The Milk Tea Diaries

Taichung Art Museum and Tunghai University

2012-02-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

On Day 2 of our Taichung visit, we saw Luce Memorial Chapel, on the campus of Tunghai University.

Very curvy, soaring architecture, so different from most of what we see in our part of Taiwan. Unfortunately, it was closed, so we just admired it from the outside.

The campus was quite lush and beautiful, with plenty of buildings with character and mature trees.

Our friend Jennifer and her daughter Ruth organized the trip with us. So wonderful to have Taiwanese friends who welcome us to this country with open arms. :)

Jennifer even took us to meet her retired professor, who used to teach Chinese Literature, and was quite the calligraphy artist in his time.

Next we went to see the wonderful National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. The main museum is totally free, only charging for entrance into the special exhibition.

There's a huge kids' discovery area, with huge blocks and felt and fabric and bendy pipes and all sorts of paper and glue kind of things.

Eve has just gotten into the "potato head" stage of drawing, which is a really fun leap from the scribbling before. Of course, Ben and I are really excited with this leap into more interesting drawings. This discovery area kept them busy for a good 3 hours, which is saying a lot for the 3 year old!

Taichung Natural Science Museum

2012-02-11T00:29:00.000-08:00

We've been wanting to get down to Taichung museums for awhile now, particularly this one.

Robotic dinosaurs have come a long way since I was a kid! This one was moving and roaring quite realistically. This pic was taken after being in this room for 10 or 15 minutes, and Eve is still looking a little nervous.

Eve is showing us how big the "Momma" dinosaur is.

The girls were quite impressed when they heard that Aunt Anna had gotten needles from one of these in her hand one time. Me, I prefer seeing them through glass. :)

The kids' discovery area was fantastic. Very hands-on and exciting.

This is one of the best museums for kids that I've been to in Taiwan. Thanks for the great trip, Jennifer and Ruth!

Green World

2012-02-11T00:16:00.000-08:00

Green World is not far from Hsinchu, and is sort of like a zoo, but without any big animals. We went with some of Sofie's friends from school.

They all also have a macaw show that is pretty cool.

Eve was quite frightened by the huge fish that hail from the Amazon.

Our little fashion plate. Very into layers at the moment.

The aviary was Ben and my favorite. You could sit and have a cup of coffee right in with the birds.

Great winter break activity.

Family Picture

2012-01-25T05:37:00.000-08:00

Three of us had sat in a plane over the Pacific ocean to have Christmas together--but we kept the family picture low key. A neighbor knocked on the door and we pulled her inside and had the pictures done in 5 minutes! We even got Joe to change his beer shirt. :)

Showing Round the Family: Wenwu Temple

2012-01-25T05:18:00.000-08:00

One of the highlights of Sun Moon Lake, besides the gorgeous mountain scenery, is Wenwu temple. Above is the main gate leading up to it.

The red lion is one of a pair, guarding either side of the entrance, scaring away evil spirits.

Inside, it seems everything is covered in gold.

While the outside is beautifully painted, with glistening red columns. The temple is built into a hill, so as you climb, you enter rooms and courtyards successively, each different and beautiful.

Here incense sticks are burned as an act of worship.

Near the back of the temple, after many steps, is a beautiful stone carving that spans an entire wall.

Mom, currently writing a paper on concubines, was particularly interested in the "dancing girls" depicted. I love having a historian in the family-- it makes travel so much richer!

Showing Round the Family: Sun Moon Lake

2012-01-25T05:05:00.000-08:00

As soon as we arrived at Sun Moon Lake, we decided to take a rowboat adventure.

The next day was sunnier, which was lovely for circling the lake.

Unfortunately, Sofie fell in soon after this, causing both Joe and Jason to get soaked jumping in after her. What nice uncles!

Soon after, as we continued around the lake, we spotted spider webs that stretched from one tree to another, across the highway. Those spiders were huge by normal standards, but fairly average by Taiwan standards--and certainly a little smaller than the hand-sized beauties that are constantly jumping out at me in my laundry room.

The gentlemen of the family were intrigued. These arachnids reminded Joe of his propensity to catch gross things like scorpions and keep them as pets. He pestered me to catch and freeze one of my laundry room spideys, but that's not. going. to. happen.

And here is the hundredth "interesting food" picture of the trip...but you must admit that the presentation is fun! This is Taiwanese Aboriginal food, and came with some delicious millet wine.

Showing Round the Family: Yehliu and Taiwan's Northeast coast

2012-01-25T04:46:00.000-08:00

Seafood is plentiful and delicious on Taiwan, and we eat as much of it as we can.

Here's dad pestering the crabs at our restaurant. Note that the legs and claws are tied up.

After our seafood lunch, we tried to find a place where Joe and Dad could indulge in a little climbing, one of their favorite hobbies.

Some grandpas play golf. Dad's dad, Grandpa Leo, took up downhill skiing in his sixties. My dad just took up rock climbing.

Nearby is a national park, famous for the Queen's head rock and other weird rock formations.

It's a wonderful place to explore together.

Showing Round the Family:street food, hiking, and museums

2012-01-25T04:17:00.000-08:00

Though the weather was often rainy and cold while everyone was here, we did get a few nice days. On one of those, we went for a jaunt up to Baoshan reservoir, which is just about 15 minute drive from our home, and has lovely trails around the lake.

Some of the plants in Taiwan look almost prehistoric.

We also made it up to the National Palace Museum in Taipei. For a history buff family, it's practically required. Here is Eve, hamming it up for the other tourists outside.

After our fill of artifacts (and my fill of running around after my maniac kids), we packed into the car like sardines and drove to Shilin nightmarket for some supper and to miss rush hour on the freeway.

Here we're eating deep fried squid, while sitting on the front steps of a temple. The oven in the back is where they burn paper money for the ancestors or spirits.

Our local open market might not be as exciting as the one in Taipei, but we still get great street food! Here's Eve buying some fried dove eggs. Behind her are candied baby tomatoes.

Joe got adventurous and tried some boiled snails with garlic.

We all tried some hot almond milk and this crunchy puff pastry thing, which hit the spot on quite a cold day.

My street food of choice is cotton candy...hardly as adventurous as everyone else's squid on a stick!

Taruko Gorge with Joe

2012-01-23T08:34:00.000-08:00

The trip started off great....until the radiator got a crack and the car started steaming like crazy. Luckily, Joe knew what to do and we let it cool. And what a place to break down!

As we waited we went for a hike, and it was gorgeous! I loved the conifers

and Joe was keen on the bamboo forests.

We filled the radiator (fortunately, it was a small crack) and made it over the pass and into the gorge.

We made it on many of the best hikes throughout the gorge, and Joe is just the person to go to Taruko with--he could tell me anything about the rocks that I wanted to know! Here he is giving me a geology lecture...one of many.

We did go a couple of places that we weren't strictly supposed to...and once a guard caught us putting our legs over a short fence, trying to get over. We saw him just in time and pretended we were just doing leg lifts...our morning stretches. :)

We also found a hot spring that's not marked on the road, but that you could walk right down to and sit with the boiling hot water rushing out of the rock and mixing with the freezing cold river. Such an interesting sensation!

Joe also enjoyed picking up marble rocks on the beach, which is my daughter and husband's favorite Taruko activity, too.

I was glad I got to know Joe again as an adult-- Such a great brother. Such a great trip!

Christmas 2011

2012-01-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

Oh my. Christmas has come and gone, with relatives coming to visit, trips around the island, and so much busyness and joy. Also, literally about 1000 pictures to choose from. I'll try to pick a few to highlight the fun.

First, I have to mention that in November, we got a new nephew, little Yo. He has snuggled his way right into our hearts--he is placid and chubby and lovable.

I guess Christmas really got started with Jeanne, Jason's mom arriving, and Sofie's Christmas program, where she did a dance as a reindeer.

Then Joe arrived and he and I promptly took off to Taruko gorge to do some hiking. I'll do another post on that later!

Then Mom and Dad arrived, and we were all together! It has been years since we've all been together, so we were having a blast!

We waited to decorate the tree until everyone was here, so we could make a party of it, complete with apple cider and Christmas music.

Then we decorated some Christmas tree ornaments,

and ate.

And played board games,

and ate.

And opened presents,

and ate.

And finally, after so much good food and fun, we succumbed to couch naps and relaxed, carrying on the grand Hain tradition of reading comic books at Christmas.

But wait, you ask, didn't you show your family more of Taiwan than the insides of restaurants? Well, first, we visited many more great restaurants than are pictured here....sushi, dim sum, shuey jiao, pad thai...all the greatest Asian food that Hsinchu has to offer. But yes, we did actually get out and do something other than chow down. More on that in the next update.

November Activities

2011-11-15T01:30:00.001-08:00

Coil Building with playdough... (taking after her Grandpa Raymond!)

Making books and finger puppets in art class.

Marching in field day with Sofie's classmates.

Baking apple pies and chocolate chip cookies with Aunt Anna and Uncle Jason....

Eve figured out right away, without being shown, that a great way to eat cookies is to dunk them.

Unfortunately, she got a little too vigorous in her dunking and just ended up with chocolate chip cookie mush.

Pretty much the same thing happened with all the pie dough that Eve "helped" mix.

And, like always, the finished product was soon devoured, except for the one that we hid away in the freezer for Thanksgiving.

When thanksgiving comes, we'll be thankful for apple pie!

Art Show and Lion's Head Mountain Hiking

2011-10-31T23:55:00.000-07:00

Ben has sold art at shows or art fairs in several cities in America, and jumped at the chance to be a part of an art fair in Taipei. He shared a table with Mindy, a coworker.

We had fun and saw a lot of friends. The girls got inspired and wanted to make their own paintings.

Then, this weekend, we went to Lion's Head Mountain, which is Taiwan's version of a state park, just 45 minutes from our house. It has lots of beautiful trails, one of which we climbed together.

Here Eve is pestering a lizard....they loved seeing these.

Though she ran up the first few hundred steps, after awhile Eve got pooped out and made us carry her the rest of the way.

The spark came back when we got to a stream and they got to pester some tadpoles and little fish.

Afterwards, we stopped for a well-earned lunch of noodle soup, with caramel popcorn and mango smoothies for dessert.

Drum Festival...Happy Birthday, ROC!

2011-10-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

So, this first picture is totally unrelated to the three day weekend, but I just have to share this picture of Sofie's fashion sense. Ben and I are always happy when she marches to her own drummer, and tying one of mom's scarves around her head, kind of a Jackie O Kennedy look, was the latest iteration of her own style. She's been wearing this to school--we're glad that society hasn't beaten her into conformity yet. :)

But anyway, this is a three day weekend, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Republic of China. Here is Eve with a temple behind her: this is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from our house. Actually, literally a jump, since the school campus we live on has recently decided to lock our back gate to keep trespassers out of the school. We actually climbed the wall rather than walk the extra four blocks around. Hehe. It'll be funny if my students ever see us doing that!

To celebrate Ten-Ten day (October 10th, get it?), we went with our good friend Jennifer to see a drum festival. It had wonderful Hakka dancing and traditional drumming, but of course Sofie's favorite part was the free glow-stick she got!

She was also pretty excited when one of the stands had live bees in a honeycomb. She wanted to watch those for a long time.

My favorite part, after the dancing, was eating something new: fried white radish. Really delicious--I wasn't expecting to taste that great!

Uncle Jason's Birthday

2011-10-04T06:44:00.000-07:00

Just a small party, but it had all the essential elements:

Dancing,

Frilly party dresses,

Laughing and general silliness,

Cake,

and More Cake!!

Oh yeah, we had presents and games, too, but I didn't get any pictures of those....probably because by then I was in a sugar coma. However, suffice to say, the 6 year old is the reigning champion in the Poulsen and Steffenson houses in the game Apples to Apples!

Splat Monsters

2011-10-04T06:33:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the blog "A splotch Monster a Day", one of the first projects I did with my new first grade art class were these splat monsters.

Then of course we had to use up the leftover paint at home, so Eve got a chance to try it, too.

Though Sofie made several splat monsters in class, she wanted in on "round two" as well, and as you can see, Aunt Anna got in on the fun, too!

Here are the fruits of our labor, all ready to be mailed off to the grandparents, to adorn refrigerators across the ocean.

And here was my monster example. So fun!

Double Birthday!

2011-05-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

We had a double party for Sofie and Eve this year, to make our lives simpler. Aunt Anna was the hit of the party with her mad balloon animal skills!

We had lots of friends over,

and lots of presents to open!

Since the party was originally going to be a beach party, we had the kids eat their "picnic" lunch on the floor.

Then we blew out the candles!

Parties like this are the fun part of parenting...especially when the kids go play with their new toys and let the parents sit and talk to each other! :)

Easter Party

2011-04-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

8 kids in one house, celebrating Easter the traditional way.

By dying eggs,

eating lots of sugar,

and then running around outside finding the eggs!

I'm so happy that my kids are almost to the stage where I can tell them, "go play!" and they'll do it, letting us adults talk.

Woohoo for play rooms full of friends on a special holiday! Happy Easter!

Flying Cow Ranch

2011-04-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

We went to Flying Cow Ranch last year.

This time we met up with friends.

The kids had a great time, running around like crazy,

climbing on fences,

And feeding the animals.

We also walked up to see some parts that we didn't have energy for last time.

Like the butterfly garden, which turned out to be Sofie's favorite part.

Ben's favorite was still the goats. This time, one goat ate the paper bag right out of Eve's hands. She was shocked and a little delighted.

The kids also enjoyed rolling down the hills, though Eve wasn't quite coordinated enough, so just mostly scooted.

We also tried some of the products that they sell at the ranch. One of the strangest foods was this pudding that they sell, in little balloons.

You pop the balloon, and then pour caramel sauce over it. Here's Anna looking a little surprised, enjoying the novel experience of eating something from a balloon.

I think this ranch is a new spring tradition for the Poulsens!

Preparing for Easter

2011-04-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

Dying Easter eggs is one of my happy childhood memories that I want to share with my kids.

We have a big Easter party coming up, but we wanted to go ahead and dye some eggs ahead of time to have enough.

Sofie was very creative about hers, and Eve dunked her eggs with her hands, so ended up with Easter colored fingers. :)

Tomorrow is the hunt!

Lantern Festival

2011-03-27T00:57:00.000-07:00

Lantern Festival marks the end of Chinese New Year. This year, one of the biggest celebrations was in the town just south of us, Jhunan.

The festivities were particularly big because this is counted as the 100 year anniversary since the founding of the Republic of China.

This is the year of the Rabbit, so there were many rabbit-themed lanterns. Once per hour, they would light this huge, I think 10 story tall rabbit lantern. It was such a spectacle, with music and sky lights and everything.

It was raining, so we all got soaked, despite having umbrellas. It was so crowded, everyone's umbrellas were all pushing against each other. Here's the very wet Sofie in front of a stand selling traditional puppets.

More traditional puppets. Vibrant!

On the way home in the train, Eve enjoyed a mochii candy (rice paste and sesame seeds in this particular one) and both girls played with their new lanterns. The evening was exhausting, but worth it, I think, to experience the holiday.

2011-03-25T05:52:00.001-07:00

Biking the 17 Kilometer coastline

2011-03-25T04:58:00.000-07:00

We love getting out to the coastline whenever possible. This wide bike trail is a perfect way to do it with the little ones, since we can pedal and they can ride in comfort. Unfortunately, Anna is too tall for the handlebars on the "passenger side" of the family bikes, so Jason had to do all the work on her bike. We took turns.

The ecology along the coast is varied and beautiful, with lots of birds. It was cool and misty the day we went biking.

Eve got grumpy, and later we found that she was getting sick. Poor girl.

These are photos of our favorite place to hike in the hills surrounding Hsinchu: Baoshan reservoir.

It's only about 10 minute drive away, so it's easy to head out there to enjoy a few rays of sun after work and before it gets dark.

Mola Mola

2011-03-01T04:14:00.000-08:00

It's been yet another long time between posts for me. There have been lots of things I'd liked to have mentioned from time to time (such as Lonely God Potato Twists), but nothing ever really post-worthy on its own.

However, cooking and eating are constant adventures for us foreigners, and the delight is often equally measured with dismay. I do want to interject that, having lived in Taiwan for a year and a half now, I've finally begun to enjoy some of the foods less familiar to a Western palate (I reason with myself that many of the textures I'm unfamiliar with are 'officially' labeled under 'soup'). This might sound condescending, but I don't mean it that way; just like eating raw fish with sushi is something I've had to learn, now that I can eat it I immensely enjoy the experience. For another example. when we first moved here, I couldn't stand tea eggs, but now they're one of my favorite things to eat! I've even had some stinky tofu (I'll admit we ordered it by accident).

But tonight, I tried to cook Mola Mola, better known as Ocean Sunfish.

Yes, this thing.

In my defense, I bought it at Costco. I had elsewhere heard that Ocean Sunfish is supposed to be one of the most delicious fishes to eat. But as I put the nice firm-white-looking fish on the pan and began to steam it in butter, to my confusion the meat began to turn transparent. Soon it was jelly-like, prompting me to wonder if I had bought squid or something like jellyfish by mistake. I quickly put it in oil and began to fry it, reasoning that at least it wouldn't burn this way, as I sat down to frantically look up a mola mola recipe.

Guess what, Internets? There are practically no mola mola recipes online in English. Finally, after the search turned desperate, I came across a site that had instructions embedded within a larger paragraph:

"To cook mola mola flesh you must first boil this jelly like meat for 20 minutes. It will shrink to half its size and become more solid. Then take what's left and fry it. You can bread it or fry in oil and garlic."

As I type, I have now been boiling batch 2 of the mola mola for 20 minutes. It has doubled in size, if nothing else, and is basically gelatin. I'll give it another 10 minutes.

The first batch was a partial success however, although I fried half of it until it was essentially fish chicarrones. I do have to admit that the fish was delicious, with a buttery flavor reminiscent of lobster that melted in your mouth as you ate it. However, it melted in your mouth because it was, roughly, fried gelatin. I'd definitely be willing to try this again, but next time at a restaurant.

Lion's Head Mountain Park

2011-02-20T02:24:00.000-08:00

One of the last trips we took over winter break was to Lion's Head Mountain park, only about 1/2 an hour from Hsinchu.

We hiked a lush trail that followed a stream.

Sofie enjoyed finding interesting leaves.

I was happy that we got to explore the region around Hsinchu, and got to spend time with the family, too.

Taroko Weekend Getaway

2011-02-20T02:09:00.000-08:00

Our first weekend away from the kids since they were born. Our first stop was Yingge Ceramics village. We bought some great platters and bowls, and saw the museum there.

We soon drove on to Taroko, and spent the rest of the weekend hiking.

Unfortunately, it was raining most of the time,

but we still got hot hiking, so the dampness didn't bother us too much.

We managed a 10 K hike way deep in Taroko national park. It wasn't the distance that was tough, but the fact that we ascended .5K in just a few of those kilometers. This bridge was over an incredibly deep part of the gorge. It was so fun to hike in this dramatic landscape without worrying that a toddler was going to plummeting to her demise.

At the summit of the mountain, we saw lots of birds, heard lots of wild pigs, and best of all spotted one Formosan Macaque. I've never seen a monkey in the wild before, so that was amazing. We couldn't get a good picture of it, but we could see it clearly, looking back at us through the trees.

On the way home, we did a short hike down to a beach that's part of Taroko national park.

Thanks for babysitting, Anna and Jason!

Valentine's Day Craft Party

2011-02-09T04:48:00.000-08:00

One thing I love doing during Winter Break is hosting a party or two while I have time and energy to spare. This year we invited over our church friends to make Valentine's Day cards. We had lots of fun. I enjoy making pretty little things to send to the grandparents, let them know we love them.

Winter Break Trips

2011-02-05T21:36:00.000-08:00

We've been taking lots of little day trips over winter break, trying to get out of the city as much as possible. One of our favorite destinations is Nan Liao, where we go to eat fish on the waterfront. Here is Ben's favorite dish, crunchy shrimp.

Every time we go, we try to order basically the same things. With our limited Chinese, we always get at least one surprise.

I think the adults had more fun with the bubbles than the kids did.

This is part of Shei-Pa national park that we just spent one hour in (since we'd already been picking strawberries and were almost ready to go home).

After church last Sunday, we drove about an hour into the mountains to a natural hot spring resort there, which we call Biofish. It was a blustery day, so it felt good to sit in the steaming water.

This resort is known for having one pool with tiny little fish in it that will come and nibble off any dead skin from your feet.

It's really ticklish, as you can see from Anna and Jason's expressions.

Another day, we finally took Anna and Jason to Gu Qi Feng, a park/museum/temple. This is another temple we stumbled across along the way. We thought the dragon tunnel was really cool.

Here we're inside the maw of the beast.

Don't worry, it's just a reproduction of the terra cotta soldiers...

Eve made friends with this unlikely bronze statue of a warrior.

Gu Qi Feng has a surprising array of really cool artifacts, like this bed all carved from jade. Here I'm taking a moment to smile before dashing off to make sure my kids aren't touching anything.

Pretending to Work: Tourist Farmers

2011-01-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

Our Taiwanese neighbors, Tony and Grace, invited us to join their family again this year, picking oranges on their relatives' farm.

Behind Ben and Eve you can see the traditional Taiwanese farmhouse. It's brick and plaster with a red tile roof, and just beautiful.

The house is U shaped, with a central courtyard, and originally, several generations of the same family would have lived here, before industrialization made it impossible to support that many people on one small farm. We still speak only a little Chinese, but Sofie was able to translate for us...she's getting so much better at Chinese lately. Makes me happy. Trying to be culturally appropriate, we bought a pretty box of cookies for our host, so at least we were able to communicate our appreciation for being invited, even if we couldn't say much else besides "Wow, so beautiful" and "The weather is very nice today."

Apparently many Taiwanese families still have one family member (usually of the older generation) who still lives on the farm. Then the family goes and all shares the produce of the farm when it comes ripe.

We felt special to be included for the second year in a row. Eve was, of course, very excited about the whole production. It was a big game to her!

Last year, Sofie picked a papaya, which wasn't ripe yet. Grace told me that her mother told her that eating green papaya soup is a remedy for if a girl has a flat chest that she wants to make more curvaceous.

After a lunch of Hakka food at Beipu, we drove an hour south to a region called Dahu and picked strawberries there. Though it was up in the mountains, I couldn't help remembering doing the same thing on the plains of Nebraska when I was a kid.

All this harvesting got me thinking about how much of our lives we live up in our heads these days, and how strange my great grandparents would find it that I'd want to go do farm labor for relaxation. As urbanites, though, our lives are cut off from the food production, so it iw important to show the kids where the food comes from. We're growing a tiny garden in our front yard, and they love checking on the cucumbers and seeing how big they've gotten today. Being able to see produce being grown makes a big difference in how appealing it is, I think. I know my dad wouldn't be surprised that we'd travel somewhere to do farm work--all the years we lived overseas, he missed working on the farm, and many summers would still get on the tractor whenever he could help out my grandpa. There's something very life-affirming about helping grow (or at least pick) food. It's so tangible, unlike most everything else that we do, on screens or in classes.

The harvesting also made me think about the next book I'm teaching, The Grapes of Wrath. The protagonists spend much of the book harvesting fruit for industrialized farms, being paid much too little to survive. Unfortunately, this is still the case with the majority of the food that is sold today. I'm not sure what, if anything, we consumers can do about it, but I'm trying to learn more.

Ben's Birthday and other January happenings.

2011-01-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

January has been a busy month, playing catch up from Christmas, grading up a storm as the semester ended, and Ben taking another teaching credential class. We did take time off to bake up these mini apple pies, though. Anna, inexhaustible as ever, did most of the work with Sofie while Mom took a nap in between grading endless essays.

We also had a birthday party for Ben, and his friend brought sparklers, which was fun.

Here are the girls making some new refrigerator art....anything to keep them busy while it's cold and rainy outside.

Opening Presents on Christmas Morning

2011-01-08T05:14:00.000-08:00

Our tradition is to read the Christmas story on Christmas morning before opening presents. As you can see, Sofie was a little too hyped up by the thought of what was coming to pay close attention.

Silliness was the name of the game all day!

I love "present face"

and here's "I'm so hopped up on sugar I can't see straight" face.

Thanks to Mike and Denise, Erin, Raymond, Ann, and Sean, Abualita, and Mom and Dad for mailing Christmas presents all the way to Taiwan! Your thank you notes should arrive sometime before 2012.

Making Holidays Count (Part Whatever I'm on now): Twas the night before...

2011-01-06T03:41:00.000-08:00

The downside to teaching at a public school here is that we don't actually get any time off for Christmas (though the admin supports me taking personal leave days). So we've been very busy, grading final papers...ah, the end of the semester...always a crunch, no matter how far ahead a teacher plans.

Anyway, this post is really about Christmas Eve. Anna and Jason came and stayed over, and we did suitably festive things like making snowflakes,

rocking around the Christmas tree,

and making Jason's famous apple pie (secret family recipe...to die for)

Ben made his signature dish, creamy potato soup.Yay for husbands who cook!

In the evening, we had a Christmas carol party... karaoke style, reading the words from the screen from youtube videos.

Then we turned the lights on and enjoyed a potluck with our friends....featuring a variety of both traditional and Chinese dishes...and more pie. This is MY signature dish, the latticed cherry pie. Note Sofie's silly shirt, which we bought just for the irony of the English teacher's daughter wearing Changlish.

We'll post about Christmas day soon...after I'm done grading this huge pile.

Making Holidays Count (Part 3): Crafts and Cookies

2010-12-16T04:21:00.000-08:00

My next step after the tree was to try and decorate the rest of the house, without actually buying any decorations....I tried to make everything by hand this year, or repurpose things I already had. For example, I couldn't find stockings that I liked.

So I made some out of felt, which seemed easier than hemming any other kind of cloth. then I decorated the stockings with birds, and used things from around the house to make a festive mantle....I have way more scarves than I need, but I've gotta say, I miss wearing this one. What I'll give up for decorating!

The greenery for this mantle was surreptitiously "trimmed" from ceder trees around the neighborhood, taking care not to remove any branches that would affect how the plants looked. However, I decided not to do the same for the wreath, making it from felt instead so that I can reuse it next year.

I cut out all the pieces while watching a movie, and put it all together one night after the girls went to bed. The "berries" are bells, so it rings when the door opens!

I also made a wreath for my sister for a Christmas present. This one is out of ribbons, and I'm very happy with how it turned out.I used this online tutorial.

Next step in operation Jolly and Bright was making sugar cookies, a very happy memory from my childhood. used this recipe, but added a big spoon of nutmeg and cinnamon to it.

Eve got right into it, plopping that cookie cutter in the dough and then saying"Da dah!" each time.

Anna was our rolling pin queen. We used powdered sugar instead of flour to roll these out, so they didn't get tough, and they also had this almost built in frosting.

We were all very excited to try the cookies when they came out. I

Here's Eve munching on just one more cookie, having hidden under the bench to do so. Two weekends later, we repeated the whole production, but this time with gingerbread dough. Both were fun...this weekend we're on to other goodies. Fudge, pies, candied orange peel, and popcorn balls are on my wish list, but we'll see how far we get.

Making Holidays Count (Part 2): Angels we have heard on high, but toddlers we have heard below

2010-12-14T03:17:00.000-08:00

First we decorated the small tree that we had bought last year. But then a kind neighbor gave us a huge tree and a bag full of ornaments, so the little tree got to go in the play room!

We had fun decorating the huge tree...

...until Eve found the delicate angel that was supposed to go on top. She just couldn't understand that this beautiful dolly was not for her, so she cried inconsolably when we eventually had to take it away from her. Fortunately, she resigned herself to the fact the next day, though she keeps pointing to it and saying, "Evee dolly up down woooo!" We're not sure what this means, but it's better than her crying!

Making Holidays Count (Part 1): Thanksgiving

2010-12-10T06:27:00.000-08:00

As a parent, I think it's important to make a big deal of the holidays. Having family traditions is meaningful in any family, but doubly so in expat families, for whom so much else is always in flux. One nice thing about celebrating overseas is that I as a parent can pick and choose the aspects of my home culture's celebrations that I want to emphasize, and I can ignore the rest. The girls aren't getting any messages that Thanksgiving is about football and Black Friday shopping. I get to take the best parts of this American holiday.

One thing I do miss, however, is fall leaves. Apparently there are some forests in Taiwan where the leaves turn red, but we haven't found them yet. So I had got to work with an exacto knife and construction paper and made our own fall leaves to hang around the house.

One of my parents' traditions as expat parents was to invite singles over to our thanksgiving feast, so they wouldn't feel lonely so far from home on the holiday. I decided to take up the mantle, and invited lots of teachers over for a potluck style feast.

Anna and Jason are the pie masters, so Anna got ambitious and made a pie from scratch for our celebration. She couldn't find the fruit filling that she was looking for, so she decided to make a star fruit and passion fruit pie. It was, of course, the hit of the party.

25 people RSVP'd, (and a few more ended up coming!) so I decided my one turkey wouldn't be enough. Duck, however, is very inexpensive here, so we experimented and roasted one with the turkey. Despite all the warnings that it would be all fatty, we loved it! I took a picture of the birds so that my mother could be proud of me. :) The party was a big success, but I misplaced m camera half way through, and don't have any pictures of it!

Was all the work worth it? Of course! Traditions aren't just for the kids, they make life meaningful for us adults, too.

Sun Moon Lake, Part 4: Formosan Aboriginal Village

2010-12-06T04:47:00.000-08:00

The coolest part of Sun Moon Lake imho was the sky car, which is basically a ski lift that takes you way up high.

Here you can see the lake behind me and just how high up we were!

The village itself reminded Anna and I of a family trip we once took to Plymouth Plantation. Houses and buildings were set up to recreate lifestyle of many of the Aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. To me it seemed remarkably detailed and extensive...and a little sad that their culture has been so marginalized.

The weirdest thing was that the first half of the village was like a living museum, and the second half was a full on amusement park! Here are the girls on one of the twirly rides.

Sofie was very dapper and nonchalant about riding the scary rides.

Here she's being a pirate, since we were on a swinging pirate ship.

As we were running to leave, we saw some Aboriginals, in full regalia, performing...on a stage made to look like a spaceship. It was the strangest juxtaposition I'd seen in a long time...and pretty much summed up the wonderfulness that is the Formosan Aboriginal Village. We loved it!

Sun Moon Lake, Part 3: Electric Scooters

2010-12-06T04:29:00.000-08:00

One of our favorite activities around the lake was renting electric scooters and buzzing around, enjoying the natural scenery up close without having to huff and puff up and down the hills.

It was amazing the variety of vegetation we saw, from farmland with date palms and fields of vegetables,

...to woodsy mountains. I kept thinking of my dad, and how much he'd enjoy seeing the farms there. As you can tell, the girls loved wearing helmets.

Sun Moon Lake, Part 2: Wenwu Temple

2010-11-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

On our way to the Formosan Aboriginal Village (more on that another day), we caught sight of this huge temple on the side of the road, so stopped to check it out. Here we're outside the main gate.
Wenwu temple is huge, with two stone lions flanking the outer courtyard. The first few times Eve caught sight of the humongous red lions, she screeched in surprise, which delighted all the Taiwanese onlookers.
One of the coolest things was a man dressed up as a living sculpture, something I had only seen in Europe before. He was very effective, standing totally still until we were close to him, and surprising us by waving. As you can see from Sofie's posture, it was quite creepy!
Even I was a little unnerved. He was smack dab in the uncanny valley. I love how Sofie's posture here shows her mixture of excitement and nervousness--very interested and smiley, but holding tight to mom's hand just in case!
The temple had three main halls, devoted to the god of Literature, the god of war, and Confucius, respectively.
Eve got tired and laid down under the place where people stick their incense to worship.
The carved pillars were particularly special, I thought. A wonderful example of temple architecture--I wish I knew more about what all the symbolism means.

Sun Moon Lake Part 1: The Food

2010-11-11T03:55:00.000-08:00

Family trip weekend! When we got toSun Moon Lake, the largest lake in Taiwan, we headed straight to a restaurant to eat and watch the sunset over the lake. They definitely serve the food steaming hot here!

Sofie, as you can see here, had lots of wiggles to get out after the 3 hour drive.

The restaurant advertised Aboriginal food, which was served in carved dishes in shallow baskets on a big leaf. Probably more touristy than authentic, but the food was scrumptious, so we didn't ask questions.

The next morning, Eve woke up before any breakfast places did. . . with the exception of the ubiquitous Starbucks. Yes, we had an overpriced breakfast, but at least for once we could rationalize it: the view was amazing.

On our electric scooter ride the next day, we stopped in a little town to have a Chinese style lunch. (They advertised as being Aboriginal food, too, but I couldn't tell a difference this time. But then, I'm a food amatuer here!).

This fish, from the tank at the front of the store, was perfectly fried. What was hilarious was that we had to explain to Sofie that some people in America don't eat fish with their heads still on. She couldn't figure out why anyone would do that. The greens next to the fish are morning glory buds--deliciously tart and crunchy, stir fried with pork.

Dragon Parades, Monster brownies, and Stripper Dinosaurs: Making up our own Halloween

2010-10-31T08:02:00.000-07:00

The day before Halloween happened to be a Hsinchu drum festival, which among other things included a parade with dragon dancers.

Here is Eve pointing out the dragon in case Anna was missing it. The parade was great--we could get right up to the action.

On the actual day of Halloween, I wanted to do some kind of celebration, so we made brownies and decorated them into monster faces with candy.

We decorated the house with faux jack o lanterns...I couldn't find any real pumpkins for sale here, so we made ours out of balloons. As an added benefit, this method required 100% fewer sharp knives, which was a bonus in a house with toddlers.

Our school also hosted a trick or treat carnival last week to raise money for Unicef. Lots of students dressed up, though as you can see, the highlight for us was the cotton candy. My daughters went as a pirate princess and a dinosaur. Unfortunately for my dignity, half way through, Eve got hot, so decided to take her costume off while my back was turned. So there was the daughter of the English teacher, running around my students in her diaper! Thanks, a lot Eve!

Apple Dumplings and Castle Stomping

2010-10-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

We've been lucky to be able to spend a good chunk of quality time with Anna and Jason now that they're settled into their jobs. These pictures are from a beach trip we took last weekend to a surfer beach nearby called "The Spot". Here's me with my meticulously created sandcastle in the background.

And here are my children, gleefully crushing said castle at the end of the day.

Anna showed Eve how to slide down dunes, and didn't even freak out when she found a crab climbing on her.

We also got together to make apple dumplings for Uncle Jason's birthday. He showed us how, and of course the girls got very into the whole production.

It's much more fun to bake with lots of family around.

Beipu: Hakka cuisine

2010-10-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went on a trip to a nearby town called Beipu, which is a tourist destination because of its old street and famous Hakka (one of the many ethnicities here in Taiwan) cuisine. So this trip was all about the food. Instead of one big meal, we tried many delicacies from different stands and resturants.

Here is me eating mochi, which is a gooey glutenous rice, rolled in ground peanuts and sugar. Our whole family loves mochi--here I had asked Jennifer to come help me cut it, since my chopsticks skills are not up to using them as scissors as she can.

This resturant also specialized in a traditional Hakka breakfast drink that they called tea, but was more like porraige to me. They gave us a bowl filled with a variety of nuts and beans and rice, and had us mash it with a morter and pestle. The resulting drink was surprisingly yummy, if you weren't expecting tea.

Here's Eve enjoying another snack with a one-man-band and a very old temple behind her. Yes, that is a black eye...she's only two, and has had about four black eyes already. This latest iteration was from hugging a stranger's dog & a welcome alternative to a more severe bite.

We enjoyed walking around trying free samples. My favorite was this flaky pastry with sweet potato filling, a little like the one below. It seems to me that Chinese deserts are often not as sweet as American ones, which can be enjoyable, too.

What I'm holding here (and looking a little tentative about) is another glutenous rice product, this one savory, with some kind of vegetable and ginger in the center, set on a leaf for easy street eating. I'm not sure what it was called.

Trying new foods has got to be my favorite way to learn about culture. :)

Oysters and a Glass Museum

2010-09-21T02:19:00.000-07:00

This trip down south was more than a month ago now, but I think that the summer heat was making me lazy...I felt no desire to blog in July and August. Now we've had our first typhoon of the year and things are at least sporadically cooling off, rather than the full-on heat all day every day.

Anyway, this was a trip organized by our wonderful Chinese teacher, Jennifer. First, we went to some oyster fields, where we saw millions of oysters on strings. The girls were mostly interested in the tiny crabs that were scuttling everywhere.

There was a tour guide, but only in Chinese, so I can't say I learned much, except now I know where my oysters come from.

After chasing crabs around for awhile, we took the girls back to the gift shop, where they got to make a bird sculpture out of clay and an oyster shell.

I love Eve's "concentrating" face, with those chubby little cheeks.

Next, we went to a nearby glass museum, with lots of exhibits of the various kinds of art made from this medium.

The best part was that kids' area in the museum, where there were mirrored tunnels. If you say just right, you could see infinite reflections of yourself, which Eve thought was hilarious.

The best museums are definitely the ones with space to clown around in.

PS--Happy Birthday, Mom and Dad!

Parenting: The good, the bad, and the ear-splittingly loud

2010-09-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

Though, as the title points out, the trip ended on a rather loud note, we did have a lot of fun along the way in Taipei last weekend.

This is the Chang Kai Shek memorial hall, the first time we had ever been there. I think Sofie is combining disco queen with her Asian posing in this one.

Eve started her shenanigans right off the bat. Ben is trying to convince her to put down a stick that she had been poking him with a moment earlier.

Inside the hall there is an exhibit space, which happened to have an exhibit about Hans Christian Anderson. Eve enjoyed dancing in the colored lights.

But of course her favorite part was when she got to decorate her own mermaid cookie. (The tie in is that Anderson is the author of "The Little Mermaid.") I like how this picture emphasizes how our parenting style is different than many other parents. While the dad in the background is helping his daughter create a perfect and beautiful cookie, we're letting our 2 year old go crazy with the frosting...

...and ultimately just lick most of it off.

Sofie really got into the idea of decorating her food, so looks like some serious Christmas cookies are on the agenda for December.

The sunset was a stunning counterpoint to the beautiful Chinese-style architecture,

...but Ben's face here foreshadows what the ride home would be like with one very overtired, hyped up on frosting two year old.

Was the fun worth it? Hmm....ask me again when my ears stop ringing.

One-Oh-One

2010-09-14T04:32:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we trekked into Taipei to visit Taipei 101, which was briefly the tallest building in the world, before it was inevitably one-upped.

We had been to the top floor before to see the view, but this time we wanted to explore more of the building.

Though our main destination was the best English bookstore in Taiwan, our first stop was of course the food court. Sofie is loving her slurp-able jello drink.

After loading up on English books, we noticed these statues in the courtyard outside the sky scraper. The girls had a great time playing around and on them.

Showing Anna and Jason around Taroko

2010-08-19T06:02:00.000-07:00

Just a week off the plane, Anna and Jason were already up for the adventure of traveling with little kids!

Kids who were sometimes exuberant,

...but mostly just tired. I don't know why SHE looks so pooped here --Ben and I had just carried her up the mountain...

...and back down again.

...till we got to a remote temple...

...where the Buddhist nuns thought the girls were very cute. The nuns fed us (gender segregated tables) and gave the girls free bracelets.

Then they let us rest in their orchid garden, surrounded by butterflies.

I included this picture to show the steep drop-off right next to the road, which often went down to a single lane.

This trail also had a scary drop-off, so we tried to keep Eve in our arms the whole time.

Summertime at the Taipei Zoo

2010-08-03T03:28:00.000-07:00

I took the girls to the zoo the other day, since we had to make a trip to Taipei anyway. It's a great zoo, and it made me happy to see them learning so much in such an organic way.

It was really, really hot.

So we visited some of the air conditioned indoor exhibits multiple times.

Then we took our cue from two very wise elephants,

and splashed around in the water to keep cool!

Sofia finally gets to be a REAL butterfly princess

2010-08-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

As I type, the girls are running around in some old costumes, pretending to be scary monsters. Seeing them all dressed up reminded me that I never posted about the kindergarten's end of year musical theater production, which was Sofia's main reason for wanting to go to school the last month.

Here's her teacher, looking a little frazzled as she puts the last minute touches on the costumes.

I remember the excitement of the school play--how strange it felt to be at school after dark, and how nervous and excited I was about getting up in front of everyone. Sofie, as you can see here, was all excitement, no nerves.

It really made me feel like such a parent to be watching little kids run around a stage in costumes, and to be really excited about it. This is a first for me...

...though I'm sure there are many, many stages and costumes to come.

Cuties in Kenting

2010-07-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, so even though "bikini season" is not a real season, everyone female feels a little intimidated when it's time to put on a bathing suit again. But we've had a mantra in our house lately: How you feel is more important than how you look. And being in Kenting felt great, no matter what size.

Eve has been scared of the waves every time we took her to a beach. This was no exception for the first few hours, till my wonderful husband distracted her from playing in the sand and carried her over to the water. After being held in the water with him for half an hour or so, she lost her fear and laughed and laughed at each new wave. There's nothing like toddlers to model overcoming your fears and having a great time....

And there's nothing like preschoolers to model curiosity and a sense of wonder at simple things. Sofie has apparently inherited her father's (and her Grandma Kathryn's) magpie instinct, and ran around collecting rocks and shells. At least she hasn't started dumpster diving yet.

The Kenting Aquarium was world-class, and the girls were entranced, just as I remember being during similar experiences.

In between her Asian posing, Sofia told us that she wants to be a fish scientist(we're still working on being able to say "marine biologist") when she grows up, which was a grade-school dream of mine, until I found out that it would involve lots of being alternately really hot and really cold and wet and ...I like my comfort. I'd much rather see pretty fish behind glass while standing in an air conditioned room than with a too-tight snorkling mask giving me a headache and the water freezing me!

Here's us at about hour 4 of the 6 hour trip to the aquarium...looking a little worse for the wear. Except for Sofie, who is once again posing like a diva (maybe she'll be a marine biologist princess?).

Fortunately, they had a kid's play area, where the adults could sit and have a beer while the kids got to climb around rather than keep looking at things.

The fountain was also wonderful for kids....life size whale statues spraying water! Yaay! The perfect end to a very educational day: being silly and crazy.

Tamagoras!!!

2010-06-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

Back in the 80's, the era of the original Transformers, tamagoras appeared as Masters of the Universe toys called Meteorbs. I found some here in town the other day, and am thrilled that my kids are very excited about playing with transforming eggs!

Dragon Boat Festival

2010-06-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

We just had an awesome time attending our first dragon boat festival here in Hsinchu. I had our Chinese teacher and also several students try to explain what the festival is celebrating. Though I never got it quite straight, I love the way this festival is celebrated: by racing intricately painted and carved boats.

The races were held in Nanliao, where they also have the delicious fish market I mentioned awhile ago.

There were different categories of races, and one of the categories was for foreigners, so we got to see some of our friends row.

Afterwards, we flew a kite for awhile in the stiff breeze there. (Thanks, grandpa and grandma, for the kite!)

We ended the day by going to eat with lots of friends at a restaurant with a tree house outside. Eve is grinning because Ben stuck his head up through a hole in the tree house floor.

I love new holidays.

The Long Awaited Party

2010-06-04T08:19:00.001-07:00

Like Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party in The Lord of the Rings, Sofie's birthday has been much anticipated and talked about.... "Is my party tomorrow?" many, many times.

Finally we could say, "Yes! It's tomorrow!"

Having worked at a bakery for a year before becoming teachers, we always enjoy making special birthday cakes for the girls' birthdays. This one is characteristically simple and fun. Sofie chose the green frosting.

We have been saving this cake mix since December, when Grandma and Grandpa brought it from America. We gave a few pieces to some Taiwanese friends the next day, and they were very surprised by the vividly colored dessert!

But the cake wasn't the only colorful thing in the house! We decorated with way too many balloons, and made party hats. One of my favorite childhood memories is making party hats on my 6th birthday. Thanks mom, for the great idea!

Eve's hat somehow was the tallest of all, probably because we were experimenting with hat designs, trying for "party hat" for the boys and "medieval princess hat" for the girls. As a kid, I was obsessed for a time with the history of fashion, and particularly liked drawing all the crazy different medieval headdresses women wore. It's great how having kids lets you revisit your own childhood (just watch Ben in the Pokemon store, you'll know what I mean!) .

Getting to open presents is, of course, the highlight of the party. Apparently most Taiwanese kids don't give each other birthday presents--or at least one or two moms told us that. Birthday parties themselves have only recently caught on, and are nowhere near as elaborate as Westerner's.

We call this "present face." Gotta enjoy it now, before the inevitable "cynical teenage face" appears.

Sofie calls herself a butterfly princess, so despite my aversion to the whole idea of barbies, we couldn't pass this one up.

All in all, a fun and fairly low key party--the best kind, don't you think?

Pokemon Toys

2010-05-31T09:51:00.000-07:00

Wandering downtown last night, we stopped here and there, finally coming across a small toy store before heading back home. Among the rows of figurines was a prominent shelf of Pokemon. As Sofie and I pored over them, I came to the realization that for all there is to criticize about the Pokemon franchise, it has achieved what I consider an ideal in terms of toy production and sales. That ideal is this: here are over 500 different individual little creatures and characters presented as simple plastic figurines for about 15 NT (.50 USD) each. For this relatively small price, you can pick one or a couple of favorites, the ones that speak or appeal to you most, and take them home to play with. Back story is unnecessary to enjoy them, and the astonishing variety ensures that SOMETHING will appeal strongly to any one person at any time. This is, in an ideal world, what all toy stores should offer, rather than massive overstimulus coupled with banal design.

Another Trip to the ER

2010-05-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

It's the morning after yet another trip to the ER with one of our kids. Living in a new country, you have to expect that you're going to catch every single local bug the first year, and I mean EVERY SINGLE local bug. At this point we've been to the hospital with everything from numerous and various iterations of the flu to an ear infection, as well as for incidental things like dehydration.

All this comes to a point at the topic of health care. There's such a ruckus going on in the US at the moment about national health care. People living in the US just don't have any perspective of what national health care actually is, or there would be no debate or complaint. Let me put it to you this way. In the US, a trip to the ER is going to cost you $200 to $500 minimum. This is a largely unresearched statement, but it rings true, doesn't it? It's bad enough actually having to go in the first place, either from the stress of caring for somebody sick enough to be in ER, or actually being sick enough to need to go yourself. I hate going to the ER in the US because, not to mention anything about the service or conditions, I know it's going to hurt me right in the wallet. And that's WITH health care.

Here in Taiwan, we do have national health care. We pay a monthly premium, and this last trip to the ER cost us something like 23 USD, including pharmaceuticals and the follow-up appointment.. You do the math.

Little Ding Dong

2010-05-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

Sofie and Eve got an invitation to a church friend's birthday party, to be held at a place called "Little Ding Dong". The name just kept cracking Ben up every time he said it, but really, it was quite a cool place--part water park, part children's museum. Here are the girls riding the mechanical toys outside the entrance.

The park has the coolest complex of fountains that you can play in and even manipulate. Behind us in this picture is a waterfall. Eve is unhappy because it's scaring her. . .

. . . but she soon got over that and plunged right in.

Next to the water fountains they had wind tunnel rooms that you could get to blow up to near hurricane strength gales.

The obligatory posing for the birthday pictures...

got funny when Sofie looked around and realized that you're "supposed" to make a peace sign when you pose in Asia. You'll see this everywhere here. Another cultural quirk that she picked up!

Eve tried to empty one swimming pool into the other, using a plastic bag. It kept her busy, which kept us happy!

Sofie, back to her Asian posing. In the background, you can see the stationary bikes that are hooked up to the pressure on the water fountains--just one of the many ways you can manipulate the water, here. I highly recommend Little Ding Dong to anyone with kids-we'll definitely be back when it starts to get hot.

Gu Qi Feng

2010-05-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

Been a long time since posting for me. Life in Taiwan is just life, however, which is something I think Ruth said. And life, true to itself, has been busy.

We recently went back to Gu Qi Feng which, if it hasn't been mentioned here previously, is the location of a temple/museum not 10 minutes driving from our house. To sum up my feelings about the place: wicked amazing.

First of all, the main temple is a building in the shape of a deity called Guang Gong. It's a HUGE, multiple-story, red-face statue-building.

In the past, it was apparently a museum itself, quite a tourist attraction, but these days the museum proper is located beneath the building. I'll refer you to The Shorty Method for more exact info. One key change: it is free to enter.

It would be unfair to call the whole complex anything but half-abandoned, yet the collection here, as bestrewn as it is, really does rival the collection at the Palace Museum in Taipei in terms of pure impressiveness. As is my wont, elaboration will take place via photobarrage:

Some shots for scale.

Out front there is a great birdseed dispenser which our kids enjoy using (ok, so I like it too). What says enjoyment more than being surrounded by the filthy filthy animals that are pigeons (and I say that with love)?

Oh, that's right. A warehouse full of intricately-carved wooden sculptures. That's what says it.

The flash from the camera really highlights the dust, but it wasn't noticeable indoors. Incense was permeating the area, and I was too much in awe of the amazing stuff covering the entire room to pay attention to much else.

Outside was a sculpture garden:

And this barely scratching the surface of everything there.

More evident signs of abandonment are actually one of my favorite things about the place. In the lawsuit-driven US, signs of age are often stamped out and sanitized, ironically destroying much of a sense of adventure, discovery, and curiosity about a place. Many things here speak quite well for themselves.

In real life there ARE rusty nails in old wood, but there are also little statues overgrown by bushes waiting to be found. If you smooth over your environment and do away with all perceived danger, you not only lull yourself into a false sense of reality but also lose the edge to your state of awareness, lose your ability to keep yourself alert.

Anyway , I'm getting preachy here. Back to the images:

My all-time favorite thing here, an enormous statue of the Bai Ze.

Inside the museum are a number of things, including some blood-curdlingly ancient taxidermy among the jade boats, model cities, statues etc.

And it literally goes on and on and on. Outside is a garden of non-Chinese statues, and also a warehouse devoted mostly to the terracotta army.

I may sound at times like I'm being hard on Gu Qi Feng, but I could hardly approve more. The museum and park embody to me aspects of everything a museum should be: informative, fascinating, terrifying, sprawling, even a little sad.

You can see a comprehensive photo gallery here.

Wide Open Spaces

2010-05-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

Having spent 7 years of my childhood on the plains of Nebraska, I often get a yen for wide open spaces, though I don't know why--it's not like those were particularly happy years. I did love the farm we lived on, but the kids in our school (three teachers, 60 students, K-8) tormented be constantly for being so different. Regardless, I sometimes feel the need to get out of the city and see the horizon.

Now, Taiwan doesn't have much in the way of plains, since 5 Taiwans would fit into the space that Nebraska occupies. Also, by the way, Taiwan's population is almost 23 million, while Nebraska's is creeping up on 1.8 million.

So, the only wide-open spaces available are the ocean, which we try to get to frequently. These pictures are all from or around a National park beach called Yehliu, which is best known for its crazy rock formations. Ben's favorite part was foraging for cool sea glass and shells, of course.

Here's Sofie climbing on some of those weird formations. (It was allowed!)

Notice Ben's haggard expression as Eve whines and tries to wiggle out of his hands. Notice the crowds behind us...people here are just used to having lots of other people around all the time.

These weathered rocks looked prehistoric to me...like something bubbling up from the depths of a volcano.

Here's me trying to enjoy the vista with the tired toddler and the posing preschooler. The air was delightfully salty.

And here's that posing child "being a mermaid."

A nearby open market where we refreshed ourselves with weird flavors of juice and dried fruit, and fried squid. There was also a stand selling deep fried seaweed, which was yummy, but not really my thing.

After eating, we went to another beach nearby that was full of beatiful tidepools.

This is where the seaweed is harvested--see the scrape marks next to Sofie? There were two people harvesting some while we were there.

This is a squid boat we saw when we stopped for ice cream before heading home. Maybe the squid we ate for lunch came from this boat. You can't really tell from this picture, but there are lights all along the boat to attract the squid.

Gotta love the ocean. Wide open, like the prairies, but with delicious squid to eat!

By popular request...Eve's Birthday!

2010-05-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

It's official...Eve is now entering the...ahem, terrific twos. (Let's think positive, shall we?) We had already been to a five hour long birthday extravaganza for another of her friends that morning (more on that another day), but my indefatigable husband came home and got right to work cooking up a birthday dinner for our little girl.

Just a couple of close friends stopped over to enjoy the delicious chicken, rice, salad....

And the cake, which Ben decorated, too. The cat, one of Eve's favorite animals, is made out of coconut, with pocky for whiskers. Of course she grabbed the gummy candy eyes right away (who could resist? not a two year old!)

Here's Sofie showing her how to blow out the candles, while Eve looks very engrossed in the whole production.

Our very kind friends brought Sofie some presents, too, so here she's enjoying having something to open.

And showing off her "movie star" glasses outside.

The bubbles were a big hit as a present too. She's growing up!

7 ways to make your farm into a tourist destination

2010-04-18T08:04:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, we took the kids to Flying Cow Ranch, a tourist destination for urban-weary Taiwanese...and us. It is obviously wildly popular, since there were crowds of people, mostly with little kids (though we did see a few fashionistas tottering around in stiletto boots!).

Wanna know how to draw thousands of people to your farm?

1. Pick the perfect location.

Even by Taiwan's high standards of beautiful locations, this was idyllic!

2. Add lots of petting of cute furry mammals.

Eve kept trying to give the sheep a hug, which it bore very patiently.

3. Make it "educational"

Here's Sofie, making ice cream, while Eve looks on hungrily.

4. Add lots of sugar.

Here's Sofie enjoying the fruits of her labor. Ok, really, she got tired after about a minute and Ben did most of the churning, but anyway...

5. Create a fantasy.

This rabbit barn cracked me up because they were playing slightly strange renditions of American folk songs like "She'll be Comin' Round The Mountain". I think the whole farm was trying to recreate a Midwestern American feel, which is why all the buildings are wooden barn shapes (wood rots in the humidity here, so really isn't a logical building material for a real Taiwanese farm), and why, if you look closely at the picture above, the helper is wearing a cowboy shirt and bandana....not quite what a real Taiwanese farmer would wear.

6. Add lots of feeding of adorable baby animals.

This duck was my favorite. Almost made me feel guilty for the fantastic duck dinner we'd had the week before. Almost.

7. Most importantly: make it photogenic!

You couldn't swing a camera bag without bumping into a parent trying to get the perfect adorable "kid with animal" picture (see background). And yes, I took over a hundred pictures myself.

St Patrick's Day to Easter

2010-04-03T22:57:00.000-07:00

As I've written before, I think it's really important to celebrate your own family culture when living abroad, to preserve what you like from your home country and give your kids a strong sense of hybrid identity.

So...holidays are an important part of that. I have fond memories of my mother decorating for every holiday when we were little kids. Being a going to work mom instead of a working at home mom like she was, I don't get to decorate as much as I want to; however, I do try to make each holiday special, even if with just one activity.

So for St. Patrick's day (since I do have an Irish grandpa, after all!) we did some leprechaun coloring sheets that I printed for free off of the web (yay interwebs!) and I made green eggs for breakfast. As you can see, Sofie was skeptical at first, but once Eve led the way in trying them, Sofie finished her plate, too.

Now Easter is one of my favorite holidays, partly because it's a big deal in Arab culture, and partly because dad worked right down the street from the Garden tomb in Jerusalem. Nothing beats sunrise service right where it all happened! So I put a lot of effort into Easter--here we had an egg dying party with our neighbors.

Sofie is just the right age to really get into decorating the eggs.

Here is Eve, looking a little grumpy...she barfed right on the table a minute later. Poor girl.

But on the upside, she felt a lot better afterwards, and enjoyed dipping her hands in the dye.

Both girls, as you can see are shy and unassuming (yeah, right!).

Sunday morning we invited some new friends over (with English speaking kids!) and had breakfast and an easter egg hunt.

Eve pretty much called it quits once she found her first chocolate kinder egg, sitting down to devour it. What better way to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, than with copious amounts of sugar? That's what I say.

Beach Day and Zoo Day

2010-03-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

Going to the beach and the zoo are two things that you can do pretty much wherever you live. In fact, even Nebraska has sandy beaches at the wonderful Lake McConaughy. But only in Taiwan do you have anti-tank concrete thingys in case of invasion from China, which is right across the strait. Things have been calm politically for awhile now, but there's still a guard whose job it is to keep a watch out for approaching boats. While we passed, he was mostly interested in watching the foreigners, though! Good thing China didn't attack right then.

Eve was mostly excited about picking wildflowers and digging in the sand.

This is part of the 17 Kilometers of Splendid Coastline that Hsinchu promotes as a destination. Most Taiwanese stick to the bike path, and don't go down to the water.

And only in Asia are you going to find a bridge like this (which Sofie promptly christened "a princess bridge") leading from the parking lot, over a canal to the waterfront.

Here's the one good pic I got at the Hsinchu zoo before the batteries died. Eve is so excited! The zoo was small and dilapidated, but very fun, especially considering it cost only about 30 cents in US money to get in.

Kid-Centric Saturday

2010-03-15T01:57:00.000-07:00

One of the main things I remember from the child development class I took to become a teacher is that young kids' most important task is not just learning to read--it's getting out and having as many different kinds of sensory experiences as possible (as opposed to sitting in front of a screen). So, wherever I live, I try to get my kids doing lots of different kinds of things. With that in mind, I was really happy to rediscover this park, 5 minutes from our house, that's connected to Sofie's kindergarten. It has a huge sandbox, we have sand toys, and this activity can take up a whole evening and let mom read a few chapters of my book-club book relatively undisturbed.

Since I also worry about nature deficit disorder, I took them to 18 peaks mountain park last weekend.

I was trying to point out all the different bird sounds they could hear (I always think of my cousin Luke when we go to the woods and hear the weirdest bird calls!) They were mostly excited about playing with this little puppy. I feel a little guilty for not buying them a dog to love, but they do have a turtle now, and I don't think I can cope with any more responsibility than I already have!

But I still herded them up the hilly pathway into the forest, with Sofie providing a nonstop monologue about butterfly princesses for literally, about half an hour. She loves to pretend. Sometimes her teacher tells me all the stories that Sofie has regaled her with, and I laugh, a little chagrined at how she has inherited the Hamilton "talk your ear off" gene.

Eve was mostly interested in playing with the dirt and picking up rocks. About this point we started getting swarmed by mosquitoes.

Here's Eve asking to be picked up. Eventually I gave in and hauled her up hundreds of steps...

I love the bamboo forests.

Here was a swampy area, which I only let them hang out at for a few minutes, since Eve was looking more and more like she wanted to take a swim.

I love how lush this park is--right in the middle of the city, and only5 minutes from our house. I'm teaching Heart of Darkness, which is set in the African Congo, and while I walked I kept picturing us as intrepid British colonial explorers, rather than the very casual Saturday walkers that we are.

On the more cultural side of things, our Chinese teacher took us to see an exhibit of homemade lanterns for lantern festival. This was my favorite.

Some of them were really big.

Eve ran around the whole time trying to touch and climb the lanterns, so it wasn't a very relaxing trip for me--but still really fun! Notice the tiger lantern, since this is the year of the tiger. Hsinchu is not a tourist destination at all, but like any city, there are lots of fun family activities here if you try.

Rainy Day Trip #2

2010-02-20T23:20:00.001-08:00

One thing I neglected to mention about our trip to Taroko gorge is that when we asked Sofie what her favorite part was, she said the McDonald's play place. So much for nature. So, for a second trip to keep our sanity on rainy days, we went to the mall called "Mega" here in Hsinchu, and played in the indoor playplace there. It costs about 8 US Dollars for unlimited play time, which was a bargain, considering they were getting exercise and Ben and I were getting to talk without interruptions.

Sofie's favorite part was the balloon area, where they had huge balloons and a fan blowing them around.

She is becoming quite a dancer, and the balloons were great props. At home, her props are usually my scarves, draped around her head and arms artistically. The best part is when she gets Eve following her around, waving her chubby little arms to copy her big sister.

I love the manic expression of joy on her face here. How often do we feel this as adults? Not enough.

Sofie says she's a ballerina princess, and when I played some old school hip hop from my high school days for her, she said, "Well, it's okay, but I really like princess music." By this she means music from the Nutcracker, which has been playing nonstop at our house.

Rainy-Day Trip #1

2010-02-19T21:54:00.000-08:00

It has been raining nonstop on our part of the island for what seems like a really long time. Since we can't go to the park, we've made forts out of blankets, built towers with blocks, made macaroni necklaces, and watched way too many movies. But we did have to get out of the house or go crazy.

So we went to GuQi Feng Museum, Temple, and Sculpture Garden that was only a few minutes from our house. While the rain poured down, we ran around looking at taxidermy (Eve's favorite!), models of buildings, costumes (Sofie's favorite), and old furniture and statues. These were tiny shoes from women who practiced foot binding, which I tried to explain gently to Sofia without freaking her out.

Outside there was a beautiful and very strange sculpture garden, in which the most exciting part for the girls was a puddle of mud. They were undeterred by the drizzling rain dripping down their necks, and in fact at one point Eve decided to not only stomp in the puddle, but sit down in it. At this point I decided it was time to leave the sculpture garden.

Under a canopy in front of the temple, there was a flock of doves or pigeons or something. We repeatedly bought little tubes of seeds to feed them. Sofie would horde her seeds and take them out a few at a time, while Eve would fling hers to the wind all at once and then try to hug the birds while they ate.

This is what the temple looks like from the outside...it's 20 meters high, shaped building. Sofie was a little freaked out by it, but I thought it was exciting.

6 things that make me happy right now

2010-02-17T03:58:00.000-08:00

I read an interesting post today on Penelope Trunk's blog, with the basic premise that most people are either "maximizers," whose lives are interesting, but not that happy, or contented people, whose decisions are guided more by happiness. It's a great quiz, and I fell squarely in the middle of the spectrum, with my ambivalence about family ties verses the call of international adventure. But most importantly, it got me thinking about what makes me happy. After all, we partly moved to Taiwan really for the lure of a more interesting life...has it, paradoxically, also made us happier? I'm not sure.

What makes me really happy here in Taiwan?

1. Raising my girls to value international-ism.

If I raised my kids in America, they would be much more American than I am. I love how experiences like this Buddist shrine are normal to them, and how we're constantly talking about how different people do things different ways, believe different things, etc.

2. Not wearing a coat.

This picture was taken in January! Now, the temperature is currently in the fifties and rainy, so we're not always running around in tank tops, but this wasn't that abnormal, either.

3. Living near the ocean.

The Mediterranean will always be my first love when it comes to the sea....but in a pinch, the Pacific is gorgeous.

4. Not working too hard / doing a meaningful job.

I teach about 7 hours less per week than I did in Sacramento, not counting the 4- 5 hours per week of commuting I did, too. Here I walk to my job, then come home for lunch and play with the kids. Now is a good time to have a low-key job, while the girls are young.

5. Hiking in the woods and hills.

The natural environment here really is stunning, which sort of makes up for the really ugly architechture. I guess not every city can be as beautiful as Jerusalem, where the city mandates that all buildings be covered in the golden Jerusalem stone, but at least here the trees and hills are so fun to explore. Living in Nebraska those years gets me jonesing to get away from the city every once in awhile, and there's plenty of natural habitats left in Taiwan.

6. Being challenged.

The swaying bridge in this picture scared me so much that I was quite undignified in my clutching at the ropes. But now I look back affectionately on that trip. I'd rather be scared than bored, just like I'd rather be frazzled than lonely.

Taroko Gorge

2010-02-01T22:26:00.001-08:00

Ah, Chinese New Year. I assigned my AP students the 657 page novel The Grapes of Wrath, but I have been spending most of the month long vacation goofing off. However, we did manage to get ambitious enough to drive almost exactly halfway around the island to see its most famous and most spectacular tourist site, Taroko national park.

It's like the grand canyon, only jungle-y. I know it's not strictly true--it's tropical forest, not jungle, but wow! So beautiful. You can't tell in this picture, but below the rail is several hundred feet of vertical cliff face. It made me very nervous with our rambunctious little two year old who kept trying to squirm out of our arms.

Ben thought this was a hilarious example of Chinese humor. The sign says "What a spectacle except for the dam." I guess the sign maker is not a fan of man made architecture in his scenic outlooks.

I was surprised at how un-touristy it was. We went free into places that you would pay big bucks to see if it was in the States. Also, so few places selling trinkets! Totally different than most of the tourist attractions I've been to around the world. Here Sofie is enjoying her lunch with a mountain behind her.

One day we took a few hours off from hiking trails and spent it at the beach. We have a beach close to our home as well, but the marble pebbles here were irresistible for the girls. It gave Ben and I a chance to just relax, while they kept themselves occupied making towers and finding pretty stones. Ok, so we were having fun looking for pretty stones, too. What can I say? I married an artist.

It was a fun almost-week away, but it was nice to come back to Hsinchu. The hills here seem restful compared to the awe-inspiring drama of all those cliffs.

The Fine Tradition of Expat Language Flubs

2010-01-31T18:46:00.000-08:00

I love learning Chinese. Most of the time, it's great. Speaking just the few dozen words that I do, (and really, mostly restaurant vocabulary), makes me feel like I'm trying to live here. It's hard to break out of the English ghetto--my job is all in English, which makes it very easy not to practice Chinese. It is a great language though. Yes, there are those pesky tones, which I may never master, and those myriad characters, which I know I'll never memorize all of.

But look at the bright side. There are very few sounds that we don't have in English. Only 3 or 4, while in Arabic there were twice that many. And the grammar. I think, feeling guilty for making up the hardest writing system in the world, the Chinese must have thought, well, let's give people something--how about the simplest grammar rules ever? I love that there is almost no conjugating verbs. I can memorize one word, like "eat" ("chih"), and use it in past, future, etc, with very little modification. At least as I understand now--maybe I'll learn more in the future that I'm missing now. But compare that to Arabic, where there are literally dozens of conjugations for the word eat ("akul"). But anyway, grammar humor is limited to being funny to English majors and linguists, so I'll move on.

In the fine Hain tradition, I have had two really funny language mistakes lately. Ok, first, let me tell you one of the many epic stories (oft repeated at family reunions) that started this heritage. So, I was riding with my mother in a taxi, in the very conservative culture of Jordan. Mom is learning Arabic, and sees and Arabic/English dictionary in the car. Being a good language student, she utilizes the drive time by trying to learn new words. Being a conscientious learner, she covers up the English side, and just starts reading the Arabic words without peaking at their meanings. Unfortunately, as she read on and on, the driver's ears got redder and redder. Finally, I pulled the book away from her and looked at it. Apparently, it was arranged according to subject matter, and she had been reading a list of body parts. Yes, a comprehensive list. Yes, she was listing off intimate body parts in Arabic, much to the embarrassment of our poor befuddled driver, who, to his credit, laughed it off with us. My questions is, how did she manage to turn right to that page?

So, following in my mother's prestigious footsteps, I have been butchering my language, too. The first story isn't so bad--I said "good night" to a little old lady at 7 am, and wondered why she was laughing at me until my students kindly explained that I hadn't said good morning (I'm glad they keep their eye rolls to themselves, so I can keep my illusions of hipness).

My second language mistake story hinges on the similarity in Chinese of the words "to want" and "to have," two of the five or so verbs I know so far. A few months ago, I was in a van with a friend of a friend who was helping me buy a car, waiting for someone else. I had my 18 month old daughter with me, and was trying, (being, like my mother, a conscientious learner) to utilize some of the words we had learned in the Chinese class the week before. As we waited, I tried to make small talk. I could see he had a car seat in the van, so I tried to ask "Do you have a little girl?" However, as you can guess, I messed it up and instead asked "Do you want a little girl?" Yes. I sounded like a child trafficker, and he was very confused until our friend showed up to translate.

That's got to be worse than my mother's "penis" mistake.

How do you settle down, anyway?

2010-01-25T06:08:00.000-08:00

This weekend I read a memoir called Running With Scissors, all about how messed up and psychotic the author's family life was. Wacky and gripping, but a little too sordid for me. The book put into sharp perspective just how great my family life was growing up. Sure, we had our fights. I thought I'd never forgive my parents for moving me in the middle of high school from one country to another, for instance. But I did, and I was glad of the new friends and new school by the end of it. Now, I get along with my family beautifully. We can get together for weeks at a time and not have any fights, and I miss them every day.

With my parents' decision to raise us overseas, sometimes it feels like we are just destined to live apart.

No, we are choosing the nomadic lifestyle over being closer together. In Isabelle Allende's latest memoir, she claims the right of a mother to gather her children to herself--she brings them to America to live on the same street as her.

That kind of family closeness has a great appeal to me, with my influences of Arab families, who live in the same house, adding floors to the building as each son brings home a wife.

How much simpler it would be, to share the load of stress and joy of child rearing. Complicated, too, of course: so many people, with all their individual needs and opinions

all a part of every day life. What a rich life, though! A functional family. Multi-generational. Extended. Yes, life would be extended, with all those relationships in it every day and not just on skype and yearly visits. These pictures are of my parents here at Christmas,

making cookies with the girls. We had a wonderful visit--but now Sofie talks constantly about missing Grandpa and Grandma.

I've been taking a frank look at our choices.

My girls do not get to run to grandma's house on the weekends like so many American kids. They don't get to have every holiday with uncles and aunts. They don't get to feel totally a part of anything except the mobile, international community.

My girls do get to live a step back from the culture that

surrounds them, and the culture of America. This is profoundly valuable. Living in the borderlands, being a hybrid makes you stronger, and also more sure of yourself.

What a gift at a time when younger and younger girls are oversexualized and put under tremendous pressure to be skinny enough, perfect enough, etc. Sometimes, outsider status is a good thing. But they are missing something profound and deeply valuable: everyday relationships with wonderful, wonderful grandparents and uncle and aunt. How dare I deprive them of that?

The problem is, I have itchy feet.

I hated moving as a kid and even more as a teen. But I moved, and moved, and moved again. Now, after a couple years in one place, I start to get restless, get bored, need change and especially challenge.

I know that I am the abnormal one--I just don't know how people settle down. Don't hometown Americans not get an itch to move? Do they take out a 30 year mortgage and think to themselves, "Yay, I'm going to live here forever!"

Do they commute the same streets every day, and never get bored of seeing the same trees, the same houses go by over and over? Do they wonder what there is out there? I can't stop wondering!

But it doesn't mean I don't miss my parents.