2007/11/25

GRR meet in Taiwan

I had a very unusual GRR meet today, which should be titled "A Taiwanese who is living in US visits an American who is living in Taiwan".

Bokonon is a very active member in our Ninja 250 club. In fact, most of the amazing FAQ is from his hard work. He is living with his wife in Taiwan now so I took the chance to meet up with him and had a very enjoyable GRR meet.

He is kind enough to come all the way from Linko to Hsinchu City to meet up with me. We had lunch in a Subway restaurant (guess you can find all major US fast food chains here now) that is close to the train station (visible in the background). In order to comply with the GRR rule that we must have a Ninja 250 in the meet picture, I took a photo of my bike to the meet. Hopefully John will let us get away with this. :)



We had a good chat about motorcycles and life in US/Taiwan. I look forward to meeting with him again sometime.

2007/11/16

The sound of music

In order for Alyssa to keep up with her violin practice, we brought her violin back to Taiwan with us this time. She is very excited to have her grandma to practice with her. It is a real beautiful view (and sound) seeing them playing together.

My daughter wants to be a bun

Alyssa told us that she wants to be a 饅頭 today. The reason is that Vivian is our 小蛋蛋 and David is our 阿肉. Together, they can be their grandpa's favorite breakfast, 饅頭肉排蛋.

2007/11/09

Vivian the great escape artist

We spent our first night in Taiwan in Ann's parents' house. Because there wasn't enough beds in the house, I have Vivian with me while Ann took care of David and Alyssa.

Because of the jet lag and everything, Vivian had a difficult time sleeping so I held her in my arms and let her chose a stuffed animal before going to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I found the stuffed animal in my arms while Vivian has her head against the foot board in the corner. I really wonder how she did it.

Blogging from Taiwan

After a 28+ hours trip, we finally made it back to Taiwan. The trip with three little kids was exhausting but not as bad as we expected. Tomorrow we'll drive from Hsin-Chu to Tainan to see my father, hope this will go well.

2007/11/03

What a productive day

I submitted two manuscripts this afternoon and that gets all my dissertation chapters out of the door. I feel so happy about getting this done before my big trip back to Taiwan.

2007/11/02

A budding blogger

This evening Alyssa kept coming to ask me about how to spell some words, and before I know it, she finished writing a note to her friends about our trip to Taiwan, that she will find some presents for them, and we will be back soon. My kids never fail to surprise me about how fast they are learning things. At this rate, Alyssa could start her own blog pretty soon.

2007/11/01

Unlicensed and uninsured contractor

Our fridge broke down a couple days ago and our life has been kind of miserable because of that. The only good thing is that it is still covered by the 1-year warranty so hopefully we won't have to pay for the repair. However, the warranty seems to be the cheapo kind and I have to play the role of an unlicensed and uninsured contractor to fix the fridge by myself while their customer service representative teach me how to do things on the phone.
Two days ago, after a interesting series of "telediagnosis" (no, not the high-tech kind), they decided that the problem was caused by a fan motor failure. So they sent me a replacement motor and ask me to install the new motor. Unfortunately that didn't solve the problem so it looks like this is going to take a couple more days. I wonder if I should just bite the bullet and pay for a better and faster service. Will find out about this tomorrow.