ready to hit the beach

well, look who's ready to go hit the beach.....






practicing sunbathing on the beach.




"hey old man, you better not post these on the internet!"

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week 30, 2009

bath time. nice do.


hanging out at ah-dong's in hukou with mj.


olivia hung with us while the wives shopped at costco. she was very well behaved.


checking out sinfong beach.


excellent grilled ribs at mj's place.


olivia pulling tom cruise's look in risky business.


attending jungpi & sam's wedding.

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twitter

well, it seems everyone and their mothers are on it, so i thought i'd join in on the hype and see what the fuzz is all about.

follow me here: http://twitter.com/dretw

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olivia, 1 year & 7 months

a few people have asked me exactly how old is olivia now. well, she is 1 year and 7 months right now. not a baby anymore, she's quite the personality with an attitude and sure wrecks a lot of havoc; but still a lot of fun all-around. from counting 1 to 10 in chinese, then counting 10 to 1 backwards to counting 1 to 5 again in english, she's always doing or saying something new that surprises us and gets us laughing hysterically. yeah i know, it's the same old cliché that i've said again and again, but time really flies!

here are a few cell phone photos taken a couple weeks ago when we had dinner at dubu house.


about the hat she's wearing..... as we were walking towards the restaurant, she stopped dead on her tracks and said to us "mao-zi". we thought she was saying "mouse", as she will say that whenever she sees an image of mickey mouse. so we looked around to see if there were any mickey mouse images along the sidewalk but there were none. she said "mao-zi" again pointing to the sidewalk vendor that was selling hats. "mao-zi" means hat in chinese, so we asked her if she wanted a hat and she said yes. i picked her up and told her to choose one, and after quietly looking through the table full of hats for about a minute, she reached down and grabbed this pink one. makes us wonder if she knew she was wearing a pink shirt, so decided to get a pink hat to match it. already loving to shop at such a young age, i am not looking forward to her teenage years. start saving now!

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total solar eclipse 2009

as i was driving to work this morning, i saw a bunch of people standing on the road looking up into the sky. and as i saw more and more people doing this, i started to wonder what was going on, then i remembered that there was a total eclipse of the sun this morning, which might explain why it was "dusk" dim outside. well, i decided to get in on the hype and pulled over on the side of the road to take some photos. here's a couple taken from my car seat with the window rolled down.....





and here are a couple of photos taken through the tinted glass of the window.....





even tho' it was not a total eclipse from here, it was still cool to witness. just glad that i can still see!

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flash mob tribute to michael jackson in taipei

here's a very cool flash mob tribute to michael jackson in taipei's ximending.....

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week 28, 2009

went to a wedding where they had free photo booths, all you can take and we took a bunch. here's one we took.


here's another one.


i'm still mourning michael jackson's death. having grown up in the 80's and 90's, i was definitely a fan. i watched the memorial live, which ended at 4:30am here. despite his personal problems, there's no doubt he was one of the greatest. not only as an entertainment but for all his humanitarian effort. as his brother marlon said in the memorial, maybe they can finally leave you alone. rest in peace mj.


olivia watching her favorite show now, mickey mouse clubhouse. we're planning to take her to disneyland either in hong kong or japan for her birthday this year. hope it happens!


family dinner at yuanshao grill restaurant.

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the fortune god temple in jinshan

the days leading up to this past weekend were absolutely scorching hot, with temperatures reaching high 30's celsius. well, it was no different on saturday and despite the temptation to just stay home in the comforts of a full blasting a/c, we decided to venture out to the fortune god temple in jinshan.....


olivia with my father-in-law not looking too pleased. olivia fell asleep in the car during the drive there, which was about an hour long. she usually naps for about two hours, so as you can see she was not very happy to be awaken upon arriving and taken from the comfortable a/c in the car to the scorching heat outside. can you say "grouchy"?


not a traditional looking temple to say the least.


however, with it being nestled in the mountains.....


the temple had a spectacular view of the coastline.....


and the nearby mountains.


after giving our prayers and offerings, my brother-in-law and mother-in-law try their luck with some scratch lottery tickets. any luck??!! let's just say my bro-in-law still had to go to work on monday morning.


olivia feeling a lot better, especially after giving her some snacks but poor girl was sweating as if she had just ran a marathon.


from the temple, we descended onto the old streets of jinshan. typical "old street" like most of taiwan with hawkers selling all sorts of things.




we weren't all that hungry but before we went home, we had to have dinner.....


just so we could eat the famous "jinshan duck".

the temple's google maps location.....

View Larger Map

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karen's birthday 2009

early last month was karen's birthday and to celebrate we decided to go for dinner at yuanshao grill restaurant.


waiting for our table. very tempting display of sake in the back!






either the food was really good or olivia was really hungry!


it was some good stuff!


a lot of stuff! since it was all you can eat too, the staff kept on coming along with the stuff!


here's one of the waitresses making some fried rice on the spot in a heated stone bowl.


the end product.


roasting some marshmallows and chocolate fudge.


olivia's first time eating roasted marshmallows.....


and she didn't like it! after one bite, she put it down. i don't blame her. i tried it and tasted funny.

i did like my dessert tho'. baked mochi with red bean soup. doesn't sound too appetizing, but it was good.


since it was karen's birthday, it only made sense that she got the best dessert. this ice cream was really good.

overall, it was a nice family dinner. with a kid now, there's really not much we can do nor can we go too crazy with these celebrations like we used to. but, it's all more rewarding and worthwhile now, not to mention less painful the morning after!

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