Up in the clouds

When we got home last night, I noticed that Maita was super happy. This is so typical of her as she’s given to strong emotions. It is quite apparent when she’s happy or sad. And she was obviously up in the clouds yesterday evening.

I asked L why Maita is so high. L told me that she talked to Maita’s pottery teacher when she went to pick up Maita. Maita’s teacher had a lot of good things to say about Maita. She said that Maita is getting better with her artwork and that Maita often has her own ideas on what to do. Maita’s teacher also said that she liked to teach students who have their own ideas.

Incorrect English

There’s an interesting article in a recent issue of the Taipei Times.  It talks about how the internet is feeding incorrect usage of the English language.  The article can be found here.

See if you can correct the mistakes in the following phrases:

Straight-laced
Just desserts
Font of knowledge
Free reign
Slight of hand
Phased by
Butt naked
Vocal chords
Shoe-in

18 thousand kilometers later

Six months, 18 thousand kilometers later, I can say that the new Passat TDI is a great car. Among the things that I like about this car are the following:

• Trip computer – The computer tells you how much you've traveled, the remaining range on your tank of gas (total km), your mileage (liters/100km), average speed, time traveled, and the outside temperature.


• Climatronic temperature control – Driver and passenger side air temperature can be adjusted.


• Bluetooth handsfree system – Although this was not a factory original option, it works well (most of the time anyway) whenever I need to take or make a phone call.


• Sound system – The radio and CD player sound great and I like turning up the volume when I’m driving alone.


• Cruise control – This is the first time that I’ve owned a car with cruise control. It's quite nice to use on those long drives. I understand that there's a higher level cruise control (adaptive cruise control - ACC) available but it’s not offered in the Taiwan models. ACC will automatically adjust the speed depending on the car in front of you.


• Heated seats – This is really useful on those days when the temperature is in the single digits and you can’t wait for the heater to kick up.


• Fuel economy – The fuel economy is just great! I can get up to 17 kms./liter on the highway and average 14 kms./liter on combined city/highway driving.


• Electronic parking brake – To engage the brakes all you do is press a button! To disengage, just put the car in drive and the parking brake disengages automatically.

Despite being an automatic with a manual option, I've really enjoyed driving this car. I always thought that manuals were more fun to drive. But this car shifts very well and is very responsive and quick. It has what they call DSG technology. DSG is essentially two clutches that make the automatic shifting real smooth.

There are, however, some things that I don't like so much:

• Rain sensing wipers – This is what the car has for intermittent wiping of the windshield. It relies on optical sensors on the windshield that detect the amount and frequency of rain falling. These sensors regulate the interval between wipes. Although the sensitivity of the sensor can be adjusted on the control, I find that it’s too sensitive for my tastes. The intervals between wipes is still too short for me and I often just turn off the wiper and wipe manually or just go to the low setting.


• Ashtray and lighter doors in back seat – These are not childproof enough! My two girls with their curious little hands have managed to take these covers off very often.


• Service button – There is a service button which tells me when the car needs to go for service. At the moment it is practically useless as the information is not correct. The VW dealer probably still doesn't know how to program this.


• Auto hold button – This button is for automatically keeping the car stationary when you come to a full stop. It’s supposed to be useful in stop and go traffic. I’ve tried using it but now keep it off most of the time and just use the parking brake instead.


• Bucket seats – I'm no fan of bucket seats. They may feel good at first but your back will hurt if you go for long drives. I had to add an extra pillow to give me some lower back support.

Today is a holiday

We have a holiday today and we took the girls to 18 peak mountain before going to our favorite noodle shop for lunch.  After lunch, we took the girls home for a nap and L and I went to the office to catch up on some work.

On the way to the office, I mentioned an observation on Maita.  It seems that she will frequently choose to stay at home instead of going to school whenever she is given a choice.  Today was a holiday for most companies in Taiwan but Maita’s school is open and could take the kids and have classes if the parents had to work.  Some parents did not have to go to work but still took the kids to school.  We know of one set of parents who sent their two kids to school so that they could enjoy the holiday as a couple without the kids.

On the question of Maita choosing to stay at home, we think this is because she knows that we have to plan some sort of activity whenever we are home with both sisters.  Today, the activity was a hike up 18 peak mountain.  As it was a warm day, there was also the ice cream treat that they expect every time we go up this hill.

Interesting times

The past days have been really hectic. I wanted to write something about what we did Sunday and it’s now Friday. Time has been flying by so quickly as we've been quite busy. L and I have no doubt that this year is going to be an interesting year, both personally and in our business.

On Sunday, I had to drive to Taipei early in the morning for my interview. L also had a similar interview later in the afternoon and I had to go get her when she got off the bus in Taipei.

The interview that I had was for a position in a graduate program in Taiwan studies. The program is called the International Master's program in Taiwan Studies (IMTS) and details on the program is here. L's interview was for a similar program with a focus on China (IMCS}.

I was attracted to the IMTS program because it will give me a deeper understanding of Taiwan. The fact that it is held entirely in English is also a major attraction. In any case, I think I'm a shoo in to the program and I'll know by mid May whether I’ve been accepted into the program. The reason for my confidence is as follows – there are 12 places reserved for Taiwanese and only 8 of us took the test. L might have a bit of a harder time but then there were only 41 people (with a few no shows in the interview) who took the test for 30 places in the IMCS program.

A trip to the bookstore

Early Saturday morning, Maita told L that she wanted to go to the bookstore.  Right then and there our schedule for the day was set.  As the two young girls woke up early, we had enough time to do our marketing in the traditional wet market in the city then walk to the nearby bookstore, Eslite.

At the bookstore, it was not so easy to pick out books for Maita and Erika.  They both had their own ideas on what book they wanted to buy.  Originally, we looked for a Peter Pan book.  Failing to find this, I asked the two girls to find a suitable replacement that I would “approve” first before buying.  I tried to steer them to some books that I selected but they had their eyes on some other items.  I ended up buying a Disney book for Erika and a kind of pop-out book for Maita.  On book buying trips like these, I prefer to buy English books and I think both my girls know this.

On hindsight, the Disney book was a good buy.  It was a collection of four stories plus a CD.  The stories were: Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White.  Erika and Maita identify with the four heroines in the stories and they each had a favorite character.

Jusco closing!

Last night we went to Jusco to do some grocery shopping.  Jusco is the big grocery store located in the nearby Windance shopping mall.  We learned recently that they were closing down the whole operation, department store and grocery store, by the end of the month.  This made going there somewhat urgent.  Just last week I brought back a defective hair dryer so that they could repair it.  At that time, I was told that it would take three working weeks to get it back – this would make it May before I got it back.  I therefore wanted to check whether we can expect to have our hair dryer fixed before the whole operation packs up and leave.  The lady at the appliance section assured me that there will still be some people left in May to tie up loose ends and that I can expect some news on my defective air dryer next week.

It’s just too bad that they’re closing down Jusco.  We enjoy doing doing our grocery shopping there as it is nice and big with a nice selection of items.  I suppose the big Japanese community in Hsinchu will also miss Jusco once it finally leaves.  Being a Japanese owned chain, Jusco had a good selection of Japanese products.

After announcing the closing date, Jusco started to have sales on a lot of items.  We were told that there would be a lot of people looking for bargains and this was indeed true.  I did take a look and many shelves have been emptied of sale items.  The items left were not really on sale or did not have a big discount.  I told L that I spotted some down pillows that nobody seemed to be buying.  They were marked down as well but I have no idea if the price is good or not.  In any case, we might pick up some down pillows next time we go to Jusco – one week left before everything closes!

Some pics of Erika

On the way to Hualien.

At Hualien watching the dolphin show.

Various Pics of Maita

At the train station.

In the van.

At the ice cream shop.

Esmeralda, the gypsy

In one of our conversations before going to sleep.

Erika: Papaa.
Me: Yes?
Erika: Papa, I want to be Esmeralda when I grow up.
Me: Esmeralda, the gypsy?
Erika: Yes, Esmeralda the gypsy.
Me: Why do you want to be Esmeralda the gypsy?
Erika: Papa, I want to be Esmeralda when I grow up.
Me: Why do you want to be a gypsy when you grow up?
Erika: I want to be Esmeralda, the gypsy with the long black hair.

Esmeralda is one of the characters in the story, Hunchback of Notre Dame. We have some books with this story and some pages would have pictures of the characters. Erika is drawn to any pretty looking characters, especially those with long hair.

3G mobile phone death!

My six month old Nokia 6021 3G phone suddenly decided to die on me last week.  There were no symptoms of the impending death.  I just discovered one morning that it had no power and it was not possible to turn it on regardless of whether it was attached to the charger or not.  Even the startup screen wouldn’t come up.  The only thing that seemed to work intermittently was the backlights on the screen – it would light up for a while then nothing.

As there was a two year warranty on the phone, I brought it to the service center.  I had it back in a day after they reloaded the software (or firmware) for the phone.

I’m now wondering whether there was a software bug in the original operating system of the phone or whether I got a phone virus from somewhere.

These new phones are getting to be more and more like computers.  There are more functions and the software gets more complicated.  Consequently, crashes should become more common.

Despite the sudden death of the phone, I’m really happy with this Nokia phone.  It has bluetooth, an infrared connection, and a nice color screen for viewing photos.  The Bluetooth connection allows me to use the Bluetooth handsfree system on my car and the IR connection allows me to connect the phone to my laptop.  I could also use the phone as a modem to connect my laptop to the internet – this comes in handy when I don’t have a ready internet connection and would need to send out an email quickly.

Thank goodness for health insurance

This is a photo of the hospital bill that we got for that Sunday trip to the emergency room. The total bill is for NT$ 3511 broken down as follows:

Registration Fee 250
Medical Fee 641
Supplies 3
Medical Procedure Fee 2,617

Total 3,511

The actual amount that I paid was NT$ 553, which is the sum of the NT$ 250 registration fee and a NT$ 300 self pay amount. The entire visit with the doctor lasted only about 5 minutes at the most. All the doctor did was to straighten Erika’s elbow.

This bill reminds me of a bigger bill that we got when Erika was born. As Erika was born premature by about two weeks, she had to stay in the hospital for about 3 weeks. The entire stay included time in the 24 hour intensive care unit and the incubator. The bill that we ran up was in the NT$ 100,000 range but we only paid about NT$ 5000 plus some change. It is times like this that remind me to be thankful for Taiwan’s universal health insurance.

A nervous nurse

L told me that the nurse who was working with the emergency room doctor was a little nervous when she saw us.  It turns out that she thought that we were bringing in an abused child.  If this was the case, she needed to ask very detailed questions which would then be reported to either the police or some government department for social services.  I guess this type of situation is very stressful for medical workers.  They are obligated under law to report such situations and they would be faced with a lot of pressures from all sides.  The nurse was a bit relieved to find out that Erika just had an accident.  When we took Erika back to show them how much her arm and hand had improved, the nurse looked happy to see her and Erika was also happy to show them her new pin.

A bit of a scare ...

We had a bit of a scare late yesterday afternoon.  Erika was crying hard because her left elbow was really hurting.  She had it crocked and kept it in one position as it hurt very badly if she moved it.  L took Erika and Maita down for a walk and came back immediately saying that we should take Erika to the hospital.  So we carried a crying Erika to the hospital emergency room to wait for a doctor.

The doctor asked what happened and we explained how Erika was holding Nehriza’s hand when she decided to hang herself from Nehriza’s outstretched hand.  It seems that this had given her a slight dislocation on her elbow and it hurt so much that she cried and would not move her arm and hand.

The doctor proceeded to take Erika’s hand and gently pulled it straight at the elbow.  He then asked a crying Erika to try to move her hand.  Erika was crying a lot and refused to follow the doctor.  The doctor then suggested that we go get her a toy to play with then come back.  He said that children frequently continue to imagine that they still hurt even if the pain is gone.  We went to the 7-11 near the hospital to pick out a toy.  Erika picked a pin and Maita also got a pin for herself.  This was a special treat for them as we usually don’t buy toys from our convenience store trips.  I asked Erika to put the pin on the counter using her left hand.  It was then that we saw that her hand and arm was OK.  We promptly went back to the doctor to show him.  He showed us the arm movement that we should check to see if Erika’s arm and hand are indeed OK.  We asked Erika to show us when we got home and she could move her hand and arm properly and without pain.  To be sure we’ll probably go see an orthopedic doctor in the coming days.

Maita can read!

Maita was so happy yesterday evening that she decided to read a book aloud to show her Mom.  This was the first time I saw Maita read a book all by herself.  I suspected that she already knew how to read but this was the very first confirmation of this suspicion.  We are very encouraged by this as Maita is probably one of the few finishing the 3 year Montessori program who has picked up the ability to read.  We hope that this gives her a good background for learning English as she grows up here in Taiwan.

Ready for school

Probably two weeks ago, Erika went along on the car ride to Maita’s school.  We sometimes do this as one of us needs more time at home to get ready.  In this case, I just got back from Europe and needed more time to get organized for work.

When Erika came back home I noticed that she had a new toy, a music box.  I asked L how much it cost and it was a whopping NT$ 500 for the new toy from the convenience store.  We normally don’t buy toys anymore for our kids and there had to be a special reason for this purchase.

It turns out that Erika went into Maita’s classroom and did not want to leave anymore.  She left the school crying and kept saying, “I want to go to school,” in the car.  L had no choice but to take her to the nearest convenience store to buy whatever she wanted.  Unfortunately, she picked an expensive toy.

We think that Erika should now be ready for pre-school.  She’s basically already toilet trained and she can do most things by herself now.  She’ll probably go starting summer this year.  We hope that she’ll show similar progress as Maita but recognize that they are different and might have different results.

Dance

Maita’s teacher from school called yesterday to ask whether they could let Maita join a Hsinchu city program this Saturday.  From what I understood, the program allows Maita’s school to send two Da Ban (Big Class) students to perform a dance.  Apparently, Maita’s dance teacher selected Maita and another student to represent the school.

We got the call while we were driving back to the office from a customer.  L and I had a discussion about why Maita was chosen.  From the previous yearly school programs, all the students had to get on stage to have a song and dance performance.  Maita always struck us as being very concentrated and at times comical because she had the most exaggerated movements among her classmates.  It shows that she concentrates quite well and is quite serious when she sets her mind to it.  And, we think that’s the reason why the dance teacher picked Maita.  She takes instruction well when she sets her mind to it.

L also remarked that if the choice was left to her normal teachers (the dance teacher is part of an extracurricular activity), Maita would not have been picked.  When I asked why she thought this, L said that Maita had her own mind (and often strong opinions) and the other teachers might not like this in a student.

At the end of our working day, we went to pick up Maita.  She was in a euphoric mood and this extended all the way to bed time!  We’re guessing that she’s so happy she’d been picked to dance for the school.

Distances can be deceiving

Distances can be deceiving.  From looking at a map, one would think that it would take only X amount of hours to travel a Y amount of distance.  One thing I learned from our vacation to the east coast of Taiwan is to ask other people how long it takes to get from point A to point B.  Before we embarked on that trip to Hualien, I asked my nephew and he told me it would take us 5 hours.  I was a bit skeptical as the distance did not seem that far.  Boy, was I wrong.  Here’s a summary of the driving time and distance from Taipei to Hualien.  I also include the time and distance for Taipei to Hsinchu for comparison.

Taipei to Hualien
Distance:  approximately 200 kms.     
Driving time:  5 hours minimum

Taipei to Hsinchu
Distance:  approximately 90 km.
Driving time: 1 hour maximum (no traffic)

It actually took us 6 hours to get to Hualien with frequent stops because of a carsick child.  The way back from Hualien to Taipei took 7 hours despite only one toilet stop.  The traffic on the mountains increased the traveling time.

Our Chinese New Year's Vacation

It has now been a week after the recent week-long Chinese New Year holidays.  By now we’ve hopefully recovered from our slightly stressful vacation.  In hindsight, the vacation was interesting but we’ll probably not repeat it again unless we have a much longer vacation time.  

We spent 3 days in Hualien’s Ocean Park Resort.  These 3 days were more like 2 days driving with one day of rest.  Before we embarked on the drive to Hualien, we spent the night at L’s sister’s apartment.  We left Taipei at around 8:40 am and drove towards Ilan using the new Pei-I (#5) highway.  Part of the highway was open and it shortened the travel time a bit before we had to hit the mountain roads.  It took us about 2 hours to get to Su Ao in Ilan.  Upon reaching Su Ao, I was thinking that we would reach our destination in Hualien in about the same time of 2 hours.  Eventually it took us another 4 hours before we got to Hualien.  By the time we checked into our hotel room, all I wanted to do was stay in the room till about dinnertime.  I’m glad I brought along my laptop and spend the time reading emails and internet surfing.  The rest of our party – four kids, a set of parents, L, and our domestic helper, Nehriza went swimming in the hotel’s swimming pool.

We had reservations at the Chinese restaurant at the hotel and I waited for everyone to come eat dinner after their swim.  We sat at a table right next to a small stone fountain that had no water.  This small stone fountain was like a magnet to the two younger kids, Erika and Kenny.  Both Erika and Kenny went up the fountain’s edge and walked around and around.  Unfortunately, Kenny fell in and hit his head hard against a sharp edge.  He had a small hole in his forehead that needed two stitches at a nearby hospital.  To the hotel’s credit, they took Kenny and his parents to the hospital and back to the hotel later.  Kenny was a bit shaken but otherwise fine.

The next morning was the high point of the vacation.  We went down to Hualien Ocean Park and enjoyed the rides and the dolphin, sea lion, and mermaid shows.  The place was jampacked with people but the main thing is that the kids enjoyed themselves.  I don’t know about the other parents but I was there just to take pictures of my kids and my nephew and niece.  At night we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant at the hotel and went swimming at the hotel’s pool.  This time I went to enjoy the pool.  It was quite interesting as there were three pools with different temperatures.  The kiddie pool had 34ºC water, another Jacuzzi like pool had 39ºC, and the main pool for swimming had 30ºC.

On the third day, we had to drive back to Taipei then to Hsinchu.  We had a heavy breakfast and packed along some food to eat on the way back to Taipei.  We did not plan on stopping for lunch along the way.  We left at a little over half past ten in the morning and got to Taipei at around 5:30pm – 7 hours of driving.  We drove the van and it had enough space for all of us, plus our luggage.  Maita displayed her special talent by sleeping for most of the trip to Taipei – she must have slept 4 or 5 hours.

We had dinner in Taipei before driving home to Hsinchu.  This trip home took approximately one hour of driving.

Van Break-in!

Someone broke into our van last week.  We did not use it for about two weeks and it was just parked on a road outside our office.  

This is already the second time that something like this has happened to our van.  The first time the van was broken into, the person tried to steal the van.  He was unsuccessful and I had to spend money to fix up the damage – some wires were cut, a side window broken, and the lock on one of the doors was removed.  I changed the locks as I suspected that the thief took the lock to make a key that would open and start the van.

On this second break-in, a window was broken and the engine hood was opened.  I learned later from the shop that the thief was probably trying to steal the van’s computer.  On gasoline VW T4s, this computer is located just next to the car battery.  Fortunately, our van is a diesel and on this model there is no computer.  This computer costs about NT$40,000 new.  And there were a bunch of vans in the shop waiting for the suddenly out of stock computer which had to be shipped from Germany.

We reported the break-in to the police and were advised to park the van near a residence area instead of just anywhere.  Thefts are also probably up because Chinese New Year is just around the corner.  Everyone needs more money for the holidays.

Hsiang San

This past Saturday, we took Maita and Erika to the nearby Hsiang San (Fragrant Mountain) train station.  This train station is said to be the oldest wooden train station still being used in Taiwan.  It was interesting to see as this station was built during the Japanese times.  The station itself was small and it was manned by only one person.  I could see some beams infested by termites.  I hope someone is aware of this and will someday fix or replace these termite infested beams.  It would be a pity to lose this historical site.

The highlight of the trip was the train ride to a nearby stop – Chunan.  Maita and Erika were both very excited to be on the train.  You could see how difficult it was for Maita to suppress her smile while she was on the train.

The ride to Chunan was short but had good scenery.  The train tracks were near the sea and we saw a lot of those new windmills for generating electricity.  When we got to Chunan, we looked for a place to take lunch.  We had some noodles and rice at a nearby food stall.  Then we went back to the train station to wait before taking the train back to Hsian San.  While at the train station, Erika kept wanting to ride the orange train.  The particular train that we took was blue and the orange train was another line.  A new word for Erika that day was “cargo” train.  Cargo was the word that came to my mind when Erika pointed out the black train that looked so different from our passenger train.