Migrating Blog Platforms

After ignoring the back-end of my blog for way too long I finally decided to migrate off Serendipity. I installed Serendipity back in 2005 when there were many interesting choices for blogging platforms. However, I didn’t keep up with the updates and the comment spam was out of control.

Long story short, I’m now on WordPress. At this point, I don’t have any URL redirection for links to old entries. I manually updated the ones within my own posts and I think the only other person who ever links to me is Jaeger. So, Jaeger may end up writing something for his own convenience.

Anyway, I’m still not convinced WordPress is the best option but it’s working well enough now that I think I can ignore it for another couple of years.

Now, if you want the longer story . . .

My initial plan was to migrate my blog to a hosted option where updates were nicely taken care of for me. I started researching blog hosting options and was surprised by the lack of options. I was leaning toward using Blogger since it would fit most of my needs. However, I was stumped over how to import my entries from Serendipity into Blogger. Serendipity provided me with a nice RSS feed of all my entries but there didn’t appear to be an obvious way to take those entries and import them into Blogger.

I spent several hours poking and grumbling out loud at which point Jaeger started suggesting that I should try out wordpress.org ¹. I was resistant because I really wanted a hosted option. However, after several more hours, I decided I didn’t care that much and was willing to give WordPress a try. At the very least, it’s such a popular platform that presumably there are many anti-spam widget options available.

Jaeger started the famous 5-minute install which turned out to be more than 5 minutes but, all things considered, wasn’t too bad. Importing my entries was fairly trivial. Importing the comments was a lot trickier since there didn’t appear to be an easy tool to do that.

Eventually, I dumped all my comments out of Serendipity, importanted them into gnumeric, ordered them by date and, using the date, attempted to match them up to the new IDs in WordPress. This worked reasonably well but wasn’t perfect since the dates seemed to be subtly different, even when adjusting for timezones. However, I only had a couple hundred entries so it wasn’t too painful to sanity check the date ordering.

Once I got the IDs matched up, I figured out what columns were equivalent between Serendipity and WordPress and then put fake values in the new columns. Then I exported the data with a | as the field separator.

My next task was to try to bulk import these values into the WordPress database. After some fumbling, I discovered that I had to be root to do this (why?). After some fiddling with the mysqlimport options, everything finally seemed to import into the database correctly. “Approving” the comments on the database side didn’t seem to make them show on the web side so I went through and bulk unapproved and then reapproved the comments through WordPress’ web interface.

The last bit was figuring out what template to use and which widgets to install. I stuck with the default template. However, I felt the header image was a bit too large ² and in an odd place so I made it smaller and moved it between the blog title and menu sections.

For plugins, I installed a spam plugin ³, a URL checker, footnotes, and then one that let me add javascript to my sidebare so I could add my LibraryThing widget.

I’m still not sure why he was pushing WordPress. It uses MySQL and PHP, both of which Jaeger considers evil. ↩
Possibly this is because my laptop’s screen is fairly small by modern standards. ↩
I have seen suggestions that installing multiple spam plugins is best but I’m going to stick with one to start with and see how that goes. ↩

A Computer for Calvin

A couple of weeks ago I was on Craigslist and stumbled across a listing for a preschool desk with two chairs. It looked adorable and I knew, given research I had done previously, that it was at a pretty good price. I’ve been thinking about getting Calvin a desk for a while but just haven’t. I seriously considered the desk on Craigslist but I’m trying to avoid buying any bulky items that we have to sell or will be difficult to store when we move in a couple of years. So, I passed on the desk and wondered if that was a good choice.

Yesterday, I was practicing the piano when it suddenly occurred to me that we already had the top of a desk, we just needed legs for it. I ventured down into the basement and pulled out one of the desk tops that belong to the cubicles Jaeger inherited. It’s about 2’x4′ and fit perfectly in a corner of the family room. However, the cubicle legs it’s suppose to attach to are obviously too tall for Calvin. I did some research and found a website that said the desk should be between 18-20″ high. I briefly contemplated whether I could take some of the unpacked boxes and stick them under as table legs. However, the idea wasn’t appealing to me. I continued thinking of low-cost solutions and then hit upon the idea of trying out concrete blocks.

I went to pick Calvin up at preschool and told him we were going on an expedition to look for a table for him. Calvin insisted that he didn’t want a table and I briefly considered abandoning the idea but I had a bee in my bonnet. I told him that I wanted to try it out and if he didn’t like it, we’d take the table down. Off to home depot we (crankily) went and I picked up four 8x8x16 concrete blocks. Including tax, they cost a little less than $8. We went back home and I arranged the concrete blocks and then placed the table on top. Next, I dragged down my old 8″ mini-exercise step that has recently been a step-stool for Calvin and set it as a seat in front of the table. It turned out to be the perfect size for Calvin. I then setup Calvin’s old computer, Illyria, and Calvin got a chance to try out the new setup. After seeing it all together, he decided it was an improvement and wanted to keep the table.

About a year ago I had setup Illyria to be more toddler/preschool friendly. My parents had given us a kids keyboard that had some special games with it which Calvin enjoys. However, I wanted to setup the rest of the computer specifically for him too. I found a couple of websites that I thought he’d like to play and then found a Firefox add-on to whitelist websites so he could only go to the ones I allowed (and, more importantly, he doesn’t accidentally get to other random websites due to accidentally clicking on ads). I setup the desktop with shortcuts to the website and then changed the default to have shortcuts open with a single click rather than a double click. Calvin tried it out and the theory seemed to work fine but the mouse was really hard for him to use and he kept asking for help. We didn’t have a spot for his computer to be and it was a pain to get in and out so we mostly ignored it for a year.

Yesterday, when I got the computer out again, Calvin seemed to remember the games he had played before. The mouse is still a little tricky for him to use but at this point he has enough coordination that he can eventually get it to move the way he wants and click on things. The main site Calvin has been playing with so far is Sesame Street.

Illyria is pretty old at this point. You can see her specs here. She has no wireless card so I have her hooked to one of the handy nearby ethernet jacks Jaeger installed when we moved into this house. Getting decent software for Calvin that can run on Windows 2000 may be a bit of a challenge. The library actually does check out some software but we’re straining to meet even their minimum requirements. After Calvin went to bed, I contemplated various children-friendly Linux options. I did some research and came across a couple of decent looking possibilities.

Edubuntu – From what I’ve read, it looks pretty full-featured but seems to be mostly aimed for classroom use. Also, Illyria is not beefy enough to run it.

Sugar – Apparently it was developed as part of the One Laptop per Child project. However, while Linux based, I understand the interface is radically different than adults are use to dealing with. I was still curious but some browsing made it appear that, once again, Illyria would have trouble handling it.

Qimo is yet another distribution but this one looked more promising as one website reported, “Qimo uses a customized Xfce interface thus allowing it to be used even on computers with the lowest of specs.”

DoudouLinux received high marks from a number of sources and looked like Illyria might be able to handle it.

I started with Qimo. I downloaded it and burnt it to a CD and then had Illyria boot to CD. Qimo has a handy feature where you can either choose to install it or run it as a Live CD so you can evaluate it without making irreparable changes to your existing OS. It booted very slowly and the programs took a while to load but it did work. The slowness would drive me nuts but I really need to stick Calvin in front of it and see what he thinks. Qimo, like most of the other kid-focused Linux distros comes with a suite of Linux-based edutainment options.

Next, I dried Doudoulinux. Doudoulinux also runs as a Live CD. However, it turns out that Illyria wasn’t quite beefy enough to run it. It would mostly load and then randomly stop before we got to the desktop. However, I was successfully able to pull it up on Adara and see how it works. Tentatively, I think I might like the interface a bit more than Qimo.

At this point, I’m not willing to commit Calvin to an exclusive relationship with Linux. I still need to tinker a bit more and also see how much Calvin is really using his computer before I decide what the best long-term option is. I haven’t run out of kid-friendly Linux distros to try so there might be an even better option available but Illyria is old enough that nothing runs perfectly on her.

Calvin, Math, and Allowances

Every so often Calvin and I bake together. Usually it’s something unhealthy like cookies or brownies. For some reason, they’re usually more fun. Plus, they don’t tend to require as many sharp objects in preparation as entrees do. The more I cook, the more I’m convinced it is one of the best practical forms of math for children. I remember fractions being a really hard concept for most of the people in my elementary school. Yet, fractions are all over the place when cooking.

When Calvin “helps” me cook, I usually measure things out but then let him pour whatever the ingredient is into the mixing bowl. A couple of days ago we were making a dessert and I was doling out the cocoa powder. He put the first tablespoon of cocoa powder in. Then, I told him that we needed a total of 3 tablespoons and asked if we already put one in, how many more did we need? To my mild surprise, he correctly answered 2. Yes, a very simple problem but I hadn’t seen him do anything more complicated than basic counting before. A little later on in the process, we needed to add a 1/4 cup of something. I told him we were adding “a fourth cup” and asked him, if we wanted 1 cup, how many fourth cups should we do. He responded with “four.” I can’t guarantee this answer wasn’t a fluke but I still thought it was interesting.

Several months ago I contemplated an allowance for Calvin but, after a bit of research, decided he probably wasn’t ready for it. Most of the books I read recommended starting at school age because it’s hard to understand money without understanding quantities. At that time, Calvin wasn’t exhibiting much numeracy other than some very basic counting so I abandoned the idea. However, my recent cooking experience with Calvin made me think it was perhaps a good time to reconsider the allowance concept.

A rule of thumb I’ve seen several places is to give a child $1 per week per year of age. Since Calvin would be turning four in March, I decided to start with $4/week because it’s an easier number to deal with than $3. My tentative plan is to pay him on Fridays and give him $2 with no strings each week with $1 to go into a “giving” and $1 into a “savings” categories. With giving, I’m hoping to find some child-friendly charities he might be interested in and give him a choice. Then for savings, I’m going to give him an interest rate of 5% compounded monthly. My reading suggested that interest rates have to be fairly high for children to understand the value of savings. I’m not sure if he’s young enough to really understand interest yet but I figure it can’t hurt to start out with it and than backpedal if it confuses him too much.

I picked Calvin up from preschool and as he was getting in the car, I asked him what he’d like to do that afternoon. I suggested reading, playing with legos, or an art project. Calvin informed me that he wasn’t interested in an art project because he was out of glue. Then he asked me if we could go buy some more glue. I figured this was as good a time as any to discuss the concept of an allowance with him. I told him that we couldn’t go buy glue today but we were going to start giving him an allowance on Fridays of $4, two of which he could spend immediately. I also told him that if, once he had the $2, he wanted to go buy glue, we could go do that. Calvin seemed very excited by the idea of allowance and mentioned that when Jaeger got home he wanted to “tell daddy the good news.”

We got home and Calvin immediately wanted to find something he could use to put his allowance in on Friday. I had actually been hoping I could stick to virtual money. I don’t remember when my parents started an allowance with me, probably around school age. However, until I was a teenager, it consisted of a ledger where mom would enter our regular allowance and then subtract anything we bought. I was hoping the same system would work with Calvin but from what he was saying, it was obvious he wanted tangible money he could touch. I gave in mainly because it made sense that at this age he would better understand the concept of money if he could hold it.

Having resigned myself to giving allowance with physical money, which also means I need to make sure to have physical money on hand, we needed to figure out what he was going to store it in. Calvin suggested a piggy bank which I thought was a little odd because I don’t remember talking about piggy banks with him before. Though, maybe there has been some mention in some of his story time books. However, I didn’t want to spend the money to buy a piggy bank, didn’t want to deplete his allowance before he even got it for the cost of one, and didn’t have a convenient container that could be retrofitted as a piggy bank. We searched the house for some sort of minimalistic zippered wallet but came up empty. Finally I settled on the idea of using duck tape to make a duck tape wallet. They’re pretty popular so it was fairly easy to come up with instructions for making one. Calvin started out “helping” me make the wallet but wandered off before it was completely finished. That may have been for the best. It turned out reasonably well. It has a place for dollar bills, a tiny ziplock-like bag that I duck taped in for his change, as well as one credit card slot to hold his library card.

Since Calvin hasn’t had his first allowance yet, all it has at the moment is his library card, which I had been carrying around in my wallet. I showed the wallet to Calvin and he seemed excited by it. I wrote his first name and my phone number on the inside and then he “decorated” the outside with a black sharpie. I told him that to make sure he didn’t lose the wallet, he needed to pick a safe place in his bedroom to store the wallet anytime he wasn’t taking it to the store to buy something.

Tonight, as Calvin went to bed, he sung to himself to sleep with, “money, money, money.” I’m not entirely sure why he’s so excited by the idea of an allowance but he definitely is very excited. Jaeger is dubious but I think I’ve more or less convinced him, at least for the moment. Truthfully, I’m a little dubious too but it should be interesting to see how Calvin handles the concept of an allowance.

Cat5 Update

Too much info about my Cat5:

Cat5 has been having litter box problems for over a year now. Sometimes it gets better and sometimes worse but it hasn’t gone away completely yet. I suspect a lot of this is due to the stress of all the changes she’s gone through this past year. She gets constipated and then we have to take her to the vet to get an enema (this, as you can imagine, is fun for everyone). In addition, she goes in the litter box but has been inadvertently dragging feces out with her. This is a very bad thing with a preschooler around the house.

We boarded the cats over Christmas for 2 weeks while we were in Hong Kong/China. While there, she once again had became constipated. At that time, the vet suggested we try switching food on her to one that is high fiber and specifically designed for cats with intestinal problems. I agreed to try it but Five couldn’t keep it down. She was vomiting 2-3 times a day. I know a certain amount of stomach distress is common when switching food but she kept throwing up for 2 weeks which seemed excessive. Plus, I was worried that she wasn’t keeping enough food down. Her stools were a lot softer but still were ending out of the litter box.

I made another appointment with the vet and took her in yesterday evening. To my relief, he does think it’s unlikely it’s her anal sphixter that’s the problem as that’s apparently quite rare with cats, even those that have bowel problems. Also, when the vet felt her, it didn’t feel like she was constipated at all which is a very positive sign. He hopes that if we just get the proper food mixture, not too hard and not too soft, everything will go back to normal. So, I took home a different bag of cat food with hopes that it provides better results. On the plus side she hasn’t thrown up today. I hope we get this figured out . . .

Traveling Home: Two Fridays for the Price of One

We woke up on Friday in time to catch our 6:30 car ride to the airport. On Wednesday, since the phone attempts had failed, we had emailed United and ANA asking for clarification on what was going on with the seats for our first flight. On Thursday we did hear back from United and ANA. United claimed they couldn’t request specific seat arrangements because they don’t have the seat maps for ANA. Fine . . . except we learned from ANA that they aren’t allowed to touch United seats until the 24-hrs immediately before the flight takes off which United hadn’t mentioned every time they told us to ask ANA for seats. I think perhaps the 2nd ANA person I talked to on the phone had been trying to explain this to me but we were having a communication problem (Calvin was screeching in my ear which made it harder for me to interpret everything).

Anyway, we made it to the airport and stood in line to check-in. From what I’ve read, having children ride in car seats in cars in fairly uncommon in Taiwan (though I think this is changing) so taking the car seat on the plane is probably unheard of except for crazy foreigners like us. In any case, we somehow managed to confuse the flight attendant that checked us in so it took longer than we expected but eventually we thought everything was figured out. Because the iPad entertained Calvin so well on the way out, I reduced the number of other toys I brought out and was able to consolidate Calvin and my carry-on bags to 2 (versus the three we’d used on the way out).

After check-in was over we headed over to the security line which I discovered was huge. I’m not sure if it was longer than the security line at Denver but it was certainly organized less well. Instead of a large official queue, there was a smaller queue section with people lined up past all the check-in counters queuing for the queue. As I was looking at it in disbelief a security guard came by, saw Calvin, and motioned that we should follow him. We followed him and he passed us off to another security guard. Neither really spoke English so we weren’t entirely sure what was going on until someone who’s flight was soon, and thus was getting priority security screening, explained that because we had a child with us, they wanted us to skip the line and go straight into the priority queue. Once again, I felt a little sheepish about it but didn’t try to pass up the opportunity. As a result, we passed through security and immigration fairly quickly.

We got breakfast at one of the terminals and then managed to board our plane, with Calvin’s car seat. I was very glad I had gotten our carry-on down to two bags as the area under the seat only fit two bags (on my prior flights I was able to fit all three bags under the seat). The flight served a meal but we had booked through United, which claimed the flight didn’t have a meal, so we weren’t able to request a vegetarian meal. Personally, I am not pleased with how United integrates with its airline partners. There’s got to be a better way to do it.

The flight was unexceptional and we landed in Tokyo. Unfortunately, Calvin decided right at that point he needed to go potty. Calvin and I rushed off the plane leaving Jaeger to deal with the car seat. We dashed towards the nearest restroom, which wasn’t nearly close enough, and I almost despaired when I saw there was a good 10-15 women ahead of us. However, then one women pointed out a room specifically for the handicapped and children and I rushed in. It was a little too late but at least we got there before Calvin started actually dripping onto the floor, or me. The bathroom was amazing. They had all sorts of contraptions, for what I’m not sure, but it looked like a very
useful room if I had any idea what some of the stuff was for. The extra large sink with a hose attached looked great for a diaper explosion but I’m not sure that’s what it was intended for. The toilet momentarily confused me as there were all sorts of functions on a control on the seat, all in Japanese, but finally I figured out the flush was on the wall. Because Calvin hadn’t had any accidents on the way out I had reduced my extra clothes down to 2 spare pair of pants and 4 pairs of underwear. Given how much flying we had left to do, I was nervous about having to use up one pair of pants already.

After I got out of the bathroom we queued for the international security screening. This time I remembered to make sure my water battles were emptied and we passed through without any incident. As an aside, of all the screenings we went through, the US was the only place where we had to take off our shoes. When I asked at one security point if I had to take off my shoes they looked at me like I was insane. Pass security, we found our gate and plugged in our electronics to charge. Jaeger stayed to watch them while I wandered around looking for food. The vegetarian options were grim. Eventually I found a place that had edamame and pizza (very sad pizza) so that’s what I brought back. After we finished that, Jaeger left in search of better food in a different concourse while I continued to watch our electronics charge. After Jaeger got back we went to the little play area we had visited on the way out and Calvin played for a bit. A few minutes before our flight I took Calvin on another potty break and I once again got to figure out Japanese toilets. This toilet had a panel on the side that buttons labeled in English. One button said it was a “flush sound”. Since I wasn’t immediately finding a flush button, I experimentally pushed the flush sound thinking it might just be a translation error. No, it just made an electronic sounding flushing sound. Later, Jaeger posited that this was to cover up the sound of using the toilet. I looked it up and seemed to find collaborating evidence that claims Japanese women didn’t like the sounds of using the restroom and so would continuously flush to cover it up. Ok, that’s fine. But, why did the cover-up sound have to be flushing? Surely there’s another sound that would work just as well and be more pleasant.

I did eventually find the correct flush button and Calvin and I were able to exit the restroom. When I relayed my experience to Jaeger he noted that in his restroom you had icons on the stalls indicating what kind of toilet the stall contained (squat, sit-down, or enhanced sit-down) so I probably accidentally chose a stall that contained an enhanced toilet. In retrospect, I regret that I didn’t document the various toilets I found more thoroughly. There were some that I really liked. For example, one family restroom I used had a regular toilet a tiny divider, and then a preschooler-size toilet next to the large one. Then, they had a large sink and a little sink. It made using the bathroom with Calvin much quicker and easier. Also, I really appreciated that most of the toilets we used did not automatically flush. I’m sure automatic flushing toilets can make people feel more sanitary, or something, but they really scare Calvin. I always scary post-it notes with me to place over the sensors of automatic toilets so they don’t prematurely flush.

Eventually, we boarded our plane to Seattle and took off. This plane was obviously older than the one we flew out on. The entertainment system was a little on the older side. We each had personal screens but instead of having movies/TV on demand, each channel had a movie that repeated the entire flight. So, it was a little tricky to catch the movie at the beginning. However, this wasn’t a huge problem because the movie selection was very dismal. Fortunately, the iPad
entertained Calvin until I asked him to try sleeping, which he did. It helped that it was dark outside so he felt it was a legitimate time to try sleeping. Calvin did go through one-more pair of pants though he claims, perhaps correctly, that it was water instead an accident. I was a little bored but it wasn’t too bad. I felt I should nap but had trouble doing so and spent a fair amount of the flight listening to an audiobook on my iPod. Even though this plane didn’t have electricity I didn’t have any need to pull out the external batteries for the iPad. However, I hadn’t been as vigilant in making sure my iPod was charged so I did end up using one of the batteries for that.

We arrived, bleary-eyed, at SeaTac. Because of the time change, we arrived in Seattle before we had left Taiwan. So, we had two Fridays in a row. We made it through immigration fairly quickly. However, they asked hard questions like “what do you do for a living?” that was hard to answer coherently with the amount of sleep I had gotten. We had to wait for our bags because there was a jam in the system. Eventually it came out and we made it through customs. I was concerned that we’d have to go through normal security but was pleasantly surprised when they had a screening security area setup just for international arrivals (maybe this is normal but I swear I had an international flight that made us completely exit and deal with horrible security on the other side). We got breakfast at a cafe and were excited to be back at a place where we understood everything the menu boards said.

I turned on my phone and picked up my messages and was appalled to learn that Xcel, our gas company, had gas line problems the day we left for our vacation. They had an automated caller who told us that it may have interrupted our heat and to let Xcel know if we needed our furnace or water heater turned back on. Jaeger had said that it had gotten well below freezing in Colorado while we were gone so I had horrible visions of our pipes breaking and a huge water mess to deal with when we got home.

Eventually we caught our plane and arrived in Denver. Unfortunately, mid-way through our last flight Jaeger realized he had left his tablet on the Tokyo plane. After getting off the plane at Denver we went over to a United Customer Service center and after waiting a while talked to a service rep who told us we’d have to submit the lost item to United’s website and hope they had found it on the plane. We got our bags and went to our car only to discovery the battery was dead. We called the parking service company and they sent out someone to give us a jump (with an absolutely adorable portable battery, I know want one) but all that took time so it was sundown by the time we made it back home. The furnace appeared to be set to 50 degrees, though we weren’t entirely sure, but the pipes seemed to be in tact so I was relieved.

We also got a chance to look at our new wood floors which are gorgeous. Unfortunately, the place where the fridge gets water had a slow leak which caused some problems and we may need to see about re-replacing that part of the floor. That part is still better than how our old floors looked but the rest of the flooring looks so good it’s more obvious. Anyway, that’s something to deal with later.

Because our appliances were still in the garage, we went out to eat supper. It was amazing driving in a car and going to a place where everyone spoke English (though we were tired enough it didn’t always feel like they were speaking English). We came back home and managed to stay up till a reasonable bedtime

Thus ends our great Hong Kong/Taiwan holiday experience.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

The Thirteenth Day

On our last full day in Taiwan we started out by going to the National Palace Museum. On the way there we met a student named Elias who started a conversation with us in order to practice his English. He decided to wander around with us at the museum and it was interesting to get to talk to someone from Taiwan. I thought if we started up at the third floor of the museum the crowds would be smaller but I didn’t realize the most popular exhibits at the museum were on the 3rd level. So, we ended up herded into a queue of people and we dutifully waited in a line so we could see the Jadeite Cabbage with Insects which is a jade carving in the shape of bok choy. Obviously, bok choy is more popular with the Chinese than it is with Calvin. We got to talk with Elias while queuing which made the wait more interesting.

We wandered around to a couple more exhibits before Calvin started complaining of being hungry. We went up to the top of the museum and found some vegetarian dim sum to order as well as some drinks. Calvin insisted he wanted Plum juice even though Elias warned it was a little sour. I tried to convince Calvin he didn’t want it but eventually gave up and ordered plum juice for him and carrot juice for me. As I expected, once the drinks actually arrived Calvin was happy to switch with me. I thought the plum juice was pretty good but definitely not as sweet as the juice I’m use to.

After snack Calvin regained all his energy and started acting up in his carrier. I decided it was time for a retreat outside the museum. Elias and I went outside to let Calvin run around while Jaeger stayed to see a couple more exhibits. Outside, there was a light drizzle and it was probably in the 60s (Fahrenheit). A little later Elias had to run off for a class. Jaeger came out fairly soon after that and we continued to our next destination.

In Hong Kong it was difficult to shop for touristy things because Hong Kong doesn’t make many things. Taiwan, on the other hand, makes many things.. We headed off to the Taiwan Handicraft Promotion Center which was four levels of various Taiwan products. We wandered around and Calvin actually stayed pretty quiescent in the carrier. I was extremely grateful to have him in the carrier where he couldn’t accidentally break something expensive. We bought a couple of things and then Jaeger took a taxi to take them back to our hotel while Calvin and I wandered over to a nearby park. We found a covered area and I let Calvin watch some stuff on the iPad while I read. There was a playground at the park but the rain was coming down steadily and there wasn’t a nearby place I could stay out of the rain and watch Calvin play at the same time. Once Jaeger got back to the park we headed off to see Taipei 101.

When Jaeger first started talking about the trip to Calvin, he mentioned Taipei 101 enough that Calvin seemed to get the impression that the city itself was called Taipei 101. The actual building is quite impressive. It’s currently the 2nd tallest building in the world, it was the tallest back in 2003 when it was completed. It also has the fastest elevator in the world. The lower section is a mall. We went up and got tickets for the indoor observatory and went to a cafe to get snacks. The snacks ended up being a bit smaller than we expected, barely bite-sized, but very tasty. We queued and then took the elevator up to the 89th floor. There’s also an outdoor gallery on the 91st floor but it was closed to take down the fireworks display from the new year. Once we got to the top we were giving free audio-guides that provided a commentary about the city from the various windows. It was interesting but I felt like I should be more excited. The building is so high up I felt the view was pretty similar to what one would see from an airplane. Calvin didn’t seem particularly excited and didn’t look out the windows much. I think it would have been more interesting in the day. It was very pretty at nighttime, with all the city lights below, but it was hard to see all of the landscape.

What was particularly interesting was the tuned mass damper which stabilizes the building and is open to the public to view. We finally figured out what the weird cartoon figures we had been seeing everywhere were, they were the mascots for the damper and were called damper babies. Now that we knew what they were, they seemed much cuter. After traveling back down to the fifth floor we stopped by the gift shop and picked up a little stuffed “damper baby” which Calvin proclaimed was something that he had always wanted.

For supper, we investigated the food court which was large but mainly bereft of vegetarian options. Eventually we found a fast food Indian place which provided a larger meal than I was expecting. After supper we took a taxi home which I personally found disturbing, to Jaeger’s great amusement. Our driver had a little TV screen mounted on his dashboard that he watched as he drove us back to the hotel. However, as Jaeger pointed out, the driver obeyed all the traffic rules and did seem a competent driver. Jaeger kept telling me that I should never go to India, which I already knew.

Once we got back to the hotel we packed our bags in preparation for an early departure in the morning.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

The Twelfth Day

Tuesday night was a lot more restful than our first night in Taiwan. I figured out Calvin slept a lot more comfortably if he had his light blanket I had brought from home rather than the down duvet. As a result, his thrashing was fairly minimal, except when he fell off the bed, which turned out to be an excellent time to take a potty break.

We woke up in time to make it to the hotel breakfast and then came back to plan our day. Jaeger’s original idea was to go to the zoo on Thursday but there was a 70% chance of rain for Thursday and only 20% for Wednesday. So, we changed plans and went to the zoo on Wednesday instead. The zoo is insanely cheap. Children under 6 are free and adults are only $2 US. One of the main attractions of this zoo is the pandas. Various reviewers imply the line to see the pandas can get very long. However, the zoo was almost deserted when we arrived so there was no line. One panda ambled a bit outside while one slept inside. They weren’t especially exciting but they were interesting to see.

Next, we decided to go to the children’s area which has more domestic-type animals. (Though, they also included camels and some monkeys in this exhibit.) On the way to that section we passed a Koala but it was sitting still so we had trouble getting Calvin interested in it.

After the children’s area, we looked for snacks at the in-zoo 7-Eleven. There were many interesting looking things but there was little English on the packaging so we played it safe and got a couple containers of chocolate milk and Jaeger got tea. I also bought what I thought was going to be a fruit snack but, if it was, it was very processed and more candy-like than fruit like.

Our last stop in the zoo was the animals native to Taiwan. Since we were in a Taiwan zoo, it seemed to make sense to see those animals rather than the ones imported from the Pacific Northwest The monkeys were particularly interesting but it was time to start looking for lunch.

There isn’t much around the zoo so the food choices in the zoo itself seemed like our best option. We went to a cafe above the Panda area and ordered spaghetti and risotto, both with creamy-vegetable sauce. It was fairly good, for zoo food, and we didn’t ask any questions about what was in the sauce. All identifiable bits were vegetarian though they seemed overly fond, from my point of view, of fungi (which seems to be a common failing with Asian cuisine).

After lunch we exited the zoo and took the nearby Maokong Gondola. The start is near the zoo and there are several stops till it finally ends at Maokong, which is known for it’s oolong teas. From beginning to end the Gondola goes a little over 4 kilometers, maybe a 20 minute ride, and it goes up and down several hills and ends up around 275 meters from the starting station. The ride provides some fantastic views. Taipei 101 coyly peaks over the hills.

At the top of the gondola there are oodles of tea houses. There’s a narrow rode that takes about 20 minutes to walk to its end. We thought we were going to go to a tea promotion center that sounded like it was a small museum. However, it did not appear open when we got there. We went looking for a teahouse to drink tea at. There were many to choose from but a lot of them appeared to be exclusively in Chinese, making it difficult to order. We found one place that look promising and received an English menu. To our surprise, there was almost no tea except for some Celestial Seasoning offerings. It was a little surreal to be on top of a hill in Taipei, known for tea, and be offered herbal tea from Boulder. We did eventually find a place to drink tea and had deep fried sweet potato for a snack. I ordered
without thinking and then was a little surprised when Calvin enthusiastically ate it as he claims to not like sweet potato.

We wandered back to the Gondola station and took it down to the bottom. Then we traversed the subway to the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. This would be the third place that Jaeger visit about Dr. Sun Yat-sen but only the second for us. I believe Jaeger was amused to get the Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China, and Taiwan view all in the same vacation. We hurried and got there just in time to see another changing of the guard ceremony. It was similar to the one we saw for Chiang Kai-Shek but it was apparently the last one of the day as all the guards marched out together.

The changing of the guards is a great photo opportunity for tourists and many tourists, most we think from mainland China, were gathered around and happily snapping pictures. Once the guards left, they turned their picture-taking attention to Calvin. I lost track of the number of Chinese women that took pictures of Calvin and tried to get him to pose with them. Calvin was not excited about this but played along better than I expected.

After we managed to extract ourselves from the picture taking Calvin and I wandered outside to watch the fountain, which seemed to be choreographed with classical music, while Jaeger continued wandering around the memorial. Just as we were getting ready to leave, we noticed that the guards were marching out to take down the flag. We stayed to watch and Calvin seemed to enjoy it.

After the flag ceremony, we wandered off to look for supper. Once again, Google led us astray but, with a bit of luck, we found our destination, PP 99 Cafe. They’re a vegetarian restaurant that serve burgers and other American-type fast food with an Asian twist. For instance, Jaeger got a Ma Po Tofu “Burger” while I got one that was suppose to be vegetarian duck. We got a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich for Calvin. It was really weird but the vegetarian duck sandwich tasted like Adventist food to me. Fake meat is really big in the vegetarian restaurants in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The duck fake meat tasted a lot like the Worthington Chicken Roll which made me wonder about the feasibility of setting up a fake meat store co-run by Buddhist and Adventists.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

The Eleventh Day

Today was our first full day in Taiwan. The prior night was New Year’s Eve and had been pretty noisy. Lots of people talking and we could also hear the fireworks from Taipei 101 (I believe Jaeger briefly contemplated going to see them but decided it’d be too much work and bed would be nicer). The king bed is technically more than big enough for the three of us but Calvin squirms a lot. Eventually, I figured out that he was too warm under the covers and put a little blanket we had brought with us on top of him instead and that seemed to reduce, though not eliminate, his thrashing. In any case, we all woke up fairly late.

The hotel provides breakfast but I thought when we checked in they said it ended at 8:30. That seemed kind of early to me for New Years Day but I was fairly certain that’s what I had heard. Since Jaeger didn’t stir until it was past 8:30, I started looking for alternative breakfast alternatives without much success. Once everyone was ready Jaeger also looked but we eventually concluded that we’d have to ask the hotel for recommendations.

We got down to the reception desk and learned that breakfast was still ongoing. However, all the tables were full so they requested we go back to our room and they’d call us when ready. Right about the time we were worried they had forgotten us, they called. We went down and had a really good breakfast. The pickings were a little slim compared to what had obviously already been there but I think it’s the best free hotel breakfast I’ve had. I was expecting something like a continental breakfast but this was a full buffet brunch.

After breakfast we set off to explore Taiwan. It was immediately obvious there was a lot less English compared to Hong Kong, not too surprising. Also, I am amused by their crosswalk signals. The crosswalks have animated green men that “walk” when it’s time to cross the street. However, when it gets close to turning red, the little animated man stops strolling and bursts into a run.

We found the subway system here (which is the MRT compared with Hong Kong’s MTR) and got tokens for our destination. Hong Kong’s system seems to have more bells and whistles but this one still works well. Our first stop was a visit to the 2-28 Peace Park which I’m sure Jaeger will discuss more. The park looked nice but there was a steady drizzle so it wasn’t very comfortable. We went into the 2-28 museum which Jaeger was interested in. Calvin and I wandered around in it a bit but I kept having trouble figuring out how to explain the concept of war to him at an age appropriate level.

Eventually, I gave up and shepherded Calvin out to the nearby playground and huddled under some scanty covering (the drizzle had turned into real rain) while Calvin amused himself. Eventually, Jaeger came out and we contemplated lunch.

Unlike Hong Kong, we didn’t get a SIM for Ted’s phone so we were cutoff from cheating with a live Google maps. However, Ted found, and successfully navigated us to a vegan chain restaurant called “Loving Hut.” The food was good and we set out again. This time our objective was the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.

I was really surprised when we arrived. I was expecting another museum-looking building but the architecture of the complex is amazingly grand. I was quite disappointed that the weather made taking good pictures extremely unlikely.

Inside, we wandered around for a bit and had a chance to see the changing of the guard. The ceremony is fairly elaborate and Calvin got a good view on Jaeger’s shoulders. However, the highlight for me was when the new guards had positioned themselves like statues at either end of the very large commemorative statue. A security guard came out and, while the guards stood as motionless as mannequin, moved their hands just a tad, tugged the uniform into precisely the right folds and basically ensured that the guards in their stationary position were picture perfect. It was kind of odd to watch.

We wandered around a bit more and got some hot drinks for snack. While Calvin was still nursing his large-to-him hot chocolate, Jaeger wandered off to another gallery. I stayed and read while Calvin finished and then, deciding Calvin wasn’t up to more museum, decided to let him watch a tv episode on the iPad while we waited. Eventually, I decided we had spent too long hogging the bench so I started to gather our things together. As I was placing things into the backpack, a man sheepishly approached me and said his sister, who did not appear to speak English, would like to take a picture with Calvin. I sad they could try but warned Calvin was very shy. Calvin, predictably, squirmed and I’m not sure of they got a good picture of not but by then Jaeger appeared and we wandered off.

Our last tourist stop was a Buddhist temple a couple of subway stops away. Unlike the ones we had seen in Hong Kong, this one was actually packed with worshipers. It was a very elaborate temple and very interesting but it was crowded and much of the walkways weren’t covered so it was pretty wet. Because I mostly carry Calvin on my back I feel very large and have trouble navigating many of the smaller spaces we end up in while sightseeing. Unlike a backpack, Calvin’s legs and arms can randomly shoot out and cause unintended havoc.

After that, we found supper at another vegetarian restaurant. I wasn’t very hungry but didn’t want to discourage Jaeger from eating. We made a wrong turn but did eventually find the right place. The food was good but when we finished I was relieved to be heading back to the hotel. Once back, we gave Calvin a bath and put him to bed but he seems to have fully adjusted to the time change (which is the same as Hong Kong) and resisted falling asleep for quite a long time.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

The Tenth Day

Monday was the last day we were going to be in Hong Kong. However, our flight left a little after 5pm so we had a bit of time, theoretically. We got a taxi from the hotel to the Airport Express station, which is near central Hong Kong, where we were able to check-in and drop off our checked in luggage. Unfortunately, we learned they didn’t have any window seats left on the flight so we had to check Calvin’s car seat as well.

Once we did that, we took the MTR train to the actual airport where we dropped off a couple of our carry-on bags with a “left luggage” service. Then we got on a bus and with the plan of taking the Ngong Ping 360 cable car to the Tian Tan Buddha. Unfortunately, when we got there, it appeared that everyone else also wanted to take the cable car. The line was at least an hour and a half long which might have left enough time to make it across but wouldn’t let us do anything once we got there.

We ate the pastries I had gotten the previous night in hopes of it inspiring some great plan. However, the options available were not good. Eventually we wandered around the adjacent outlet mall looking for something vegetarian for a real lunch and couldn’t find anything. So, we found a bus to take us back to the airport. The upside of the journey is it was a double-decker bus and we got to sit on top at the very front. Calvin definitely enjoyed that part of the trip.

We got back the airport, grabbed our left luggage, and headed over to terminal one. We found a deli we had eaten at before and ordered some sandwiches. However, they were less satisfying than we hoped (The vegetarian sandwich consisted of a baguette with lettuce, tomato, and hard-boiled egg. I’m not vegan but I don’t like egg when I can taste it).

We wandered closer to security and discovered another restaurant that had vegetarian items clearly marked on the menu (a very rare event). We felt the needed to reward good behavior so we decided to eat there too. We got a little pizza for Calvin, a lasagna for me, and Jaeger got a curry. The curry was pretty good. The lasagna was completely overwhelmed by massive amounts of cheese. I do like cheese but this was going behind what I was able to
consume, especially since I wasn’t really hungry.

While there, we tried to get seats for our flight from Taipei to Hong Kong. Jaeger booked via United’s website but this leg of the journey was flown by ANA. Unfortunately, each airline claimed the other one was responsible for getting us seats. We called ANA, then United, then ANA and never got a satisfactory response. This is important to me because we do have reserved seats for all other legs and I really want to bring Calvin’s car seat on with us.

Our flight for Taiwan departed and was fairly short. We arrived in the Taipei airport and walked past a line specifically for disabled people and those carrying babies. We started to queue in the normal non-resident line but one of the immigration staff people saw us and indicated we should go in the almost non-existent carrying baby line. It is true that Jaeger was carrying Calvin at that exact point but we had thought he was a bit big for the exception. Due to the special line we made it through immigration faster than I ever have anywhere before. It was magical.

Most of our luggage arrived promptly except for our car seat which made me nervous. However, it did eventually arrive and we headed out past customs to find a driver for the hotel waiting for us. It was a fairly long ride to the hotel and Calvin fell asleep just a couple of minutes before we got there.

The hotel itself is very modern-looking, not quite my style. However, the staff are very friendly and so far seem to speak excellent English which is nice. Also, they have a tub! Our hotel in Hong Kong, while nice, only had a shower and as a result, Calvin hasn’t had a bath for too many days. It was too late for a bath the night we arrived but I am hoping that we’ll have a chance to use it later.

Our hotel in Hong Kong was a suite. However, the one in Taipei is only a one-bed room. However, the bed is a king bed so we’re all trying to sleep in it together as one big happy family. Calvin is ecstatic though the rest of us are a little less excited and hope it’ll actually work out.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

The Ninth Day

Jaeger got in around 11pm last night and we had no specific plans for today so spent a leisurely morning waking up. Eventually, we made it out of the hotel and found a great bakery near one of the MTR stops for 2nd breakfast. We ate it in Victoria Park while Calvin watched model boats meandering around the little pond.

After that, we walked several blocks to hear the Noonday Gun which, predictably, fires at noon every day. Apparently exactly why it fires at noon is somewhat debatable. We almost got there a bit late having had trouble crossing the busy road. Google implied there should be a way across but it wasn’t obvious. We did make it there on time and only, as we were leaving, realized the route meant going under the road, not over. If we’d come from the other direction it would have been obvious but the secret doorway was too easy to miss coming from Victoria Park.

After that, we went for lunch. Yes, we’d recently had second breakfast but when planning the day it wasn’t obvious they’d be so close together. I thought it was prudent to go ahead and eat at a place we’d already vetted than hope for the best later on in a new location. Lunch was good and Calvin managed to keep his mess to a reasonable minimum, which was good because we had real tablecloths.

The plan after lunch was to take a ride on the Star Ferry but Calvin announced himself to be tired of ferries. I’m afraid we’re using alternate transportation enough these days that he’s starting to get rather jaded. So far, we’ve gone through trains, planes, and ferries. He still seems to have some enthusiasm for the tram, probably because I think it’s inefficient and have been avoiding it.

Since Calvin wasn’t interested in the ferry we moved to our next item which was visiting the Dr. Sun Yat Sen museum. No doubt Jaeger will talk in length about him so go read his entry once he’s written it. It isn’t a particularly child-friendly museum but they did have an amusing animated cartoon for kids summarizing his life as well as some coloring pages. Calvin was entranced by the cartoon though the audio alternated between Cantonese and Mandarin so I’m not sure how much he got from it. There were English subtitles but Calvin always gets upset when I try to read subtitles to him so I’ve stopped doing so.

We had some unscheduled time after the museum so went to the playground in the zoological gardens which was fairly close to the museum. There were a lot of kids and at first Calvin just hung out around the edges but eventually started getting involved.

For supper, we went to Starbucks and had drinks and a pastry each. Jaeger has introduced me to the “short” hot chocolate size which is perfect because I think it’s an actual 8 oz rather than the over-sized cup you get otherwise. It doesn’t appear on the menu but if you order it, they provide (though always appear a bit confused when they learn it’s not for a child).

For our return trip Jaeger suggested we take the street tram back. As previously mentioned, I’m not a fan of it so I suggested he and Calvin take it back while I take MTR. Jaeger agreed and I took the opportunity of stopping by the bakery we found that morning to pick up more items for tomorrow. In spite of my detour, I still beat Jaeger and Calvin back by a significant margin.

Calvin must be getting acclimated to this time zone. He voluntarily climbed into his bed but is still singing to himself and occasionally asking us to do things for him.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong