Trip - Taiwan Day 3 - Yilan

We left the house at our normal pick up time, 9am.  Today we visited a nearby city called Yilan.  It's about a 1.5 hour drive from Taipei depending on traffic (sometimes takes 4 hours if it's busy).  To get to Yilan, we traveled through the snow Mountain tunnel (雪山隧道), which is Taiwan's longest tunnel with a length of 12.9km.  Pretty neat.  After a while, it feels like the tunnel just never ends...but it does.

We went to see the following places in Yilan:

- Wufengshi waterfall 五峰旗瀑布, an easy 20 minute walk up the stairs.  Only MIL, Rich, Julia and I went to see this.  Daidail fell asleep in the car so Lo Ye stayed behind.  Jas had a bit of a fever and wasn't feeling very well.  There are 3 stages to the waterfall but we only walked to the 2nd one.  It would have taken another 20 minutes up to see the final one.

After this, we went to Yilan Hot Spring Fish spa where you dip your feet into the pool and there are all these little fishies swimming around that eats your dead skin!  Cost was $4 CDN per person so it was a cheap and fun outing.  It was the weirdest feeling, truly.

There was a bakery right next to the spa fish place so we bought a Minion bread.  It's all just for looks, sadly no taste.  

- Not sure why we went to the Fish market 南方澳南宁鱼市场  but the driver took us there for lunch.  There were little stands with dried seafood products.  You can even buy them fresh and take it to be cooked at the restaurants upstairs.  We ate lunch upstairs and ordered seafood but unfortunately, the food was quite disappointing.  Before we left, we bought several bags of the fried crab.  All 3 kids LOVED eating them.

- Because of time, we weren't able to see the Lanyang museum (蘭陽博物館), on architecture and landscape so we took a pic of it.

- the final stop is the King car Kavalan Distillery (噶瑪蘭酒廠) which makes whisky.  As alcohol drinkers, we just had to come for a visit.  It was a huge plant and they had free tours hourly.  Look at MIL and FIL so deep in thought during the session.  At the end of the tour, they gave out free testers of whisky.  There were benches with different years of whisky laid out that you can taste test.  Pretty neat.

Trip - Taiwan Day 2 - Taipei (video)

Today, we visited the northern part of Taipei city and saw the following places:

The Grand Hotel - one of the world's tallest Chinese classical buildings

 National Palace Museum (國立故宮博物院) - we spent about 2.5 hours here.  There were 3 main pieces that's quite famous:  cauldron of Duke Mao, jadeite cabbage and meat shaped stone.  Too bad we didn't get a pic of the last one.

Yangminshan National Park (陽明山國家公園) - there is supposedly an awesome view of Taipei at this park but it was really cloudy so the view was only so-so

The Top Restaurant - the driver took us to this restaurant for lunch.  It's supposedly a really popular romantic dining place on the mountain. We had to eat inside a hut which cost $3000 NTD (or eat outside in the rain with no minimum charge).  In order to reach the minimum charge, we ordered way so much food it filled the entire table and had to order even more to take home.

Beitou Thermal Valley (地熱谷) - a volcanic crater filled with steaming natural sulfuric hot spring water.  The temperatures of the water can reach up to 100 deg C, so it's not suitable for bathing.  Lots of steam around the area.

Beitou Quanyan Park foot bath park - this is popular spot where locals hang out dipping their feet into natural spring water...for free!  There's an area to wash your feet before you get in and rinse after you are done.  It was pretty busy when we got there but managed to squeeze ourselves in.

Trip - Taiwan Day 1 - Taipei

I woke up early this morning to go downstairs and find breakfast for everyone before our driver showed up.  There was a 7-11 a block away that sells drinks, snacks, bread, noodles...  I specifically looked for rice milk for the kids to drink and found brown rice milk.  Terrific!  So I grabbed 3 of them along with some noodles and bread.

I got home and proceeded to feed everyone.  Jules and Josh drank their rice milk happily.  Jas took one tiny sip and said "there's peanut in this."  I'm thinking, no way.  I look at the container and sure enough, peanuts is 3rd on the list.  Who the heck puts peanuts into brown rice milk?  Geez????

Anyways, I gave the girls Benadryl immediately.  Jas starts to throw up and keeps on throwing up for the entire day.  I asked the driver how far the hospital was and it was less than 10 mins away.  Super.  I tried to get Jules to throw up as well, since she drank the entire cup of it but she couldn't do it.  In the end, she turned out fine.  So maybe she is outgrowing the peanut allergy?  Not sure.  We monitored the kids carefully all day.

We managed to visit the following places today in Taipei:
- Longshan Temple

- Presidential Palace (couldn't go inside that day)

- Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (it was scorching hot that we couldn't walk all the way up the stairs.  Way too hot, even with umbrella and hat.)

- Taipei 101 (unfortunately, it was super cloudy that day so there wasn't much of a view)

 - Lin An Tai Mansion (closed at 4pm so we had only 15mins to look around)

We had dinner plans with my friend Leo and his family at Shin Yeh.  It was so nice to see him again after 10 years?  He's now a family man with 2 kiddies.  Our driver dropped us off at the end of the day so we had to take the subway home from the restaurant. What an exciting day!

Trip - Arrival in Taiwan

Finally, the long awaited Asia trip.  We flew out on a 11am flight which connected in Seoul Korea first and then to Taiwan.  All 3 of the kiddies were so excited.  The top pic is at YVR to Korea, and the bottom pic is at Seoul airport, after 11 hours.  They were all still awake at 9pm Vancouver time.  

We arrived into Taiwan at 6pm (equal to 3am Vancouver time).  By then, all the kids were sleeping.

WELCOME TO TAIWAN!

No" to Naps! So Sick.

Daidai falls asleep really late each night even though we put him into bed before 10pm.  Sometimes, he's still playing in his crib at midnight!  That makes a very tired Mommy considering I usually get out of bed by 6:15am.

So this weekend, we experimented with skipping the afternoon nap to see if it'll make him sleep earlier.  Unfortunately, Daidai is sick also (puking, coughing, runny nose) so it wasn't a good combo.  He woke up several times each night due to stomach cramps and throwing up but at least he is falling asleep earlier at night.

Update on Wednesday:  We kept at it, no daily naps.  With his cold slowly getting better, Daidai is falling asleep at 10pm.  Yay!  Let's hope this continues.

Guess Who Got Braces?

The dentist kinda sprung this on me without me knowing the exact date.  I got home one day after work and saw this....braces!  Was kinda hoping it would be done after our Asia trip, but oh well.  Too late now.