William 5 months: Aloha!

After saying goodbye to A-gong and A-ma, we got on a flight to Narita airport so we could catch another flight to Honolulu to attend Ko and Yuko's wedding. You could say this is our most challenging plane trip yet! (a red-eye bus to catch a flight to Narita, to wait 6 hours so we could catch a red-eye to Honolulu).

But we were all in good spirits because we are going to Hawaii ^_^ Here is William with his new hat from A-ma.

Julie and Eric could not resist trying some of the interesting items at the Narita McDonald's. The Ebi burger sure taste like happiness ^_^ and Julie just loves to say "Shaka-Shaka!"

Here are some interesting signs we spotted at NRT. Doesn't it look like the kids are playing with a radioactive ball? How about purchasing some giants at this gift shop ^_^

After arriving in Honolulu, we enjoyed a nice family BBQ with Ko's family. Here is William trying to chew off Uncle Mike's finger... we think he's got some left over BBQ sauce there.

It was a beautiful day on the day of the wedding. Here comes the bride and the groom!

And here is our little guy in his first Hawaiian shirt!

Everyone say "ALOHA!!!"

William is getting tired...

William look over here!

The South High gang had a great time catching up with each other. Of course they had to take another one of these pictures ^_^

After the wedding party, we got up at five in the morning to join Ko, Yuko, and Yuko's family on a hike up Diamond Head. Here is a shot of the beautiful sunrise. Julie can hear all the wooing from the Japanese tourist groups who all thought William was very cute ^_^

Gotta protect those beautiful eyes!

We also tried our luck with William and the beach... didn't go over too well. He didn't like the waves at all. Maybe when he is older...

While we were in Honolulu, we stayed at Waikiki Parc Hotel. This is the hotel we stayed at for our first wedding anniversary. Since May is our 4th wedding anniversary, they gave us a beautiful room and a box of chocolates ^_^

Julie and Eric also discovered a new shave ice place. William, how did you get in that picture? ^_^

All good things comes to an end... it is time to go home!

William 4.5 months: First International Trip!

After our successful LA test flight, Eric and Julie were pretty confident that William would do well on the 14 hour international flight to Taiwan (not that if the test flight didn't do well we wouldn't fly back to Taiwan - we would have just brought ear-plugs ^_^). The late night flight made it a little easier since William is sleepy to begin with. We were directed to get in the priority boarding line... but does this picture look a little funny. William seems to be a little young for this group!

From this flight, Eric and Julie learned how to perform a parent-acrobatic-act when changing diapers. The lavatory is a very tiny space for 2 grown adult. Eric was trying to get Julie to stop taking pictures so she can help him change William's diaper.

Here is William's first glimpse of Taiwan. Although Eric spent a lot of time and effort to get the bulk head seat and bassinet for William to sleep in, he preferred to sleep on daddy's lap for 7 hours. He was such a good boy we even got compliments from other parents on the flight.

Unfortunately the temperature in Taiwan was in the 90's with very high humidity. When we stepped out of the bullet train station, we were hit with a rush of hot air... A-gong and A-ma didn't get the smiley welcome they were looking for... (this is the first time A-gong saw William in person).

When we arrived at Julie's parents' place, we quickly stripped William down to his diapers, placed him in an air-conditioned room and he was out. We have lots of pictures of William in just a towel ^_^

Because of the jet lag, William was waking up at 4:00 in the morning... this allowed (or forced) Eric and Julie to take a nice morning stroll around 5 AM. The air was fresh and cool before the sun came up. We were able to walk to the park and watch people exercise and buy fresh steamed buns for breakfast. We even rescued a rabbit on one of our morning walks.

Taiwan is great for fruits in the summer. The watermelon this year is especially sweet. A-gong went out a bought a watermelon as big as William... so we had to take a picture.

Julie and mama Yang were able to find a (clothing) factory clearance sale, which happened to be on the grounds of the Taiwan Beer Brewery. Eric, papa Yang, and William followed a group of tourists into the tourist center and scored a few free beers, beer crackers, and beer pastries!

Papa Yang and mama Yang got to show off William at 2 different wedding banquets (yes... Julie and Eric were wedding crashers). Here is a picture of Julie's long-distance relative. Doesn't he look like Sung at first glance ^_^

While driving back from the wedding banquet (in heavy rain), Eric spotted this funny license plate.

Eric and Julie also spent an afternoon touring around old town Tainan. Julie noticed that there are a lot of artsy hole-in-the-wall cafes. Here is a mini cafe and a cafe with an extremely narrow door (actually an alley-way entrance).

Of course William was a big hit in Taiwan. His bright smiles made everyone smile. He even started to giggle.

Here is William meeting his cousin for the first time. She is Julie's cousin's baby girl who is 6 months older than William.

While in Taiwan, papa Yang tempted William with some yummy pineapple. Smart little guy figured out what we are doing at the dining room table and would no longer sit still while we eat. So Julie and Eric had to start feeding him solids. Although William's doctor recommended to start with Avocado (or vegetables) first, Avocado was not in season in Taiwan... So we started him with pureed bamboo shoots instead. William would grab our spoon and put it in his mouth and he would even get angry if we were too slow spooning him the next mouthful. Here is a picture of him getting mad at Eric for going too slow.

With the heat, we had to bath him all the time. Here is William holding on to the edge of the washbasin like a jacuzzi tub.

Here is William's first visit to the beach (a black sand beach in Taiwan).

Here is Julie picking up some seafood pizza from Pizza Hut...

Finally, after 2.5 weeks, we packed up our bags and headed off to our next destination!


More pictures from our Taiwan trip:

Happy 4 year anniversary!!!

Wow! Time sure flies when you are having fun. It is amazing what can happen in 4 years. This year Eric and Julie decided to treat themselves to a nice dinner at the House of Prime Rib in San Francisco.

Just the name makes you feel like your arteries are clogging up.

William started to get interested at the stuff on our dinner table. So we had to pay close attention to him, especially with the steak knife.

Look at that juicy prime rib. Eric went with the house cut and Julie went with the city cut... we didn't dare to challenge the king cut.

Here is Eric's prime rib, creamed spinach, bread pudding, and baked potato with everything on it. I'm sure it will take us a few weeks for all this cholesterol to flush out of our system...

Since we are already being bad, why not top it off with some ice cream at Ghirardelli Square ^_^

To celebrate our anniversary, we also took William down to the pool for the first time. The water didn't go past his knees ^_^ doesn't he look cute ^_^ and the swimmer diaper worked.

William 3.5 months: First flight

Boy... long time no blog ^_^
We've been so busy preparing the little guy for his big trip to Taiwan that we forgot to update you on our progress. So let's start with William's first flight in April.

Our trip from home to the airport was 2.5 hours long (we didn't know MUNI reduced their service frequency on the weekends), which made us miss our originally scheduled flight by 2 minutes. They closed the gate on us... (bad Southwest!)
William was in good spirits though. We were able to catch the last United flight out of SFO which means William's first flight was on United ^_^ we were all very excited about that!

Eric and Julie were very worried about William's reaction to take-offs and landings, but William was a trooper. He didn't have any problems with his plane ride at all. First he smiled up a storm for the passengers around us.

Then he proceed to take a nap right after the flight took off. The sound of the landing didn't even wake him up.

While in LA, William visited with family and helped mommy make a diaper cake for a friend.

We visited UCLA to help Dr. Weissman celebrate his birthday.

As you can see William is getting ready to return to San Francisco but where is daddy and mommy? Well... daddy and mommy got the stomach flu ... so we actually didn't make this flight.

After returning back to Torrance to recover for another 2 days, we finally made it on a flight to return to SFO.

Nothing to worry about! Our little guy fell asleep even before take-off this time.