Dragon's Hole - post by Chloe

We went to Long Dong on Tuesday, in English it is called Dragon's Hole. Long Dong is about an hour away from Taipei. At Long Dong you can snorkel, scuba dive, and rock climb. There are two types of rock climbing there, one is rock climbing really high with a rope attached to you, so if you slip you don't fall and die, instead the rope catches you. The other type of rock climbing there is you climb a wall over the ocean and if you fall you just fall in the ocean, and when you reach the top you jump into the ocean, that's called ocean rock climbing. We found this little area where you can ocean rock climb and snorkel. We all snorkeled but not for long because the current got very big. Every fish in there was so pretty and cute, pretty because every fish had a vibrant color on it, cute because every fish was so small, I didn't see a fish bigger than three inches long and one inch wide. We got out, then after the current got a little smaller my dad and I went back in to do some ocean rock climbing, it was kind of scary to jump in when we got to the top. You can click below to see the video my dad made about Long Dong.

The drive to Long Dong.

Phoebe is getting a life vest.

The walk to the actual place was about forty minutes. We thought the walk was going to be like a normal flat-ground walk but it wasn't. We had to find the good rocks to walk on and kind of climb over the big rocks. It was more like climbing there than walking there. The walk was pretty fun but also kind of tiring. 

See the person climbing the wall in the back? We might do that next time we come to Long Dong!

Happy but hot...

Taking a little break from walking/climbing. We finally found shade in this little cave.👍

So green.😍

Outdoor rock climbing

We tried out the Nei Hu rock climbing center this week. In addition to an indoor bouldering wall, they also have an outdoor climbing wall. Joe and I belayed two girls at the same time. The coach said that the wall is five stories high...

Phoebe on the left (taking a break), Zoe on the right.

Phoebe on left, Chloe on right

Zoe at the top (I told her not to look down, but she doesn't seem to be scared)

Phoebe was pretty exhausted, and very, very sweaty... 

Phoebe grabbing chalk. Chalked hands taking a break.

First visitor!

Auntie Cynthia came to Taipei for a business meeting and stopped through for a mere 12 hours, but we were so lucky to be able to hang with her! We went out to get traditional Chinese breakfast: egg "sandwiches," soy milk, and dumplings. 

Dumpling place is literally just on the street. No real store front.

We walked around for a bit at the Mitsukoshi department store...and spotted a Tesla stand...brings back memories of good 'ol Silicon Valley!

Rilakkuma cafe! - post by Zoe

Today we went to Rilakkuma cafe! It was so fun, all the food were either shaped like Rilakuma or had Rilakkuma on it. Like Rilakkuma shaped rice, Rilakkuma ice cubes, Rilakkuma cakes and cupcakes! All Rilakkuma. The walls were Rilakkuma, and even the bathrooms were Rilakkuma. It was so awesome!

Rilakkuma coffee!

Rilakkuma Heaven!

Rilakkuma desserts!

Rilakkuma bathroom!

Oh! and for those of you who do not know what Rilakkuma is, it's a brown bear that is very lazy. And in Japanese Rlia means lazy and Kuma means bear. The white bear which is called Korilakkuma who loves to play pranks on Rilakkuma when he is sleeping.

Wood working!

Today we went wood working at Eslite Spectrum. Here we are getting ready to start!

This is the tool we used to carve our shape. It was hard and kind of scary. I think the tool is a spinning very sharp knife. It was hard not to make any mistakes.

The final product.

While we were doing wood working Phoebe did pottery, wood working would probably be too dangerous for her, she would probably cut herself.

Phoebe's new desk

Phoebe came with us to IKEA on one of our last runs and picked out her own pink desk. She was very excited!

Yilan Adventure

We took a short tip to Yilan, which is on the north eastern coast of Taiwan. 

"The water has been assigned to banana boating?!"

Black sand beach.

Modern hotel with some cool art. Phoebe got to try her hand at darts.

Hello Mr. Statue.

The girls got a kick out of the all-window shower - if you so choose, all of Yilan can watch you shower.

We had hot pot for dinner on one of the nights. They had a really creative display of all the un-cooked food.

Broccoli and shrimp on sticks...And the greens in the vase was for cooking too. You just put whatever you want to eat in the hot-pot and you cook it yourself. 

Some pool was played...Note the Warhol-esque posters. The quadrants in the lower left are of the owners - both are celebrities in Taiwan. 

Pretty bold to put your photo next to Brad, RDJ, and Johnny...

The girls and their cousins catching some waves.

On our way to the beach, their was a small B&B with a unicorn in their pool. We thought of Auntie Aileen.

Unicorn float!

Din Tai Fung

Only a 5 minute subway ride from our place...Hence, this is already our second time here. It may just become our cafeteria :o).

Three monkeys in Taipei

We went rock climbing today at the neighborhood gym.

Three monkeys.

About a five minute walk.

Yay! Zoe: "we've been dying to come here!"

First day of camp + Phoebe's field trip

Well, not really. We started camp earlier in the week, but this was our first day leaving from our new place.

I think one of the reasons why people immediately assume we are from the US here is because Joe wears "Rock EPACS" and "Ohlone Harvest Festival" T-shirts...

And here is Phoebe headed off to her first field trip this summer. She was excited to bring her backpack (with a peanut butter sandwich and dragon fruit inside) and borrowed Chloe's Rilakkuma water bottle holder 

New Schools!

We had the chance to visit the girls' new schools.

Excited to start school in a month!

And here is Phoebe washing her hands at her Montessori school (picture taken from outside the window):

IKEA + Costco

Obviously, Taiwan and the US are extremely different from each other. But, we've had the opportunity to visit both IKEA and Costco here to buy some stuff for the new place. Some things just don't change:

1. They serve Swedish meatballs at the IKEA cafe. I wanted some but they weren't quite ready yet (it was only 10AM).
2. They have the IKEA MALM line. Yes, the dressers that were recently recalled.
3. The Costco carries Kirkland cranberry juice. And they have Sentry Safes.

4. Costco pizza and hotdogs are here too.

What's different:

1. No night lights to be found. Strange. We couldn't understand why...there were lots of small LED lights, but they were all battery powered. We think it's a regulatory thing.
2. People go to IKEA to eat. And hang out. You see people working too. At first we thought that it was strange...but then we went back a couple of days later to buy more stuff. And we had the breakfast, and we figured out why. IT'S REALLY GOOD! And cheap too. Between Joe and I, we spent 100NT. That's about $3 bucks.

None of these people have the blue shopping bags. Or any carts near them.

3. The Costco has a lot more SKUs. As an example, in the States, I remember there just being two kinds of liquid dish soap: Kirkland and Palmolive. But here, there was a German brand and a Japanese brand, in addition to Kirkland and another American brand. And there are a lot more bagels.

Look at all those bagels and dinner rolls! That's way more than in Mountain View...

Checking out is pretty much the same as in the States. Look how happy Joe is.

Checking out at IKEA. How many laundry hampers are there?!