Taiwan 2014 Day 6 - Cingjing and Taipei

Breakfast at the villa was porridge with fried eggs, pork floss, cabbage, hash brown and toast. It's amazing how such simple food can be so comforting for the soul and gives such a homely touch when you are far away from home.

yummy milk tea! pity jill didn't fancy this as she's so used to teh -c KOSONG

Because of our dinner last night at Carton King, we had free tickets to Swiss Garden (瑞士小花园). I know how people have gushed over the beautiful flowers there. Yeah, many colourful flowers but I'm just NOT into flowers. Flowerdome bores me unfortunately... Dw and the kids were naturally bored so I will say that asides being a place for kids to run around and dating couples to kissy, it will be absolutely crazy to pay entrance fees to visit that place.

We had gotten our minsu to arrange for transport for us to have lunch at 伊拿谷 - Inako. I have heard so much about their roasted chicken that I just had to try it and it didn't disappoint! But we ordered way too much food! For the 4 of us, a roast chicken, hotpot and probably a plate of vegetables would have been enough. I stood there watching the guy patiently roasting the chicken, taking it out to spray some oil on it then roast it again in the huge earthern pots which I used to see as a kid in Singapore but not anymore.

very thoughtful of them to provide gloves with plastic, makes it so much more comfortable peeling chicken knowing that your hands will not be oily!



he looks very pleased with the chicken he's roasting!

By then, my throat was hurting real badly and it didn't help that I slipped and twisted my ankle. I was just relieved that all these happened on the 2nd last day and we were headed back to Taipei after lunch. Before that, we made a stopover at feeling 18degrees on route from Cingjing to Taichung HSR to try their chocolates. It's nothing worth mentioning, except that they really do control the number of customers in their shop as the temperature has to remain at 18 degrees, literally. I got a queue no. but never went back in as the chocolates look very similar to Royce which we have back home. Moreover we were already feasting on our ice cream, also from 18 degrees.

The kids had a blast for sure, since this trip was planned around them. I'm really glad we did this. It may have been quite troublesome, having to change hotels, change transport, get on the train and buses but it was worth it. And yes, we are looking forward to Hong Kong in December!

Taiwan 2014 - Day 5 Lemur Feeding and Cingjing

This morning was spent feeding the lemurs. Poor Jenson had the fright of his life and so we kinda blew our moolahs away since it cost 499NT regardless adult or child. He stuck with his dad so his dad naturally got a bit moody with a terrified child clinging to him. BUT Jill & me.. we had one of the best experiences in our lives! (Ok I don't really know about her, but it's  YES for me!) A lemur jumped on me! A lemur jumped on me! Cheap thrill I know, but hey, what are the chances of this ever happening to me!

After this we packed up, checked out and we headed to Hsinchu HSR station for our HSR ride to Taichung. Had their MOS burger before boarding the train.. had a hard time ordering my plain burger :( When we were up on the platform at the station, there was a strong wind alert. NOW, THAT was scary. I felt I was about to be blown off and naturally I held on very strongly to Jenson who at 15kg really seemed too light at that point in time.



very pleased man, he loves MOS burger!

waiting for the HSR on a very windy day

Pre-arranged private transport picked us from Taichung HSR station and after a long winding road up the mountains to Cingjing, we checked into into our minsu, Star Villa, and our host drove us up to Green Green Grassland (青青草原). Sheeps roamed around us and Jenson got terrified by them again. No joke, he got hounded by hungry lemurs in the morning and now chased by sheeps who never seem to have enough of feeds! I'm just relived that eventually caved in and probably decided to shut my nagging up once and for all and went for a ride on a mini horse. Jill was ever the most sporting one and gamely did whatever she could.

It was quite a long walk down to the Cingjing Centre. In fact we didn't realise that there were so many parts to 青青草原. After exiting the sheep area, we entered another arena where there were more trees, more grass and horse performing area. We ended the evening with dinner at Carton King, interesting concept where we sat on cardboard chairs. Even Jen's highchair was made of cardboard which I wasn't sure if it could really take his weight with 4 chair legs made out of thick paper. It did hold up well, so yeah, I'm impressed! We ordered Hokkaido milk hot pot, yummylicious!

Our little villa's boss, Terry, gives nightly stargazing sessions at 9pm. The sky was filled with so many stars. It reminded me of the time when we were in Mt Cook. And for the 1st time, I learnt that was an app, Sky Map which will show us the name of each star. All we had to do was open the app, lie on the floor, face the camera towards the sky and there we have it, the map of the sky, the constellations. Awesome! And in our little room, when we switch off the lights, our ceiling will light up with luminous stickers of our friends in the planets above! Do Min Joon shi.... hi hi!

Taiwan 2014 Day 4 - Leofoo Theme Park & Animal Resort

This was the highlight of our trip, albeit the most expensive one too! Money well spent though, even I was enthralled by the close promximity between the giraffe and me!

We left Taipei early morning and checked in to our resort in Leofoo, Hsinchu. The moment we stepped into the lobby, the kids were so thrilled at the sight of the animals just a few steps away. We had double storey room which the kids obviously enjoyed chasing each other up and down the stairs.

Giraffes just by our balcony

Very lively night entertainment by the South African performers

The Leofoo Theme park, whilst kinda rundown (especially when compared to our swanky, new Universal Studios but what did we expect, since it's the 35th anniversary) it had many activities and rides for adults and childen. Disclaimer: This is just my family's point of view as we are huge fans of theme parks. Really, really HUGE.

Started off with the African Safari and this was where we spent the entire morning. A few adventure rides, a train ride round the herbivore area, a bus ride through the carnivourous animals enclosure, "cycling" to view the monkeys and feeding the animals. One interesting aspect of this was we could actually release the gate to let out the animals if we wished. Being the urban girl, I didn't want to do that and I noticed that noone did that either. Except that we noticed a goat roaming wild and even escaped into the Alibaba world next door and I thought that was really cute...

monkey trail

Flying horse, 1st time both kids are on their own

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the one that got away!

Taiwan 2014 Day 3 - Maokong, Jiufen & Shifen, Taipei 101

We prayed for clear skies today so we can get ourselves up on the Maokong gondola. Took the mrt all the way to the last stop to Taipei zoo which I would have loved to bring the kids to but that would have to take a backseat for now as we had lots more planned.

It was a long ride up but we had a picturesque view from the top. The children were in awe and at certain times when there was a suddden wind, it would be very cold. The wait for the crystal cabin (glass bottom) was long so we decided to just take the normal cabin which didn't have a queue. At the peak, there were many snack shops selling the usual taiwan snacks and ice cream as well as many tea shops, given that that area was mainly where tea plantations were. Our kids will not be able to appreciate a fine cup of chinese tea, at least not at their age, and would never have allowed us to just plonk ourselves in nice tea hut to sip and relax. So we snacked, walked around a little, enjoyed the scenery and very cool mountain air and went down again about 2 hours later to catch our transport to Shifen for highlight of the day - 天灯.

Given that this was a Saturday, as much as I would have loved bringing the kids on a rustic ride on the TRA to give them an idea of a choo choo train to Pingxi, I decided that I shall not be mad and risk incurring the wrath of my man by chonging with the crowd. And so we hired the driver (same one who picked us from the airport and who would be bringing us to Leofoo the next day) and got us all on a comfortable ride to Jiufen, Shihfen and on the way, stopping by to admire the fierce, gushing waves of the magnificent Pacific Ocean.

I did toggle with the idea of the kids doing the sky lantern at the farm in Yilan but I thought it would be more exciting writing our wishes and lighting it up on the railway track and in the midst, scuttling away when a train comes along. True enough, when the train came, choo choo, the kids were like WOW WOW WOW, to us urban people, this was certainly a rare treat.

Our driver dropped us off at Taipei 101, we had to have the kids take the obligated photo and have the obligated DTF meal. So this helped us kill 2 birds with 1 stone... but it was a long long wait for us, as expected. Kids were cranky, grouchy which I don't blame them as they wouldn't understand these "obligatory" actions.. but all thing changed when the xiao long baos came, faces lit up! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taiwan 2014 Day 2 - Baby Boss

Cabbed down to Baby Boss early this morning. This was one place which we have heard so much about and after so much fun at Kidzania (Jakarta) in June, Jill was definitely looking forward to this one. Best part was, Jen could finally take part with his sister as he has turned 3! Reviews on forum were mainly on how crowded this place was going to be etc but to our relief, we had picked the right day to go! A Friday morning! Place was relatively empty and from 10am to 3pm, we could do 6 / 7 activities which by my pov, was good enough. I remembered that Kidzania in Jakarta was soooo crowded (add dark to that as well, lighting was bad), we had to jostle with so people and so little time to do anything as every work station had such a long queue!

They started off being an astrounaut, a natural choice since it was just at the entrance. I've no idea what was happening inside as no parents are allowed in. All we could see was them donning spacesuits, go in and exiting a spaceshuttle, landed on the "moon", analyzed some rocks, attended a short tutorial and zipped back to earth. Whole experience took them about 30 mins... gosh, litle kids in spacesuits, ultimate cuteness!

This was soon followed by a farmer at a cow ranch where the kids were taught all the tasks and routines that a typical farmer does in a day.

The fire fighter, A&E assistant, gas pump attendant, airline crew and ended off with Jill's last stop as a hotel chambermaid! Jen was fast asleep by the last one so it was just Jill alone. On hindsight, we could have extended our half day pass to a full day one, given that Jill wanted to do so much more and Jen would have regained his energy after his seista but we didn't. In any case, the afternoon session had many more kids who probably have just ended school.

The kids had their share of fun, definitely beats shopping aimlessly and were rather bummed that we ended the day at Ximending *mummy sniggles*... but that was really the last night market that we headed to for the entire trip.

Taiwan 2014 Day 1

Just came back from a week's holiday in Taiwan.. great fun but equally exhausting. As usual, we have our ever little rascal Jen running all over the place and having his silly tantrums at times when we least expect and we have Jill who is always saying she's so hungry (again). Well, being hungry is good in Taiwan, both of them with their daddy enjoyed all the snacks like Spring Onion Pancake, Fried Chicken, Octopus balls and me.... my all time favourite, Strawberry Shaved Ice.. yummy!

The night before, Jen came down with high fever and I was like all so disappointed but through God's blessings, his fever subsided and stabilized with 6 hourly panadol feeds and by the 2nd day he was doing great! We are really thankful that we were able to enjoy ourselves tremendously! It was double relief that we also had fantastic weather throughout our trip so we didn't need to have to rearrange any of our schedules or to fuss with raincoats.

And so we arrived in Taipei on a sunny Thursday afternoon, grabbed some lunch, rested a while then headed to Shihlin. As expected, the kids didn't take too well to purely shopping so we had to bribe them in between with kids stuff purchases, funfair games and food!

Empowerment and Positive Discipline

SL: We were just discussing this on Saturday night!! And an important take away from this session is.... NO SPANKING!! Uh-oh!!

Anyhow, first things first, do this:
Close your eyes. Have a vision of what you would like your child to be in 10years, 20 years and even 40 years.

Do I get a Doctor? A hope that most parents have for their children.. (admittedly I secretly harbour that hope too .. blah)

or
Do I get a firefighter? That's what Jill wants to be when she grows up!

Julia, Founder Director of Julia Gabriel, told us to do just that. Picture them in their teens, them as adults and them as parents. How they grow, what they grow up to be very much depends on how we as parents, bring them up. At the end of the day, regardless of what occupation they are in, regardless if they are enjoying singlehood or DINKs (dual income no kids) or parents, we need them to have values that will see them through life, compassion, determination, motivation amongst others.

It's up to us to decide how we want to deal with the discipline of our children. We can spoil them rotten by giving them everything they ask for or we can be very autocratic and insist they only do things the way we want. But we all know that either is not ideal and we should always seek a balance between the two.

Easier said than done definitely. Nobody is perfect and there are many occasions when I lose my self control and scream at the kids when the noise they are making gets unbearable, when the results are far off from expected.

But now, I'm reminded to put myself in the shoes of my children and to understand that each child is different and has his/her own temperaments. Close friends know that I'm often lamenting how Jill & Jen are as different as chalk and cheese! One is loving, obedient, yet often requires a lot of guidance in her decisions. The other, is boisterous, mischievous yet fearless by deciding on his own what he wants to do and how he does it. Needless to say, our role as parents, is to discipline and NOT punish them. We need to help them understand that misbehaviour is not acceptable and to learn the consequence that comes with it and by being aware of their individual characteristics, we learn how to guide them, to get them to cooperate with us by giving them choices. Praise them when they make good decisions that warrant positive acknowledgement.Through empowerment, we hope to inculcate in them, respect, responsibility, independence and self-discipline and to encourage them further to want to do more good.

Positive discipline happens at home and even outside. We need to be consistent, to send across a firm message to our children that whining. As many may know that Jen is as that age where it's almost impossible to reason with him! He throws a tantrum when he deems fit and no amount of cajoling helps unless we give in to his demands which can range from having the iPad immediately or wanting to buy a toy. Obviously this works well to shut him up immediately but long term wise it's not going to do us any good. As discussed with Julia, we have slowly learnt to leave him alone when he's not at his best behaviour and slowly walk over, but turning back to make sure that the boy's safe. And we're proud to say that this has worked! He learns ( and is still learning) that we parents are the bosses and he needs to listen to us as much as we listen to him. This is pretty much still at the beginning stage and we are certainly looking forward to more reforms as we progress!

Once again, many thanks to Julia and team who have painstakingly organized this session for us to learn and share the many methods of helping our children grow up positively. Because of their efforts during the session to engage our children with story telling and crafts, we were able to focus our attention, knowing our children were well taken care of!