High Speed Rail, High Speed Kid

High Speed Rail Station
Wierd Secretary of State-ish office for paperwork






Beautiful TaiChung and Kai-Yi settling in on the HSR


With literally 23 minutes to spare, our final ruling arrived! At 12 noon, we had to call the Agora Garden in Taipei to keep our reservation through March 10th and also by 12 we had to check our of Ghetto Land. So at 12 on the nose, we were in a car headed to get our AIT paperwork! Wow! We had our first crying experience from putting Kai-Yi into the back seat of the car with us - hates it! Just wait until he needs to go in a car seat! He settled down within 5 minutes because he was snuggling with Daddy....





Next we went to some crazy secretary of state looking office. Caradee never told us why we were there, but she was obviously getting some paperwork done. We think this is the reason that you can't travel until after the final ruling, TWCA has to schedule this time at this wierd office place for over an hour. Then, we went back to the TWCA office, something we did not want to do because we knew what Kai-Yi would be thinking.......that his foster mom would be there. And that's exactly what he thought, but a cookie solved the concern for the most part. Man, this kid loves to eat! So we were also there for about an hour - don't know why, we were in the lobby and Caradee was gone. The director from our agency in the states called us at the office - we think he had been trying to track us down. It was nice to talk with him and to hear his concern for us.


Next, we were back in the car for a fun taxi ride! Our cab driver loved Kai-Yi and they had fun talking about the sites together. We don't know what "Bobo" is, but Kai-Yi likes them and we saw alot on the 40 minute drive to the High Speed Rail Station (HSR). Alex is in heaven!





The HSR is amazing! It travels 300 mph if I remember right and it's smoother than an airplane or a car! What takes you 2.5 hours to do in a car, takes 1 hour with 4 stops! Our little angel was so good through this whole process! He fell asleep just before we got off and slept through our Taipei adventure (thank God!) Alex, the navigator, wanted to take the subway back to the Agora. We have done this a million times, but never with a 100 lb suitcase, diaperbag, camera bag, paperwork for AIT (10 lbs on it's own) laptop, sleeping baby in stroller and exhausted parents..... Finding an elevator is tough work. Taking a stroller up and down escallators, not my cup of tea. But we made it! One block from the hotel, he wakes up and starts waving to strangers! How great!





So how many people called him "Mei mei" in the past 24 hours - oh about 999! Mei mei is little girl :-( Then they laugh and point to his hair! So we knew that one of our first missions would be to make him back into a di di (boy) It was funny, no one would really believe us - they would laugh and shake their heads when we insisted "didi!" So, we tortured our little one with a haircut down this local alley that clearly doesn't get many tourists! Inside, there were about 6 teenage looking employees who poked and prodded at our crying little transforming "mei mei" which didn't really help. It wasn't until one of them brought out - you guessed it, a cookie, that Kai-Yi was okay with haircuts! Oh boy!





Blip, Blip, Blip! That must be what it's like inside Alex the navigator's head. Because all of the sudden, he steers us into this shopping mall, up 4 escallators, and poof! 21 MONTH YEAR OLD MECCA! It was Kai-Yi's promise land! Games to hit stuff, balls to throw, playground to explore, little cars that make noise and move, a train to ride on with daddy, blue lights stuck in the ground and the bomb diggity - a water fountain!!! All nestled on a rooftop of a shopping mall!


You know, we're actually starting to believe we might be good at this parenting thing or something! The pictures didn't turn out great - but we plum tuckered him out!





So back to the hotel for a warm bottle and he was off to sleep by 9:30! Guess who else fell asleep, clothes and all, a very tired daddy! Best part, Mommy found heaven too and finally got a full night's sleep! Pretty amazing what a 2 paragraph letter can do for you! (final ruling is 2 paragraphs! 2!!!!!)





Oh yeah, and I can't believe I'm going to say this, but we had our first poopie diaper - yeah! He showed off to grandma and grandpa and did it while we were talking on Skype! Grandma and Grandpa are the lucky poopie people!





Ok, well.......we shall see what adventures we encounter at AIT paperwork appointment today!





Miss all of you and wish we were homebound, even though we love Taiwan!