese tourist. To complicate matters Torben threw up all over himself and Tim in the cab ride over so was now naked aside from his diaper. Tim took Torben back to the hotel, and I stayed to try to find the second part of the group. We were fortunate to somehow reconnect amidst the crowds but no one got to the top of the tallest building in the world or the food court.

Back from China and on to Taipei

China was a blast. Dawn and I returned to a very sick Tim and Torben. it took a couple of days for the recovery and then we decided to spend the weekend in Taipei. We started the adventure with a bite to eat (buns stuffed with pork and dumplings - yum!) at some street vendors in Taipei.

chillin' on the couch

We spent the day cleaning in anticipation of my friend Dawn arriving. We did go to the Indian Restaurant for dinner, yum. The place is called 'Indian Restaurant".