Monday we went to the local post office to send our first piece of mail, ironically a reply to a jury summons for Barb in California (umm, not going to be able to serve on that jury, methinks it is a tad bit far to commute back and forth), and afterwards, John wanted to ride the train (subway), even though we were close to home. When we went down into the station, John told me he needed to use the bathroom, so we went into the public restroom, and here's what we found:
That's a pretty nice little restroom! We'd like to see more public facilities like that one.
John has also become quite proficient in stair-climbing and now almost always chooses to walk up the stairs when faced with an option of stairs or escalator. He is now big enough that he can step up one stair with each foot as he goes, alternating left and right legs up as he goes, instead of having to step up with one foot, then bring the other foot up to the same tread as the foot that just stepped up. The easy way to imagine this is that John can go up stairs just like an adult now, and he likes it; he doesn't have to go up the steps like a little kid any more. Now he likes to race Mom or Dad on the escalator as he goes up the stairs:
And when the adults get to the top, here is what they see:
Yes, that's right, that's John standing at the top, basking in his victory and PUSHING on the escalator hand rail in order to make it go faster! Mom and Dad are too slow for him!
On Tuesday we made a trip to the grocery to get some food items, and since where we shop is fairly close to where we recently discovered we will be going for medical care during our time in Taiwan, we decided to wrap several errands up into one by walking over to the hospital (seems that most medical care here, even routine treatments and appointments, is delivered at the hospital, not at a private doctor's office) to lay eyes on it and see what sort of things were around it. We discovered a Carrefour store (a French-owned retail store that carries pretty much anything you would find at a Wal-Mart or Target in the US), a Starbucks (pretty much the first one that I have seen in Kaohsiung that is not either inside the High Speed Rail Station (not even remotely close to where we live) or inside a Carrefour store. Yes, believe it or not, there are places in the world where Starbucks have not yet proliferated, and Kaohsiung is one of them. Alas, do not think that there are not many Western things available to us here - McDonalds, anyone?
These Ronald McDonald benches are like magnets for little kids - American ones, anyhow. John went right up to this last one with no prompting and crawled up on Ronald's lap.
At any rate, back to my discussion of today's trip. Between the subway stop and the hospital happened to be a really nice park.
John really enjoyed this park because it was shaded (the kid's play area at the park closest to our house is not shaded) and it had swings - he really likes swings. (Ditto on the swings - none at the park near where we live.)
The park also had some nice scenery. We saw this pagoda with laoren chatting in the shade:
There was also a public library and some artwork incorporated in with the footpaths:
From the 2 weeks I have now been here in Taiwan, it seems to me that the public infrastructure by and large is quite good, and what they have is nice to look at and well-designed, with one example being the footpaths above, and here are a few more:
Public artwork at "Urban Spotlight" in Kaohsiung Central Park
Central Park Subway Station
In case you missed it, yep, you're right, we try to put the boy to work when we can:
Here he is pulling the little cart we use to bring things back from our trips to the store. He likes to do things for himself and to be "really useful" like his favorite little playthings, Thomas and Co. We figure it is good for him to help out. Lord knows he is going to have to next year when his brother or sister comes.
Oh, and if you want to see more photos from the adventures mentioned in this post, please navigate here to enjoy them. I cherrypick the ones I want to use to tell my story here; it is but a representative sample of all the photos I take on any given day. I will try to put the preponderance of my pictures on the Flikr page so you can see more of us.
I'm going to try to get the webcam up and working now in case anyone wants to give it a shot sometime.
GJS
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