Taiwan: Hualien on the East Coast

View of Hualien from the beach in front of our B&B

Jillian with "Douglas" the pig in the B&B's backyard

Ying-Tzu chasing geese and ducks in the backyard

Bates and Ying-Tzu stacking rocks on the beach

Johnny enjoying coffee on the balcony at Hualien Bay

Springs at Taroko Gorge.  Notice the tunnels built into the side of the mountain

Jillian found a stage!

Waiting for the train to take us to Hualien from Taipei

Bridge at Taroko Gorge

Please wear a safety helmet!

Are these helmets going to help?  Everyone has to wear one that walks the gorge trails

More of Taroko Gorge.  Absolutely stunning.

Atlantic ocean beach kids enjoying the Pacific

Johnny hitting the waves at Jici Beach

Taiwan: More of Taipei

Random pictures of the Taipei Zoo, Tamsui (淡水, or Danshui City), and other Taipei sights.

Ying-Tzu and Dad at the Taipei Zoo

She was tired by the end; we all slept well that night!

Pandas at the zoo

Ying-Tzu and Mommy

Checking out the monkeys

Johnny and Bates enjoying noodles with mysterious veggies and floating shrimp with heads.  It was delicious!

3 story McDonalds with an incredible view in Danshui City.  We stopped for the potty and got a snack.  It is a dark picture but I could not get over the view, as though it was a 5-star restaurant!

Iphone games in the car.  Ying-Tzu is amazing navigating any electronics... watch her around your cell phone ;-)

After her bath, she loves the water and wants to stay in there playing for hours

Street performer in Danshui.  More people were taking pictures of Bates and his hair than the performer

The riverfront in Danshui.  We discovered the nice cool breezes off the river that bring all of the locals here on weekends.  It is the last stop on the MRT.

Jillian and I took a cab to the coin laundry for an hour alone together.   

Whole squid, anyone?

Taiwan: Ying-Tzu Mia

We have been together 5 days now, but I am going to back up to Friday and Monday, two days we spent in Taichung picking up Ying-Tzu and meeting her birth family.  I thought I would be a lot better about keeping up with the blog on a daily basis, but we are finding that our little energetic 5 year-old is taking every bit of energy we have!  hmmm, how quickly you forget what five is all about!  Plus our go to "use your words" that we would say with our first 2 kids when they were toddlers having fits of frustration does not really work ;-)  We are finding humor in trying to communicate, and luckily she is too.  She is an incredibly happy little girl considering the huge change she is going through and the frustration of having a new family who understands so little of what she says.  I am so sad thinking of all of those hours of intense spanish practice I did when I should have been practicing Mandarin for the last 2.5 years, but we did not know our journey would lead to a mandarin speaking little girl.  Ironically, as Ying-Tzu is practicing her English when we get home, Jillian has elected Mandarin as her middle school language, so she will take it every day at school starting in August!  And Ying-Tzu and I will be enrolling in the chinese school to practice our mandarin on Saturdays.  She learns incredibly fast.

We traveled to New Hope, the social welfare institute that has been working with Ying-Tzu for the last year.  Her social workers cared for her well and we credit them with preparing her as well as possible.  Her foster mother also seemed to care deeply about her.  The meeting with the birth family was enlightening.  Our families will always have her uniting us.

Ying-Tzu with her foster mother whom she lived with for 5 months

The wall that adoptive families sign at New Hope.  We all signed... note they taught her to write "Mia", which we have chosen as her middle name.  She may choose to use her middle name in school.

Birth father, Johnny, Jillian, Steph, Bates, Ying-Tzu, grandmother, brother & Aunt all together after an emotional meeting.  Ying-Tzu is holding her beloved snoopy

Taiwan: Family of Five

Pictures for now because I know our family is waiting to hear!  We had an emotional, tiring, amazing day yesterday.  More later, we are headed to the zoo to run off energy... the hotel room is shrinking!! ;-)

Ying-Tzu at the playground in Da-an Park

Ying-Tzu, Jillian and Bates at the hotel pool

She had never been in a pool... did not take long for her to love it!  Daddy and Ying-Tzu

Taiwan: Lunshan Temple, Memorial Hall, National Museum of Art

Bates enjoying soup

Jillian and Steph in the beautiful gardens at the National Museum

Steph & Johnny at the National Museum of Chinese Art

streets of Taipei- there are scooters everywhere!

Lungshan Temple was incredible, we left an offering for our big day

Part of Memorial Hall

Memorial Hall.  The tents are the discovery channel set up for an episode

Entrance to Memorial Hall Courtyard

Taiwan: Travel & Taipei 101

We keep looking at one another and saying, "this is surreal" and "I can't believe we are really finally here".  Our journey to Ying-Tzu has begun!

We traveled to Los Angeles and connected with a direct flight to Taipei.  Jet lag is tough; we are relaxing in the hotel now but my body really wants to go to sleep!  With a 12 hour time difference, at 1pm here it is 1am at home.  We were met at the airport by our adoption agency's facilitator, Mr. Yeh, and his 13 year-old son.  His son and I had fun practicing English and Mandarin with one another.  Everyone we have met has been unbelievably kind.

Today we took the MRT to Taipei 101 to get a great view of the city.  Taipei 101 is the 2nd tallest building in the world.  Taipei, Taiwan's capital city, is a lot like New York.  It is clean and modern and full of life 24 hours a day.  The food here is wonderful, but we have already been surprised a few times when ordering as we have to guess... very little is in English.  Tomorrow is a full day of sight-seeing and then Friday we meet the newest member of our family.  Thanks to everyone that is at home watching our progress, watching our dogs, watching J's guinea, feeding our fish, etc.  We could not do this without your love and support!

In line to re-check our luggage at the international terminal in LAX

EVA Air loading

The famous LOVE sculpture outside of Taipei 101

One of the views from the top of Taipei 101

Our cheesy photo booth pics; we had a blast with all of us stuffed inside the booth!