Happy Birthday Ruby! Today was a busy, busy day. We got up, sent Vince to the nanny’s and then I went to my very last Chinese lesson downstairs. Jeremy was upstairs making phone calls and arrangements. Then we went to UMC to drop off Jim’s wedding photos and to thank them for their gifts. We ended up going to Jeremy’s favorite dumpling place in the science park. I was so impressed. Something has happened during the past 3 days, but Jeremy’s Chinese has made a quantum leap. His Chinese conversation is going so well and so fluid, he doesn’t need a lot of prompting or reminding of words. It is amazing something really is clicking for him. Then Vince and I napped, Jeremy went to the science park and did errands. Then we went downstairs and played with Mr. Hong. Then Helen came over and cooked up a storm. It was such a wonderful dinner with lots of talking and laughing and cooking. They are all so sweet, they bought Vince horse necklaces, one gold on jade. And we talked and gossiped about kids misbehaving and fish that die.



Today felt like a busy day. We took Vince to the babysitter. Doris went to yoga class while I made arrangements for our upcoming trip to Japan and Hong Kong. Then we had Tepanyaki for lunch with our friend Helen at the Carleton spa. After lunch I made a quick trip the office while Vincent napped. When I came hme we visited with Hong Shen Sen, Liuo Shao Jie and company, and spent some time in the ball room playing. In the ball room, a very nice 5 year old girl invited us up to her apartment to play. Apparently she has more toys there. But Vince was gettng tired to we came home instead. We cooked some beef and onions, and shao bai tsai for dinner, and Man Fai joined us. Now we are going to watch Amile and go to bed. Oops, I hope it has English subtitles and not just Chinese…

Did so much today! Got the furniture from the rosewood maker in Taipei, it is beautiful. We went to the bank and closed our accounts and wired money back to our US accounts. I was very impressed with myself! I can do bank business in Chinese. Then we went to lunch at a Hakka place in Chubei with the metals and dielectrics group. Then I came home and did the regular routine and Jeremy went to work. Then we went out to dinner with the CMP group. Vince had a great time, and no naps! So many nice people 🙂

We are still a bit sick today. I went to yoga today and immediately felt better after I spoke to my Japanese friends. A bit of cold spaghetti for lunch and Jeremy came home today at 3. We are working out details of our move and trying to figure out who to see before we leave. We got some great pictures of us taken at the studio and I’m trying to post those up…

IBM and AMD are in cahoots! There, I said it. It is in all the papers today. Jeremy has pretty much stopped going to work. I think he’ll go in on Monday, but then after that, people are leaving! I told the nanny, I never knew much she needs the gig, but she seemed to take it in stride. I also to Kiko at the gym and we also told the bun making people. Vince is starting to be tough to take care of at home. He always wants to be outside playing with kids. We spent the evening in the ball room, we did cartwheels and flipping and rolling. Just great!

Today, I spent an hour downstairs in the lobby and I brought over Vincie’s walker from the realtor’s. He had a ball. We talked with Olivia’s mom, with Susan and Zephen and whoever just stopped by :). We are also planning our trip to Tokyo and Hong Kong.


So we got the big announcement today about our future AMD plans. As it is all top secret, I will not reveal it here until it is “official”. Today, Jeremy came home early because he’s ill again. There is a wave of colds going around Hsinchu. We went to the Hsinchu Hospital to get Vince’s green thumb looked at by a dermatologist. She took one swipe of it with a blade and all this green goop came out and gave us a prescription for antibiotics and some topical cream. She also gave us some ointment for Vince’s drool rash around his mouth.

Today we came back to Hsin-Chu, officially ending our long vacation. I (Jeremy) have been at work only 2 out of the last 6 weeks, so it has been a long break. My Father and Brother are headed back to the states, my Mother left for Ghana to build a middle school a few days ago. The day was not too eventful. We took Vince to see the doctor because he has a wierd green thing in his thumb. It looks like a cross between a splinter and a wart, but it is bright green. Anyway, the Doctor told us to see a dematologist at the Hosital and gave us a referal. But the most exciting part of the day was parking our car near the Doctors office. We saw evidence that the enforcement of illegal parking has picked up (chalk licence plate numbers and phone numbers left when cars are towed) and so drove around the neighboorhood looking for legal parking. We found this huge tall narrow building with six large mechanical doors on the front and signage indicatimg you could park there. We figured out it was an automated mechanical parking garage, and after talking with a nearby attendant, we drove up, the door opened, we droved the car into two little slots, and following the directions of a chinese computer voice, we got out of the car and walked out of the building. The door closed behind us, and once we had entered the licence plate in the computer, the car was turned sideways, and lifted high into the air, and put on a shelf with a bunch of other cars. It seems that they can stack the cars 20 high on either side of the narrow building. With 6 doors in a row, this amounts to 120 cars parked in the space it would normally take to park 18 cars. It only cost us 20NT (60 cents) for having the car there about 40 minutes, making it the most economical amusement we have had in some time. I want one for our house, but I guess since we don’t have 180 cars it would be a waste.