taiwan, week 1, part 3

the morning of our second full day in Taichung:


breakfast perch, for lack of furniture

squeaking chicken balloon

blowing up the rocket balloons

 

 

we went to the glass museum and the ribbon museum that morning (are you getting the idea that there are a lot of these 'museums' here?):

Taiwanese concessions: fish-shaped beignets with cream filling

little dude kaleidoscope

 

we were a bit disappointed that they didn't show any actual glass making, but little miss drew a crowd toddling around.  she is the trifecta of Taiwanese baby cuteness: 1) half-Asian, 2) playful, and most importantly 3) pleasingly plump ;-)  she doesn't seem to mind all the attention, waving and grinning at everyone indiscriminately =)

outside the ribbon museum

 

the first of several hands-on stations (they call them DIY here): ribbon flowers

a smart use of empty ribbon rolls with Velcro on the back

manual weaving machine

dyeing ribbon and making bows

there was a photographer following them around, so if you ever come across a website for the largest ribbon museum in the world, according to their literature, you might see some girls you recognize.  on a side note, c was happy to find one of the lunch options was a cup of corn kernels with various toppings (she chose vegetables and salsa).  who knew you could market such a thing =p

we got back late afternoon, and all went back to the park near the gospel center.  there were several kids who took an interest in us - the girl in the plaid dress on the seesaw and the girl on the left in the pink.  the girl in the pink was smaller than buddy but claimed to be 7, till we realized that was her Taiwanese age (they consider you a year old when you are born).  she asked buddy to race her around the rink, which broke the ice, as buddy smoked her ;-)

we had dinner back at the gospel center with families who had come for a fellowship meeting.  don't let the smiles fool you - the girls were actually quite grumpy about eating there despite the 8 or 10 dishes offered.  to be fair, half of them were seaweed variations that I didn't care for myself ;-)  little man was happy as a clam with unlimited apples and pineapple within reach and people who kept pouring him sprite despite my protests =p


headed home sunday morning, with a stop at the fanciest rest stop you've ever seen, where one shop offered 46 kinds of cuttlefish - for some reason, the kids opted for mango and chocolate popsicles ;-)  I got some freshly fried daikon cake for 50 cents - mmm!

I guess I need to stop taking these ah gong and little miss pictures, but they're so cute!

back at home, the next door neighbors' 10-year-old boy and his cousins invited the kids to play.  they started out in the rec room playing pool, which the girls just watched, then improvised to foosball with a baseball, volleyball on the ping pong table and dodgeball.  moving outside, the girls learned key vocabulary like 'who's it?' and the name for those funny triangle scooters ('niu niu che' or 'wiggle wiggle car').

 

and finally, we wrap it up with a trip to Carrefour, the big grocery store chain.  we took the stroller over, but of course the little dude couldn't resist the car carts.  some things are universal! =)