Craig's Life Could Be Worse

Craig has become very fond of taking a large range of toys with him when he has a bath. Unfortunately, his cheapskate parents haven't bought a new bath for him for years so healready has trouble just lying down when he's in there by himself. Hopefully, one day he'll be lucky enough to be given a bigger bathtub so he can fit everything he wants into the tub.

Last Saturday, Craig had lunch at LA Cafe where he got lucky and occupied the one and only sofa in the place with Craig's Dad.

Craig's Mum seemed to enjoy sitting on the one and only single-seat sofa in the place and reading her newspaper in peace.

After lunch Craig was taken to a playground on top of a nearby department store. He's been there plenty of times before but it's lots of fun on the weekends when there's heaps of other kids running around. The atmosphere is more fun when there's other kids there.

Craig has started taking photos on his mobile phone and naturally one of the first games to play is take-a-picture-of-you-while-you-take-a-picture-of-me.



Late update:

Craig's Dad has just looked on Craig's phone and found this picture! Pretty good for a boy who looked like he was just playing with the camera and not looking at the screen on the back.



Second Late Update:
Craig's Dad looked on Craig's Mum's phone and found three more pictures that were taken that day.

Craig normally doesn't like these little drive around animals. He's seen them a million times before but never wanted to get on and ride around. Surprisingly, on this day he did and he even attempted to steer by himself but needed a bit of help when objects like walls jumped out in the way.

Visit to Dahu Park

Craig's Dad has been a bit lazy about getting his camera out and taking pictures of his golden boy lately. Luckily, last Saturday Craig made a trip to Dahu Park and his parents (Craig's Mum actually) remembered that there is a sandpit for Craig to play in there. Although Craig usually likes digging in the sand, on this occasion he only stayed there for about 10 minutes.

The other thing Craig's parents thought Craig might like was to kick a ball. Although the temperature was over 30 degrees Celsius, Craig stuck at that much longer. Sometimes he didn't chase the ball very hard but that was understandable. It was hot.

Most of the time he seemed to be having fun.

He doesn't have the chance to run around grass very often.

Craig's Mum took a couple of videos of the action.






Craig had sweated a lot while playing. When he went to lunch and took his cap off his hair was a little the worse for wear.

After lunch it was still so hot that Craig's Mum and Dad needed another sit-down in air-conditioned comfort. So, they found a coffee shop and Craig helped eat a waffle. He probably had about two-thirds while his parents shared the rest. His appettite is pretty good when he's being fed stuff he likes.

Craig's Dad was pretty happy about being out of the sun. While he was sitting very still Craig took advantage and found a soft place to sit. This is the good life when you're three.

Photos of Craig at Kindy

Craig's parents already knew that Craig likes going to kindergarten but they didn't have a very clear idea why.

He's never protested about being woken up in the morning if Craig's Dad quickly says, "It's time to go play with the other kids," which is Craig's Dad's way of saying it's time to go to kindy.

So, the other day, Craig's kindergarten teacher asked if Craig's parents could supply a USB memory stick. They were very pleasantly surprised when it came back with more than 150 photos of Craig doing lots of different stuff with his classmates. The photos have been uploaded to Photobucket here.

He's been busier than his parents thought. There's a lot of pics of Craig doing P.E. with his classmates where it looks like he had fun, and that can't be a bad thing.

Volare!

Last Saturday was a pretty boring ordinary day until late in the afternoon Craig began dancing on the sofa and attempting to sing along with the Gypsy Kings.

He was a bit tired and he can sometimes become very excited, very quickly when he's tired. But the reults can be pretty entertaining. Enjoy.

CNY 2010: The End

The morning of Craig's last day in Kaohsiung dawned brightly. It was the first he had seen of the sun for quite a few days.

As soon as he'd finished breakfast Craig was taken to the nearest park so he could finally have some fun. Blue rocking ducks are ubiquitous in Taiwan. Fortunately, Craig likes them a lot.

Craig didn't really need a rest when he came to sit with Mum and Dad. He just likes to keep them close.

Right across the street from the hotel, with a lovely view of the Love River was an eatery with a great name.

After lunch, Craig's Dad was permitted to go back to the tower and spend another NT$200 (NT$100 per adult, Craig was free) to back up to the 74th floor observation deck.

The little black line in the photo below encircles the top of the hotel that Craig stayed in as viewed from the 85 Tower.

Craig had heaps of fun running around the observation deck but after a while his parents thought he might have more fun at a park. A short walk took them to a park with a jungle gym that they had spotted from the tower.

You could see the tower clearly from the park.

Craig had plenty of fun on another jungle gym in a nearby school that was meant for bigger kids.

The level of difficulty was high so for the first few runs through Craig's Mum stayed very close.

Craig played on this little obstacle course for at least half an hour.

After he had climbed and crawled his way through a few times Craig's Mum was able to rest at the side while Craig played by himself.

Dinner that night was had on the rooftop of the eatery called Auntie Anne's!!! There was pizza, French beer and sushi.

All in a relaxing riverside atmosphere. It was a shame that they had to leave to catch an 8pm train back to Taipei.

CNY 2010: The Middle

After spending their first night in Kaohsiung in a cheap hotel, with a breakfast to match, Craig was taken out for a walk around the neighborhood even though it had started to rain.

After checking out at midday Craig moved on to a much nicer hotel. The Ambassador has a coffee shop on the 20th floor where Craig had lunch with his Mum and Dad while waiting for their room to be ready.

It was a rainy day so the view was a bit limited but it was a very comfy environment to be in while watching the rain fall.

Craig's Dad's sandwich was pretty good and Craig helped quite a bit with eating the chips.

The rain stopped while they were eating so they went for a long walk after lunch. Craig actually walked a lot but the only time he stayed still enough to have his picture taken was when he was on Craig's Dad's shoulders.

The only place they could find to sit down for a rest was quite windy. Craig wanted to make sure Craig's Mum stayed warm.

After returning to the hotel their room was finally ready. The overcast weather meant the view was not as spectacular as it might have been but it was still a big step up from the view of the back of a department store that could be seen at the previous place.

Craig's Mum was first to make herself a cup of tea and position a comfy chair next the window.

Right downstairs from the hotel, a stage had been set up in the middle of the Love River. When Craig and his parents were returning from dinner a performance featuring acrobats and dancers was just beginning.

But it was quite noisy and Craig wasn't too impressed. So, they retreated to their room to watch the show from there. The view from the 13th floor wasn't too bad.

The next morning Craig kept himself busy playing with the hotel phone.

Breakfast at the Ambassador was also a huge step up from the previous hotel but you couldn't tell from the look on Craig's face.

Craig's Dad then made a mistake. Even though it was raining and the clouds were very low in the sky he suggested that they travel over to a local skyscraper to look at the view.

If you looked straight down you could see a few rooftops when the occasional gap in the clouds came along.

There were photos on the wall beside the windows to help you find local landmarks.

But they were a bit hard to find through the fog and clouds.

Back at the hotel room Craig jumped on Craig's Dad's legs to play.

He likes being thrown around a bit.

Evetually the rain stopped but the streets were still wet.

So Craig was able to go out and walk along the edge of the footpath.

He liked walking along the edge so much that Craig's Mum and Dad had to take turns with holding his hand.

At night they could see the preparations for Lantern Festival along the far side of Love River.

The night view was actually quite nice.