KTV

People here love KTV (aka karaoke). Or perhaps I should say they live it.

I think I have previously mentioned the home that is located between us and grandma's place, that we pass every day and that often has a group of KTV'ers in their 50's I think, singing loudly and unabashedly - and off keyedly in most cases - into the mic, with big sliding mosquito-netted doors not buffering the sound out towards the street at all. I will try and inconspicuously get a photo and video of it one of these days.

Then there are the park areas that have the resident KTV-tent set up, along with tea and snack vendors scattered about.

The park by the Confucius temple in Hsinchu is no exception. At the outskirt of the park we have this tent. Usually it has 5-7 people in it, but this time it was just this one guy (and the entrepreneur):

At the end you can also glimps one of the tea-brewer's set-ups.



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more gardens

As an encore to the park-garden post, here are two bigger residential garden areas in our neighborhood (other people have mini-gardens outside their homes, in buckets and Styrofoam 'boxes' practically on the alleys and lanes).

The first one is really close to our house, in an empty lot enclosed by buildings on all sides:

[Assumption: the various lots are tended by different residents and not by the owner of the lot itself] 

 

The second is right by the train station:



[Five plots more likely put there for little flower/shrub gardens, but residents have put them to much better use] 

And the thriftiness doesn't stop there - check out the protective material used by this guy - other people's land/house 'For sale' signs snagged from wherever they had been hung up around the area, and as with the other plots, other general recyclables:

There is seriously so much to love about all of this! In terms of 'culture me this' I mean, not in terms of the pollution that is being absorbed into the food (unavoidable due to location location location - seriously dirty looking gardens when you get up close and personal)~~ 

 

 

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a little train excursion

We live a 10 min walk from the nearest train station on a "side-line" that goes from the main line in to the mountains, through our town. Our destination was, well, the train ride itself actually. For NT38 each (us adults) - a bit more than US$1, we got ourselves a round-trip to the last stop on the line, a tourist destination village at the mouth of the mountains - 30 min ride each way.

 

One thing I really like about Taiwanese local (slow) trains is the round-circle in the middle of them, as it is oh-so Chinese:

[Empty train at one of the stops at a tiny village on the way, as it was this train's end-stop ... we were waiting for the train that would take us onward and the conductor let us hang out here]

[and so hang out we did...literally]

[The train station]

 

 

 

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park gardens

You are perhaps thinking flowers and nice bushes when I mention park gardens, but in Taiwan there is a trend of people in the neighborhood using their local park areas as their own little garden lots, as in they grow their own vegetables there. No joke.

Previously we have come across people using the separator (that originally had bushes and grass) that goes down the middle of the road to grow their vegetables in a residential area. Today we happened upon this set-up:

[Tending to their vegetables] 

[Note the wall...]

[They removed a section of the bushes on the wall separating the park from the side-walk to plant cabbage and other stuffs. Here you can also see more of the park-area.]

[Looks like it is for own consumption, as they seem to not be using pecticides]

It's not technically allowed, but it seems no-one really minds.

 Yet another reason I love Taiwan.



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ants in her pants

Last Thursday we went up to Taipei/Jilung to stay at Judge's sister's for three days so the kids could play and we could hang out.

Day one, we first went and did Eliana's final citizenship application (yay! all done and done), and then met up with Cecilia and her two kids (Owen, almost 4yo, and Zoe, 1y8m) at National Taiwan University because they have awesome lawns and ponds and gazebos and pathways and rocks and sticks and birds and all that goodness.

While at this one gazebo, I saw Leona and Owen pointing to an area and discussing ants, and I thought it was just another normal affair. Suddenly Judge rushes over and snatches a then sitting Leona up. She had sat herself down smack dab in the middle of an ant moving frenzie, and within seconds she had hundreds (I seriously believe they were in the hundreds) of ants crawling all over her lap, legs and up her front and back. She was not disconcerted by it at all, just interested. After brushing all the ants off her, we told her we didn't think it was a good idea to sit down and let them crawl onto her - though they didn't seem the biting kind, it could still be really uncomfortable if they got inside her clothes and all that jazz.

After a couple more minutes where we watched the wave of the ants moving their home (I believe they must have been moving due to some kind of disaster, since it was at a super frantic pace and a good portion of them were carrying little white things...babies? Eggs? Do ants lay eggs? ) they were back to a regular ant here and there kind of deal.

I love that she was curious enough to just sit herself down in the middle of it.

[Leona sitting back down where she had sat when the frenzied wave was right there...now moved a ways further down and on the side rather the top too].

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Eliana's got herself a sharpie

Last night I felt a tiny little point coming out of Eliana's lower front left part of her gums. That's right folks. She's got herself the peekings-out of a little pearly white!

That's at 5 months and 1 day...about 10 months earlier than Leona's first tooth. Of course this is as exciting as all developments and milestones happen, not dependent on timing of these milestones. But, I'm not sure I am actually super happy about this per say - that will depend on if she starts biting while nursing or not ;)

She's become an excellent roller, both from back to stomach and stomach to back, and can manuver herself around the floor or bed pretty well.

She consistently wakes up with a dry diaper in the morning (after peeing once or twice during the night in a bucket scoop aka make-shift potty), and usually just needs a couple changes of lightly loaded diapers during the day (most often because I am busy with other things, or she's with someone else).

She is still generally a super smiley and happy baby...especially towards me. She's started to be wary of strangers, though, and looks for me when others hold her way more than she used to.

At night after her bath Leona and I bath and shower, respectively, and I consistently come out to a crying or screaming little Eliana, who often calms down by just some mama hugs (or if not then definitely with nursing, even if she nursed right before I took a shower). Thank goodness Judge takes it with a smile.

She has the best facial expressions ever.

[Checking out my phone]

[Looking at me]

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Some sweet vocab and more current Leona gems

Leona's vocab continues to skyrocket, while a huge majority of it is Mandarin, there's of course also a lot of English and Norwegian. I need to get better at taking notes at the time of them being said so I don't forget them when I make these lists, but here are some great current gems:

• Awoloo - underwear
• Na fo you (sounds like 'not for you') - love you
• Tåtkj (or 'totch' in English) - stå (Norwegian for stand)...but also used for English's 'stand' as well
• Went from saying Ana (and Noona) to Liana (and Leona) to Eliana (and Aleona - how much do you love that?), but sometimes still also Noona and Ana
• She loves going to the elementary school and play on the swings...walking past during school hours she also loves to peek in on the kids, wishing she was in there playing as well

•  She loves to help push Eliana in the stroller:

• Still loves to run, run, run, throw leaves and rocks, collect rocks, slide, swing and play with dirt/sand - and still loves her Totoro

• She has a current favorite pair of shoes (she changes favorites every so often) - the pink and gray one below.  When Judge was in China, we lost one on the way home one afternoon (she always takes her shoes off when playing), and didn't find it when we re-traced our steps later that same afternoon. Instead of wearing other shoes, she wore the one left along with her last favorite ones - her boots. Two days later, after Judge came home, I was first heading home with Eliana after dinner at grandma's, and lo-and-behold there the shoe was sitting nice and squared on the side of the road, waiting for us two blocks from the house. Next morning I see Leona again with one boot and that shoe - turns out Judge lost the other shoe on the walk home 10 min after I found the missing one. But again, after passing a spot about 15 meters from where the other shoe was found a couple times the next day - with nothing there, on the third pass-by the shoe magically was there waiting for us also. So now she is a two-shoer again.

• I came into the playroom the other day and found this set up - we haven't done rainbows or anything, but the cups were stacked in order, so I guess she just set them out relatively in a row, and then put matching balls in the applicable bowls :)

• She's started loving to pretend-cook, as well as of course still a big fan of helping me bake and make waffles

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Leona's new friend, Totoro



Leona's huge into Totoro. She absolutely loves the song (her first encounter with Totoro was on youtube listening to the song), has watched the movie twice (in several sittings), and has the book with color photos (her auntie bought it for her). Because she loves it so much I figured I should make her one - the middle-sized one (blue with three boomerangs on its stomach).

 

I finished it right before her bedtime, and her reaction as this:

She fell asleep still hugging him.

Next day she said she wanted to carry him in the Manduca (the baby carrier I have), but a small one, so I said I would make her one, and off we went to buy the material. Totoro came with us, of course.

[Resting on a bench.]

 

[Picking up leaves to throw down onto the river bank.]

[Confidently wandering off ahead of me.]

[Totoro getting to sit on the stroller - had to be strapped in as per Leona's instructions -

while Leona went and played on the playground.]

 

After her nap when we got home I made the mai-tai styled carrier for her (the cloth pattern is traditional Hakka), and so she got to 'wear' Totoro over to great grandma's house for dinner. When we got there she didn't want to take him off, so we moved him onto her back so she could still eat.

 

 

[OK, so he's a bit too big...]

When she was finished eating she requested he get moved back to her front:

 

He really is way too big for her to be carrying in the mai-tai, so today I made a smaller one. She was happy as a clam (and is now sleeping with both of them):

 

 

 

 

 

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scooter rider

Riding a scooter isn't exactly the safest thing to do in Taiwan (duh). However, as it is pretty much the most common form of transportation, you can see a huge variety of different scenarios on the roads, from families of four, to a parent or grandparent picking three kids up from school - with their backpacks hooked onto the mirrors so there's enough space to sit, to people transporting the most random things, to infants or toddlers strapped onto the driver's back in a traditional carrier or sitting in a stool wedged between the seat and the front of the scooter, and more.

Usually anyone under the age of 12 or even 15 are helmetless, especially toddlers and infants as no helmets fit such small heads (that we have found at least).

Anyhow, I am principally against our girls going on the scooter, as it is not worth the risk, but last week or so we asked Leona if she wanted to ride the scooter just a little bit down the alley we live on. She declined.

Then today Judge was going to head out to buy some stuff for lunch, driving on smaller roads around town, and asked if Leona wanted to come with him and ride the scooter. Again, she declined, saying she was scared, but that she wanted to walk (not an option this time). Suddenly we realized she misunderstood, thinking she had to ride the scooter by herself. Once she found out that Judge would be driving and she would just be going along for the ride, she was excited to head out.

I was putting Eliana down for her nap when they left and didn't get to see them off, so once Eliana was asleep I headed outside to wait for them to come back...with the camera. After a few minutes I saw this:

 

He had (smart-thinkingly) had her wear her bicycle helmet, and had a little plastic stool that she could rest her feet on so that she could sit on the seat in front of him.

She had looooved it.

It won't become a frequent event, but Judge mentioned to me tonight that no matter how careful one is, he knows it is still dangerous, but that it felt really wonderful for him to be able to share this experience with her. It is such an ingrained part of the culture - and is a part of it that we both love so much.


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