Full Moon Party

When a child is born in Taiwan, the tradition demands a Full Moon Celebration (滿月 - mǎn yuè) when the child is one month old. On this occasion, the child is presented to friends and family of the parents and receives his/her Chinese name. The name is chosen in a complicated way by investigating the star constellations, the number of strokes of the characters...
As we think this to be a nice tradition, we also held a Full Month Celebration for our Anna on the 9th of January. We invited our friends and colleagues and served cakes (provided by a local French patissier Mr Bruno) and tea according to the tradition (- for a boy's Full Moon party, sticky rice with chicken legs are served). The mother of one of our friends, Yu-Shiu, even prepared a traditional sesame oil chicken soup with lots of ginger for us!

Anna was cordially received by our friends and was passed from one arm to another, which she obviously enjoyed. (Luckily she is not shy with strangers yet!)

And Anna also got a Chinese name! 安娜 (An Na)

Anna received many gifts. We loved especially the traditional gift of gold jewellery, which was given to us by our Taiwanese friends!


And Anna, all being a girl, soon discovered her precious pieces of jewellery and had to try them on...

First Mountain Peak for Anna

Anna climbed her first mountain peak!!! Well, to be honest, it was just the hill behind where we live, but it is a peak nevertheless! And of course she did not climb it by herself but enjoyed being carried by her grandma! She enjoyed it that much that she slept during the whole walk...

Kamil on the other hand did climb the hill by himself - even in a more advanced speed!
Here they are using the typical Taiwanese hand gesture for picture taking:


Taipei is laying at our feet, only the Taipei 101 Building is still higher than where we are standing:

Daddy's Girl

Daddy is fooling around with little Anna:

Fooling around with daddy is quite exhausting...

Grandmas are the best!!!

The reason why we are still fit and in a good shape is due to the fabulous help of especially one person, to whom we dedicate this posting: Anna's Grandma Dorli (Micha's mother)!


She not only is helping us by holding and soothing our little girl during the day but is also giving us advice with handling our first child, managing the household, doing the shopping (with the help of Grandpa! Thanks to him, too - and he is a wonderful Anna-holder as well!), cleaning the flat, and washing the laundry.
Yet the most appreciated and precious help comes during night times, when she is pacing the flat in endless patience while singing, rocking and soothing Anna, who has not yet completely understood the concept of day and night...


Thanks, Mom!!! You are a wonderful mother and a very special grandma!

New Year 2009 in Taipei

An early Christmas

This year, we had an early Christmas, as the biggest gift of all came already on December 12th, when our little daughter Anna was born!


After a few days in the hospital, we could take our little one home and celebrate Christmas together with Micha's parents, who came to Taipei to help us during the first time as a new family.


A very proud daddy Kamil is, indeed! And Micha is happy to hand over the carrying of the baby after the nine months she was in charge with this:


Happy daddy is already joking around with little Anna:


We are enjoying our new life as parents and are grateful for each day we can spend with our daughter - she is such a special gift to us!

And, as we are celebrating New Year's Eve today, we are wishing everyone a Happy New Year and all the best for 2009!!!

Double Advent

December started and with it comes advent time. But the weather here in Taipei with more than 20 degrees Celcius does not put us into Christmas mood... As we might have to wait very long for snow in Taipei (probably until the next Ice Age) we embellished our apartment with some Christmas decoration in order to create some wintery feelings.


But anyway, this year, we are having TWO advents to wait for!!!

We wish you all a peaceful and quiet advent time!