Ding Ding Pharmacy

This post is mostly for other families adopting from Taiwan.

Before going home from Taiwan, I wanted to stock up on Hannah's formula (enough to get us through until her first appointment at an international adoption clinic) and extra pacifiers that were the same as the single pacifier she came to us with. I've heard of other adoptive families anguish when their Taiwan pacifier broke or became misplaced, and their child rejected multiple American style pacifiers.

Upon the recommendations of my adopting friends Judy and KB, we went to the Ding Ding Pharmacy in Taipei. It was a short taxi ride away from our hotel, the Grand Hyatt Taipei. I'd certainly want to take a taxi and not try to take a bus or the MRT, as I knew that our hands would be full carrying shopping bags with multiple cans of formula and other goodies that would hop into our cart.

I printed out the taxi card to Ding Ding available on Judy's old blog (click here for link). Because we went on New Year's Eve, we had someone at the concierge desk at our hotel call the store to make sure they were open. Our hotel's staff told us that they're open until 11:45pm every night. The staff checked the taxi card, and said that the only thing it's missing is that it doesn't say that the store is on the second floor. Uh... I don't think the taxi is going to take us up the stairs, but thanks. Heehee.


Here's a shot of me with Hannah in the baby carrier ready to find her some formula and pacifiers.


This is what the outside of the store looked like.


We took the elevator up to the second floor. Walking up stairs with a baby strapped to your front and you can't see your feet isn't fun.


The store was much larger than I thought it was going to be. Guess I got used to stores being much smaller in Taiwan, except for Carrefour and department stores. The store seemed like a cross between a Babies R Us and an a CVS or Walgreens. The product mix was definately focused on infants and toddlers. Here you could find baby clothes, diapers, formula, bottles, nipples, pacifiers, cups, spoons, baby chopsticks, strollers, cribs, medications, etc.


Here's the formula section. Hannah is on a Wyeth formula called S-26 SMA Gold for 0-6 months of age. The can says that it is made in Singapore, but Wyeth is an international company. I haven't been able to figure out if there is an exact equivalent for the product sold by Wyeth in the United States. I'm not worried about it. I'll just let the international adoption clinic do their stuff and tell us what they suggest at our upcomming appointment. We have plenty of formula to last until then.




There were at least three sections of pacifiers. Hannah's pacifier is one piece of molded silicone and has a long thinner nipple. The only markings on it said "US baby." We searched through the pacifiers and found ones that looked like hers and they said that they were made by a company called US baby (click for link), but were made in Taiwan. Pretty funny! There were a few sizes of the same pacifier. We popped Hannah's pacifier out of her mouth and held it up next to the pacifiers in the packages, and then had a staffer confirm that the pacifiers were the same.


They had all sorts of cute pacifier keepers. Of course Hannah went home with this Hello Kitty one! It even has a storage section inside the Hello Kitty head to keep it clean when not in use. We also got a pink Hello Kitty stacking formula dispenser that holds enough formula for four bottles. I carry it in the diaper bag.


And who couldn't resist a set of baby chop sticks? We got Hannah the training set with the frogs on them to the right.

One last thing. Don't bother with packing oodles of diapers to bring to Taiwan. Waste of valueable suitcase space! I had read other parents' complaining that the diapers that they bought in Taiwan had the old pastic non-adjustable sticky tabs and they wished they had brought diapers with the velcro-like tabs in the US. Upon the recommendation of Megan's daddy Kevin, we purchased a pack of a brand of diapers called Merries while in Taiwan. They had a regular kind and premium, and we purchased the premiums and they worked wonderfully wicking away our little piddlemonster's peepee and had the nice velcro-tabs for newbie parents trying to figure out how tightly to fasten a diaper around a wiggleworm. We bought our Merries at Carrefour, but also saw them at the Ding Ding Pharmacy.