the best of the rest: taiwan through the phone

Of course, I'd get all the way through my taipei posts and THEN realize I had a whole stash of undiscovered pictures on my phone.  Do you have it in you for one more post about Taipei?  I hope so.  

Here goes:

First full day in Taipei - lunch at Subway.  You know you've lived overseas too long when a turkey sandwich feels like a $100 steak.  

I led this group of good sports on a wild goose chase to find (what else?) a grocery store.  We found some interesting things along the way, but never did find the grocery store I was looking for.  =(

Taipei 101(the world's second tallest building) was a fun landmark to see no matter where we were in the city.  In my opinion, it ironically looks like chinese take-out boxes stacked on top of each other.  

More Zoo pics---
we had two great guides!

And we bought everyone a stuffed panda.  Since acquiring the panda, Silas is virtually inseparable from it.  He loves his panda!

My girls always play it up for the camera!

I was so glad that the kids loved being around my parents.  It's always iffy since we go such long stretches without seeing them, but they all had loved being with them.  Silas especially loved G-pa!

These signs were appropriately placed in all the bathrooms in the zoo.  Interesting facts to ponder while you do your business...

Date nights are hard to come by, but let's just have a public shout-out to my parents who gave us multiple date nights in Taipei!  The first one was shopping, MIB3...

...and Chili's!!

Be still my beating heart... (looking at these pictures again makes me HUNGRY!!)

Again, my kids and the slurpees. A friend of mine told me she thought this picture should be on the cover of an album.  =)

Dinner at TGIFridays -- with some cheeeeeeesy mozzerrella sticks!

My kids were NOT happy with me taking this picture.  I thought it would be brilliant to have them all crowded on the slide.  It was hot, they were sweaty, and just wanted a burger from Burger King.  All that stood in their way was me and this picture.

Date night #2 - a fab steak and great friend to share it with!  (I still think my potatoes au gratin are better than theirs, but the steak?  Unbelievable!)

One afternoon when everyone else was otherwise occupied, I took my kids to the Taipei National Science Museum.  I was a little concerned about how much my kids would actually be able to do, but then I saw that the whole bottom floor was a Kids' Discovery Center.  It was SO fun!

For one thing, there were huge foam legos.

While the others did the legos, Abby moved around huge foam shapes to make an obstacle course.

And she colored on the walls.  (The girl has a hard time sitting still.)

I'm pretty sure that all the big girls did was build stuff with legos.

Silas moved around a bit, though.

We were good friends with everyone by the time we left.

The Science Museum was a little hard to get to (have to take MRT and a bus) but we could easily have spent longer than the 3 hours we were there.  There's also a BK and several other restaurants inside the museum itself.  (There were also lots of other floors that we didn't buy tickets to; only the bottom floor discovery center.)

Uhhhh, yeah.  We went to Chili's more than once.  

More water park pics:

There was a little pizza restaurant close to our lodging that was perfect one evening when our plans got messed up:  (and if it seems like all we did was eat...well,....that's not too far from the truth!)

And finally - we bless you, Taiwan Department of Transportation - a look at the terminal our plane left from.  If only all airport were this nice and kid-friendly...

Whenever we go back to taiwan, it won't be too soon!