Sightseeing....

It was raining most of today - we did get to see a few things anyway. This is the President's House. Check out this crazy tree! They were everywhere in the front lawns. The driver did not know the English name for the tree, but it was very cool!

Things you won't see at the grocery store in St. Louis!

I think these pictures speak for themselves.......

Meeting Grace

We met with a friend of Vikki (from our church) today named Grace. She is from Southern Taiwan and took us to Taipei 101 - the tallest building in the world (right now) which also houses the world's fastest elevator.

She was the most wonderful hostess and also took us to an awesome restaurant without an english name and ordered us enough food to feed an army. The building was fascinating, the elevator amazing and the food unbelievable! Thanks to Vikki and Grace!

Here are some photos of the 101 building.

Grace also found us a wonderful cab driver from Taipei whom had lived in San Fransisco for 17 years. His cab was quite interesting, see below. She has arranged for him to help us tomorrow - which will be nice, because having a driver that is supportive of us and Zoe is very helpful.

Day 3? I don't know what day it is!!!

We went to AIT to finish the application for Zoe's Visa and that went fine. 2 hours in a government building - not fun, but no big deal. Zoe played in the play area for most of the time and found a $50 NT piece, so she was happy.

We took her shopping today and found out that she loves frilly, girl clothes - so Shelby and her should be a match made in heaven.

We took more pictures today (of course, because we are tourists and that is our job!) and will be posting later!

When we met Zoe

Here is the video of when Zoe showed up. We were at the orphanage about 1/2 hour before her and her foster mom. The foster mom was really nice and was happy to give us all the information she could. Zoe's birth mom actually gave us/her a nice little photo album of photos of Zoe and her birth family (even a baby picture or two) and a letter to us and a letter to Zoe for when she is older. It was more than we could ask for and will be a good thing for Zoe as she gets older and wants to see. The visit at the orphanage was good. The weather was perfect and we got to see a little bit of the nurseries. But, since Zoe has spent so little time at the orphanage itself, there wasn't much for them to show to us. She ran right to us and proceeded to drag us all around the orphanage like she owned the place and wanted to show it all to us. I don't think we could have asked for more. Sally, our escort, said that it was a good sign that she was so talkative - as she will be more ready to learn our language to get her message across. I think she is already trying to use the language barrier against us as she is trying to get out of going to sleep right now. Haahahahahaha Everytime we say something in Chinese, she giggles. I'm sure we aren't saying it exactly right. I guess hearing her giggle is worth it! It is very cute. Tomorrow, we go to AIT (the American Institute in Taiwan - basically our embassy) to finalize her Visa to come to the US. Once that is done, we'll be doing a little shopping and then napping again, I'm sure, since our Visa Appointment is at 8, and not close by, so we have to get up at 5 - again. ugh.

night - night - sleep tight!

Look what we did today!

We took the High Speed Rail to Southern Taiwan to pick up Zoe at the orphanage. We were there for a couple hours then took it back to Taipei. We are here at the hotel now with her and trying to get her to settle down a little bit and take a nap. We've all been up since 5 AM and are a little wiped out. She has been chattering since we got her and I'm hoping a nap will calm her down a little. Which it has helped so far, even though she isn't asleep yet.

For all of us that were wondering, she appears to be about the same size as Shelby, although I haven't tried any clothes on her as of yet, so we'll see what happens there. As you can guess, we shot a few photos and video today. I'll be loading more this evening as I get a chance.

Here is a live video of her (not) taking a nap for your viewing pleasure! For those of you that are wondering - we are handling the language barrier as best we can. She is very happy to repeat over and over and sometimes we get it and sometimes we don't. We had a Taiwanese Escort today and she helped some, and the hotel staff speak English and are very supportive and helpful - so we continue to teach her and we get what we can.

Day 1 - some sights have been seen....

Ready....Set.....Go! Scooters are EVERYWHERE. including the sidewalk. We have seen up to 3 people on one scooter. It is not unusual to see an adult riding a scooter with a young child standing in front of them in between their arms. Most have helmets, which is good, and there are some quite unusual traffic patterns for people on scooters.


We didn't do a whole lot today. A lot of sleeping. We went (next door) to the breakfast room and the breakfast was ok. I have had worse breakfasts at US hotels, so I guess it was fine. It is so humid here that the salt won't come out of the shaker....no big deal though. The biggest adjustment for me is no Diet Soda to be found. We had to buy some at the supermarket this afternoon.


We ate dinner at a fun little place. You cook the food right at your table. Luckily the manager spoke 2 words of English "beef" and "pork" and we managed to order what looked like the usual. I broke a big rule and ate a very delicious rice dish that had all kinds of things I couldn't identify in it. Plus the broth from the beef was awesome as a soup after we ate the beef. I'm sure they laughed their heads off after we left. Most of the side dishes were too spicy for me (go figure), but the pot of rice made up for it.

Here is a typical street. Everything is very crowded and close. I have seen some alleys filled with cars and scooters parked all different directions and I couldn't imagine how they even turned around, let alone parallel park in there.

We saw a school and a mall today while walking - those pictures are below.



















I don't know if you can tell, but there are little characters hanging in the window - Spongebob and Pooh Bear and Eeyore were all there.



Also - here are some New Taiwan dollars for your viewing pleasure


















Well, we are off to bed. The ride down to pick up Zoe starts early in the morning. We found out when we arrived that the in-country flight we were to take to Tainan was cancelled so we get to take the train instead. We also heard that it might be one of those super fast trains - so that could be an adventure in itself! We'll have much more tomorrow I'm sure!

Miss you All!