taiwan, week 3: friends and family

contemplating her move in our first monopoly game, Taiwan version ;-)  we didn't finish the game, but she was definitely winning

waiting for a soap factory tour, which turned out to be mostly an advertisement of their line of food products =p

imprinting a souvenir soap bar

 

Jamaican mother's day ;-)

 

our neighbors across the hall and cousins invited us over for a late dinner, so we took super quick showers and headed over:

this cousin reminds me of a young uncle p!

friends with fries ;-)

mcdonalds' fried chicken (yes, they do that here) and fries, and dumplings :)

these weekend nights were some of the highlights of the trip for the kiddos, and a real answer to prayer

look what came across the sea for me for mother's day!! :D

this sunday we went to uncle p's old church in tienmu, a bilingual service.  making a mother's day craft.  he very thoroughly colored in the flowers, covering every bit of white

spiral escalator

outside uncle p and auntie e's old metro stop

feast of fruit at my mom's 2nd sister's home

my cousin m-l with little miss

ah gong teaching little dude how to pop the napkins

my cousin h-l

 

 

that was a long day!  up early to catch the bus and taxi to church, roaming around the dayeh takeshimaya department store and getting mcdonalds' cones (only 18NT or 50 cents) before taking the metro to my second aunt's house.  the girls were quite tired and grumpy by then, and we had some mini meltdowns before dinner.  all in all though, all the kids held up better than I expected throughout the trip, and grumpiness was thankfully not the norm =)