Apocalyptics Sign

Growing up in Northwest U.S., the only thing that really gives me the creeps was spiders. That is until I moved to Taiwan. A little geography lesson to those unfamiliar with Taiwan, Taiwan has a subtropical climate with what feels like 200% humidity and average temperature of 90 in the summer and 75 in the winter. With 26 million people on this island producing waste and building vast infrastructure, Taiwan is the perfect home and breeding ground for the ever lasting, ever pervasive cockroach.

So why has the cockroach has replaced the spider on my list of most detested things, because Taiwan's cockroach are super fast, harder to kill, and are everywhere even though they usually the themselves well in the dark crevices of the earth and building. They are about the only thing that really creeps me out. That is way this morning on the way to work I had a mini 'end of days' episode which I will never forget.

Every once in a while in order to control the population of cockroaches in Taiwan, the Taiwan government would spray pesticides in the gutters and under the streets. Well they did that to the street in between my apartment and the bus stop. When they spray the pesticide, all the cockroaches come out of hiding and run wild. My god I thought I was in my own version of private hell. There were cockroaches EVERYWHERE. Half dead, dead and on their backs, crushed by cars or motorcycles, many still running around trying to find relief from whatever chemicals is killing their nervous system. It was a sight you don't ever want to see and one unlikely I will ever forget. This is definitely one of the things I won't miss when I leave Taiwan.

Left and Right

Annie and I went back to Hsinchu for the weekend and we were stuck watching and taking care Mimi and Yankee. Needlessly to say it was a very long weekend. I equate a task like this with being forced to watch an episode of the old sitcom 'Full House' over and over again, the kids are cute but outside of that everything else is mind numbing and brain dead. After more then 3 hours you just want to bang your head against the wall just too feel something. The problem of course is that we cannot just turn off the TV or open a book because unlike real life, this TV has tendency to blow up or destroy things if you don't pay attention.

To pass the day we take the kids out on their cute little bikes to the park or the nearby marketplace. The marketplace has a lot of food, cheap trinkets from China which are probably deadly to children, and also games kids can play. One of the games Mimi likes is to throw these golf balls and try to hit these targets on this table for points. Mimi's strength in throwing is very good but her accuracy needs much work. During this game I noticed that Mimi used a lot of her left hand to throw the balls. Then once in a while she would switch to her right and throw the ball.

So Mimi is almost 2 years old and I don’t really know if she is left or right handed. Annie thinks she is left handed but cannot be for sure. I have seen Mimi use a spoon and hold a pencil with the left hand and right hand. Right now it seems to me like she uses whichever hand is most convenient to the object she is trying to grab. Therefore is the object happens to be on her left side she uses her left hand, and if it happens to be near her right she uses her right hand. Either way it will be fine, being left handed in this world is a little harder I expect. However 10% of the population is left handed and they seem to live pretty well. Of course it could be that Mimi hasn’t made up her mind on weather to be left or right handed and is trying all options to see which one is the better. From Mimi I would expect nothing less.

Baby Smarts

My Aunt and Uncle from Omaha came to Taiwan for vacation and me, Annie, and Mimi had dinner with them 2 nights ago at a Beijing Restaurant at the Westin Hotel. We had to special order the Beijing duck in advance and it was very very good. One of the best thing about eating Beijing Duck is that like chicken the best part is the skin, well Beijing Duck basically 80% of it is just skin. So health-wise it is bad for you but it tastes oh so good.

This is the first time my uncle has met Mimi so we were doing the usual introductions in which we had Mimi perform a lot of the cute things we taught her to do for the pleasure of the adults she meets, Mimi's monkey expression has always been a hit wherever she goes:-).

Mimi is at the age where she talks quite a bit in actual language. During the dinner my aunt commented that Mimi understands a lot and is really smart. Of course as a father I automatically agreed because to me Mimi constantly amazes me with what she knows and what she can do. To me she is the smartest child in the world, but of course I am obviously furiously biased towards her. However if I look objectively at Mimi and compare her to other kids I have met, here are the things I noticed about her.

Mimi understands a lot more then the usual child. Her ability to mimic and to demonstrate words through movement is incredible and her understanding vocabulary is just amazing. However her pronunciation and speaking is just so so. Actually I think this is more me, Annie's, and also Minnie's fault since in our household we speak 3 versions of Chinese and 3 versions of English. Annie's Chinese is of course excellent, Minnie's Chinese has very good vocabulary however heavily accented, and me...well I just speak like a 3rd grader. This tends to confuse Mimi and so her pronunciation turns out to be not quite standard. However despite the confusion she can say a lot of words already and she can effectively communicate with us even though I swear at times she looks at us like we are complete idiots.

So as a project I am going to list the words that Mimi can say by age 2. The words might not be exactly the right pronunciation however it must have a direct meaning. I will continue the list, for I am sure I will not be able to remember it all at once, until 3 weeks from now 5/15 which happens to be Mimi's 2nd birthday. This way I will always remember this many years from now.

First Mimi Video Posted!!

Yeah got my first Mimi video up!!! I had to down convert it though because the original was 500 MB, so the quality will not be as good as the original. I don't know what blogger does either when uploading because it does it's own processing. But it should be watchable and you should be able to see Mimi. Video is in Chinese though so practice up!

Cute Angels Biker Club!!

Wanted - recruits for the newly created Cute Angels Biker Gang. Must have cute personality, cute sense of fashion, and overall just be very cute. Must own multi-colored tricycle with squeaky horn or some type of noise maker, smiley faces and green dinosaurs are optional but a definite plus.

As co-gang leader Yankee Hsu quotes and is depicted in this picture "We are looking to be the number one cutest biker gang in the world and no one can stop us!" He puts his index finger up in the air to show that 'yes' he does know what the number "1" means.

Rides include tours of fabulous Hsinchu Park and Zoo starting between the hours of 10 and 11 am and return in time for lunch and nap time. Please bring own Na-Na.

Hot Spring Hotel and Spa

Last week Annie and I went to one of the Hot Spring Hotels in which Taiwan is famous for. There are several up in the mountains and since Taiwan is on a major geological thermal fault or something like that (Josh should know what the term is), most of them feature hot springs in which customers can relax while being away from the city. Annie and I went to one close to Taipei in Ging-San (Gold Mountain). It was Japanese themed and featured in-room hot spring as were a 5 outdoor springs with good scenery. They provided dinner and breakfast and also spa treatment. It was pretty nice overall, the hot springs and spa was good, dinner was ok. Also since it was trying to follow the whole Japanese style, there wasn't any bed and you actually sleep on the floor. Annie didn't have any problems sleeping but I would have preferred a real bed. However I would say the fault is more in my soft western body instead if the hotels.

So for spa Annie choose a oil massage with something in which they wrapped her in aluminum foil then bathed her in some gunk which is suppose to make her skin all bright and shiny. For me I would have preferred they gave my portion to Annie since I am not a big fan of massages, however since this was not an option I went with the Cupping Massage. Now I have seen the pamphlets they are always all so soothing in which they tell about how the cupping therapy will 'releases rigid soft tissue; drain excess fluids and toxins; loosen adhesions and lift connective tissue; and bring blood flow to stagnant skin and muscles', they show nice and relaxing pictures like this

This is all front to cover us what you have to go through to achieve all the nice things you get out of this therapy. It is painful and the only relaxation I had was when it was all over and they pain has stopped. If they use just cups then I think it would be ok, however they also use these long suction things which they run up and down your back which just kills you. Here is what my back looked up right after
I wonder how popular this massage would be if they put pictures like this in their pamphlets?

The Generic 'Mimi is Cutest Baby In The World!!' Posting

My sister said I should post the pictures of Mimi when we took her to the garden the other day because is she sooooooo cute. I said 'I know but what can I write about it except that she is really cute'. So this is the generic 'Mimi is Cutest Baby In The World' posting, I imagine there will be many of these in the future. Nothing really to say except that Mimi was in the garden downstairs in our condo building, we had the camera, we took the pictures, and Mimi proved to me again she is the cutest baby in the world!!!:-)

Baby Dreams

Around 7 am this morning Mimi started crying in her sleep and she said out loud, really loud, 'AH-YI!!! FISH, BUY, FISH!!!'. After a couple pats and reassuring sounds she promptly fell back to sleep. Apparently yesterday afternoon Mimi's Nanny Mini (Mimi calls her Ah-Yi which means aunt in Chinese) took Mimi to the market to buy fish for her to eat. So Mimi seems to be having a nightmare about that trip. I don't know what she was dreaming about, maybe Ah-Yi didn't want to buy her a fish that she wants or something but it seemed pretty traumatic the way she was crying.

It's funny what baby dreams at times. Their life right now must be an endless amount of learning, eating, sleeping, playing, diaper changing, and discoveries. Seems like a great life to me. I remember sometimes while Mimi is sleeping she would start laughing and smiling, other times she would wake up crying. Maybe she was dreaming about no more Na-Na (baby milk in Chinese), or maybe her playmate Yankee was picking on her, or in last night's case...Ah-Yi wasn't buying her the fish she wanted. Whatever it is, it is probably best to try to keep the baby happy when going to sleep, better chances for the good dreams.

Mimi's New Ride

Introducing the first Mimi Mobile! It's lightweight, hot pink, and has an elephant in the front. Large storage basket in the back for all your diaper and bottle needs, actual rubber tires, and an array of loud happy music which are designed to put a smile on children's faces and a grimance on others.

Straight from South Africa

This one is for you Barbara. It's finally summer in Taiwan and it finally fits Mimi. Thanks, doesn't she look cute in it!

Decade Number 4

So I just realize while talking to a friend that I am starting my 4th decade of life. So at 30 maybe you have some argument saying that it is the end of your 3rd decade instead of the start of your 4th, however at 31 you are definately starting on your 4th decade.

My 3rd decade was a good decade overall, graduated from college, joined the working mass (still deciding if that is a good point or bad point), got married, Mimi was born. Still have my health and hair even though it is not as in good of shape as it was in the beginning of the 3rd decade.

In celebration of the start of my 4th decade Annie took me to a really really good Sukiyaki restaurant in Taipei. All you can eat for 90 minutes and the food and meat is really really good (have I mentioned it was really really good?). When we got home Annie baked a Opera Cake for me too. So overall not a bad start to decade number 4.

First Entry!!!!

Yeah!!! Finally got this blog site up and running. Been talking about it for quite some time but always put off creating a blog since it seems like quite a bit of work. However I figure today IS my birthday (4/14) and I AM 31, that this would be as good of a time to start as any.

Since this is the first entry I was thinking maybe I should introduce myself, however most likely if you are reading this you know me already and you are just wondering what I am going to write. Well the answer to that is 'I don't know'. All I know is that this site probably will have a lot of picture of my cute daughter...and that is about it for now. Maybe I will talk about how my other parts of my life are once in a while but I don't know. However there are a couple things I know I won't be talking about in this blog, I call these 'things I can't stand from reading other peoples blogs that I swear I will never do in my blog'. They are

1. NO WHINING, NO COMPLAINING - like all people I get unhappy at times and I wish for things which I can't have. Overall though I think I am pretty lucky in life especially in face of all the other happenings in the world. So I promise I will try not to whine or complain about life and if you catch me doing it, please feel free to tell me to 'SUCK IT UP"
2. No Philosophical Musings - OK...I realize in this world there are lots of people more deeper then me, however I just don't get it when people can see a leaf blow by during their walk to work that morning and associate it with the ambiguities and randomness of life. So no musings on this site, sorry everyone I am just not that smart.

OK that's it for the first entry. Now I will attempt to figure out how to post cute pictures and movies of Mimi (you kind of see what 80% of this site will be of:-))