Vacation Sun Moon Lake (23-24 June 2008)

Immediately after leaving Kaohsiung, we headed for Sun Moon Lake. From Kaohsiung, we took the High Speed Rail (HSR) to Taichung, the journey being slightly less than an hour. From Taichung, a car ride of 1 hour 15 minutes brought us to Sun Moon Lake.

Sun Moon Lake is the largest lake in Taiwan and located in the centre of Taiwan. It is called "Sun Moon Lake" because the eastern part of the lake is shaped round like the sun, while the western part is shaped like a crescent moon. In the middle of Sun Moon Lake is an island called Lalu Island, which separates the "sun" and the "moon" part of the Lake. Lalu Island, which used to home to the Shao tribe (one of the aboriginal tribes in Taiwan), used to be much bigger than what it is now. Unfortunately, during the building of a hydroelectric power plant in 1934, water was channeled into Sun Moon Lake from neighbouring lakes to increase the depth of the Lake from 6 to 27 metres. This made the island smaller than what it was. In addition, an earthquake in 1999 sunk the island further. Lalu island is now off-limits to the public, but regular boat trips every hour bring visitors close to the island for a better view.

Below is a picture taken at the aboriginal village at Sun Moon Lake. There were some curios, interesting teas and food items, but we didn't end up getting anything.

Here at Sun Moon Lake, we stayed at the Del Lago hotel, a relatively new hotel which opened in 2005. The rooms were beautiful and modern, but probably more suited to honeymooners or couples looking for a getaway. As you can see from the pictures below, the bathtub is of "open-concept", so one can admire the lovely view of Sun Moon Lake while taking a bath.

The rooms that we got overlooked Sun Moon Lake and the views were simply stunning.

There were separate shower and toilet cubicles with doors, but even then, the doors didn't have locks on them. Thankfully, we were given two rooms side-by-side to each other, so we could send DS off to the next room if we wanted to use the toilet or have a shower.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the shower cubicle with the very modern shower system in it. At the touch of a knob, one could direct water to come out from either of the two shower heads, or from the holes located on the shower system panel (which sent water shooting out horizontally!). Very cool. Of course, DH had a ball of a time playing with the shower system.

DD Learning to Walk

I just found this video, taken a week ago, while browsing the pictures, and thought I should post it. DD, who is 10.5 months old, has been furniture walking and this video of her is hilarious. This push-toy was given to DD by my wonderful friend, Kate (whom I know reads my blog, so, thank you, Kate!). DD, and even DS, always have a great time playing with this toy in their play-yard.

DS's Shopping Cart

Don't you just love it when places have little people in mind? I'm always impressed when restaurants provide special cute cutlery, unbreakable drinking cups, and pull out the crayons and paper for little people. But this can't be beat! A shopping cart for kids! DS was elated to finally get to push the cart when we were at Jason's Supermarket (an upmarket supermarket mainly catering for expats) in Kaohsiung. He was so excited everytime we put our groceries into his little shopping cart.

And here he is at the checkout. Nevermind that the cashier could hardly see the tiny shopping cart over the counter. :P

Fo Guang Shan

While in Kaohsiung, we visited Fo Guan Shan, about a half hour cab ride from Grand Hi-Lai hotel. Fo Guan Shan, founded by Venerable Master Hsin Yun in 1967, is the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan with over 200 branch temples throughout the world. Its headquarters is in Kaohsiung. The grounds of Fo Guan Shan temple in Kaohsiung span more than 30 hectares. Below is a map of the temple grounds.

Here is DS posing at the Five Hundred Arhats Garden. The figures behind DS are carved out of white marble and there are really 500 of them in the garden, known as the Five Hundred Arhats. According to Fo Guang Shan's website, these 500 Arhats were "the saintly disciples of the Buddha, who followed the Buddha to become monks, cultivating the path and teaching the Dharma".
DD, as usual, was initally sound asleep when we first arrived at Fo Guang Shan. Behind us, you can see the 36 metre tall statue of Amitabha Buddha, which was built in 1975.

The Main Shrine, with a size of 3570 square metres (it can apparently house 1000 people) and 30 metres in height, was truly the most spectacular and magnificent room in the temple. Unfortunately, we couldn't take any pictures in there. There are pictures of the Main Shrine on Fo Guang Shan's website though, if anyone is interested. Within the Shrine sat three Buddha statues, each 7.8 metres tall. The interior four walls of the Shrine are lined with 14800 smaller statues of the Buddha. It really was a magnificent sight.

Vacation Kaohsiung (21-23 June 2008)

DH was able to take some time off work so we decided to take a short trip to Kaohsiung and Sun Moon Lake. Kaohsiung is 345km south of Taipei and we travelled there via Taiwan's new High Speed Rail (HSR), which began operating in January of 2007. The journey from Taipei Main Station to Kaohsiung took us only 1.5 hours, as compared to 4 hours by car in good traffic, or 8 hours in bad traffic. Here we are on board the HSR. The ride was really comfortable. The seats were wide and comfy, and the leg room is huge.

From the New Zuoying HSR station, a short car ride of 20 minutes took us to our hotel in Kaohsiung. We stayed at the Grand Hi-Lai, which is just walking distance to Kaohsiung's famous Love River. The Love River flows some 12km through Kaohsiung and ends at Kaohsiung Harbor. It is a major tourist attraction (not dissimilar to River Thames in London) with a park that runs along it in Kaohsiung city. There are boats which take tourists up and down the river and this place comes alive, especially in the evenings, with a night market and cafes. Here are pictures of the hotel room. The rooms we had were particularly spacious as we were upgraded to the executive floors.


Our room and my dad's room, on the 4oth floor and 41st floor respectively, provided really magnificent, unblocked views of Kaohsiung's Love River, Harbor, and city. The only problem is that Kaohsiung is quite a polluted city, with PSI (Pollutant Standards Index) probably above 100 most of the time. As such, the sky always looks hazy and we couldn't view as far a distance of the scenery from our hotel rooms.




There are a small number of tourist attractions to visit when in Kaohsiung. Besides the Love River, there is the Liu Ho night market. There is also apparently a hot spring location in Kaohsiung. Outside of Kaohsiung, there is Fo Guang Shan (a Buddhist temple) and some distance away, Kenting, a beach resort. We only got to go as far as Fo Guang Shan because we didn't want to tire the kids (and ourselves!) out.

DD's Sarong Cradle

I've been having a bit of difficulty putting DD down for her nap in the past few weeks. Usually the process gets interrupted (e.g. she needs to pee or poop, or she gets distracted by her brother) and even though she's really sleepy, she just refuses to be put to nap by the one of our "usual" methods - either nursing to sleep or falling asleep in a baby carrier. We considered the traditional sarong cradle (yao lan) but to our surprise, this isn't as easily available in Taiwan as we thought it would be. After asking friends and shopkeepers, both young and old, we realised that, firstly, the sarong cradle made out of cloth, like what we use in Singapore, is probably native to Singapore or Malaysia, and not commonly used in other parts of Asia like what we thought it would be. Secondly, the traditional Taiwanese version of the sarong cradle is similar to the sarong in that it hangs from the ceiling or a stand, but unlike the sarong, which is made of solely cloth fabric, the Taiwanese version is made of rattan or wicker so it becomes a "basket" in which to place baby onto. It is then called a 吊床 (hanyu pinyin: Diao4 Chuang2) rather than a 搖籃 (hanyu pinyin: Yao2 Lan2). Even then, the Diao4 Chuang2 is hardly used in urban Taipei anymore. When we enquired in speciality baby shops here in Taiwan, we were shown modern baby rockers which are basically bassinets or reclining baby chairs which can rock from side-to-side or back-and-fro.

Encouraged by my mother-in-law, who thinks that DD, at a ripe old age of 9 months old, could still be coaxed to be placed in a sarong cradle to sleep, we decided to take the plunge. My sister-in-law (SIL) kindly bought a sarong cradle for us in Singapore and my dad kindly agreed to bring it over with him when he came to Taiwan for a visit. DH and I decided that we have nothing to lose except the price of the sarong cradle (which SIL eventually gave to us, thanks!) and the efforts of SIL and dad in buying and bringing the item to us in Taiwan. Our other option was to buy the Westernized and "good-looking" version of the sarong cradle online (e.g. Amby Baby) and have it shipped to Taiwan but this was going to cost us a fortune. We were really not willing to spend so much money on something that we weren't sure was going to work.

Well, unbelieveably, DD took to the sarong cradle pretty well and she now naps in it about once a day. I was able to put her down for a nap during those times when she would otherwise not have napped.



Interestingly, DD likes to sleep with her feet out of the sarong and I'll have to place them inside the sarong after she falls asleep. However, good as the sarong cradle is at putting babies to sleep, it has its limitations, as with everything else. Firstly, even if we had wanted to use the sarong cradle earlier on, we couldn't because DD had reflux. She was a spitter and would spit out milk with the slightest movement, especially if she was lying down. It would be safer to put a baby with reflux side-lying on a bed to sleep, since side-lying reduces the reflux and any spit up would come out of baby's mouth more easily and be obvious to the caregiver rather than on a baby who was lying on her back in a sarong. Secondly, the risk of falls when using a sarong cradle should not be overlooked. See the safety warnings from KKH about sarong cradles here and a local study done a number of years back looking at closed head injuries in children who fell from sarong cradles here. But for now, the sarong works well for us. We just place a mattress under DD when she's in the sarong cradle, in the unlikely even that she falls.

Oh Where, Oh Where, Is My Internet Time?

Ever since leaving Denver, my internet time (and most of my "free" time, for that matter) has mysteriously disappeared. I wonder who stole it? Actually, I know the answer - my two kids stole it! Haha. After we left Denver, DD decided that she's a big girl now - big enough to be nosey and to participate in everything around her. So, putting her to nap has been very much more difficult. Of course, all mummies know that naptime is when we catch up on chores, surf the net or simply get some eye-shut. So less naptime equals less mummy time. DD also likes to wake up when the sun rises, which is at 5am here in Taiwan. That is perfectly fine with me. The only problem is that DS sleeps really late - averaging 10.30pm at the earliest, so I usually KO with him when I have to put him to bed.

Interestingly, the other contributing factor to my lack of internet time is something that I never realised before - the layout of an apartment! Yes, in Denver, our apartment was an open-concept one, which meant that when I was toiling in the kitchen (either cooking or washing the dishes), I had full view of the living room. That meant that I could still participate (well, sort of, anyway) in what DS was doing, be it watching TV or with playing playdough. And I could also keep an eye on DD at the same time. And on top of all that, I could also have the laptop on the kitchen counter top. How's that for multi-tasking? Haa.

Here in Taiwan, DH also brings the laptop to work, so no internet time for me during the day at all. But hopefully that might change - we got my Dad to buy us a laptop from Singapore and he'll be bringing it to us when he arrives later today. Yipee!