Grocery shopping

One of Frankie's favorite restaurants here is "I love sushi", which is located in Hualien's only indoor mall. After we ate, went grocery shopping at Carrefour, which is the largest supermarket chain here in Taiwan. It is similar to T&T in Vancouver, and if they don't have it, nobody will. Here we find lots of imported foods, such as pastas, sauces, Campbell soups, real Canadian maple syrup, pancake flour, skippy peanut butter, etc etc.....at a premium price of course.

Indoor shopping is the only way to go when it rains, because you are soaked in seconds if parking outdoors. Here is looking out at the rain from my office window.....

Folks here have no idea what "hydroplaning" is, and I see that often when rainwater begins to pool on the road and highways. What is even more amazing is that the rain does not stop folks on scooters, or even bicycles! They wrap themselves in plastic sheets and cut a hole for the face, and voila. If the rain is not heavy, some even hold an umbrella on one hand and steer the bike with another. You have to see to believe. I suppose looking from my point of view, it makes no sense. But if you have a family to feed and you have to go to work, and your only mode of transportation is a bike, then comes hell or high water, you just do it. Hualien city has no public transit. No buses. Taxis are busy on rainy days..........

TGIF again

Its Friday again. After lunch today, we took a stroll along the beachwalk, enjoying the warm sunshine and the tropical breeze......

Frankie continues her piano lessons here, with her new teacher at her school which she has lessons once a week. She also has access to the music studio in the school three times a week where she practises. She seems to enjoy that more than practising at home, which is fine with me.

In the evening, we were invited to Dr Pong's house for a hot pot dinner. He is 39 today. His lovely wife, Lisen, has breast cancer and has been in treatment for the past three years. So far, she is doing quite good, better than what the doctor had expected. She is a fighter and is determined to do all she can to lick the disease. A very brave lady indeed.

Fankie's school field trip

Today, Frankie's school has a field trip to see the stone sculpture festival at the local cultural centre. Rebecca and I, along with two other parents were volunteers to help out. It was fun......


Frankie is doing very well in school. She can now write many Chinese words and can read a lot of them. It is actually quite amazing watching her write, it is like drawing pictures! Still has a long way to go to catch up with other grade three kids, but both the teachers and we are very happy with her progress. School is now 8am to 5pm, with the last hour being extra so that she can do her homework at school with the teacher's help. Its a long day and she is exhausted when she comes home, never has a chance to be bored like she was in Canada. She does miss the easy life in Canada, the short days and short weeks in school, the lack of homework, the amount of play time.....but in the end, what is better for her? I think we made a good choice. She also misses her friends in Victoria, no doubt about that. But with emails and personal blogs, she is keeping in touch with a few who communicate with her frequently; and summer is just around the corner...

Tsunami!

Well, not quite. But its a great day to watch the waves at the beach as Typhoon Parma is helping to whip up some pretty angry waves. Some waves are coming in around 10 to 12 feet which could be ideal for surfers. For safety precautions, local coast guards have closed the beaches and are patrolling them.

Typhoon Parma is weakening and has been downgraded to a tropical storm, and the sky is clearing after two full days of downpour. Surprisingly, there are no reports of flooding in Hualien, although there is serious flooding up the coast about sixty miles in Yilan. Hualien has once again escaped the wrath of God......

Waking up to a typhoon

Back to reality today and it ain't pretty. Typhoon Parma is approaching Taiwan and ahead of it, we have a torrential down pour. Weather bureau is expecting 1100mm of rain in the next few days, that is over three feet of wawa coming our way. We live in Meilun which is a hilltop residential area, and should have no problems as the storm drains are capable of sucking all that liquid suhshine and funnelling it into the Pacific. Folks in low lying area, and those down south who are still recovering from Typhoon Morakot will have another nightmare stowed upon them.

Lets have a walk in the rain...

So far, the schools are open. I'll go wake Frankie up and find her some rain boots........But first, I'm going downstairs next door for some quick breakfast.

BBQ party

We are invited to a friend's BBQ today, as it is Taiwan's tradition during the Mid autumn festival. As soon as you walk down the street, you can smell the enticing aroma everywhere. What makes it smell so heavenly is the fact that most Taiwanese still BBQ the old fashion way, and that is using charcoal instead of gas or propane. It takes longer, but when the dripping fat from the marinated meat hits the red hot charcoal, you hear the sizzle and the wonderfully delicious smell rushes up your nostrils, enough to bring the staunchest vegetarian to her knees..... grab a few cold beer and some French red, and we'll have a party, all nite long........

中秋節

今天是中秋節，這裡的傳統，在台灣，是燒烤，和煙火。
Mid autumn festival here in Taiwan has a tradition of BBQ and fireworks.
Of course, there are mooncakes and pomelos also.


We went to a local beach park where there is a night market, as well as many fireworks vendors.

Rebecca and Frankie are shooting Roman candles off the beach, lots of fun....

The night market is full of food vendors, and some are quite good. Here I am eating an oyster pancake while some guy is singing his heart out in an open karaoke. You've got to have balls singing in front of hundreds of total strangers......The temperature is perfect, in the mid 20s in the evening and high 20s during the day. It should stay this way until Dec and Jan when temperature can drop to the mid teens, and that is considered cold here.

Here is Rebecca enjoying some local fried squid....

Fireworks here are a lot cheaper than Canada, well, what else is new.......we bought 12 Roman candles, 3 spinners, a big bag of giant sparklers, all for $16 Cdn. In Victoria during Halloween, that would cost about $100. Anyways, we took home some leftovers and fired them off our roof top. Rebecca was deeply worried because there is a military compound across from us, and wondered if they would fire back at us. War games, anyone?