J Day!

February 20 is the anniversary of J joining our family, forever know to us as "J Day." We celebrated a day late this year due to other things going on (and the fact that we can't keep track of the day of the week, much less the day of the month).

The tradition has become to do something fun first, so we went to the park with the trikes and the kids rode like a speed demon (J) or a tipsy not-so-speedy demon (D) and used every piece of playground equipment at least twice. Then a little soccer ball kicking, some geese feeding, and on to part two, which is lunch at a chinese restaurant. After all that energy building, they inhaled their egg flower soup, fried rice, and broccoli beef.

Sadly, I forgot to bring a camera for any of this!

J's favorite part is the third part, where he gets to pick out a toy to buy. This was a very time consuming process in the aisles of Target as every toy had to be looked at and analyzed for its potential fun. Until he saw a monster truck and then the decision was easy, as monster trucks rule J's world. Although he's still rather regreting losing out on the opportunity for blendy pens and has started a campaign to get us to go back for them.

Two years! It doesn't seem possible. He's changed so much, grow so tall and is a little boy now instead of a toddler. He talks a mile a minute and runs even faster. He loves to have us "check how big my muscles are!" though he still seems to think those muscles are located in his elbows. His favorite things to do are to jump off of anything, dig for pirate treasure in the back yard, and ride very fast on his trike. He stalks sugar and thinks that it is necessary an hourly basis if he is to survive. He cries very quickly and easily but has forgotten his upset a moment later. If he is very, very angry with us he calls us "goo-goo heads," the ultimate insult at preschool apparently. We are frequently exasperated, often stunned, and we love him to bits.

Panda mania

We’ve been joined by the Polish team for the Deaf Olympics at our hotel (though the city is spelling it Deaflympics). It was a very full dining room, with blond, athletic people. Our waiter came over and asked us, “Where are they all from, they are so tall!” We couldn’t get Poland across, but he got Eastern Europe.

At night, as we tried to put to bed too overly tired children who were both wailing at having their fun time ended, we could only be grateful that we were unlikely to be waking up the neighbors.

While Roni was off on his bullet train to the south Mom and I got the kids up and out, off to the zoo. Thank goodness for my mother, is all I can say. There is no way that I could have handled the two kids, the two strollers, the backpack, the umbrellas, the water – all the stuff that it seems to take us to get two small boys out into the Taipei heat. At home, it will be slightly more pared down, and J will go back to being a walker – we haven’t used his stroller in almost a year before coming here. But for now, getting into a taxi is not a quick leap from the curb!

The Taipei zoo is great. Not the world’s biggest or best layout, but where else can you spend the day for $1.65 (Mom and the kids were free, though the guard gate “carded” Mom, to her thrill) in a green, entertaining setting. Complete with misters in the trees and juice/tea/water machines every few feet dispensing 30 cent bottles. Plus, we took travel advice and took the shuttle train to the top and so our whole visit was a downwards stroll.

Our first destination, and the highlight, was the Panda exhibit. My mom is crazy for pandas – way back when she visited the first pandas in the U.S., brought to Washington D.C. and she’s liked them ever since. And I know that it is anthropomorphizing, but there is something about those pudgy faces that makes you smile.

They had it set up so that you got a ticket time when you first entered the zoo, so we rushed there to make our time. However, we’d timed the day of our visit perfectly – today is the first Monday that all the schools start up again here, so the zoo was nearly empty after what was apparently a jam packed weekend. There were all the Disney type waiting areas set up with their snaking turns, but today they were unused. We just wandered to the main door and were smiled inside. There is a narrow walkway across the panda enclosure and people are supposed to keep moving to let the people in line behind them to have their chance to see. But as there wasn’t much in the way of lines, we could stay and take lots of pictures. The keepers were setting up large bamboo branches in stands in the floor and pretty soon the pandas lumbered in and started to eat. Camera phones clicking on all sides. We stayed for quite a while, watching them on the far side of the enclosure eating carrots or something large and orange, and then were finally waved out with the group.

But after hitting the panda gift shop, Mom really hadn’t had enough pandas, so we went back to the front door and asked if we could go in again. The lady said sure (or the Mandarin equivalent) so we went in and got to just stand and watch the pandas wallowing in their bamboo and wandering to the ponds for drinks for a very long time. Conservatively, I’d estimate that Mom and I took 50-60 panda pictures, just to make sure that some of them would turn out, taken through the glass. In the evening, Roni was astonished that anyone could need so many pics, but as I may have mentioned, we are pro-panda people. J

We wandered the rest of the zoo, hitting our favorites (the penguin house is a little sad, and I always avoid cat enclosures as they need so much more space than they ever get) like the elephants and zebras. The camera battery eventually died, done in by the pandas, but we had enough cute pics of the kids in sun hats racing or rolling about to mark the occasion. We focused on animals that had air-conditioning as well, so I saw more snakes and lizards than strictly necessary. D eventually faded out, but J stayed awake, probably fueled by his evil plotting against his brother. Sibling rivalry is in full force at the moment! The hotter J gets, the more he becomes sure that D is the source of his problems. A well rested, cool J can tolerate his once-beloved-when-mythical brother. A hot, cranky J is a secret squeezer.

Back at the hotel, I popped the kids in the tub and with grandma in charge, went off in a taxi to find that yarn store the receptionist had written down for me. It was a combo store called MamaBear, with quite a bit of yarn and even more beads. A big set of tables was surrounded by happy women working wire and beads into decorative thingies. The yarn took up several walls and rows and was all in plastic to protect it from the humidity. None of it was from Asia, as far as I could tell, so I ended up with yarn from Spain and Italy, but I’ll still be able to tell the boys that I wove or knit their scarves from yarn from our trip to Taiwan. So my yarn diet needs have been met. (Though there is unlikely to be much knitting, weaving or spinning time in the near future.)

We went just a couple of steps right of our hotel to a Thai restaurant for dinner. D was more interested in stacking the metal water glasses and J with his motorcycle, but the food was good for those of us who focused on it. Roni found us by spotting us through the window just as we were finishing the ice cream course, back from the south where his vendor visit was a little strange but interesting none the same.

We’re all packed up now, as we fly home tomorrow and have to be out of the rooms by noon. We’re definitely ready to get home and get back to whatever the new normal is going to turn out to be. Unfortunately, the non-stop EVA flights to Seattle are night flights, which is great for sleeping kids, but not so great for killing a day when we’re packed, without a hotel room, and feeling a little done.

So, I signed us up for another tour. It’ll kill half the day (see? The tourism excitement is definitely fading!) and we’ll see a part of the northern coast that we didn’t see on the last tour. I’m using these van trips as a way to test the waters for the day when we come back on our own and make our way around the island to really show the boys where they are from. So these are just little tastes to show us good places to go and how things work.

Markets and malls

We split up in the morning, with Roni and the boys going off to a Pixar exhibition and also to Da’an park, Taipei’s giant park in the middle of the city which includes a major play area. It was the first place in Taipei we took J when we first got him, and it was equally a hit this time. The three boys all came back hot and dripping and having had a fabulous time running around. The slides were the favorite. The Pixar presentation was a little over their heads except for some movies that J really liked.

Mom and I hit the weekend market again, to make sure we’d at least touched every tourist souvenir available to us. I don’t wear much jewelry so we mainly admired in the jade market section, but we did manage to get a few trinkets and we each got another water color picture at the craft market. I keep fingering the clay teapots in their amazingly carved configurations, but what am I going to do with such a tiny teapot? My display shelves at home are already dangerously overloaded, and the mugs I drink tea from are bigger than the teapots. I also love the laughing pigs, and it may be that we’ll have yet another of those at home, but I can tell myself it is for the boys when they’re older, not for me. :-)

We all met back at the hotel for nap time, and then we were going to be off to the zoo. Grandma, who has been dubious about it (just because last time we took her to the Taipei Zoo, the trip lasted ten hours – but I maintain that the part where we took the gondola to tea town and walked in the wrong direction for what seemed like hours doesn’t count) but we promised, promised, promised we’d only be there a couple hours so she agreed to come. However, the boys’ naps really stretched out – they ran a LOT at the park – and then we’re still working out the logistics of all those little shoes and strollers and snacks and assorted paraphernalia. So we didn’t get to the lobby until 3:30 and the zoo closes at 5:00.

Instead, the receptionist called her friend with young children to see what she’d recommend for a Sunday afternoon (they are so nice to us here!) and then sent us off to the Living World Mall. This place has to be seen to be believed. It is an eleven story building, or collection of buildings, with a giant round multi-story ball dropped into the middle of it. There are escalators going every which way, but they never go to all the floors – you can ride up or down for two or three levels, but then you have to go search for another way to get to the floor you really wanted. The same with the elevators. Our original goal was the a BossBaby (BabyBoss?) that makes up the seventh floor, but the elevators we found didn’t stop on the seventh floor. It was a bit like a Vegas casino – designed so you don’t know if it is day or night or where the exits are. Each floor had a theme – lifestyle or Cinderella Avenue (women’s clothing) or furniture. There was a stage on a bottom level, that we watched from a railing four stories higher, where Asian flamenco and belly dancers performed.

The food hall on the 3rd basement level, not to be confused with the food court on the 1st basement level (no idea what the difference was, but the names were different though the hall looked like a court to me) was amazing. Never before have I been able to order pasta in pesto sauce with steamed clams in a food court/hall. For $4.00! And Roni’s meal came on a metal tray with the soup pan perched on a flaming sterno can to keep it warm. All eaten with plastic spoons from the same plastic trays that you’d find in any mall in the world, with a Subway in the background (to Mom’s joy) but with a lot more taste and options than you’d ever find in a U.S. suburban food court.

Another aspect that you’d never find in the lawsuit happy U.S. was on the fifth floor, where we spent most of our time (BossBaby turned out to be a much more elaborate and expensive childrens’ activity area than we needed for a short time – somewhere to spend an entire day). The fifth floor of this mall was Kid’s World. There was an arcade with enough lights and noise to make you ADD if you weren’t already, but there were also a lot of those little coin operated rides for toddlers that was perfect for our two. They rode little trains and planes and automobiles and had wonderful time. But the best part, that you’d never have in the U.S., were these giant animals scattered all around the various stores. Putting in a few coins starts them up and then little kids drive them slowly around the mall. They walk/roll anywhere the kids steer – in stores, down the passageways, through crowds of children. When the time is up, the kids just hop off and walk off to the next amusement (or, if you’re us, put in more coins because it was so fun). They don’t go fast at all, but J did almost barrel over a couple of strollers and a clothing rack, and when I looked down below, there were all sorts of exposed gears and chains that were American lawsuits just waiting to happen. We miss a lot of fun by thinking everything has to be beyond safe.





We also went down and outside where there were other kid entertainments. I took turns with each boy in a little boat that you paddled with hand cranks, and then J rode a motorcycle in shaky circles on a tiny track.

All in all, I recommend the Living World Mall for small children to wile away an evening. And the adults can always look at the teapots and weird architecture and flamenco dancers.

We also discovered that D, who we’ve been thinking of as a sweet, mellow type, is really a secret maniac. By the end of the evening he was leaping and running and cackling with fiendish laughter. He also has the grip of a gorilla, and he’d latch on to a nearby arm and squeeze as hard as he could, complete with grunts of exertion and a determined-and-crazed face until we’d yelp and pry him off. Then he’d laugh hysterically and go pounding off to find a new target. I pushed him around on a little blue wheeled thing for a very long time (he would only steer when he was going backwards despite the urgings of a lot of Taiwanese little old ladies) and when I finally took him off to move on, his angry bellow could be heard throughout the mall. We didn’t even know he had a bellow! Dr. Placid and Mr. Hyde I’m calling him now.

Off to the sea

Family pictures, at the top of the page for my brother who has complained I write too much and include too few family shots. Here you are, Andy:

The boys spent a really long time in the bath today, and had a ball. D loved the water, and J has always been able to stay in the tub until his toes peeled. We gave them lots of bubbles and containers to pour water from, and they were delighted. They played separately for the most part, but with some tossing of the ball back and forth.

We wandered down the street and around the corner to order chops for both boys from a little shop that we pass frequently. They’ll be ready Monday. I still need to find a place to have D’s name written out on a wall hanging as we have for J, but if I recall we got his at a night market, so we’ll probably find someone there again.

After nap time – which worked this time! Joy! – we climbed into another van and headed off for the northeast coast, to see where the East China Sea meets the Pacific. The part we visited wasn’t beachy (a word?) but had lots of rocky outcroppings where the hills go down to meet the water. We stopped at a couple of scenic view points to look at the way the wind had carved patterns into the sand stone and lava, which were interesting, and drove by the Bay of Two Colors which may be geologically fascinating and was in fact two colors, but since one of them was brown and the other was sea green, it didn’t seem startling to me. Purple. I could have really been amazed with purple. J

Then we climbed up, up, up into the hills along one of those switchback roads that make you feel as if at any moment you come around a corner so tight that you’ll be behind yourself. Perched up on the hill is the town of Chiufen, sort of a Taiwanese Positano, a town of narrow alleys and steep steps that looks stacked on itself. Gorgeous views, and definitely a place to come back to and stay in a B&B so we could just lounge on a terrace sipping tea and looking out over the hills and sea. Which we could have done, in a more brief version, but since we were tourists with only an hour, we wandered down the main shopping street tasting interesting and unidentified foods and buying dragon puppets and smiling pig piggy banks.

Roni and I switched kids every five minutes as J decided he needed to be with the other parent, and with him in tow and hauling D, we slowly lost water weight.

Then back down innumerable steps to the air-conditioned van, back down the twisty road, past Chicken Cage Peak, and back to Taipei.

As we came back into the city, we saw people burning huge quantities in paper. Apparently, this is the only month on the Chinese calendar when the ghosts can come out of the underworld, so these people were burning ghost money for the ghosts to take back with them when they had to return so they would be able to buy things in the underworld.

Fruit and bread in the hotel room, and then everyone to bed.

Our first full day as a family of four (+grandma)

We’ve been here long enough to fall into a morning pattern. I get up between 4:00 and 5:00 A.M., usually when J bolts upright and says, “I’m hungry!” (his version of good morning) and fill in the previous day on the blog, and Roni either starts listening to his podcast downloads or goes jogging. (In this heat! Amazes me.) Now we’ve added a new cast member, who sleeps the latest as he doesn’t have jet-lag. Poor mite has no idea the way his body clock is going to be screwed up in a few days! A few minutes before we are ready for breakfast, number one son is sent to ring grandma’s bell and ask her if she is awake. Then we eat and eat at the buffet, and we’re ready to head out for another day.

Friday’s big event was the trip to AIT. It went smoothly and relatively quickly – Mei-Ru got us in and up the three flights with no line waiting, and it seemed much faster than last time to be called up to the first window where we got copies of the immigration medical report and D’s medical card and vaccination record and handed over the copies of the court documents that TWCA had given us (we got them back). A wait, and then to the next window where an American official asked us when we’d met D, if we’d know which child we were adopting before we came to Taiwan, and if we’d gotten updates. We also signed and he notarized a vaccination paper (the second time that no one has been interested in the one that JOH has us notarize). Since nothing had changed in our home study details that we hadn’t already sent updates for, that was the end of that part, and we waited for just a few minutes until we were called to the final window, #8, where we got a visa pick-up receipt and were told our visa would be ready on Monday. From the time Mei-Ru picked us up in the lobby to getting back into the car – with a brief stop at a swimming suit store – it was only two hours. Speedy!

We met another family while we were there, adopting a toddler girl who was very energetic and emphatic! They said they weren’t sure who’d break first, them or her. We told them that they had a female J on their hands and to stock up on energy vitamins for themselves.

Mei-Ru is limping badly as she jammed her toe, so she’s pleased that we haven’t needed her guide services this trip. She’d never be able to handle a lot of walking. She did bring to AIT a lot of maps with suggestions for children’s activities which gives us more options for the kids. We’ve signed up for a half day coastal trip for Saturday afternoon, just to see a section of Taiwan that is new to us. Of course, most sections of Taiwan are new to us.

We went later in the day to Taipei 101 with the vague idea of eating at the food court we’ve heard so much about in other families’ postings and then heading to the top. The food court did have great offerings, but it was jammed with people. We wandered with our trays for a long time before giving up and taking them out into the heat again to sit on some cement steps and bolt our food. We won’t do that again! Though J and I loved the sushi and Mom and Roni were happy to find a Subway. D slept through it.

We decided it was too hazy to go up, and we have had a number of views of Taipei anyway, so we spent the money on Hagen-Daz instead and were just as happy. Then we walked over to City Hall and visited the Discovery Center which has some exhibits about how Taipei has developed and changed over the years, from the very earliest settlements through the Japanese occupation and into the modern days. There was a very neat short movie in a circular theater which had 360 degrees of screens and the whole seating area rotated. It was about the wishes children have for what Taipei could be like and explained with pictures and cartoons the plans that the city has for making Taipei a more attractive and environmentally sound city. Really well done and our favorite part of the center.

Kid-wise, it has been a little bit Cain and Abel, though Abel is oblivious to the undercurrents. J really wants to be doing whatever D is doing if it involves his parents. He wants to be carried if D is, but it has to be by the same parent which the parent arm muscles aren’t always up to (looking at you, Johnna). He got in and out of the stroller as if he was a D mirror, and grabs the other hand if one of us is walking with D. The two of them had a bit of a tinker toy war as J didn’t want to give up any of the long sticks and D apparently felt life wasn’t worth living with a short stick. J got hysterical when he and Roni arrived back from getting tickets at the train station and Mom and I, with D, not realizing that J wanted to come too, went down to the lobby to arrange Saturday’s tour.

But J is also doing really well at sharing food, and he still calls him “My D” and saves little stickers and such for him. He’s handed over some of his markers and little cars to share with D. So there is encouragement for the future, once his shaken world falls back into balance. They’d better work it out now while J has the advantage of size and speed, because all indicators are that D will be the bigger of the two as adults, so J will want to be on his good side!

Dinner was at the Mongolian grill restaurant across the street. An eating style that involves steaming hot pots and fire-heated grills in hot, humid weather may not have been the brightest choice, but we enjoyed it anyway. My hair got very curly. D D was persistent in trying to get food balanced on two chopsticks clutched tightly together and did as well as the adults did really – I dropped a lot of little rice bits in my lap. We basically trashed the table, but a bottle of wine (the same Yellow Tail we often have at home) made us not care that we were likely a source of puzzlement and amusement to our table neighbors.

And I have never seen so much red meat being squeezed into a bowl in Mongolian restaurants at home! The Taiwanese diners reversed our ration – their bowls were almost entirely beef, deer, mutton or pork, which a few vegetables balanced on top, while we had a little meat and then crammed in all the veggies we could. But both cultures met equally when it came to the watermelon and ice cream for desert.

All in all, a good first full day as a family of four + grandma.

Introducing our new son!

D Day! He is such a doll – all bushy eyebrows and pudgy cheeks and the cutest little giggle when he succeeds at bonking someone with a tinker toy. We’re totally crazy about him already.

Mei-Ru picked us up at 8:30 in the lobby (we were half an hour early) and we headed to FengYuan, carrying bags of presents and still rather anxious. Well, except J, who wasn’t entirely sure what was going on – I think he’s heard about D for so long he’d started thinking of him as imaginary, like the dragons or pirates. He fell asleep – announced that he’d take a nap because then it would be faster.

After a brief stop in the office to drop off the bags (why aren’t we allowed to give them to the foster mom ourselves?) and to sign a single, simple paper that finalizes our acceptance of the adoption, we drove to his foster mom’s apartment. We walked across a little stone path through someone’s ceramic pot garden and across a narrow cement walkway over an urban stream, and then there he was in Mrs. C’s arms, peering out the door at us!

He was so very quiet. She told us that that is how he reacts when he is uncertain or upset – he gets quiet and doesn’t interact very much. And it must have been overwhelming to have all four of us plus Samantha and Mei-Ru suddenly stuffed into his living room, shaking stuffed animals at him. J showed him each and every thing we’d brought – the stuffed dog, little lion, ball, noisy truck, and the no-spill drinking cups. It was the cups that broke the ice a little. He liked to screw the lid on and off. Then he was willing to play with the truck a little bit. Roni and J got right down on the floor with him and were persistent until he gave J at least a bit of a smile. I plopped down nearby and asked his foster mother questions through Samantha’s translations, but even with the lists I’d made, it was hard to concentrate!

We all trooped out to the car, and he transferred to Roni’s lap without an trauma, but was again very quiet, and extremely vigilant, watching every move any of us made with big eyes. There were a couple of baby store stops for formula (why is a 2 ½ year old still on formula?) and diapers and a little backpack. Then we were on our way back to Taipei, just a couple hours after we arrived.

We unfortunately didn’t get to meet his birthmother, which I’m sad about. Or J’s. We don’t really know why, as the agency maintains a lot of privacy about the birth families. So we left our packages and the book I’d made of J’s first year with us and TWCA will get them to the birth mothers.

On the ride back, we practiced D’s Taiwanese name, which we’ve been doing for months, without noticeable effect. The “Bo” syllable gives us trouble. There are Os and As and some sort of Rs in there, and all three adults pronounce it slightly differently and Mei-Ru was quite amused by most of them. We persist, and seem to be showing some improvement. Highly embarrassing not to be able to pronounce your own son’s name. We’d listened to the videos over and over again at home, trying to get it. I guess it is like the Hebrew R or CH - if you don’t grow up with it, it will never come easily.
The most successful toys during the car ride were the tinker toys that J got out and the markers/coloring book. He and J took made long connected sticks and bonked everyone in the car and soon D Bo-Hsiang was laughing along with J, to our thrill. He also made himself a multi-colored kid while scribbling in the coloring book.

We stopped for lunch at a freeway food court where we relearned the difficulties of feeding a toddler from chopsticks, and J indignantly told me that D stole his chicken right off his plate and now “his germs got on my germs and the germs are mixed and that’s not good!” D devoured the meal, really, which was great to see. (Roni, on the other hand, did not like the flavor of his “thin noodles with large intestine” even though he requested the intestine be left off, so we took pity and shared our fried noodles and dumplings.)

Back at the hotel, I tried to get him to take a nap but he was too vigilant, even with his head nodding. So we all went to play in the little park behind the hotel, which was a big success. He and J raced/toddled up and down the slides and across the climbing bridge and then just raced around in general. D it seems is rather fearless, and we’re going to have to watch him like a hawk. He was perfectly happy to race off the edge of the raised park without pausing – Roni had to catch him in mid-air several times. But it was so great to hear the two boys laughing together as they ran around the people doing their slow exercises and then ran equally as fast around the marble hotel lobby.

Dinner was an ordered in pizza from Dominos – might as well get him used to his mama’s cooking style now J - because it was just too much to go back out again in search of food.

J’s showing some signs of sibling rivalry already. He protested mightily leaving me with D when Roni took him off to Starbucks so I could try to get D to take a nap. And when D stumbles and falls down, J falls down right away so we can help him up too. But he’s also bringing toys and water bottles to D and talking about “my brother” a lot in approving tones, so we’ll hope that that side wins the majority of the time.

Getting D ready for bed was peaceful, but then he wouldn’t lie down for anything. J was completely unconscious but D just sat there, staring, resisting our efforts to coax his head onto the pillow. He was so obviously exhausted, and worried again, and he wasn’t going to relax enough to sleep. We dozed a little, though Roni and I tried to stay awake, but every time I’d look at him, he was still staring out at the room. It was heartbreaking! Finally I got him to sit on my lap and held his head against me - he fell asleep sitting up and I was able to lie him down and he was out for the night. So little to have to be so worried – we’ve shaken his whole world.

It has been a very different experience from our first day with J, and I have to say that I prefer the version where our new son is not vomiting noodles due to his extreme hysteria, but it is also clear that this isn’t easy for little D, and as much as we try to make our family a happy place for him, he’s going to need lots of time and love. But his little smiles give me a good feeling about the long term.

Hurray! Hurray!

Dragons everywhere

Day three in Taiwan is sort of a sweaty blur of dragon temples, flaky pastries, and air-conditioned lulls in a van. Mr. Pong (Pahng?) picked us up in the morning and we headed out to visit some of the older temples in Taichung. The first was a quiet Taoist temple, the oldest in Taiwan, that has been restored. It was serene, thick with incense, and heavily decked out in ceramic scaled dragons and phoenixes. This particular temple was dedicated to the goddess of mercy. Mr. Pong showed us how people cast two sort of semi-circle blocks to see if the god is willing to answer a question. If, in three tosses, you get a yes combination, then you draw a stick from a pot and then find the fortune that matches the number on the stick in a cubbyhole. The paper helps give you your answer, though he said that the temple people generally have to explain the meaning as it is written in a very old, poetic Chinese style that even native speakers have some trouble interpreting.

The next temple made the first look almost bare. It was Confucian, bustling, and in the middle of a very busy market area. Dedicated to the god of the sea, which apparently used to come right up to the area though it is no where near now. Again, a riot of guardian dragons, a fish pond where they let J feed ravenous koi and turtles, and what was the reddest room I’ve ever seen, filled with small statues of ornate historical or mythological people (I had no idea, really, who I was looking at) and below them little glass boxes with startling plain wooden carvings of people from all walks of life just going about their days. Despite the shocking red of the boxes, the unpainted wood came as a visual relief and it was interesting to see how people had carried water and played games and gardened in long ago times.

I know I should know a lot of specifics about the names of these temples, when they were built, exactly what the gods did for the people, but it was so hot (high 90s) and humid and we spent a lot of energy just trying to remain upright. I’ll look it up later in the Taichung brochures and add it in. We enjoyed the visits, but it was filtered through a wall of semi-solid air, so we weren’t as focused as we could have been. The umbrella sunshades only accomplished so much.

We had some time to roam after the visit, wandering through the street stalls and trying out all sorts of pastries and candies and woven fans but passing on the smoked oysters heaped in pans in the sun at this point. There are temples everywhere in the city, some the massive and ancient ones that we were driven to, others just little alcoves or single rooms tucked in with all the other businesses in the street. I like the idea of all those dragons and lions watching out for the neighborhood.

We parked Mom in an air-conditioned back room at one point, guzzling grapefruit juice to prevent her brain from pickling, while we sought out woven fans to get the air moving. It cracks me up to watch Roni asking vendors, “What is it?” because it inevitably leads to puzzlement and calling out to the neighbors and someone hunting down a high school aged daughter who speaks a little English and valiantly tries to come up with the name of whatever fruit on a stick has been candied as a flavor treat. I’m more a buy-and-try person, but Roni is the inquiring-minds-want-to-know type.

We also sang happy birthday to a high school student and his friends who asked us to sign his birthday card in English – Roni added some Hebrew as well which mystified them.

We walked next to La Kang street, an ancient byway since restored into a shopping street but with the older architecture and brick/wood doorways restored. It was actually a lot of fun, despite our melting. We bought clever wooden puzzles that we tried to solve all evening, and J turned out to have a natural talent at a pachinko like game and won a little set of wooden pencils with a sharpener that had him ecstatic all afternoon and left pencil shavings across Taiwan. Mom bought some sandals and a scarf and we all added little odds and ends to the shared shopping bag – a seed pod that heats up and is used in massage, a little bowl, a spinning top, etc.

Then, stunned by the length of time without air-conditioning, we fell gasping into a 7-11 as we waited for the van driver to find us. J has proven to be a hit every where we go, and in there was no exception. It was about 60 seconds and again people were handing him candy and wondering how he came to be living with us. They are all delighted with him. Clearly, no one has any idea the true devilishness lurking behind that dimpled grin! If they knew the depths of his stubborn willfulness, they’d back away slooooowly.

To be fair, we’ve dragged J across 15 time zones and a date line, his nap time has been on the seat of a van, we all wake up at 4:00 A.M. every morning, and it hit 98 today. The food is different, he’s stuck in a hotel room with no place to dig, and Phineas and Ferb isn’t playing on the cartoon channel. But no matter how predictable and explainable it is, his charming ways are rather diminished here, and we’re all struggling a little to maintain our calm. He’s rather an emotional rollercoaster at the moment, with no flat parts in the middle of the ride.

Then there are the funny moments. When he’s frustrated with us, he’s been shouting, “Li li!” over and over, a new phenomenon. At a calmer time, I asked him what li li means. “That’s when I was Chinese,” he told me earnestly. Still clueless, but amused. Later on, after telling us 4000 times (counting conservatively) that he was hungry in a sing-song voice, (about 6 minutes after lunch) he finally said, “Mama, my tummy is crying for food!”

Back in Taipei, we wandered the neighborhood a little, noting the changes since we were last here. The bento stand is now a coffee shop, the bakery has spiffed up its façade. The noodle place where we met a nice woman named Jenny who had lived in Texas is still here, and our favorite fruit stand. We had had enough of noodles for a while, so we went to Mos Burger, fast food Taiwan style. My shredded beef burger had rice patties rather than a bun which was really tasty, and they had fabulous thick mango drinks.

One more day before we go to get D, and I’m getting more and more tense. It is going to be such a dramatic jolt for him – he’s lived with his foster mother since the end of September, and we’re just pictures in a book to him. We’ve got a truck and a stuffed tiger to offer, which seems a bad trade on his part. I’m worried about how J is going to react to the change in his life as well, and in the earliest hours of the morning when I’m staring at the ceiling, I wonder how I’m going to cope as well. It is weird to feel so impatient for something to happen and so nervous about it at the same time.