Continued from Taipei Day 1 & 2.

Taipei Day 3

What to do in Taipei…so much time, so little motivation to do much with the baby. I guess breakfast is a must.

My typical breakfast, marinated minced pork belly over rice. So much win! Then after breakfast, it’s time for our first nap of the day. We are taking things so casually.

Finally, it’s not raining today. Time to head out of the hotel. We need to source some baby food, then go visit aunt J.

At the grocery store next to our hotel, surprised that they only had formula but no solid foods for infants.

What the fuck car…why are you driving on the sidewalk?

Down in the metro station, heading to Din Tai Fung to meet up with Aunt J.

It’s Saturday today, not nearly as busy in the station.

Ahhh, priority seats on the train.

Side note: Most people in America think that PL looks like me, whereas here in Taiwan, most people think PL looks like RL. I guess each country are used to picking out facial features that are unusual from what they see regularly.

Nice and empty train this late morning.

There’s a wait at DTF at noon. Of course. It’ll be about 30min or so, but Aunt J isn’t here yet, so we’ll wait.

So disappointed in this. All those waiting chairs had the priority seating label on them, but no one would yield their seat for RL who is carrying PL. Rude motherfuckers, so disappointed. Finally, an middle aged gentleman finally gets up and offers RL his seat. Sigh.

As our table number gets closer to being called, I talked to Aunt J, who said that she’s at the front of DTF. I am standing at the front, but I don’t see Aunt J…Errrr. After some confusion, we realized that we had made a communication error and that we are at two different DTF in Taipei!!! AARRGGHHH. There are so many DTF in Taipei now, we weren’t specific enough about which one to meet up at…oops. Aunt J is only about 15min away by subway, so she told us to go ahead and get our table, and she’ll just meet us when she gets here.

Got our table, finally. Baby eats first.

Food arrives, and Aunt J arrives as well.

PL’s such a handful to hold. She keeps on turning around, and around, and around. Sigh.

Yum, so good!

After lunch, it’s time to head back to the subway to another mall, where Aunt J had parked her car.

Everyone’s out in full force now and the subway stations are packed.

Ah, how refreshing. We get on the subway, and someone immediately offers RL his seat. Thank you! It is very tiring caring a baby around.

Now at another shopping center, where we’ll buy some fruits and whatnot.

Look, lots of baby food here!

Yeah, that’s nice, but come on we need to check out and go. As you can see, PL got tired and fell asleep. Speaking of which, PL has been sleeping much more than usual on this trip than at home. I think all the stimulation of being out and about just tires her out quickly, and she ends up taking long naps all throughout the day. All those long naps makes it tough to be out of the hotel for longer than 3 hours or so at a time. Even though PL is mostly willing to fall asleep in her carrier, she doesn’t sleep long in it, and it kills our backs. Anything more than one carrier nap a day, then we are asking for disaster fussy baby and achy back.

Hahaha, they sell this at the grocery store too. Yeah lady, put those balls all over your face! Hahaha. And then look left at some of those other exercise items! What’s up with all these items looking like sex toys?

Ohhh, they’ve got a rotating sushi place here, too bad we already ate.

Now in the car, heading to Aunt J’s house. Never been there before. It’s so annoying traveling with a carseat. We had to lug that thing around with us all across the subways and malls, just so we can use it in Aunt J’s car. Also, speaking of car seats, none of the cars in Taiwan have the ratcheting seatbelt function to lock a carseat in place. At first I thought it was just taxis that do not have it, but even in Aunt J’s VW Golf, it does not come with that function. I guess maybe the ratcheting seat belt is only an US requirement.

A giant arena, with construction stopped due to political/corruption scandal…or something like that.

After 25min or so, we’ve reached Aunt J’s house. Look, it’s Asa, ie. Bad 3!!

Nothing like some hand pulled coffee.

We had gotten some wax apples at the grocery store in the mall. Goes with homemade tiramisu and cappuccino…maybe.

Homemade chocolate covered almonds by Aunt J, yum!

Coffee art finally works.

Ugh…getting so tired despite coffee. We’ve been out of our hotel for about 5 hours, and we are fading fast. With the baby, we accomplish so little while exerting so much effort everyday.

Since we are fading fast, we know we won’t have the energy to go out for dinner later tonight. Ordered some pizza from around the corner from Aunt J’s place to take with us back for dinner.

Back in the carseat, heading back to hotel.

Taipei 101. the visibility hasn’t been great in Taiwan, damn pollution blown over from China.

When we got back to the hotel, we immediately put PL down for her third nap of the day. While that nap was happening, I came to this coffee shop just one store away from our hotel to do some blogging. Loving this place. It’s called Swing Coffee, and they play nothing but blues and swing music here.

The coffee is also amazing here. This shall be my home away from home.

After blogging, it was back to hotel to eat the now cold pizza. Still beats taking the baby with us and walking around looking for food though.

Some guava to cap the meal tonight. I lost some weight while traveling through Japan, but I am definitely gaining the weight back now that I am in Taiwan.

Taipei Day 4

Another day in Taipei…what to do today. Let’s see, breakfast, then nap, then meet up with Aunt J for lunch. After that, we’ll shop for some children’s books in Mandarin for PL. Doesn’t sound like much, but I am sure we’ll be exhausted by the end of the day.

Breakfast, what to eat.

Of course, gotta go to my go-to.

It’s Sunday, and this being a business hotel, not too many people staying here today.

My back has been killing me from carrying PL in the front carry position. Fortunate for us, our carrier also has a back carry position!! Much better on my back!

Sunday, meaning most of the places are closed around our hotel. Wonder if most restaurants will be open tonight for us…

Mega Bank!!! Sounds so sinister.

I think these are buildings of a local college. Looks post apocalyptical with all those plants growing on their facade, cool.

Down the subway we go.

Apparently, this is where everyone’s at.

We made it to the shopping center for lunch before Aunt J and Aunt J’s girlfriend HL. We made sure to make more explicit instructions so that we wouldn’t have the location mix up like we had yesterday.

Ohhh, rotating sushi!! We hadn’t planned on a specific restaurant to eat at, but we were sold once we saw this rotating sushi(we ate here on our last visit to Taiwan).

Wish we had a good rotating sushi place in Austin. Also, wish the sushi prices were cheap in Austin like they are here in Asia.

Love hand rolls. Crunchy goodness!

PL, a handful like always.

More hand rolls!!

Look at all those salmon pieces. Yum!

OK, done with sushi, time for some dessert.

This is the spot, they sell soft tofu Taiwanese dessert.

Must eat strap!

Ahhh, yum.

PL eats veal. I knew the photo was blurry, but RL took away the bottle from me before I could take a second photo. Poop!

After food, it’s time to shop for some books for PL. Since there’s no Amazon in Taiwan, giant well stocked bookstores still exist over here. This bookstore is like 5 stories tall, and it’s a mix between bookstore/world market/toys r us/etc. Maybe a mall that also sells books on every floor is a better description for it.

House of cards!

Man Power peanuts…

Ah, the kids section. Now that I’m a dad…I guess this is my section too. Ohhh…Legos!

Now, books for the pooper. Overwhelmed, too many to choose from. I decided to use the same tactic that I use for picking birthday cards, except inverse. I always review the birthday cards that are almost empty, because experience that those are the more popular ones. With books here, I pick the ones that seems to have multiple copies in stock, because those are probably the more popular ones…maybe.

Getting tired, again.

OK, fine. Daddy and mommy are tired too, let’s go back to our hotel and nap.

Cutest thing ever.

When we arrived at our ending subway station, we could smell roasted sweet potatoes inside the station. We exited to station to find this, yup, will buy one.

Again, those cool plant covered buildings.

Taiwanese sweet potatoes, so good!

Long nap later, it’s time to eat. Who’s lazier, the baby or daddy?

This Italian place a block away from the hotel will do for dinner. We are tired, and it’s raining, so something close by will do.

We placed our order, and PL decided that she’s having none of it. She just would not sit still or quiet down…errr this isn’t going to end well.

Interesting that they have Tabasco sauce at an “Italian” restaurant”.

Here’s your toy, play with it, please!

We ended up getting our order to go. PL is super fussy, and despite waking up from a nap not long ago, she’s showing signs of being tired again. It’s just easier to eat this back at the hotel where there are less stimulation for PL.

Daddy needs to de-stress from fussy little animal. This is the Taiwan Beer Classic, brewed with rice! Not as good as the green label one though.

Again, didn’t do much today but exhausted at the end of the day anyway. Every aspect of traveling is just more difficult with a baby…actually, life is just more difficult with a baby. But, she’s so cute though! I guess that’s her redeeming value!

To be continued at Taipei Day 5 & 6.