Dylan the explorer

A long (5 day ) weekend was declared by the government here as the Friday was moon festival and the Tuesday a public holiday. They gave the Monday off; although declared the following Saturday a working day...so a mixed bag. We decided to take advantage of the long break and head up to Taipei with Dylan, our purpose: to visit the Zoo! A teacher at school recommended the astronomical museum too, so when we got there on Friday we checked it out. Dylan enjoyed it , plenty of buttons to push and then there was a cosmic ride which involved getting in a pod and travelling through space for twelve minutes. Complete with the planets, milky way and a short accidental visit through a dimension portal to an alien planet..no fear we got back safe.













Here he is looking into the concave mirror, Reaching out to the spaceman and hmm...not sure what this had to do with space (rabbit in the moon maybe) anyhow thought he looked cute!






Saturday it was off to the zoo. Last time we were there we realised it can be a long day, so only focused on a few areas: children's petting zoo, african animals and penguin house (we gave up on the walk last time) It was a real ohhhh time at the zoo. He loved seeing the animals and was pointing and growling(the way he does when he plays with his animal toys). Loads of fun. After a good morning at the zoo we went up to the tea plantation area in the mountains above Taipei, planning on chilling out at a tea shop up there . This did happen but only after confusion with the taxi driver who ripped us off (i didn't even need to rely on my chinese , I had a printout from the net. ) still "around the corner there" does not necessarily mean that and after about a 20 minute walk (no more taxis in sight) we arrived at our destination!!! Lovely place with friendly people. A fantastic view of the city with 101 (the tallest building in the world) standing out miles above the rest of the city. Dylan spent most of our time there feeding the fish.

The rest of our time was spent browsing and picking up some books at the bookstore. Needless to say the little guy slept well after all the excitement.
Now for a little gripe:
It is always nice travelling in Taipei and using the MRT, very "stroller friendly", with elevators available at most stations as an alternative to the escalators. Sometimes I do look at the abundance of able-bodied people without children or elderly people accompanying them and wonder "why?" The escalators are often much quicker to take and yet people will walk further to get to the elevator and then ride it ahead of those it is intended for. Don't get me wrong i am not on my hobby horse for my own purpose entirely. As there were two of us we could pick up the stroller and Dylan and take the escalator. At one of the stops however there was a group of people waiting to get into the elevator , just after we approached a woman on an electric wheelchair car approached. The elevator arrived and this group pushed and shoved to get into the elevator leaving only the woman, her partner and us. These elevators take a long time to close and throughout the closing Dylan was calling "Bye bye"..."bye" and waving. Once the doors closed the woman burst out laughing and said "Did you see their faces...embarrassed!!! Good little boy, they must know it is not for them it is for us." This is a frustration we deal with occasionaly and we have an alternative. It must be so frustrating for her.