Wednesday in Taipei

Tuesday night we entertained ourselves by eating pizza and watching Romi roll around on the floor, wrapping himself up in his green fuzzy blanket like a spinach-tortilla burrito. It was more fun than it sounds. Romi slept really well Tuesday night, especially all things considering (like the completely new environment and total lack of experience of his parents).

Wednesday, we got up early, had another really good breakfast at the hotel (boy, am I going to miss that!), including something called Dragon Fruit. I think it's part of the melon family. It has a texture similar to watermelon but is completely white with small, black edible seeds.

After breakfast, we headed off early to AIT, the equivalent of the American Consulate. For some reason, our taxi driver was adamant that we couldn't bring in our baby bag and so he eventually persuaded us to leave it in the car. Luckily we ran into Theresa, Lee and Maddy, who were also there for their visa appointment, so we had baby supplies if necessary.

The morning was like any other waiting around a government agency, although we were sworn in in both Chinese and English. It took two and a half hours, and it turns out that the biggest form with the most attachments was totally unnecessary, but Romi should have both a passport and an immigration visa by 11:30 this morning.

When we returned to the hotel we decided to do a bit of exploring. We stopped at Subway for lunch (not very cultural but expedient and vegetarian) and headed down the street to a bustling temple. It was amazing. There were people everywhere, buying incense and preparing beautiful fruit offerings. There were quite a few rituals going on using incense, so the entire place smelled wonderful.

The monks, all women, were studying, so I got a few photos of the Asian version of a bet midrash. The building itself was intricately carved and painted in a myriad of colors, with red being a dominant theme. I took photos of the wood-carved dragons on the roof, but I don't think anything could do them justice.

We walked around a bit, discovered why one street corner is known as The Fortune Telling Street (if you go underground there are booths and booths and booths of fortune tellers) and marveled at the number of scooters (really, it's unbelievable) and how important foot message is in this city. It was hot and humid, so we returned home so Romi could take a two-hour nap (sorry Mike and Steph).

We stayed in last night, got very tasty vegetarian Chinese take out from next door, and all slept well. We're off to get Romi's visa and to do some sightseeing. We are happy and content. It just feels so normal to have our little one with us. Thank you to everyone for your well wishes!

And here's the real reason you logged on to our blog today--to see pictures of the little man himself! So here they are (you can see these and others on Rob's Facebook page).