It turned out that even if Sean's Mum had told his Dad the English name, he wouldn't have known who or what it was. Sponge Bob is not well known in our household.
Sean knew of a store that had a large variety of Sponge Bob toys available, in at least five different sizes. Naturally Sean wanted the biggest and most expensive one.
After taking Sponge Bob back to his Mum's shop and adding him to his soft toy collection Sean still wasn't quite ready to go out. He had some gifts for his Dad! The cards are given away free to customers of a convenience store chain and feature pictures of Snoopy visiting tourist destinations all over Taiwan. Sean had three spares and he gave them to his Dad . He also gave his Dad some money from Hong Kong because his Dad had promised to swap some Euro with him. Sean keeps a small collection of foreign money but doesn't have any Euro yet.
After that little presentation, Sean and his Dad went to the soccer field at a nearby university where Sean was allowed to open up the presents that his Dad had for him. The first one he opened was an ultra-light remote control helicopter.
The other one was a t-shirt with a picture of Bondi Beach that shows the view as seen from a restaurant named Sean's.
Sean got straight to work with reading the instructions for the tiny helicopter.
But his Dad forced him to pose for a couple of pictures with the t-shirt. First, the back.
And then the front.
But, like most little boys Sean is not a man of words but a man of action. He'd rather kick a soccer ball than read instructions. Plus, he'd found out that the helicopter needed to charge its batteries for 20 minutes before it could be used.
After kicking the ball against the wall and having a penalty-taking competition with his Dad (sorry no pictures of that), Sean found a new game to play. The only problem with the game was that his father had told him specifically to not stick the pump in the water that had gathered around a sprinkler head beside the soccer field. Not only did he do it, he giggled while he did!
Despite only being Spring, it was almost 30 degrees outside and Sean insisted on playing with the soccer ball out in the sun. Even when he took a break he wouldn't go in the shade. Plus, his Dad had played squash with some friends for an hour before going to play with Sean. So, both he and Sean needed a cold drink and a sit-down after messing about kicking the soccer ball for a couple of hours.
Sean had two books with him that he wanted to read; both were about caring for pets. The first one was quite unusual.
But, since Sean does have a pet miniature pig, the book is very practical. His Mum is doing a good job of encouraging Sean to take care of the animal himself.
While Sean's Dad read the book about miniature pigs, Sean enjoyed a cold can of his favourite drink, sarsparilla, while reading the other book, which was about caring for pet dogs.
He then had one last go at making the helicopter fly but it just didn't want to lift off more than a couple of inches off the ground. He decided to seek help with it from his Mum's employees in the shop.
Then, it was time for lunch. Sean found a table full of toys just inside the front door of McDonalds. They were on sale at very cheap prices because they were left-overs from promotional activities. Sean found a Goleo for only NT$50! It was much bigger and much cheaper than the ones his Dad had seen in Germany last year during the World Cup.
Then, it was time for Sean to head back to his Mum's shop so he could have a quick nap before heading off to a class at 4:30pm on a Saturday. It would seem strange to some, but that's just the way he lives.
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