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?