We drove into town after dinner to the special baby shop and got Vince some crackers and some more chew toys (just like a doggie these days…). He did something I’ve never seen him do before; as we were walking into the store, he started bawling like something really frightened him. I’ve never heard him cry with such anguish, big tears rolled down his cheeks. By the time we left, he was OK, but it was really weird.

Today was a quiet day. We spent the morning at home, talking with family and friends. Then we went out shopping for food. Jeremy doesn’t get to go to the market as much as he did in Austin, and was really missing being able to choose food from a grocery store. So we went and got lots of spaghetti sauce, jam, cheese and cookies (all kind of specialty items here in Taiwan). After lunch, we took a nap and had a simple dinner. We are a little bit homesick this weekend, so we found VCDs of Season 3 of “Friends” and have been watching old episodes. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, mmmmmmm, all our familiar old TV pals, they say such funny things. There is apparently a big party going on downtown for the Mid-Autumn Moon festival, but Taiwan stays up later than we do, so we are passing on the big festivities (at least tonight).

Happy Mid-Autumn festival! We went to Taipei today to see Asuka and Carrie, who just moved here last week. They found a lovely place in Taipei and are waiting for all the details to be worked out. Turns out the Browns were also staying in Taipei, we bumped into them and into Kin-Sang in the lobby. We all chatted, then we went to Din-Tai-Fung to eat a delicious meal at about 10:45. Then we went to the Jade and Flower markets. Then we went to Da-An park and walked around, we had a foot massage via the accupressure stones in the ground. Then we went back to the hotel for a snack, then to Cave’s bookstore. Then back to the hotel for some Vince crawling time. The neighborhood near the hotel is super posh with Louis Vuitton, Escada, etc… Drove back and saw Ms. Liu, she gave us some moon cakes, she’s working very hard this holiday weekend.

My Chinese lessons with Mr. Hung, the security guard downstairs are going great. He helps me everyday with my lessons and I get to alleviate some of his boredom during the day. I met Jasmine today, a lady with two kids who are half Asian and half Caucasian. Her husband is a techy guy who also happens to be a Morman, so he is fluent in Chinese because he did his mission in Taiwan. I also helped Roger, a white guy working for Pressco, a tool maker for food and beverage packaging companies, jump his car. He lives on the 17th floor of our building and he’s here maybe 100 days out of the year, the rest of the time, he’s traveling all around Asia. He owned a beat up old Peugeot. This afternoon I drove (!) to the Lakeshore hotel and attended the Mid-Autumn festival of the International School.

Ms. Liu was very busy today, no time to talk with me. She’s managing three house moves this weekend. Lot’s of phone calls to make and lots of things to arrange. Dad got on Yahoo! Messenger today, that’s pretty funny. Watched a lot of Chinese children’s television. Also met Droopy’s mother, Sue.

Today is Tu-Di-Ma’s birthday, so there is a big party going on in the temple behind our apartment complex. Today I saw a puppet show, but I didn’t understand it at all because it was all in Taiwanese. We went out to dinner with Johannes tonight at the Japanese BBQ place. Vincie was a squirm-meister tonight.

Ran into Kay Dee at the rt mart today, we had lunch at mcdonalds and chatted about how things were going for both of us. I saw the mayor of Hsin-Chu. He was outside our apartment where a new highway has opened. It has only been open for two days, and there has already been an accident. He was discussing what should be done about it with a TV camera crew. I watched the local news, but I didn’t see myself.

Vince got his 6 month shots today. What a big boy! It was my first medical experience in Taiwan. I thought I was going to be able to avoid seeing Vince getting his shots, but I ended up holding his leg in place. Jeremy did the biggest job by holding him in his lap and his arms. The doc was very nice. No more shots until 9 months!

We had lunch with a couple, Erdam and Eloina, who work at Infinion, the third company associated with AMD and UMC. The have a cute 10 month old, Victoria. They are an interesting family, Elonia is Brazilian and Erdam is Turkish and German. So Victoria will have to learn: English, Turkish, German, Porteguese and now Chinese. We ate at a Japanese retaurant in the Science Park as they are staying at the Lakeshore Hotel. Lunch we really good and the kids had fun playing around each other. Vince hit his head against a wood railing and got his first real “goose egg” on his head. Then we drove around and found the Orange Mart and bought some baking powder and baking soda. They are impossible to find around here. I made some banana bread from some over-ripe bananas I had. Jeremy installed speakers from the computer in the dining room, so we listened to Car Talk while we ate dinner.