So today was a sad day. We found out from Emy that Yeager passed away early this morning. Emy sent email a few days ago saying that Yeager was doing OK and was still purring. It's nice to think that Yeager was feeling OK enough to keep purring. I hope he wasn't in too much pain in the end, I'm super glad that he wasn't traveling or in quarintine as his health declined. So on that sad note, we started the day.. Jeremy came home earlier than expected. He flew on EVA which is the airline that all the UMC guys take and it was fun for him to talk to all of his Chinese collegues. He bought all this cool stuff for everybody and for me he got pajama bottoms, a timer an a cool, cheap digital camera, which I used today. I have a picture of Mr. Hong, our building's security guard, and of the noodle shop where we had lunch today. We went to town today and went into the movie theatre where we got the whole grand tour. Turns out it was built in 1933 by the Japanese and in 1945 after WW2, a bomb landed in the center of the theater and destroyed the roof and seating. Just 2 years ago, the theatre was refubished with nice modern seats. Luckily, none of the stage area was damaged by the bomb so all that is circa the Japanese era. (I had just wanted to ask how to buy the tickets and we get a whole tour!) The two gentlemen also recommended a noodle place a few blocks away and we had some yummy lunch. Then we bought some dried shrimp and dried mushrooms from an alley vendor. This afternoon, I went to the wet market for the first time and saw beautiful produce, I'm definately going to shop there for food over the RT mart. Everything is so much fresher. Then we came home and had a quiet dinner of buns. Jeremy was teaching the bun maker some English. Bun is not the same as bum. We also gave Leah an Abercrombie shirt, Droopy was so excited to see Jeremy and now V-man and J-man are out like a light.

I'm all excited, I'm about to go to bed and when I get up, Jeremy'll be home! Woopee!!! Today was a quiet day. 2 trips to the RT mart, pretty much to entertain the V-man. I've watched 3 movies since Jeremy's been gone, America's Sweethearts, In and Out and Bounce. They were all inconsequential. Quiet dinner, Vince didn't eat a whole jar of food tonight. All of a sudden, he seems huge to me, who knows why. Droopy is feeling much better today and I saw Leah again this afternoon...

I woke up this morning without a plan, I slept in until almost 9am, when I heard the phone ring. It was Kay Dee calling to say that they didn't need George today and that if I didn't they would send him home. So I said that I could use him and so I called him and said, "Pick me up in an hour!" So I rushed around, got showered and ate breakfast. Then I rushed downstairs to ask Mr. Lin and Ms. Liu about where to go with George. They recommended "Lion Head Mountain" about an hour away from Hsinchu. So we got into the car, pickup a bite to eat and drove to the mountainside, asking directions along the way. We finally found the place and George and I walked up and up into the mountains. The air was clean, the view spectacular and we traded carrying Vince in the REI backpack. George is a very good sport, he took off his shirt and wore his undershirt and was sweating up a storm. The first bit of the walk was a bit tourist-y and it was brutally hot, I was a bit nervous about where we were headed, but George encouraged me to go on. The mountain is made out of rock and is a Buhddist retreat so there are places to stay overnight. The trail is amazing, all made by digging rock from the mountainside to create steps. We climbed a lot. Well I haven't been climbing a lot recently, so this was a lot of exercise for me. Then we went back into town to the department store where I bought a second set of sheets! Hooray. The saleslady was very, very nice. Jeremy called in the middle of my transaction and said that his day went very well and that he was eager to come home. Wished me happy anniversary as it was our anniversary in Taiwan, but not yet in California. Then I went home and went downstairs and saw Ms. Liu and Droopy. Droopy is a bit under the weather today, so he's on medication. I know yesterday we missed some largest-pig contest, which I decided not to go to because I felt bad for the poor force fed pigs, but George said that something happens only every 15 years and that Chen-Shui-Bien was here in town yesterday. Go figure, I tried to ask Ms. Liu, but I didn't get her explanation either. Tonight I had dumplings and Vince ate a whole jar of sweet potatoes. He is nursing up a storm these days, last night, I swear he was on my breast all night. I think he's hitting a growth spurt, ugh, my poor boobs.

So today was amazing! I went over to the Browns at about 10 am, so I called George our driver and got him to come and pick me up. Then we headed to the Browns and I had a good time with Kay Dee. Turns out her ex-husband worked for Bechtel! Small world. Fran got her hair cut in town (very brave!) and then everybody (Fran, Kay Dee, Emily, Grace, me and Vince) had lunch at the Browns (dumplings, cheese, salami, bread, and goat cheese (yum!)). After lunch, Vince, Emily and I took naps and read People magazine. David came home early because last night he worked from 10-midnight on a teleconference and we went to the park a few blocks from their house. Then we went over to the Pellerins and had Pizza Hut pizza and really pink strawberry ice cream, it was a shocking shade of pink, but quite good. We talked about how to more effectively use George. I think we are all going to end up getting cars, using those on the weekends and George during the week.

Pretty quiet day today. I thought I was going over to the Brown's this afternoon, but David was still not feeling very well and we didn't want Vince to catch his cooties. Watched In&Out, a movie about a gay man about to be married. Vince had a whole chunk of bread at daycare today. He and I are having a good time together. We had another messy dinner of sweet potatoes and fully covered his body and clothes with orange, sticky goop. I saw Ms. Liu and Droopy, she actually called and wondered why I hadn't shown up during the afternoon. She also told the security guard that I'm home without Jeremy and he has taken it upon himself to provide a watchful eye over me. He is also going to start introducing me to other moms in the complex who can speak english :) woo hoo!

Went to the post office today, it costs 28 NT dollars to mail a letter to the US. I mailed some thank you notes and some address changes, nothing interesting. Also bumped into Fran and Kay Dee at the RT mart, helped them find a lighter for their oven. I do all my errands with the V-man on my back, I feel like a mule at times. A lot of other people end up staring at me and my contraption, but I feel quite mobile and agile. My thumb is killing me these days, I twisted it when Vince was 2-3 months old and it hasn't healed yet. It gets better, the more Jeremy is around, since he can carry Vince more, but when I'm by myself, I reinjure it all the time so today it was even painful opening up the mail. I hear from the Strickers that Emy is un-telephonable these days, I hope she is doing well.

Jeremy has left for the states. *sniff*. He'll be back in one week!

What a big day! Today Vincent ate his first real non-milk food! Well he has had some crackers and a good bit of paper, but never babyfood sweet potatoes. Backing up a moment, we went today to buy a baby seat for the dining table. He is starting to it up more reliably recently, and we have had some luck with baby seats in restaurants, so we decided now was the time. While we were downtown, we also got chops made for the three of us. When we got home we did a little shopping and settled on some sweet potatoes for Vincent's big meal (we had chicken, vegtables and rice).

I was really quite grumpy today. I think some days I do really well, other days I wonder why I'm here. So we finally got softer beds! Woo hoo! I can't belive it. We also got more dressers and another shelf unit. I found out later from Helen that Ms. Liu hasn't charged AMD for the extra furniture. Gotta fix that tomorrow. Droopy, Leah and Ms. Liu came over for the delivery and we played and played, Leah held the sleeping Vince in her arms while I rushed to fix the beds and such. For lunch, we went to the drivers license office and got Taiwan licenses. Then in the afternoon, we chased away the ghosts from the front of the house. Helen, Ms. Liu, Leah, Droopy and I all went to the front of our building and I put out a watermelon, kiwis, and mangos. I speared them with the sticks of incense and waited until they burned halfway down. Then we went over to the big flaming kettles and threw the incense in and followed it with paper money. Helen then took me to the fish market and the fish there looked so good. Yum! We went out to dinner with Sei-ping and Man fai and checked out the movie rental place nearby. Jeremy got his huge phone today, it's really quite funny.

So we got bad news from Emily on Wed. The Yeager-meister has cancer. It sounds like he has bone cancer that has spread to his heart and lungs. So Jeremy and I have decided not to bring him to Taiwan. Without knowing exactly how he is feeling, I just can't bear the thought of him in quarintine for three weeks. Jeremy talked to Emy today and she is willing to be his nursing home. I was telling Jeremy that Emy is good at this kind of stuff, very clear-headed and calm, whereas I'd be a nervous wreck. I feel terrible for abandoning our furry feline in his time of need. That's what really sucks about being so far away. So we got the news in the morning and Jeremy spoke with Emy today and it seems like Yeager is fine and in not too much pain. Which is a relief. I spent the morning after hearing the bad news at the Elephant Day care with Vince. He had his first taste of having a toy that he is playing with be taken away by another kid. He was quite unhappy. We went home at 10 am for a long nap, and I snacked during the day. Wed afternoon, I went to see Ms. Liu down at the realtor's office, sat around for 1.5 hours shooting the breeze and playing with Droopy. It made me feel a little better. Everyone's advice is to get another cat, but I want the Yeager-meister. Wed night, Vince was a bit upset because of his teeth, so I gave him a dose of Tylenol and he immediatly fell asleep at 8 pm for the night, which is unusual. Today, Thursday, we had a date with Kay Dee, Emily, Fran, and Grace to go to Taipei. I was originally thinking that we'd go see the "sea world" which seemed like fun, but I think that the Browns/Pellerins needed to do some more power shopping. I'm not sure what I really thought when they said that they needed to buy meat, it didn't cross my mind as being unusual. But when we got there, I understood that this was no ordinary shopping trip. We loaded up van-fuls of stuff, salmon, steaks, chips ahoy, coloring books, cheerios, spaghetti sauce, chicken broth, etc! I really enjoyed hanging out with them, I'm really bummed that we don't live closer. We went to Hola, B and Q and Costco. Whew. I'm beat. We also got a nice letter from our frient Cindy, who reported that Ruby and Monty are enjoying themselves.

I finally got up with Jeremy at 6:30 am. Was tough, Vince didn't like it either. But I got all my morning chores done before 8 and so I walked over to the Elephant English school and spent a good part of the morning there. It's really a lot of fun. I met the other english teacher who teaches upstairs to the older kids and watched them stand in a circle and sing and dance. Vince hit his head a number of times, once on the floor of the place and once in a crib while I was trying to lay him down. Ugh, it hurt for sure :). Then we went home and had some lunch and went to sleep together for about 2 hours! yipes. Then in the afternoon, I went to the RT mart and bought dinner, a chicken casserole, not too impressive this time and some delicious veggies. Then I went to the dry cleaners and then to the realtor's office where I had a nice chat with Miss Liu. She's a sweetie and with the kid and the dog, there is lots to talk about. Man Fai came over for dinner again and then we went and saw his apartment. We are about to get driver's licenses and needed our pictures taken, so we went first to the RT mart, no luck. Then I remembered a photo place next to the dry cleaners and they take photos, we had fun, even took a family picture for the grandparents.

Today was our first working day at home. I'm trying to follow this website's advice flylady.net to keep the house clean. We'll see how it goes. I saw Droopy (our substitute Ruby) today and she was doing well. I also found some friends at the elephant english school. Met lots of little toddlers and it turns out that Vince and I are welcome anytime. That's good. I went out and bought dinner and made meatloaf, which turned out pretty good. Man fai came over to eat, and we ended with a game of Trivial Pursuit.

wow, a day to relax. Spent the morning calling a lot of people in the US; my parents, Bob, Jasmine and Donald. Jasime sounded really good, she's still teaching loads of AMDers. We just went shopping mostly. One trip to the RT Mart and one trip to the HomeBox. Both were quite successful. Jeremy and I are learning to call cabs; we've both had a few successful attempts, so I think we'll be able to find our way around. For dinner, we had some delicious buns with pork and veggies stuffed into them. I think that Jeremy and I are getting a bit stressed out, sometimes we are a bit short with each other. Our apartment is coming together, we have the big pool right outside our window, it's really nice to hear kids playing all day outside.

On Friday, we moved into our apartment. We said goodbye to Katherine at the front of the hotel and went back upstairs to pack all of our stuff. saying goodbye to the staff at the hotel was a bit traumatic, I'm going to miss them quite a bit. Then we moved all the stuff into our apartment and went to McDonalds for lunch. After lunch, we went back to our apartment to wait for our sea shipment to arrive. 31 boxes came by with no problem and we started unpacking. We had invited a bunch of collegues of Jeremy's over for dinner tonight, so we called Helen, our realtor who has befriended us, to help us find a place to buy plates. she drove us to the middle of town, parked her car in front of a store with her double blinkers on and walked in with us in tow. We bought some night plates with blue-green fish painted on them. After that, we went to the RT mart to go shopping and buy some household goods. Today we went and met our nanny which was nice, we also had to prep a lot for dinner tonight. It was fun, Emily and Grace, the Browns & Pellerins 4 year old daughters ran around the house, we had a wonderful american spaghetti dinner with 3 bottles of wine polished off and a lot of discussion of who was doing what and marvelling at the fact that we were surviving in taiwan.

So today was Chinese Valentines Day. We had a good time giving out little chocolates in baskets to all the hotel staff. They were called "little cuties" in the department store next door. Everyone is very busy, the hotel here in Hsinchu is selling out every night, our pal Helen, the housekeeper, can't stop for more than a few minutes to say hello. We also went swimming in the hotel pool today. Vince's diaper swelled up into a cantelope-sized package. Went out to dinner with ManFai to a vegetarian restaurant, they had stinky bean curd which made the whole place a bit smelly.

So today we went to Keelung (which is really pronounced Gee-lung). "We" meaning Katherine, Vince and me. We took the really, really slow train up from Hsinchu, through Taipei and finally to Geelung. We left at 9:40 am and got there at 12:20 pm. There we met two nice women, one who won a fellowship to travel to the US and that's how Katherine met her and the other is a freelance arts manager who can speak excellent English and could do some translation for us. We quickly had lunch from a fast-food joint because we were running a bit behind schedule. I had a pita filled with cheese, broccoli and chicken and we listened to Katherine's friend give a lecture to 100 junior high school students at the Oceanic University located in the city. The students were pretty bored, she had to bribe them with little gifts to get them to answer questions about marine life around Taiwan. Then came the fun part! We all loaded onto buses to go to the dock (all 103 of us) and got into boats which took us to a beautiful island in the bay of Keelung. We walked around the island a little bit, the sun was so bright and beautiful, it was fabulous! The weather was so nice and the air and water so clean, Keelung has become my favorite Taiwan city. There was a little cave in the island that had been turned into a makeshift temple; full of figures, inscense, candles and offerings. Afterwards, we headed back to Keelung on the boats and on the way back, the wind was very strong, all the junior high school kids loved it! All along the handrails, the kids leaned into the wind and tried to get wet from the waves. Then we had a late afternoon snack with our hosts at a hotel overlooking the harbor and started on the long trip back to Hsinchu on a bus. Vince was great today, very happy. He even sat in a high chair for dinner. Here is a picture of him taking a bath!

Tue, August 13, 2002

Today Katherine, Vince and I took a bus into Taipei, very quick and easy. We got to Taipei at about 11 and took a cab to the Sunshine kitchen, where we met a grant recipient that Katherine had met in New York. We had a wonderful lunch of noodles. I was expecting a tour of their facilities and perhaps the people they were serving (the elderly, the unemployed, etc...), but instead we got a wonderful tour of Nei-hu, a suburb of Taipei in a rented bus with the whole staff of Sunshine Kitchen. It is quite calm compared to downtown Hsinchu, full of Home Depot-type stores and Costos. We saw a bunch of streams and walking trails that they are renovating. We also went to the hilltop villa of a writer who had written a rather large picture book on the history of Nei-hu. His house had a little tea shop on the top and we sat around and drank wonderful aromatic tea and had him autograph a copy of the book. The air and the scenery from his villa was wonderfully. Taiwan is really quite beautiful once you lift the layer of pollution which drapes many of the major cities. On the way home, we took the Flying Dog bus company, Vince was very unhappy about the whole situation. a little boy's mother saw how much we had been struggling with the V-man, that she handed back a McDonald's toy to try and calm him down. It didn't work too well.

August 6,2002

Things are going well. We are moving into our apartment on Thursday, which will be very nice. They repainted the place and bought all new furniture, so we'll be ready to have you guys come over any time. It's a pretty big place in a huge complex, so there will be lots of people to meet. Everyone on the hotel staff knows and loves Vince, so it's going to be kind of sad to leave the hotel, people are so nice to us. Vince is still just nursing, he's almost up to 18 pounds now, so that's just great. Yesterday, he discovered paper and started naw on it, so today I found paper in his poop! Yeager and Ruby are still in Austin, Ruby's living in the country with a friend and Yeager is with Emily. Ruby is going to stay in Austin for the year that we'll be in Taiwan, it is too polluted and congested here to go walking with her everyday, we are still waiting to get Yeager's visa for him to come over. Jeremy is doing well, his work is stressing him out a little bit, I think it is a combination of not getting enough sleep and the difficulty of starting a new position with a few AMD people. I've succeeded in finding a nanny for Vince near where we are going to live, it's the sister-in-law of one of the hotel staff here who pays particular attention to Vince every night on her shift. Her sister-in-law has taken care of her 2 children, now 17 and 10 and numerous other young kids from birth until they are ready for pre-school. So hopefully, Vince will learn chinese from this lady :). So then I have to decided what to do with myself, I'm figuring 4-6 hours a day for Vince with the nanny, I can go to Taipei everyday (4 hours on the train) for 2 hours of Chinese classes, I'm also applying for a part-time technical writing position (native-English-type job) near where Jeremy works (so I can have some non-child company everyday), or I could try to arrange for Chinese classes here in Hsin-chu, which I would want to do even if I'm working. Also, Katherine, is here in town. She is very happy to see her grandson and her 6-week trip in China was very successful. We went to a Buddhist all-you-can eat buffet last night, less than $10US for 3 people. Pretty impressive. I'm still a bit embarrased that I can't read too well, I can convince the waiters and waitresses that I can speak and then they hand me the menu in Chinese and I'm stuck. I can read "chicken", "beef", etc, but so many Chinese dishes have special names, I can't get my head around all of them, and then we go to bunches of non-Chinese food places also. Hope things are well!

Well now a week has passed, and with it our housing plan has changed again. I hope this week is the first that does not bring another revision in our housing plan. The crazy landlord discussed above apparently got herself so worked up thinking about boorish folks like up mucking up her apartment that the deal fell apart completely. First she discussed adding a restriction that no pets be allowed. The realtor reminded her that bringing pets had always been part of the deal. Then she decided it was all right for us to have pets, provided that we took them out of the apartment whenever we left, suggesting we bring them down to the guard shack to keep an eye on them when we were not home. Of course, this is absurd, and when the realtor told us what was going on, we decided we had certainly had enough of this crazy lady, no matter how pretty her apartment is. So that arrangement was canceled, and we went back to house hunting the same afternoon. They found two more units in the same Holland Village complex. One of them was just fine, with 4 bedrooms, standard issue white tile floors, and our choice of furniture. We chose one of them ,picked some furniture out of a catalog, and will be able to move in about 10 days from then, between the 8th and 10th of August. This will leave us all a little cozy in our hotel when Mother shows up, but that will be fine. I just hope that this arrangement doesn’t fall through as well. Apparently the landlord of this unit said that pets were fine. In fact, they said that we could raise chickens or anything else we wanted, with the exception of elephants. So I think this is an promising starting point, and I hope our hunt is finally over.

Vincent really loves Taiwan. He is like a movie star here. Everywhere we go we hear people saying, “hao ke ai, yan jing hen da”, and reaching out to touch him. I had him in the infant carrier on my chest as we left a crowded train, and many people reached out to grab his hand or touch his face as he passed. He loves it, and has learned to look for tables of young ladies to try to get their attention. At restaurants, he looks around, and when he catches someone’s eye, especially a lady, he gives them a big toothless grin trying to get their attention. We have been making the most of Vincent’s movie star glow. We have had several meals where the waitresses handed him around for the whole meal, leaving us to eat in relaxed peace. The realtor and the relocation consultant carry him whenever we are with them, and when Doris asked the concierge at the hotel to arrange some daycare, they said it was not necessary, and took care of him themselves. So he spent a couple hours in the lobby with the whole hotel staff. Now they rush up to greet him whenever he appears, and they even showed us some polaroid pictures they took with him while they were watching him. He is always ready with a toothless grin, and hasn’t the slightest shred of shyness. Perhaps we have another Ben on our hands. This week we spent a lot of time and anxiety looking for an apartment. We thought we had settled on one last week, but the landlord violated his oral agreement with our realtor and gave the place to someone else after we had planned to move in. So on Friday we went out again and looked at some new places and our first choice of the apartments we had seen previously. One of the new places was very nice, and in some respects the best we had seen. It was within walking distance of the train station, but on a quiet one-way alley. It is also near a nice quiet park, which runs about four or five blocks along a little creek. It is within a couple blocks of our hotel, so we have had a chance to walk around the park and go to some restaurants n the area. The park usually has some old men taking walks, and is fairly pleasant and quiet. So it was sort of the ideal spot by our original criteria. But in the mean time, our ideas have changed a bit. The main change is that we have reconsidered our plan to have Ruby join us in Taiwan. It is hard to imagine a very good life for her here. There are several things we are worried about. The first is that because of the pollution the prospect of taking her on long walks is not very attractive. We are also worried that her Texas hospitality will not go over well here in Taiwan. We have seen some dogs around that are her size, but they do not approach people to say hello, and we are worried that Ruby will have some trouble getting used to the greater emotional distance between humans and dogs here. The other place we saw, that we have settled on is in a sprawling complex called Holland Village. It has about 10 buildings of 25 stories or so each. The complex has a very nice pool and recreation complex, but at the moment they are all closed pending some sort of dispute with the management company or something. It is not clear if and when they will reopen. Our apartment will be on the 20th floor of one of buildings. It has a very good view, and is 46 ping (roughly1500 square feet). It has a nice master bedroom with a large closet dressing room attached (we will put Vincent’s crib in there). It also has a study with two large built in desks, and off the living room is a japanese style room (common here) that can closed off with class screens. We will use the Japanese room as a play room for Vincent which will double as the guest room. We are going to get rubber floor tiles with the bo po mo fo characters to pad the floor, and perhaps a bunk bed that we can reconfigure as side by side twins when we have guests. The landlord of this apartment is very proud of her apartment. It seems as though everything from the configuration of the rooms, to the appliances, floors and furniture is the result of a long and expensive process she led. She told us several times that her black leather couch cost 300,000 NT ($10,000), and likewise for the dining table, beds, etc. The apartment is for rent furnished, but she wants to take a few of the items with her to their new place (they are moving to the suburbs so that she can get a dog). So we made arrangements to go to a furniture and pick out some replacements that suited us, with the understanding that she would buy them. We found a couch with a cloth covering roughly yeager’s color and also picked out a very inexpensive bunk bed. After we chose them, we got another call saying that she had reviewed our selections, and rejected them as of insufficient quality/price. We agreed to meet the next day at the furniture store so that we could make some selections that would be mutually agreeable. When we got there, she informed us that she had looked around the store, and that there was nothing in the store that was acceptable to her. She proposed instead that she would choose the replacements and let us review them, and for this she needed at least a week (she would have preferred a month). So that is the arrangement we have now. She is supposed to have everything completed by Tuesday the 6th of August, so it looks like Mother will be around to help us move in. I am sure her selections for the bed and couch will be fine. Somehow I doubt that we can agree upon a bunk bed, but as this only costs $US 70, I think we can just tell her to forget and go buy it ourselves.