I was wrong.
Toyota dealership
Our Toyota dealer is simply awesome, something the Cdn dealers can learn and improve on. Here, they truly treat each customer as if he/she was the only customer.
In Canada, a simple oil change takes a whole day. You drop off the car in the morning, and pick it up in the afternoon. Well, we all know an oil change only takes a few minutes to do, why a whole day? In Hualien, when we book an appointment at 9am, they do the oil change at 9am! We have a coffee in their lounge, read a book, or surf the net, and car is ready in less than an hour, fully washed and touched up with paint, at the cost of an oil change. Now that is customer service.
Parkview Hotel
We've been in Hualien over a year now, but never patronized the Parkview Hotel, Hualien's 5 star resort. That is because local folks always say that it is too expensive. Well, I guess an all you can eat buffet lunch for $10 Cdn is a lot of money for most local folks because a take out lunch is only $2, but for us Canadians, that is a steal!
Also, for $10 Cdn, there is an all you can eat dim sum, served all day. And guess what? It is the best dim sum, unlike the two other hotels we tried before. We have given up hope that we could get some decent Cantonese style food here.......
Not just Cantonese, but Hong Kong style! All these just across from our new house.
Stella Marie Catholic school
In many ways, Frankie's school here in Hualien reminds me much of my old Catholic school in HK. Today, Frankie came in second in English composition, a competition which usually won by kids in higher grades. I guess its a bit of cheating, but when I think about it, being a native English speaker does not necessarily mean that you can write well. And Frankie writes very well, in Chinese also now. She injects some humour into her writing, which really stands out among the Chinese kids, because most Chinese kids write seriously, if not stoically.
Today is sports day at the school, and we attended. Nicely organized, and a beautiful day.
Here the kids sang the school song, and the National anthem......
The whole school works out to music.......
Here is Frankie running her leg of the relay. She is a good runner! What makes the relay special is that everyone in the class runs. Therefore, it is very exciting to watch as the lead changes all the time as some of the faster runners can make up lost ground in a hurry. It is also good for the kids because traditionally, only the best get picked to be in sports. Here, everyone participates.
As soon as the last race was over, it began to rain....lucky.
