Halloween: Taiwanese style!

Halloween in Taiwan was an interesting experience. Even though it didn't have the recognition of the masses, nor the permissible door-to-door candy gathering that normally defines the holiday, it will still go down in our family history as the most involved Halloween ever!

According to my tutor, Halloween products have been creeping onto the store shelves in Taiwan more and more over the past 5 years.  Originally mainly made in Taiwan to begin with and then exported, they have recently needed an additional market to deal with surplus. So back over the sea they've come. Eager marketing efforts have gone to work to convince the local people that this is a fun time to buy lots of candy, decorations with scary-faced pumpkins and spiders,
 and to dress their little kids up in cute costumes.

I was thrilled when I saw a small section of costumes for little kids at our grocery store and was able to snag Julien an Incredible Hulk costume. Ryley's size wasn't as easy to find and he had a specific "black ghost with red light-up-eyes" request, so his costume I ordered on Amazon Prime and had shipped to his grandma to send in her Oct care package.

Both the boys' bilingual schools hammed up the Halloween celebrations and offered parties on the night of Oct 31. Parents were invited required to be there so Ben and I did a divide and conquer.

Julien's school had had activities all afternoon, including a mini "trick-or-treat" down the row of shops by their school. What I think they did was deliver candy to the shops beforehand and then had the kids in their costumes come ask for it :)  That evening from 6:30 to about 8 pm, there was a masked carnival at his school where every student (around 75 total) got to walk down the red-carpeted catwalk with his or her parent to show off the masks they had made, and--as stated on the school flier--to give them confidence and practice in public performance. Afterwards there was a very organized and long-lined carnival game time. Julien loved every minute of it and was bouncing up and down with excitement as he introduced me to all his friends.

 

 

 

 

Doraemon (Julien's new favorite Japanese cartoon character) made an appearance!

 I was able to hang out with Jeff's de mama, whose name I found out is Jackie. Our relationship continues to baby-step forward :)

------------------------------------

Ryley's school also had a carnival where all the classrooms had been decorated for Halloween (done by the parent committee volunteers) and each had games and candy.

The care package from the States ran into some customs issues and didn't make it in time for Ryley to have his costume, but he didn't seem to care in the least.
He was also bouncing around with excitement as he and Ben did the activities!

A classmate lent Ryley a hat for this photo :) 

Ben and Ryley ran into our Korean friends who were crashing the party (??)

 

 

 

 

This is Ryley's tutor Teacher Sandra's classroom. 

On 11/08, our care package finally arrived and Ryley tried on his Halloween costume...which is now all set for its grand debut at next year's Halloween!

[Yes, Theo is jumping on bubble wrap in the background. Package day is the greatest!]

Fall Flowers

I had to recalibrate a little on this one: scratch the falling leaves, bring on the blooming flowers. I guess that's what Taiwan's late autumn time is all about. With the intense heat gone, gorgeous flowers come.

Not too far from where we live in Taichung is a place that offers a festival each year called "Xinshe Sea of Flowers." It's set in open fields with waves of different colors. On the outskirts are bussling markets with all sorts of fruit, deep fried stuff, and mushrooms to buy (this area is also known for growing mushrooms).

I went with the International Women's group on this day tour and met many new people (love that!) In this group is a lady originally from South American, one from Japan, 3 from Singapore and one from Taiwan.

Next to the natural growing fields of flowers is a more artistic display of planted floral designs
 and flower sculptures. 

I dedicate this one to Ben. What a perfect comination of two wonderful things: flowers and biking :)

I really liked these intensly bright colors.

Theo's captured look of naughiness is spot on. He unfortunately wasn't allowed to be out of his stroller very long. Throwing dirt and grabbing flowers weren't festival-approved activities.

To properly recognize the Fall season, here is a photo of a fallen leaf that Theo found in the park. Its size should make up for the fact that there aren't whole piles to jump in!

 

Nov 2nd: Ryley's 8th Bday!

I can't believe my baby is 8 years old! 

Following in his daddy's footsteps, Ryley spent hours researching online exactly which "spy car" he hoped to get for his birthday (taking into account all the reviews about battery life and other cool factors). Amazon Prime order and delivery to my mom, followed by her  awesome efforts to get our first care package mailed, a breeze through customs and this is the pure joy smile where its journey ended :) 

Ryley also received some wonderful gifts from grandparents, including some fun spending money.

The incredible part of Ryley's birthday is that he was able to get baptized a member of our church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) that evening. Again, I can't believe how old he is!

There was an incredible amount of support from our little English-speaking congregation as well as from family back in the States. I managed to figure out how to get Google Hangouts to work to allow grandparents, aunts, uncles and some cousins to join in by internet video call. Both of Ryley's grandmothers gave talks at Ryley's baptism with a microphone held up to the computer and with Ryley in their view. It was sad to not have them be able to be here in person,
but so awesome to still have them participate!

 

Andy came!

 

 

 

This is Theo's nursery teacher who is every striving to win the lad over. She usually sits with us during Sacrament meeting and tried to buy his love, one craisin at a time :) 

 

 

Taichung Jazz Festival

Since before we moved here and I had just started my research on Taichung City, I have been looking forward to their annual Jazz Festival! It happens around the last couple of weeks of October every year and it extremely popular. Taichung area is a big producer of saxophones, so maybe that started it all. In any case, it provided the little nudge we needed to get out into the night life scene! 

We took our first bus ride as a family. We hopped on a bus just right outside of our apartment building, stood sardine-style and enjoyed being a public spectacle for a short ride, managed to squeeze our way to the door at (what we hoped to be) the right spot, and successfully got every family member and stroller off that moving mass of bodies on wheels!

We then took a little stroll over pedestrian bridges and "sidewalks." 

And hooked up with our good friends.

We found amazingly close seats to the stage (yes, the sea of people extends way, way back). 

Our time at the concert mainly included food procuring and potty runs...

...a little chitchat with some more friends as we listened to the music, 

and then Bobo told us it was time to head home.

Indeed.

Drastic Measures

It has come to this. I can no longer justify my lack of motivation to get up and get things done. Ben has always had an incredible source of self-torturing ability motivation for early-morning endeavors. Since moving here he has taken up jogging the streets of Taichung in the wee hours of the morning. He's getting his sense of direction that way and memorizing the Chinese characters on the street signs. Noble efforts. Not that I'm a competitive person (in the least), but I'm going to try and match his stamina...

...blog catch-up time, here I come!

Parent Messaging Group

Way back towards the beginning of the school year, I attended Ryley's class parent meeting. It wasn't the meet-everyone-and-bond time that I had hoped it would be (at that point we had been in Taiwan for about 6 weeks and I was still feeling pretty desperate for acceptance) but it did prove its worth: I got on a list to be added to the parent "Line" messaging group.

With my acceptance to this phone app invite, I entered into a world of messaging like I'd never known! This group mass texts each other anywhere from 20 to 200 messages per day (especially when there is a parent council project such as Halloween classroom decorations)! My phone turned into a "bling-a-ding-ding" alert fest and I just learned to ignore it. I was tempted to "un-invite" myself from the group on several occasions, but then I saw one other parent do so and noticed that a message popped up saying that she had withdrawn from the group. I knew that would be very bad for my international relations, so I decided to stick with it.

Most of the time I get a notion of what is being discussed based on the crazy use of stickers and it would amuse me to make up stories in my mind of what was being discussed.

The real gem happened, however, when there was an open house, which I wasn't able to attend due to Theo, and some of the parents took photos of the kids and posted them. I made my first post--in English of course--thanking them for the photos. In response there was an onslaught of photos and videos sent!

At one point the photo below was posted so I responded to the sender directly, asking if that was her son in the photo.

I screen captured our little exchange and was tickled pink by it :)