Hot springs, a waterfall and a boatride to boot!

Here are some pictures from Wulai, a small town about 45 minutes south of Taipei city that is renowned for its odorless hot springs. Reaching Wulai can involve an easy and picturesque drive from Taipei, up and through some lovely mountain country. Once in Wulai, finding a hotsprings hotel is very easy. There is a wide range of choices in terms of price, size, degree of modernity and cleanliness. The nice thing is that one can simply drive up to any establishment and ask the staff for pricing and to let you preview their available rooms. We stayed at a lovely hotsprings hotel for about $150 USD which included a room with a queen bed and two single beds and a private, large hotspring tub, as well as a freshly prepared 5 course vegetarian dinner on the night of our arrival and an adquate breakfast buffet the next morning.

In Wulai, the main attraction is a pretty waterfall, the top of which can be reached by a steeply climbing cable car! Once at the top of the falls, there is an old style amusement park with boat rides, kiddie rides, and lovely trails- a must for any family with young kids. The park is creatively set in the midst of the mountains, and the scenery itself, apart from the fun rides, is reason enough to make the trip!

A queen by the ocean: trip to Yeliou

One of the nice things about living in Taipei is that one can enjoy all of the amenities associated with big modern city living, and yet still easily and quickly escape to some of the most stunning natural beauty on the planet. This past weekend we loaded up the car with both girls, one set of grandparents, and a hearty picnic, and headed to the Pacific Ocean side town of Yeliou. Yeliou is located on the northeastern edge of the island of Taiwan and is home to an interesting collection of natural, "sea sculptures," all beautifully laid out at the Yeliou Eco Park. One of these seaside art pieces, when viewed from a certain angle and with a good pinch of ones' imagination thrown in, resembles the head of ancient Egypt's Queen Nefertiti and is thus known as the Queen's Head. Lot's of wonderful seascape views can be garnered from trekking up a small peak at the end of the park's pinninsula.

Celebrating the New Year in Vietnam

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, the Ince family decided to head to Northern Vietnam. We took a two and a half hour flight from Taipei directly to Hanoi. Upon boarding the flight, we immediately began to sense the excitement and anticipation that folks were feeling as they were getting closer to being with their families to celebrate the holiday. Many a gift bag was being pushed and squeezed into the plane's tiny overhead compartments. It was fun vicariously feel, via our fellow passengers, the joy that often accompanies a long awaited home coming.

Once we arrived in Hanoi, we discovered a noisy, bustling, somewhat crowded city whose colorfully decorated, store-lined streets entice the visitor to explore. We discovered a fantastic vegetarian restaurant in the Old Quarter and enjoyed many a cyclo ride to the establishment for any of breakfast, lunch or dinner. The highlight of our time in Hanoi was certainly the visit to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We learned a lot about Vietnam's modern day history and were struck at how much of this recent history the country had spent in the throes of one war after another.

After a couple of days in Hanoi, we headed for a day trip to the mystical Halong Bay. The scenery from our boat was breathtaking as we weaved around the bay's 400 plus limestone formations that rose from below the water's placid surface and towered high above us. We had a lovely ship board meal, freshly prepared by the ship captain's wife. The girls really enjoyed visiting one of the bay's floating villages, fully outfitted with a floating market, school, and hospital.

The final day's of our Vietnam journey were spent in the northern mountain town of Sapa. Getting to Sapa from Hanoi involved an overnight train trip. Six of us stayed in one sleeper berth, with two sets of "bunk bed" style cots. It was a tight fit and the ride slightly terrifying, as the train often felt like it was flying off, if not over, some very bumpy, mountainside tracks.
We spent a day trekking into a hillside tribal village belonging to a Black H'Mong community. Everyone was welcoming, immediately willing to serve as our guides, and our girls made some fast friends a long the way!

What is that smell?

Okay, so in my last posting I was boasting about all of the amazing tofu products that one can find in Taiwan, I had not yet come across one preparation that maybe a little less than amazing. We were eating in a pretty upscale Chinese restaurant, enjoying our after church Sunday lunch, when all of a sudden we smelled poop! Avery's and my first thought was that Ayo, our four year old, had had an accident, so I found myself pulling at the back of her pants trying to find the offending source. Despite Ayo's protestations, "I didn't do it, I didn't do it," the smell was so like horse manure, we were convinced that such an accident had surely happened. When no accident could be found, and Ayo was now indignantly glaring at us both, Avery and I concluded that someone must have stepped in dog excrement and tracked it into the restaurant. We called over a waitress so that we could inform her of our conclusion, hoping that she would come up with a socially acceptable way to find the offending pair of shoes and remedy the situation. You can imagine our surprise when she simply began to laugh out load and point to the food on the table next to us, as we expressed our concern/distress at the ever growing stench. "Stinky tofu, stinky tofu" she exclaimed, thus identifying the source of the smell. There at the table next to us was a very normal appearing family of four digging into a plate of tofu cubes. Our first encounter with the highly recommended Taiwanese delicacy "stenching tofu", also known as stinky tofu, proved to be such an assault to our olfactory senses that none of us could ever imagine even sampling it. We'll let you know if that changes as many of our Taiwanese friends insist that it is a gastronomical delight not to be missed.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Hello and Happy Year of the Ox!

Well, the Ince family has been in Taiwan for about two and a half months and is feeling quite settled, so much so that I finally have enough free time to blog.


We arrived in Taipei on November 17th (the above picture is of the girls at the Taipei airport after a 20 hour flight) and proceeded to move into our new apartment on the same day. Everything went very smoothly, as seems to be the Taiwanese way. The movers met us at our new apartment within two hours of our landing in Taipei and had all of our belongings delivered and unpacked into our new apartment five hours later. They even removed all of the box/tape/ packing paper garbage! Thank You to Asian Tigers (moving company) for the great service.

Taiwan is proving itself to be interesting, inviting, and an overall great place in which to reside. The Taiwanese people are very friendly and are generally open to meeting and conversing with visitors. They are eager to learn where you are from, how long you will be here and why you came to Taiwan. I have started taking Chinese classes at the Tapei Language Institute in Tien Mu (the section of Taipei in which we live). The classes meet from 9AM to noon, Monday through Friday. I have two classmates, a young woman from Japan and a fellow from Australia. While the class is intense and demanding, it is incredibly fun to feel as if I am actually progressing towards my goal of being able to converse with and understand my new neighbors in their own language.

The streets of Taipei are colorful and bustling, but do not feel overly crowded or frenetic like the streets of other large Asian cities (e.g. Hong Kong, Bangkok) that we have visited. The winter weather is quite mercurial, one day the weather can be in the 70s-80s, and then a several days long cold spell will hit with temperatures in the 40s-50s.

Food is plentiful, fantastic and cheap. The open air produce markets are filled with exotic and not so exotic fresh and great tasting fruits and vegetables. Also, for us vegetarians, Taipei is heaven on earth. The Taiwanese have elevated the preparation of soy/tofu edibles to an art form. The variety of tofu/soy products is vast: tofu fish, tofu pork, tofu chicken, soy shrimp, soy sushi, and on and on.


I hope I have already said enough to make you all want to come and visit. Meat eaters, don't worry, there is evidently some of the best tasting chicken in the world to be found right here in Taiwan!

Thoughts from ELECTION DAY, 2008.

Yes we can.

When Barack Obama carried California thereby achieving the 270 votes required to prevail in the Electoral College, he became the first African American to be elected to the highest office in the land, the US Presidency. As I was watching the media coverage of this momentous occasion, I could not help but feel that we live in a country that, yet again, has delivered dramatically on what historically was its unique originating promise: all men are created equal with the inalienable rights to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Implicit herein is the idea that all citizens have the right to equal participation in the governing of this great land: each man or woman has the right to vote, the right to voice a political opinion, the right to be represented, and the right to be a representative. Our leaders do not claim their authority to lead by fact of religious anointing, feudal authority, military might, aristocratic or monarchial pedigree nor, more fundamentally, by racial privilege. “We the people” choose our leaders as we see fit. A functional meritocracy, one that is truer to this principle, arises when insidious non-meritorious biases such as race are stripped away.

For “White Americans”, the victory says we can vote by the millions for a man based on his vision and his accomplishments, period. Those who are horrified or frightened to be seeing “a black man in the White House,” or who are inclined to believe that he is a “radicalized black Muslim” could benefit from looking around at their fellow citizens and asking the question, “ What do they see that I don’t?”

For “Minority Americans”, the victory says that there is no office or position in the land to which we cannot aspire, that the majority of our fellow Americans support us in this aspiration, and that they will now expect no less from us. This is exactly as it should be.

Hello from Avery

This is my inaugural entry to the Ince Family Blog (or to any blog anywhere). The connection mightn't be immediately apparent to you, but I choose to view it as a foreshadowing of the inauguration of Senator Obama as President-elect on Nov 5, 2008 and his ultimate inauguration as President on Jan 20, 2009. Good stuff, all of it.

Like Senator Obama, I'm a black man born in the 60s. We both have immigrant fathers who first came to the US as university students and who married US women. The senator and I both grew up on tropical islands, Hawaii and Trinidad, respectively, before making our ways to the US mainland for college and for graduate school. We both married women with legal training whose names begin with the letter 'M'. Barack married Michelle and I married Manuradha. Thereafter, our families proceeded (separately) to live active, full lives- the Obamas with their two beautiful girls in Chicago, and the Inces with the amazing Yani and Ayo in Boston/New York. It is common knowledge worldwide that Barack is about to become POTUS (President of the United States of America). About 35 people on the island of Trinidad know I was once POMHSC (President of My High School Class). It's like we're twins born to different mommas (and poppas) and separated at birth. . by time, space, circumstance and several other things. At this point, you can no doubt see why it's so exciting for me to be here, experiencing this inaugural (blogging) event of sorts. I'm keeping my part of the cosmic BWB (Bargain with Barack).. and I'm fulfilling my destiny. All the best and catch you later.

Impressions and thoughts from our initial exploratory visit to Taiwan in 9/08

Avery, the girls and I are really loving our exploratory trip to what will be our new home starting in mid November. Upon arriving in Taipei my first impression: this is going to be a real challenge! We have discovered that a lot of Taiwanese do speak some English, but for many it is limited. The great thing is that despite the language barrier, people are SUPER friendly and willing to try and assist foreigners via universal body language/gestures/ and mime. Everything is in Mandarin and all the signage (except for major signs for hospitals, roads, the fire dept, western establishments., etc.) is in the Chinese characters. It is very disconcerting to be in a parking garage for instance and to realize that you cannot read any of the posted signs, i.e. "is that the exit or the entrance, does that sign point to the elevator or to the stairwell?" Even the numbers for the floors are encrypted in, what for me right now are indecipherable and indistinguishable, characters! I can imagine myself going to the mall never to find my way back to my car and not even being able to distinguish the way to the phone versus the bathroom! All that being said, I am excited. I love the adventure of it all, and once I got over my initial anxiety/ "what the heck are we doing this for" bad attitude I began to appreciate what an enriching experience this will truly be for our entire family, excluding the earthquakes and typhoons.....

So, we were having a really great, regular old Tuesday over here in Taiwan, except for the minor earthquake, no joke. Avery and I leapt out of our chairs and braced for action after our hotel in Taipei began to shake noticeably in the late afternoon. After the tremor was over (lasted about 10 seconds), I made a quick call the front desk to see what the procedure was. They couldn't have been less impressed. "Yeah.. It's an earthquake" is what the gal said. "We'll call you if there's anything you need to do". Avery checked out cnn.com and bbcnews.com (places at which he had gotten instantaneous reports of the May earthquake in China when he was in Beijing) but nothing materialized over the course of about 30 mins. Apparently it's not on anyone's radar screen- we found out later that evening from our babysitter that their was a "small" earthquake about outside of Taipei (about 4 hours away by car), but no one was hurt- "happens all the time."

On a lighter note, we found a terrific bilingual school for the girls! The school is called Cat's Kindergarten (www.catsschool.com.tw) -named after the owner/principal Catherine Wu who explained that often in Taiwan preschools and K are named after their owners; she was trying to avoid this but found that all of the parents would call the place Cat's place as they could not pronounce Catherine. Catherine herself has a very extensive and interesting teaching background, as does her husband. Being the daughter of a Taiwanese diplomat, she found her formative years spent in several countries throughout Asia, Europe and the US. She did her masters work in education in Boston and returned to Taiwan to fulfill her dream of establishing a top notch early childhood focused bilingual school. Ave and I both feel that the school she and her husband have built is a very special place.

The school day is divided into English instruction mornings, followed by lunch and a rest time, and then Mandarin only afternoons. Each student will thus have an English teacher and a Mandarin teacher who work very closely with each other in order to be thematically in sync in terms of the subjects taught in the morning and afternoons. So if the kids are learning about plants in the "English" morning classes, this topic will extend into the "Chinese" afternoon classes. The school has a beautiful facility with a dedicated bilingual library room (parents can check out books to bring home), a music room, an art room, and a computer lab with about 20 computer terminals. There are specific music and dance teachers who come in once per week each. The English curriculum is at least one to two years ahead of what the girls would be learning in the States, i.e. what they will be doing here in Kindergarten is what would be done by a 1st or 2nd grader back in the U.S.. All of the teachers are certified/ extensively experienced to teach preschool and kindergarten; the English teachers are from the U.S., Canada, and England, the Chinese teachers are from Taiwan and were all trained in the U.S.. The kids from the school come from all over the world, with the majority being Taiwanese. The school has a major focus on teaching through the themes centered on the "stories and cultures of the world." So as an example, when the kids learn about transportation, they will learn about different methods of transportation around the world, and read books both in English and Chinese from all over the world.

For us, the aim of this bilingual pre-k and K is to have Yani and Ayo ready to go into a FULL Chinese elementary school starting in Grade 1. For Yani that will be in Sept of 09 (assuming we get to Taiwan in Nov, she starts school in Dec, that will be about 8-9 months of the bilingual Mandarin instruction completed) and for Ayo in Sept of 2010 (20 months post being in Taiwan). Basically they need to have enough facility with Mandarin by the time the enter the 100% Chinese elementary school and this seems like the most gentle way to accomplish the transition. Of course, we may opt for bilingual elementary school when the time comes, rather than a full on Chinese school, but these are apparently hard to find in Taiwan. Most expats opt for one of the international schools starting in first grade instead of the Chinese elementary schools, but there is less of an emphasis on Mandarin proficiency in those settings and most kids, even if fluent when they entered, will loose their ability to read and write Chinese, only being able to speak. We would like the girls to leave Taiwan fluent in speaking, reading and writing Mandarin, or at least on their way to such.

On the apartment end of things, we found a great spot in Tien Mou ( a suburb nestled at the base of the mountains that rim the northern edge of Taipei). Tien Mou has a high concentration of expats- the housing tends to be a little newer and the green space more extensive than in other parts of Taipei. Also, the international schools and bilingual schools are concentrated in this area. Our apartment is very close to the train line that goes straight into downtown Taipei, hopefully making for an easy commute for Avery and for ALL OF OUR FRIENDS WHO WANT TO COME AND VISIT, HINT, HINT!

Welcome to our blog!

Hello Friends and Family

As our family will soon be heading off on an overseas adventure, we thought a blog would be fun way to keep in touch with everyone.

We just confirmed our ONE WAY tickets to Taipei, Taiwan (via Anchorage, Alaska) for November 16th 2008! Ninety-nine percent of our household goods were loaded up into a shipping container about three weeks ago and and set out to sea, hopefully to be reunited with us shortly after our arrival in Taipei. We are currently living in temporary corporate housing in lower Manhattan which has proven to be very convenient and comfortable. As a family we have been trying to "cram" in all the uniquely NYC type fun excursions that the girls will miss once in Taiwan; so far that has included the Central Park Zoo, strolling around Time Square, and eating way too many times at the California Pizza Kitchen on the corner of Park Avenue and 30th Street!