Funny

From terminal 2 at the Taipei international airport: Want some gruel with your noodles?


From the Bintan real estate office: Want to buy some property? We are all out of real luxury homes, but we have great luxury "style" homes on offer. Interested?


From the downtown tourist trap shopping area: Hello. HELLO!? Want some food?

Bintan

I had a conference in Singapore this week, so we decided to go a few days early as a family and catch some rays at the beach. Man, did ever I need it. We landed in Sinagpore and then took a 45 minute ferry to a little island in Indonesia called Bintan.

We stayed at the Banyan Tree, which was very, very pleasant. Even though the resort had a capacity of 150 people and was completely booked, we almost never saw anyone. Maybe they were all off playing golf. Or maybe the resort was just so well designed that we seemed to be secluded. Either way, it was a good thing we did not run into many people because little Miss G was SUPER cranky the first two days. When Chris ran to town for milk and diapers, the people at the front desk said "Is your baby still crying?" Ummm, yeah.


But she soon cheered up. The sand was a big hit, but the ocean... not so much. She was like a little monkey, clawing her hands up my sunburned back in fear of being dumped and left in the sea. She finally relaxed a bit, once she figured out that floating in the pool in her inflated baby tube was quite pleasant.


More pictures of our little beach trip are here.

When I Get Out of Bed

This is what I see every morning when I come back from my shower.

On the days that I take Frankie downstairs to pee pee, we walk past the guard at the front door. There are three guards who rotate watch duty. One is very very quiet, barely nodding as we go past. Another guard is quite old and mumbles only in Taiwanese. We cannot understand a word he says. The third guard is my favorite. He is always happy and smiling. He exclaims "Mei mei!" every time he sees Gioia and makes her smile so big. Anyway, this guard, my favorite guard, is trying desperately to get Frankie to notice him. When we walk past on our way out or in, he shouts "Flankie...FLANKIE!!"

But Frankie never looks his way. I keep trying to encourage him to go over and say hi, or to even just turn his head and acknowledge the guard. But no. Apparently "Flankie" is just too different. It is hard to capture my fur baby's very short attention span.

College Savings: How much is too much?

We started saving for Miss G's college education in 2005, before we moved to China. I signed up for a Upromise account, a 529 account, and a credit card* which allocated a percentage of spending back into the kitty.

So we have been regularly making deposits and that little 529 account has grown. But I wonder - how much is enough? How much is right? There is an easy way to start thinking about the answer - plenty of calculators exist to help people work through the time value of money problem.

But solving math equations is not my issue. I really am struck by the question of how much we as parents should be contributing to her education. Do we save enough to pay for all of a four year Ivy league degree in 2025? Or do we save enough for half of in-state tuition at a public school? What if she wants to do a gap year hiking in the mountains of Peru? How does that affect our estimated outlays?

Here is the thing: I opted for an in-state school over an expensive private school for undergrad. I chose free tuition and a monthly stipend over a fancy name. I also became an RA after my first year because it came with free housing. Am I worse off in life because I didn't go to Duke? Or am I better off because I chose the in-state school and paid my own way? Perhaps I am innately a practical person who works hard, someone who would have succeeded** regardless of the school?

Riddle me this - If I had had a bank account in my name ready for the spending, would that have impacted my school choice? If so, would I have been better or worse off by going a different route? Would it have impacted my character, my work ethic, my drive?

How much should we save? Not an easy thing to decide.

*Although spending to save is kind of stupid, but makes sense somehow. I guess.

**Have I even succeeded? Defining success is a whole other discussion.

DanShui

On Mom's last day in Taipei, we took a quick trip up to DanShui. It was hot as fire, so my impressions of the little town at the far north end of the subway line may not be as favorable as they could have been were I not dripping with sweat from every pore of my pasty white body.

But Gioia paid for tea, so that was good. About time she started earning her keep around here.*


More pictures from the day are here.

*That's a joke, y'all.

Yingge

We took a little trip to Yingge today, which is a small town about forty minutes outside of Taipei. Yingge is famous for its ceramics and pottery. I went with low expectations, actually, but was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. I thought it would be store after store selling little brown teapots (like these). Instead, the stores had a varied selection of low to high end items, from teapots and bowls to beautiful bronze art pieces.


We had a fabulous lunch in a little modern cafe. We liked the water mugs so much that we bought them right off the table. Gotta love China (I mean, Taiwan). Everything is for sale.

The sun was bright and hot, but we cooled down by dipping into stores and sampling the air-conditioning. The town's famous ceramics museum was closed, but we had plenty of fun just wandering up and down the "old" street. More pictures from today's outing are here.

Mr. Ma

Holy crap! Full speed ahead.