ten months!

go to flickr, KrityMetz

One thing I have noticed is that the blogger isn't the greatest for putting up photos, and I am taking a lot of photos...so if you want to see more, I'll try to upload more photos to my flickr account. Tip: click on the blue words 'flickr account' in the previous sentence, and the link should take you there.

Ryan and Torben

We also went to a park and Ryan watched Torben trying to eat rocks although in this pic he is eating the camera case. All in all, it was a pretty good weekend considering. We are all glad that last week is over with and we hope that things don’t go that way again. I think it is all part of adjusting to a new environment. Now, if I could only get use to the scooters.

Taintan Temple

Sunday. Torben is back to his normal routine of waking up at 5:30. I got up with him today, Tim slept until 7 and I went back to bed and got up around 10! Yunche called and asked if we wanted to go to Shabushabu (hotpot) so we quickly had ‘About Coffee’ coffee and then got on our way. Remarkable it was not that hot today. We got to the restaurant which happened to be next to this temple called Taintan Temple, which is the oldest temples in Taiwan. It was crazy. Since this is the Torben blog here is two pix of the monkey but if you want to see more, go to my flickr account. After the super cool temple we hit a different hotpot place. There was a sign on the door that said ‘no cameras’ or I’d have taken a picture. Everyone gets there own little pot of boiling broth (you get to select your broth flavor) then you go over and select your meat and they slice it up super thin...then you go and grab platefuls of seafood (clams, shrimp, squid, scallops...then a bunch of other unidentifiable seafood), and vegetables and dumplings and many different kinds of mushrooms...and many, many, many other things - take them back to your table and then you cook it all in your boiling pot of broth. It was enjoyable but like usual Torben was difficult to deal with because he hates to sit. Ryan, Yunche’s son is a year older and just sat there like an angel. My favorite part of the meal was feeding Torben a little ice cream. I gave him a bite and he had that usual disgusted look on his face, the look is ‘what the hell are you feeding me now?” and then the eyes got really big and looked straight at the bowl and then a big smile...it was hilarious. Go figure, he likes ice cream.

Torben tries some seaweed

The dinner place is called (Chinese translation) ‘The Big Happiness’, it is Chinese food but they have an English menu – which takes a lot of the guesswork out of ordering. It was good to get out of the house even if it was just for those two short trips.

Ahhh, Saturday...Feeling better

Everyone is feeling better. Tim still has a cold but it hasn’t prevented him from vodka cocktails and running the 15 flights of stairs multiple times so it can’t be all that bad. We took things pretty easy on Saturday but the day did include a trip to the park near our house and dinner at an outdoor place down the street from our apartment.

That week...

Well we hit ‘that week’, the week where you say to yourself,’ why did I come here when things were going so well in Vancouver, and now I am in this really strange place and can’t communicate with anyone and have all these scooters to deal with and it so frikin’ hot’. It started on Sunday. We had a hard time getting a cab from the beach. We decided to leave pretty quickly after we got there mostly because Tim wasn’t feeling all that great. Even at the beach he got ‘sick’ if you know that I mean. But then felt immediately better, as one always does right after they get ‘sick’. I told him this but he felt ‘fine’ so we figured we’d wait it out. He didn’t get better, he got worse and was sick all day on Monday too. No big deal, I can deal with Tim being sick and everyone gets food poisoning once in a while. On Tuesday he went to work and Torben and I went to the pool which was great. He had fun climbing up these big cement stairs, the pool was ok too. Did I mention I also has some sort of cold that had started in Saturday morning...minor inconvenience but it did prevent us from going to Kaousling to Costco and Ikea with Yun-che that day. Ok, back to Tuesday, things were looking up, Tim was better and I still had my cold, but it was minor. Torben went to bed as usual but then got up at around 11 screaming and the screaming didn’t stop until early morning...there was maybe and hour or two of napping between the screaming, poor kid He also got sick a bunch of time and definitely had a fever. I am sure the monkey had no idea what the hell was going on, he’s never been sick before so I am sure it was quite confusing for him. He seemed much better in the morning but we took him to the doctor to be sure. It was probably a virus that Tim had, not food related. He is feeling better now but we’ve hardly left the house all week and getting much sleep has been very problematic. No immersion Chinese for Torbs, and on top of that he now has my cold. It has been a pretty crappy week for our household. It is an entirely different traveling experience with a small child. Usually I am pretty care-free when it comes to sickness and such, but with Torben I worry about it a lot and worry about his health and what he eats and drinks. I worry about this stuff at home too – but when you are traveling it is so much harder – especially when you can’t read any labels. I have probably read too much on pesticide use in Taiwan too so I don’t really want to feed him too much of anything. Oh and the sun, not too much sun, and he gets hot pretty easily so no long walks in the mid day...and his feet, and what about all the crap he tries to eat off the ground. Even in the apartment some of the paint is pealing on the wall, right at his level. I found a pile of paint chips... I am sure he made a meal of those and now has lead poisoning. And then all the people that want to touch him and hold him, do I tell them ‘no’? Would that be rude? Is it ok to be rude? I don’t want him getting H1N1, WTF am I doing here? I did buy three new tubes of hand sanitizer something I use to think was ridiculous. Especially in Africa – all these white people walking around with their ‘hand sanitizer’. What is everyone so afraid of? Although, hand sanitizer is not going to keep him from eating lead-flavored paint chips! I just wish people would stop touching him! The highlight of the week was a had a chicken salad from dinner, Tim had burritos which he said were awful, but my salad was quite good.
No plans for the weekend, I have a bunch of work to do. Tim found some ball hockey people he is going to try and play ball hockey on Sunday. If he can meet some people through that it will be huge. Maybe after the weekend I’ll have something more positive to report...