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Now we were really starting to wrap up our trip and make up for the lack of activity during the "sick" portion of our trip.
The day after we went to Hsinchu and Neiwan, we set off again, this time for Taichung, to visit dad's older sister. However, being the wealthy tycoon that she is, she was not ready to meet with us until late afternoon, so we visited the Taichung Science Museum to pass the time.
Walking towards the museum
Waiting for Dad to park
What are they looking at?
Big bubbles - I couldn't catch one on camera though...
This was really cool - rubbing the edge of the bowl at the right frequency caused it to resonate and hum, and in turn you could see the water ripple at the resonant frequency! Geeky, I know.
Leashed!
This was the Taiwan Semiconductor Corporation exhibit, which featured a mockup clean room. Geekiness FTW
Bunny suit
My favorite exhibit - the Perspective house. Look how big Fifi is!
The effect is much more pronounced with adults though!
It's even more effective with adults roughly the same size!
After the museum, we finally met up with my aunt at her upscale condo, where we mostly sat while Aunt and uncle showed us photos from their recent vacation to Croatia before heading out for dinner at a local "Sour soup" restaurant. Sour soup is characterized by liberal use of pickled cabbage/radish, which is definitely something of an acquired taste. Which was just as well, since I wasn't able to enjoy much of dinner anyway as Fifi was dead tired at this point and having trouble sitting by herself. Such is the difficulties of traveling with a young child!
On the last day before Cherry, Fifi, and I headed back to the U.S., I went to get a haircut in the morning at a really "hometown" barbershop. It was literally in the owner's house. I was expecting it to be really cheap (once upon a time, I got really cheap haircuts any time I was in Asia, and typically they did a better job than the economy barbershops here in the states). But it turned out to be not so cheap (about $6, similar to a low-end shop here in the U.S.) and mediocre in quality. Costs are rising everywhere - if only our incomes did at the same rate!
After my haircut, we briefly toured the downtown shopping area of Taoyuan before Mom called us back home for lunch. In the afternoon, we were off to Miaoli for our last family visitation. Miaoli is home to my mothers' youngest aunt and her husband Dai Wu-Kuang, who is a well-known artist in Taiwan. See below for a photo and some samples of his work:
Great-Uncle Dai Wu-Kuang
Great-uncle Wu-Kuang is a bit of a literati and critic of the Cultural Revolution, the period of time in about the 60s and 70s where artists and scholars were persecuted in China by the Communists. It makes for a bit of an interesting visit, especially since Cherry is from the Mainland! Still, he gave us another one of his beautiful traditional watercolor paintings, which we framed when we got back to the U.S.
Most of the art around the house was produced by my mom's uncle. Unfortunately, I didn't get many photos of the artwork...
Pretty beat from the ongoing debates about the Cultural Revolution!
After a while, we went to dinner with Mom's aunt at a traditional Hakka restaurant. Frankly, I didn't think much of the food, but it did have one of the fabled elevators with no fourth floor! (The number 4 is a homonym for "death" in many dialects of Chinese):
No fourth floor!
We retired back to Taoyuan for one last night and made the long flight back to the U.S.A. the next day, passing through Japan!
It seems like just yesterday when we started going through all this baby stuff with the now not-so-babyish Fifi!
At 8:14 in the morning of Thursday, February 21, Baby Lukas arrived!
Baby Lukas weighed in at 7 pounds, 8 ounces, just like his older sister! He was a little shorter, though, at just 19.5 inches...
First, some preface:
Because Grandma Huang was not making the trip to Florida this time, we had to find some ways to have someone watch Fifi during the first few days at the hospital. In particular, the first step was to get someone to watch her literally during the delivery, since Fifi could not possibly be a part of that ordeal.
Enter co-workers Bill and Margaret, who graciously volunteered to take care of Fifi a few weeks before the big day. To prep, they came over to play with Fifi a few times to get everyone familiar:
Fifi hit it off with Margaret right away!
It turned out to be a good idea, because on the big day, Fifi was reportedly a breeze to take care of. Margaret and Bill were very impressed with her good behavior and her penchant for studying! Thanks Margaret and Bill, it was a huge help!
As if things could not get more stressful prior to the big day, my Corolla's lock cylinder ignition finally failed for good the night before our scheduled delivery date. I should have replaced that thing when I had the chance earlier - as it turned out, I ended up leaving the car in the Publix parking lot for several days until my dad helped me tow it to a shop to get it repaired for probably about three times of what it would have cost if I'd gone ahead and fixed it several months ago...
On the day of the C-section delivery, Cherry and I got to the hospital dark and early in the morning (at about 5:30 AM - thanks again Bill and Margaret!). Once again, Cherry had a fairly lengthy recovery so I didn't return home until about noon. I spent a few hours with Fifi before taking her to the hospital to see her new brother:
At about 8 PM, Grandpa and Grandma arrived:
We spent some quality time together:
Over the next several days, as Cherry recovered in the hospital, Mom worked at home making traditional Chinese post-partum meals. In traditional Chinese culture, after delivering a baby, the diet is critical. It should be very light in flavor and in oils, but full of protein. There are some other more odd aspects as well - such as not washing your hair for days - though I suspect these traditions were more to combat less than optimum sanitation conditions in the old days. Regardless, we worked to make sure Cherry got her warm chicken soup and Chinese herbs three times a day! In addition to cooking duty, Mom and Dad also worked tirelessly watching Fifi while I was at the hospital with Cherry. Thanks Mom and Dad!
Interestingly, it seems like Baby Lukas is a little different than his sister was. For instance, he is much quieter, not crying much at all. But the biggest difference so far as we can tell is that he does not share the same aversion to feeding from the breast that Fifi had. This actually caused some problems at first because Cherry's milk hadn't come in yet! But I think this will come to pass fairly quickly as her milk starts to really come in.
On Sunday night, Lukas came home!
Uncle Ed and Aunt Sarah came to visit too!
Fifi and Lukas
Fifi has had to... shall we say... adjust quite a bit. She clearly isn't used to not being the center of attention as she has been much more difficult to manage in the last couple of days since Lukas came home. Still, she clearly is very interested in Lukas:
Fifi reading to her little brother
It will just have to take some time for her to get adjusted, though!
As we did with Fifi, we celebrated Lukas one week birthday today!
Now, to start the "Baby Lukas Milestones" series...
