Our New Home

View from Summit Hotel

At the rodeo

Shipment headed out

Early Monday morning the moving truck pulled up to take away our shipment to Nepal.  We are sending enough things to fill about 5x5x4ft, most of that things for Tegan.  When we moved to Taiwan we took only our limit of luggage - 2 suitcases each, all of them right at 50lbs.  If we didn't have Tegan we might have done the same thing this time as well, however, we've been told there are things we would be better off bringing with us for her.  Fingers crossed it arrives shortly after, if not before, we do!

Top 10 Taiwan posts

According to google analytics, these are our top posts about Taiwan over the last 3 years:

Rainbow Village
Leofoo Village Theme Park
Simply adorable (oh my how she has grown since this picture!)
Guava
Sun Moon Lake
Guo Nian
House of Unique Stink (I can still taste it...)
Having a baby in Taiwan
Modern Toilet
Musings (this one was fun for me to re-read since it was from the very beginning)

Things I will miss

As we have spent our final days in Taiwan saying goodbyes, packing up and finalizing all sorts of odds and ends, I find myself sadly thinking "this is the last time I will ___ in Taiwan".  Here is a list of the things I will miss about living in Taiwan:

• Taiwanese breakfast - dan bing especially
• The people at the restaurants/shops we frequent - they know us, they know our orders, they greet us with great big smiles.  Sure I can order my tea in broken chinese (yībēi lǜchá bàn táng) but when I see our tea guy I just say "one" and he knows what I want, or if I say "two" he knows I want my order and Jeremiah's (oolong, not green, tea).  And I have no doubt if we went down there right now, Allen at Thai Yun would feel safe betting $100 that we would order the Yunan style tofu.
• Tea: green and bubble tea - zhēnzhū nǎichá
• Geckos living in my office
• Mango, dragon fruit, guava, passion fruit
• Lo bao gao
• Taiwanese people in general - we've been continually amazed at the generosity and helpfulness of complete strangers.  
• Cheap and easy health care
• Day and night markets - the food, the fashion, the bargains
• Scooters - we've been without our scooter for about a month now and Jeremiah especially has missed it.  Pre-Tegan the scooter was the fastest and easiest way to get places, and to park!
• And of course all our friends we have made during the last 3 years - we will miss them most of all.

With such a long list there is really only one thing to do - come back and visit!

Preparations under way

We're catching up on our vaccinations and health records for our move to Nepal - last weekend we proved we don't have TB after a skin test and chest x-ray.  We also had blood tests and got our teeth cleaned.

We've sold our car and furniture and have started packing up the few belongings we will keep.  In less than 2 weeks we will be on the plane heading back to the US for the summer; it is bittersweet - we are both very excited about going home and then to start our new jobs, but sad to be leaving our home for the last 3 years.

Taipei Lantern Festival - Year of the Dragon

Two years ago we went to the Taipei Lantern Festival and had a great time.  We decided to go again this year after hearing that the lanterns were to be especially impressive.  Well, apparently everyone else in Taiwan got that memo because, boy, was it crowded.  We spent so much time fighting to get through the masses of people that it was hard to enjoy the lanterns at all times.  There were some awesome displays though, and it was definitely an experience.