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Yilan, Taiwan
I just returned back to the States after 11 years in Taiwan with my daughter. Taiwan is an excellent base for us explore Asia, while living in relative (gun free) safety, while benefiting from a cheap and efficient national health care system. The people are amazing too. I have Taiwanese friendships that are 20 years old and I'm always making new ones! My coworker here in CO is from Taiwan.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

The Two Faces of January


There is not much time to recover from Christmas and New Year, when its birthday season for me and my daughter.

Birthdays are always an adventure with my daughter. For her 1st we had an aquarium party in Denver and her 2nd was a butterfly party at the butterfly pavilion (also in Denver).  I would have to go through photo albums to recall birthday number 3 and 4.





In Tainan for her 5th, we had a little pottery making party. For her 7th, we had pinata and pizza in the park, and for her 9th, here in Yilan we had a little rock climbing party. (For her 6th and 8th it was finals, so she just brought in treats to her classmates).



A coworker told me about the nearby climbing wall, just a 10 minute drive outside Yilan City, so I thought we could invite her friends there for a climbing activity party.

We bought a cheesecake at Carrefoure and she wanted to decorate it with gum drops and Skittles, which we did with a homemade green frosting.  She wanted pink party hair, so I hit the local Poya bought some pink hair spray and painted her braids.

Gumdrops and Skittles Cheesecake


The Climbing wall is at YOY 歪仔歪攀岩館The kids enjoyed the climbing wall, but mostly they preferred to wrestle on the thick mats.  For men and children its 100NT to enter even if you are not climbing, women are free. I of course tried to climb. Going up is easy, but coming down, yikes, I'm such a wuss.



We also went to Z's favorite restaurant "Tasty's" for her 9th and for my 40th. Yes I just turned the big four oh my goodness, I can't believe I'm 40 when I feel eternally 25.  My travel buddy Bruno from Italy (we met in Sumatra a few years ago and just kept in touch) returned to Taiwan for another island tour, stopping in Yilan for a few nights. So he joined us for my Tasty's birthday dinner.






Tasty's might think we are scamming them the exra birthday attention haha, twice within the space of 2 weeks, and we were there for our friend AJ's birthday in November. I think that's enough Tasty's for me for the next year.

My Aquarian cup continues to overflow; my Yilan friends took us out for a Japanese hot pot  birthday dinner  at Shabu Shabu. Z got a my little pony which she played with her friend.

Full of hot pot and birthday bliss
As turning 40 is kind of a big deal, I decided to make a special weekend celebration. I took 2 days off and on my birthday flew back to Borneo for 4 days of bliss and adventure...

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