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Saturday, September 26, 2009

Ailey recites the Chinese 'bo po mo' alphabet - Sept, 2009

Teacher Amy says: "愛麗很在意也很擔心自己的考試成績,幾乎天天會過問一下自己到底考幾分,可以再跟愛麗說不用太緊張,考試之前我都會利用課輔課幫愛麗做複習,他表現很棒!進步也很快,所有考卷上的題目都是他自己完成的喔!"

...which means: "Ailey cares a lot on her daily quizzes results. She asks me the score results right after every quiz. Please encourage her and tell her to take it easy. I will help her to review lessons during the one to one class before the midterm exam. She is doing fine with everything. Ailey has a great progress on her Chinese study. She can write every quiz all by herself."

We're very pleased and impressed with her progress. Thinking of visiting Harbin for the ice festival in February. Might have to rely on Ailey to get us around...

Saturday, September 12, 2009

921 Earthquake Museum - WuFeng Sept, o9

As we near the 1oth anniversary of the 9.21.99 earthquake in Taiwan, we decided to take a morning trip to the museum to show Ailey what we lived through and perhaps prep her for her first, inevitable earthquake. They have a room that replicates the feel of the quake that night, which 2000 residents of Taichung and the surrounding areas lost their lives. The museum was a nice mix of memorial and science.





The fault line passed right through the middle of a junior high school in Wufeng, a suburb of Taichung. The shifting of earth was just mind blowing, as these images of the track above and at right show.





The quake registered Ms 7.6 Richter and Ml 7.3 Richter. Not completely clear what the difference between the two Richters are but it was a monster. It was also very, very shallow at only 1km deep and centered just 20km outside of Taichung city. The quake lasted 40 seconds but the aftershocks, registering as high as 6.8, continued for over a week.