20 Minutes Until The Final Leg of Our Trip

It's 6:25 AM on Monday morning and we just wanted to check in one last time before we head out to the train station. In 3 1/2 hours we will be walking into St. Lucy's Center and walking out with a baby. Tiffany is busy drying her hair and deliberating over Sophia's outfit while I am typing this.

The mood is good here but the suspense is as thick as the humid Taipei air. Last night, I ran into a lady from Denmark outside if the hotel and she asked me what we were doing here. I told her "We are here to pick up our daughter". She started crying and put her arm around me, crossed her fingers for good luck and then vanished back into one of the hotel lounges. We bought diapers last night at the grocery store and the clerk asked us who they were for. We told her as she put her hands together and repeatedly thanked us.

That pretty much sums up the last 18 months of this journey for the two of us. But I think we have already been blessed with the all the good luck anyone could ask for and as for a "thank you". We should be the ones that are thankful. But we did buy some "lucky money" for a dollar yesterday at the Jade Market Just in case.

Okay, Time to go. We will be arriving back in Taipei at about 6 PM this evening. No doubt with a happy baby and tons of good footage for you to check out. I wonder if she's too young to wear her new Hello Kitty backpack?

Chris & Tiffany

Travel Taipei with the Rhine's - Last Day as a family of TWO!

Well, it's official - Chris and I are truly Taipei experts at this point! Joking. But we did get out and about and thanks to my hubby's sense of adventure we bought a one day pass for the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) which is their subway system and hit the town. It was amazing. Today was a day of all shopping - there were things I wanted to explore and purchase for Sophia while in her country to give her during her big birthdays, graduation and wedding day.

FIRST STOP:

Grand Hyatt - breakfast buffet, which I have to say was AWESOME! Chris and I sat down to eat at 7:30 (since we had been up since 4:30) and didn't eat again until 7:00 tonight and this blew me away. Anyone who is planning to travel and stay at the Hyatt needs to check this out at least once. This came highly recommended from friends of ours (Thanks Kelly and Brandon) and was well worth every penny. They have European, Western and Asian breakfast. I had homemade french toast and a danish that was amazing. Chris had then braved the asian table and had dumplings, white rice and asian eggs with spring onion and some other stuff I'm not sure about but it was so yummy as I had to go get my own plate. I'm posting some pics of this so you can see it. Great way to start the day!

SECOnD STOP:

Hit the MRT and head for the Flower and Jade Market. This market is only open on the weekends and is set up under a highway overpass. It was really an amazing site to see. the flwoer market is full of beautiful flowers, trees, fountains, flower pots, I just wish we could've packed flowers to bring home. Orchids EVERYWHERE, they were huge! 3 orchids for $3 - how insane is that - bonsai trees, bamboo...

The Jade market is after the flower market and this was pretty cool too. Jade everywhere, hence the name but I did learn a lot. The deeper the shade of green and the less clear it is - the better the jade and the $$$. I didn't know this and started in deep buying all sorts of stuff and then as I started to chat and realize some were so freakin expensive, we got a lesson from a young guy who spoke english. I got Sophia 2 bracelets and a jade ring which I will wear and give to her on her wedding day. This was cool - chris said I was "easy money" and they saw me coming - he said he thought for sure they were walkie talkie to each other telling them to chat with me - it was pretty funny.

STOP #3

Head to the MRT - get off at Main Station and pick up our high speed train tix for the BIG DAY tomorrow - we had the hotel reserve our train tickets for us to pick up Sophia tomorrow - we leave on the 7:30 am train and will arrive at St Lucy's center around 10:00!! We are really excited and it's getting more real by the minute.

STOP #4

Again hop on the MRT and head to the Chinese Handicraft Market to looks at authentic chinese gifts and crafts. We got off at the right station but were given an old map so got a little turned around but in the meantime found the "peace Park" which was just gorgeous and well worth the extra time to check to it out.

We then found the craft market and it's BEginning to look a lot like Christmas around Taipei!! We woke up to this at the hotel and then ther christmas trees are out at the market and at the flower market the bonsai trees and lucky bamboo trees were decorated for christmas as well :)

STOP #5

Shilin Night Market - this is one of the largest and well known night markets in Taipei. The night markets are full of food vendors, shops , arcade like games and a real experience. I must say both Chris and I were not huge fans of this although we are glad we went. The smell really got to me and after that I could not even imagine eating there - this was a great glimpse into the cutlture though. We did see some cockroaches and I'm not sure if they were cooking them or they were jsut visitors so I needed to go back to the Gucci-esque stores or at least the knock off ones - LOL The Grand Hyatt is located in the financial district of Taiwan -most of the shops are really high end - like Chanel, Gucci, Dolce, you name it and most of the cars we have seen are BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus, etc where here it was very different and it was great to experience as much of Taipei as possible.

STOP #6

Back to Taipei City Hall (closer to 101 and our hotel) to check out the Mitsukoshi Department Store. This is NOT your average department store - I'm talking 5 stories and then a basement whcih was really awesome to see. Chris of course had his fill of shopping so not a lot of time here but it was really neat. The whole level of the A8 wing, F4 floor was BABY BABY BABY - it was so neat to see all the different kinds of clothes and the SHOES are really cool. They were a little on the expensive side the ones I saw I liked were about $35-40 so we opted to bring Sophia back if she's up for it and have her try them on before buying any of them. The clothes were amazing but very pricey as well. Honeslty I know Chris wasn't loving life at this point but I was in heaven. The shoe department for women was very cool also - - anywho, definitely something to see. We also bought pastries for the caregivers at SLC for tomorrow as well. The downstairs of this department store has a HUGE selections.

STOP #7

Taipei 101, Jason's Food market to buy DIAPERS! Yes I'm so excited this is the first pack of diapers I have boughy myself. So it's pretty cool, although I'm sure next week at this time there will be no excitement :)

FINALLY STOP #8

Back to the hotel for our last dinner together as a family of 2. We went to Cheers downstairs in the hotel and it was really nice. Felt weird to know tomorrow everything is going to change (in a good way of course) but still a little weird. It was really nice to experience Sophia's birth country and we look forward to checking out hte rest of it with her.

So that is our day in a nutshell - haha

Here are some things we have noticed about taipei and chris and I discussed these at dinner tonight and he actually agreed:

1. Scooters, scooters everywhere. Why didn't we think of this? Talk about low gas $$!

2. Knee highs are total fashion statement here - you see little girls, teenagers and woman in short shorts or skirts with knee highs and flat or low heel shoes everywhere, they look really cool, I'd look pretty silly but they look really cool.

3. The "man bag" is a MUST here - it appears the brand of choice is Gucci. All the men carry bags - they are messager style - this was interesting since we never see that in the states

4. The mullet is cool here! It's a modified mullet but most of teh younger guys have them - they are shaggier in nature but really "in" right now.

5. There are TONS of people here - wandering the streets you don't get the full effect of 3 million people but at the MRT during rush hour, you REALLY understand it!

6. Squid is the new chicken - it is served everywhere, every way - ever tried squid jerky? Chris did tonight.

Stay tuned tomorrow ( about 9:00 pm your time we should be getting sophia!) then you'll be able to read what you really want to by checking this blog - All about Sophia. We cannot wait! I'm sure after I pack the diaper bag, get the tub inflated, get all the gifts together, get her clothes together - - -I won't be able to sleep so there will most likely be another post in a few hours! I'll be awake couting carp - yeah I know it's cheesy but I haven't seen any sheep in taiwan yet - but we have seen carp!! LOL

Day 1 - Taipei 101

We decided to not venture too far today since we are still getting familiar with our surroundings. Right across from our hotel is Taipe 101. It is currently the tallest building in the world with the fastest elevator in the world as well. It was really windy so it was weird to see the feel the building swaying. Damper Baby really helped out today (see pics below)This was absolutely amazing! We did an audio tour and learned so much about taipei and everything surrounding this area as well. We loved it! I've posted some pictures from the sights at 101.

This is Damper Baby - this is the mechanisms used to support Taipei 101 during high winds, typhoons and daily weather. It stablizes the building. It is a big deal at Taipei101, with all sorts of souviners with a little damper baby with a face on them and he even has a personality profile which I got a kick out of:

There were huge wall display like this descibing the telcommunications, the electric, the cost, timeline for building and the Top 10 tallest buildings in the world. FYI - Empire State Building is #8 :)

We also had our first dining experience and I was in HEAVEN - I swear I could eat Asian food everynight of the week and the beef noodle soup and pork dumplings we had were awesome. Chris and I literally decided we could eat this everyday - the food is amazing. Some things were different like seeing the whole chicken and fish and shrimp with everything including the eyes and also as we ventured to the Jason's at Taiwan 101 a lot of sandwiches and items like lobster salad or tuna salad sandwiches were all out deli style but were not refridgerated. It was little strange going through not being able to read a lot of the labels but it was such a nice grocery store and we got some taiwan snacks, teas and beer to try - they have some called "Essential Beer" and we got a kick out of that - and some food and rice crackers for Sophia. We headed to Watsons, which is like a drug store for the wipes and diapers (thanks for the tips Judy!) so we are all ready for her, we just need her! The crib was delivered as well so it is really surreal to have a crib in the room. I also realized I totally overpacked for her, but hey - c'est la vie at least she has anything she could ever need, fashions included - LOL

A note about Taipei 101, on the streets I did not get a lot of looks but in taipei 101 I was really stared at a lot. I guess being pale with big blonde hair totally makes one stand out but this is something I am going to have to get used too. By no means at all was anyone rude, mean or doing it purposely I am just not used to it so now that I've been through it today - - I should be good to go.

For all of you waiting to travel - take it from someone who hasn't traveled to Europe since high school and the farthest I've been since then is Mexico so I'm not a seasoned traveler at all - - this city is very easy to navigate. Tomorrow we are going to the Handicraft Market and the Jade and Flower Market for souviners. We are also going to try to go to a night market and hit Chiang Kai Shek or find the cable cars that take you up over the mountains. This city is really beautiful. I'll share anything I find out through travelling to these desitnations which are farther away from our hotel and such.

Its about 7:25 pm here and I've been up all day - YEAH! but I'm fading fast. I'm taking this opportunity to post long nice detailed posts as I'm sure once we get Sophia I may not have time...

It hit me today when Chris said - Tomorrow is our last day as a family of 2!!!!

We're HERE!!!!

Greeting from Taipei! We are finally here. Holy long plane ride batman! We survived the long flight and the evergreen deluxe class on EVA Air is the WAY TO GO, lots of room and great service, the flight couldn't have gone any better. The cab ride to the hotel was interesting to say the least, I was praying hard that we'd make it, if that gives you any indication of how crazy it truly was!

We are 2.5 hours from Sophia and it is all we can do not to hop on the train and go get her now. We are so happy to be here and know we are only 2 days away from her now. It all feels like a dream. The Grand Hyatt is beautiful and we love our room and the staff so far have been great. A BIG thank you to my parents for the flowers and champagne in the room, they are beautiful and it was a great welcome to the hotel, so thoughtful and thank you very much! They are gorgeous flowers and were packed in BOAS - woohoo, lovin this place already!

Well we are off to explore this little town - JOke, huge joke there are only 3 million people in taipei city alone so it's not small potatoes. Wanted you all to know how much we appreciate the thought and prayers on our trip and it feels so darn good to get off the capsule (plane) and finally get on land.

We are heading off after a MUCH needed shower and we will post more tonight of the photo's of our explorations.

2 more days til Sophia :)

We're Leaving on a JET PLANE!!!!

AHHH yes we leave tomorrow! I cannot begin to explain how this feels, partly because I'm not sure I'm really experiencing this - LOL! Truly it is surreal to think that we leave tomorrow to go around the world to pick our daughter and become a family of "3". It is the craziest feeling. As you can probably imagine I have been crazing packing and repacking, the repacking again and then splitting it in half and packing it again. So finally afer 9 hours of packing I think I got it - that is until tomorrow morning - haha. Target loves me!!!

I have appreciated all your well wishes, email, call, posts on the blogs, cards you name it - what a super group of friends I have made through this whole journey, I could not have made it through this without your guys, friends and family that's for sure! Well I'm not sure how much we will be able to blog tomorrow but maybe a quick post from the airport or such. But wanted to let you all know we're ready!!!! 4 days until we meet Sophia and that goes to "2" when we land in Taipei on Saturday at 8:45 am.

I do solemly swear to update my blog as MUCH as possible while in Taiwan and when we get back!

Love to all -
Tiffany and Chris

Rare Video Footage of Sophia

Sophia is spotted posing for cameras while playing with her plastic Lion. Thanks Judy! Click here to check out this rare footage.

Happy 1st Birthday Baby Girl!!!

A HUGE thank you to Sarah for putting together a scrapbook card for Sophia's blog! Thank you, you're the best! And a thank you to Miss Judy (Eric's mom) for all of the pictures and videos of Sophia - we played all the video's at her little party this weekend and she was a huge hit! A movie star already. We had a few people over to celebrate Sophia's big day! Although she was not here, having the videos and her pictures everywhere certainly made it feel like she was here in spirit. We kept it very small and invited only those friends and family that had approached us about her birthday as we plan on having a HUGE bash for her 1st in January and didn't want to put pressure on anyone. Lily, Reagan and Vincent came over and they had a blast - I'll post the pics when I can get them downloaded.

It proved to be an emotional weekend, Saturday felt like an out of body experience as I was emotional she was not here but I couldn't stop thinking of her birthmother either and how hard this day must've been for her as well and Sunday, well let's just say the floodgates opened at church the second Pastor George said we will leave a family of 2 and the next time we see the congregation we will be a family of 3 - and yes it would not stop! For veterans day they put on a great tribute to our veterans (there are MANY from our church) and there I am crying my eyes out at America the Beautiful and You're a Grand Ole Flag - Yeah!! I mean I'm patriotic and all but come one, it was a nuts!

We leave in 3 days to start our journey across the world to get Sophia. Next week at this time I will be posting our first picture as a family of 3! I cannot wait!!! Thanks to all for your emails, cards, comments on the blogs, and all the well wishes, we could've have made it through this without each and every one of you!