Colorful tree

Such a colorful little tree. Hues of bright pink, yellow, green and red. Amazing miracle of nature.

I'm totally in love. I don't wonna move out!

Mask painting

On our trip to Lugang (one of the oldest town in Taiwan) with other foreign students last summer vacation, we were encouraged to paint a Chinese opera face mask. Not able to experience this before, I took the opportunity to try one.

I was kinda late to join since I waited for my kids to finish eating. (Me, @right)

Having fun painting :)

Tried to imitate the template lol. But I'm still terrible haha.

With limited time, this was my final product (on top of Aron's head). Finishing touches (green at the sides) not properly done. Aron was busy chatting with another student hehe.

Our sleeping Aron with the mask on lol.

My kids with our trip organizer!

Painting was really fun! Hmmm, I should do this often. And that day was indeed fun!

Pink building

It amazed me, light pink is so popular for most of the condominium buildings here in Taiwan, at least in Taichung City. This pinkish 24-story building is where we lived for most of our stay in this country. It's only a 5-minute walk from our university.

We lived on the 17th floor.

The main entrance with a 24-hour on duty guard. So safe. 

And it's so convenient, we are surrounded by 24-hr Family Mart (like 7-11s),  laundry machines,  hair spa, brunch places, where  most of them literally just attached to our building.

Our pinkish neighboring buildings, just across the street.

I will definitely miss this place and the safety and convenience it offers.

Pinky on Scooter

My 9-year old daughter on her almost all pink get-up. I just picked her up from her school thus still on her pink uniform, pink school bag, pink lunch box, and the matching pink helmet. She was waiting for me by the scooter while I bought food for our dinner that night. And suddenly it hit me. My, she looked so sweet in all pink that I immediately took my mobile phone and took a snap of her. Ain't she the cutest?

On all pink get-up! 

Aboard the white scooter!

On the other hand, the white scooter is our daily service to and from school. It's a 1997 model SYM (Taiwanese company) scooter at 125 cc. Vintage I say LOL. It's a second hand one (I can't afford a brand new) which I bought for, guess how much ~ at only 332us$. Unbelievably cheap, right? And it's a low maintenance (well, except that we changed a new battery and new front tire last year) and so low on fuel consumption at only 4us$ per week. The most convenient part is, I get to drive it in and out of our campus. Such privilege is only offered to the university staff and its PhD students. Luckily I'm one of the students and thus given with a silver sticker (stuck on front board). Ain't that so great!

Scooters in Taiwan are by the way so popular. There are about 10 million scooters in the country, giving it the world's largest per-capita ownership level. Around our campus alone, parking spaces are so crammed with scooters. Ah you can't imagine my difficulty on parking late at night back in our apartment. So crazy.

Parking lots around the campus are crowded with scooters. 

The parking lot outside our college/department (and with my kids on pinks).