A few observations after 3 weeks

Pre-typhoon rain is nothing to laugh at!  It rains buckets, it rains so hard it's deafening under an umbrella, puddles form instantly, gutters overflow, small creeks run down the side of the street.  Then it stops and is so humid it's like walking through water!  And then it starts all over again, while you wonder if you remembered to pack everybody's rain boots in the sea shipment....

By the way, the score is typhoon rains=1, 3 umbrellas=0.  Must find better quality umbrellas!

Cars slow down to a crawl in the rain here, just the same as Portland, although somehow it seems more valid here since you can't actually see out the windshield when it's raining!  Took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to Costco this morning, normally it's a 20-25 minute drive.

Glorious Costco - I can buy things here that I can get nowhere else in Taipei, like Fage greek yogurt, granola bars, goldfish crackers, Special K cereal, and so on.  And it turns out they have rotisserie chicken - hurray!  It also turns out that said rotisserie chicken still has the head on it - boo!  (Yes, I discovered this when I got it home, and had to whack off the head...)

I love it when the restaurant name tells you exactly what to expect.  My favorite so far..."Eat Burger."

Signs in English - the translations are often not quite right, and sometimes flat-out wrong.  Do you think the Chinese signs in America are just as bad?  Do Chinese people go through American airports giggling at the signs?

The garbage & recycling truck comes down our lane at 7:15 every night.  People know it's arrived because it plays "Fur Elise" out of a loudspeaker system.  I will never think of that classical song the same way again.

Geckos in Taiwan are not green like in Hawaii, they are a light tan almost translucent color.  I'll have you all know, I only let out a small squeak while I did crazy jazz hands when I discovered that gecko on my laundry pile last night.

Locals are just as jumpy about cockroaches as I am.  Watched a lady yesterday do a fast dance on the sidewalk to avoid a cockroach.  I feel better about shrieking and jumping when I see them.  (side note: G has decided the best joke ever is to point and yell "cockroach" at me whenever we're walking at night.  It's effective, I'll give her that.)

The cable guy comes on time here.  In America, they give us a window of 4 freakin' hours in which the cable guy might show up.  Here, they say they will be there after 10am and he arrives promptly at 10.  What a concept.

Movie theaters have reserved seats.  When you buy your tickets ahead of time, you can select your seats.  When you buy at the ticket counter at the theatre, you still get a reserved seat.  And people actually sit in their reserved seats!

People in Taiwan are so polite.  Standing in line is actually a thing here, unlike in China where no one ever heard of a line.  Today a gentleman stood aside and let me in the elevator first and another let me go in front of him in line because I had one item and he had a cart full.  Never ever happened in China.

We are going through an inordinate amount of toilet paper!  We've been here 3 weeks and I tried to buy our second package of toilet paper at Costco today (they were out, coincidence?).  I used to buy a big Costco package of TP about every 2 months in Oregon!

More people than I expected speak English, and if they hear you struggling they often step in and help. I'm always equally grateful and embarrassed.  I moan about how hard Chinese is to learn, but clearly all these people have learned both Chinese and English (the other hardest language to learn).  What is wrong with me???

I signed up for Survival Chinese language classes starting in September.  I'm sure I'll learn lots of really useful things, but what I really want to know is how I say my address in Chinese.  In English, it's No.8, Alley 45, Lane 405, Zhongshan Bei Lu, Section 6, Shilin District.  What are the Chinese words for number, alley, lane, and section?  And once I know those, what order do I say this all in?  Start with the big boulevard first and go backwards until I get to the building number?  Or start smallest with the building number and build up to large road we live near.  It's a mystery to me.

Garbage disposals don't exist here.  Instead they have these genius little colander things that sit down in the drain and they catch all the bits and you can empty it out.  I thought it was genius until the first time I cleaned it out.  Gross.

Mimi has decided on a standard answer any time she gets in trouble or is asked to stop whining/crying/complaining:  "But Mama, I miss my friends and my school in Portland."  Which was really sweet the first 10 times, and I was sympathetic.  But today she used it after she whacked G in the head with her umbrella and I told her to knock it off.  I think perhaps my sympathy has departed...

I had the use of a car today (hallelujah!) and I was reminded that #1 doing errands in pre-typhoon rain is stupid, #2 I will never accomplish in one day here what I accomplished in the US.  There are just too many variables with transportation, language, stores, faulty directions, wrong addresses, etc.  It's time to let my type A/OCD craziness relax...

On that note, I'm off to bed so I can try to accomplish just one thing tomorrow instead of five.  Of course, before I got to bed I have to do one more check of the weather website to see if there is any more info about tomorrow's typhoon.  Can't learn to relax all in one day.  :)

Problem Solving a.k.a. Life Before Smartphones

Things are moving very fast here in Taipei, much faster than when we moved to Shanghai.  In Shanghai, we literally knew only one other couple for the 3 weeks until school started.  The girls were little and still had naps every day and getting a meal on the table was just about the only thing I could accomplish in a day for a very long time.  We didn't start exploring for quite a few weeks.

In Taipei, however, we were introduced to a whole bunch of fun and welcoming people the first weekend.  I mentioned in another blog that it was fantastic to talk to other adults and soak up some knowledge about living here.  But equally important was the chance for the kids to meet new friends.  And then we were generously invited to playdates at a variety of pools this week.  It's been such a blessing because it's been 95-100 every day and just walking two blocks in this heat and humidity takes it out of us.  A pool with new friends is just the thing for revival!

One of the challenges of contacting people and confirming playdates and locations and pick-up times etc is my phone.  I have a borrowed phone, and I'm incredibly grateful for that because without it I would have nothing.  But the phone is not a smart phone and it doesn't have data.  So it's strictly calling or texting...and texting is the old-fashioned way, withOUT predictive text. Almost as much as I miss the ability to text efficiently, I miss having a map program!  Or even having a paper map of the Tienmu area where we live.  There are google maps, but we have no printer as of yet, so I can't print one out.  And you can't buy a map of the area.  It makes getting around a little complicated, you basically have to walk til you find what you're looking for, not an easy task in this heat with little ones in tow.

Yesterday we were invited to a swim playdate at Zane and Cara's house.  Zane works at Intel and they are also from Portland, and we had a chance to meet Cara and their kids before moving to Taiwan.  Ironically, they also have a 4 year old named Mimi!  Our Mimi has been truly looking forward to the day when the "other" Mimi arrives in Taipei.  So yesterday we were headed to their house after G's tennis lesson.  Actually, back up, here's how the day started out:

8:30 New Parent Orientation at TAS (Taipei American School) - not supposed to take kids, but what are we going to do with them?  We pack up Livi for basketball camp, pack a backpack of stuff for the little ones to read and play quietly during orientation.

9:00 Send Olivia off to bball camp from middle of orientation meeting

9:30 Orientation done - stand in line for campus ID photo, have picture with bad frizzy hair taken, put money on Olivia's lunch card.  Joe heads to bus stop to jump on bus to work.

9:45 Walk to bakery to get more wheat bread because we're almost out...wheat bread is fresh out of oven and too hot to slice, please come back later

10:00 Home - G gathering stuff for tennis lesson, Mimi on toilet complaining of Taiwan tummy, me sitting in front of my computer looking at google maps trying to memorize the roads to get to Cara's house.  Then looking at bus routes that get us close to their house.  Think I have a plan to get us 75% of the way there on the bus before we have to walk, but the bus we need only comes by every hour.  More yelling from Mimi on the toilet, G dancing through the family room without any tennis gear...me making a sketch of the google map

10:30 Realize that if we're going to execute our bus & walk plan to playdate, need to have lunch in the 15 minutes between end of tennis lesson and catching bus.  Frantic making of peanut butter and jelly sandwich (just one, since we're out of bread) and throwing fruit and snacks into bag with swimsuits.

10:45 Out the door to tennis lessons.  As we are walking to tennis lessons in sweltering heat, realize that the walk to playdate (which looked uphill on google maps) may be bad idea.  Maybe we'll take a taxi after bus.  I have address:  No. 45, Lane 25, Dong Shan Road.  My problem is I don't know the Chinese words for "house number" and "Lane."  I can't just give the taxi driver a bunch of Chinese numbers with English words interspersed, how do I figure out how to say the whole address in Chinese?

Side note:  Why don't I have a smartphone?  Why can't I just show a taxi driver the address in Chinese on my smartphone?  Oh yes, because you cannot buy a phone plan with data until you have your ARC (Alien Resident Card).  And you cannot apply for ARC until you're in the country and then it takes 2-3 weeks from the time you apply.  Thus, why I have a borrowed phone in the meantime.

11:00 Drop G at tennis lessons, text Joe and ask him to ask colleagues at work how to say "house number" and "lane" in Chinese....15 minutes later get the answer in phonics.  Good enough, I can work with that.

11:30 G finishes tennis lessons (indoor courts with no A/C).  We sit on steps inside school in cool A/C trying to let her cool down before walking outside.  Eat our picnic lunch.

11:45 Let's go girls, we've got to catch the bus!  Walk briskly to bus stop, sweat dripping from all possible places on our bodies.  Find bus stop no problem, feeling good!  Turns out bus doesn't come for another 23 minutes, sorry for the hurry girls.  :(  Other buses coming by frequently, but I don't know exactly where they go, and the maps at the bus stop are all in Mandarin characters, no help to me.

12:15 Jump on bus.  Air Conditioning.  BLISS.  Maybe we'll just ride around on the bus all afternoon.  But alas, our stop comes...and then goes.  Bus driver doesn't stop at regular stop even though I pushed button, goes all the way down the hill and then stops.  We get off and walk back up the hill as I'm looking around for the right street.  I double back at one point trying to get a look at a street sign and Mimi starts to whine that we'll miss the playdate with other Mimi because we're lost.  "We're not lost, I'm just getting my bearings."  Then G chimes in with, "I wish Daddy were here, then we wouldn't be lost." I'm seeing red at that comment because I think I'm a pretty damn good problem solver in a foreign country, but instead of yelling, I politely say through clenched teeth, "Daddy's no better at finding his way than I am, he just has a phone with a map on it to help him out."

We find the right road at the top of the hill.  Looking at an uphill walk in 98 degree heat on a narrow road with no sidewalk and two exhausted kids.  Taxi comes by, I decide to go for it and flag the taxi.  Get in taxi, tell him address.  He shakes his head "no" and points to a detour sign at the bottom of the road.  I'm trying to tell him to take the detour, but that's no help because I'm doing it in English.

He says something else and G says "he says he can't go that way Mom" and I'm muttering to myself, "what's the words for 'other way'?" when G just starts talking to the taxi driver.  Again he tells us he can't go that way, then G tells him another car (a Mercedes, no less) just went around the detour sign.  Taxi driver follows Mercedes, YEAH!!!  Big hugs for G!!!  Speeding up hill, I keep repeating what house number we're looking for and taxi driver just keeps driving until we get to a dead end, then looks at me. He's not even helping look for the address!  I tell him go back down slowly while we look for house number.  Least helpful taxi driver I've encountered yet.

I find #45 gate, but it's next to empty lot with broken down cars and tractor, could this be their house?  We get out of taxi and I'm trying to figure out in my head how to say to some unsuspecting Taiwanese person who opens the door "Hi, I'm looking for my American friends who live at No. 45 on Lane 25?"  Luckily, it was the right house and we found Cara and Zane and Alex and Mimi.

Lovely couple hours in their pool, and even lovelier ride back to TAS in their car with their driver.

3:45 Pick up Olivia from last day of basketball camp, where she got a medal for "most improved" camper during the week.

4:00 Walk back to bakery for wheat bread.  Kids talk me into chocolate chip cookies...am wilted by heat and have no more brain power left, no ability to say no.

4:30 Make it home again.  Plop down on couch under air conditioner.  Can't move.  Joe texts that dinner plans are cancelled. Crap, need to make dinner.

5:30 Joe walks in, I'm still sitting on couch reading Facebook, CNN, email.  Children are running around like lunatics.  We're going to get complaints from neighbors below us.
Joe patiently listens to my day and even nods sympathetically in all the right places, except about the part where G wished he was with us so we wouldn't be lost.  There he gave a chuckle!  Joe graciously gives in to my whining about cooking and we head out to dinner.

God bless the Italians and the way their food is available in almost every country around the world.  A glass of wine and a brick-oven pizza revive my outlook on life in general.  Lovely stroll back to the apartment after dinner, feeling mellow and happy to have our family together and on a new adventure.  Shops are open and it's fun to look in and see what's what, we're all enjoying ourselves on a Friday night.

Stop into a bookstore next to G's new school to get her some notebooks for when her tutor comes on Monday (more on how we found her later).  Kids picking out pens and notebooks and having fun, then G mentions how at her old school they gave them all the supplies and her new school will be different.  I nod absently, and then freeze.  Oh My God.  There is going to be a school supply list, and it's going to be in Mandarin, and I'm not going to know what to get or where to get it.  Holy crap.

Mellow mood disappears, shooting panicked look at Joe.  Thank goodness I am married to the perfect partner for me.  He tells me it's a problem for another day and we'll figure it out then.  He's right, indeed we will.  And I'm sure it will be it's own adventure...

What's in a name? Everything when you're 8 years old.

This morning, I had a heartbreaking conversation with Gigi.  She was in tears at breakfast for a variety of reasons, but the main one was that she misses her name.  She misses being Gigi.  Why, you ask?  Because she has to go by Genevieve or her Chinese name Ling Ling while in Taiwan.

When we were in China, someone told us that gigi is the slang word for penis in Mandarin.  But no one ever had any reaction to her name or made an issue out of it, so I figured it wasn't a very commonly used word.  Or it was kind of like the name Dick in the US, some people under the age of 12 may snicker, but it's not a big deal.

But apparently that's not going to be the case in Taiwan.  When we spent Sunday afternoon with some other ex-pat families some of the moms kindly informed me that the word "gigi" is what boys call their penises.  I thought we would just see how things played out, see if it was a big deal or not and see how Gigi reacted to it.  I didn't have to wait long.  On Tuesday we went at a pool as guests of a friend and kids (also American) at the pool informed Gigi that her name means penis in Taiwan.  She came to me immediately and said she didn't want to be called Gigi anymore.  I asked her what she wanted to do and she asked to be Genevieve or Ling Ling.

For the last two days we've been calling her Genevieve (except Amelia, who can't remember to call her Genevieve, and when she does, she adorably calls her Gevenieve.)  After 8 years of calling her Gigi, it's a bit of a mind-bender for us to call her Genevieve all the time.  This morning, through her tears, Gigi tells me she misses being Gigi, and she feels like she's always in trouble when I'm calling her Genevieve.  I'm so sad, and she's so sad, and there's really nothing we can do.  :(

This, my friends, is one of the dangers of giving your children nicknames...but who thinks of the possible consequences of a name in a foreign country when you are naming your sweet baby girl?  We certainly did not.

Our First Weekend

Hooray!  We've made it through our first weekend and can report that it was great.  Well, it was mostly great...there was that episode where we found out we're fat.  Even when you know it's coming, it's still shocking to have people comment so blatantly on your physical attributes.  But I digress.

Saturday morning was leisurely, got a few things done around the house.  Since we have only rental furniture (couch, coffee table, dining table, chairs, and 4 beds) and our clothes and some kid toys, there is not really a lot to be done.  We basically tidied up piles of stuff.

We decided to tackle public transportation in the afternoon, but first visited the local gym.  World Gym is about a 10 minute walk from our apartment, and since we spent the last 3 months stuffing our faces with as much mexican food as possible and eating whatever else we pleased, we actually need the gym now. We went in, kids in tow of course, which got us a lot of looks.  We asked for a tour and pricing information.  "Eden" was our tour guide and there was absolutely no telling if we were speaking with a he or she.  You would think the name would indicate female, but names are tricky things between cultures.  Sometimes people don't understand the significance of a name, or the fact that it's typically a male or female name.  For example, I know I am totally clueless about Chinese names: if you gave me a list of Chinese names and asked me which ones were typically male or female, I would have absolutely no context and no idea.  I would purely be guessing.

Regardless, we followed "her" around the cardio and weight rooms.  Then she took us to the Personal Training desk where the one English (kind of) speaking person asked us to take off shoes and step onto a machine.  As happens so often, we have no ability to ask what or why and understand the answer, so we just go along.  It turned out to be a diagnostic scale of sorts.  We each got a print out with our weight, bone density, hip & waist ratio, BMI, etc.  Then, in barely functioning English, a trainer took us through the analysis.  About the 5th time he mentioned the word "overweight" and "out of normal range" he also mentioned that maybe we eat too much friend chicken.  The kids all cracked up at this, especially since we never eat fried chicken.  Aiyo!  We voluntarily came into this gym???  But yes, we joined the gym, because hey, it's air conditioned!

Next we planned to hop on bus 285, the bus Joe will take to work.  But first we had to get mass transit cards, which we did at 7-11.  By the way, there is a 7-11 or a Family Mart on practically every block in Taipei.  It's amazing how many convenience stores exist here.  And you do everything at 7-11: pay bills, send packages, buy transit cards, buy tickets to concerts/movies/shows, buy alcohol, local snacks, and anything else you can think of.  7-11s are definitely not this useful in the US.  Although, sadly, no slurpee machine in the 7-11s in Taipei.

The bus ride to work was about 40 minutes (not in rush hour traffic), it's clean and efficient.  Once at the office building, we figured we might as well learn all the mass transit on the same day, so we found the closest MRT station (subway) and headed across town to Taipei 101.  A truly impressive building among all shorter buildings, although I have no idea why there are no more tall buildings in the Taipei skyline, perhaps there's a rule?  101 was the tallest building in the world in 2004.  We treated the kids, and ourselves, to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, then hopped back on the MRT.  Rode it all the way back to Tianmu (our neighborhood), then a 20 minute walk home and we had made a complete trip.  Kids were troopers the whole time and now know how to navigate bus and subway!

Sunday started a little rocky with the 4:30am call from our bank's fraud protection unit calling to confirm that Taiwan purchases were legitimate.  Seriously?  There is a note on our account that says we moved to Taiwan July 27th and activity on our cards in Taiwan will be common!  Apparently, that's irrelevant.  But things improved with an 8am Skype call with friends in Portland.  Technology is such a godsend when you're living abroad, especially for kids who are afraid their friends will forget them while they are gone.  So good to see the people you're talking to!

We were invited to Joe's co-workers apartment for snacks and swimming in the afternoon.  Turns out they live a 3 minute walk from us and they invited over a number of other friends.  So great to meet a few people, and for me to pick the brains of all the other moms.  So many questions!  My head is swimming with new information, but most importantly, they told me where I could find deli meat!  I have been to 4 different grocery stores so far and have not seen deli meat.  Starting tomorrow Olivia goes to basketball camp and I was in a bit of a panic about what to pack in her lunch.  I'm not feeling creative enough to send her anything other than a sandwich, which is why I walked to the store at 9:00 tonight and paid $23 (!!!) for half-pound of ham and half-pound of turkey.  OMG.  I'm going to have to figure out a different lunch, sandwiches at that price are clearly not in our budget.  (In case you thrifty folks are wondering, Olivia's school is a peanut-free zone, so no economical PJB sandwiches.)  But any and all other lunch suggestions are welcome.  :)

Anyway, the kids got to swim and play with other kids, Joe and I talked to other adults, and we have lots of new information about the place we live.  We are feeling very satisfied with our weekend and ready to tackle the next week.  Olivia is going to basketball camp every day, Gigi is taking tennis lessons each day, and Mimi has an "interview" to get into her Montessori school.  Wish us luck!

First Week in Taipei

Well, we've made it through the first week in Taipei!  The general consensus from everyone in the family is: IT'S HOT!  These Pacific Northwest bodies are not accustomed to heat and humidity of this level.  It's so hot all the time that lukewarm water comes out of the tap...no cold water this time of year.

Here are some snatches of our week:

Monday - Left the hotel, moved into our apartment.  I was pleasantly surprised to realize I liked the apartment better than I remembered.  (Except, of course, for the weird hot dog water smell in Gigi's room).  We had the use of a van and driver for the day, so went to the bank to change money and pay landlord, rental furniture, water guy, internet/cable, telephone, etc.,
Then we hit all the big stores where we were likely to buy things that we couldn't get home in a taxi.  We don't have a car here in Taipei, so after this week, everything is on foot or by taxi. Big shopping at Costco, which is remarkably like home, except crazy crowded.  Imagine Costco on Saturday, then add 30-40% more people.  Had Costco hot dogs for lunch the first day!  Apparently, we haven't actually left America.
Also went to B&Q (Home Depot equivalent), then Hola (home furnishings store).  Piled it all into the car, then Joe headed to our friend Jack's house for two suitcases full of stuff he brought over in June.  No one was up for cooking, so we walked to our favorite Chinese restaurant, Din Tai Fung.  Twenty minute walk in the heat, tired jet-lagged girls, and the wait is 35 minutes.  Can't do it, so we hop in a taxi and go to Chili's (yes, the American chain).  But Gigi is feeling sick and we spend 20 minutes in the bathroom where she feels like she's going to throw up.  Get the food to go, hop in a taxi back home, sit down for dinner at 8:30.  Perhaps we should have waited the 35 minutes at 7:00.  Oops.  Mimi falls asleep at the table after one bite of pizza.

Tuesday - Joe heads to work/Ecosystem Symposium, we stick around the apartment to pay the bottled water guy but he never comes.  No idea what happened there.  We venture upstairs and meet the neighbors that live directly above us, an American family with two sons, ages 5 and 1.  The older son attends Ms. Lam's Montessori School where Mimi will be attending and the mom says it's a great school.  Good to hear, and perhaps there is a possible walk-pool here!

Girls and I take a walk to all three of their schools.  It's HOT and muggy, everybody's got curly hair.  Gigi sees a dumpling restaurant and asks if we can eat lunch there.  Olivia declares she couldn't eat something hot "no matter what!"  Then amends to, "well, if they have the air conditioner on super high and we can sit there for a really long time, then maybe."  We opt for a lunch at air conditioned Subway instead.  The girls beg me to take them to the exercise park.  I'm dumbfounded.  Weren't they just complaining about the heat?  Yes, but we go anyway.  It's a tiny park with exercise equipment for adults.  For some reason they love this place and use the equipment for 20 minutes and get even sweatier and dirtier!

Joe makes it home by 6:00 and we have our first meal together in our new house.  It's less than spectacular.  I had the makings for spaghetti from Costco plus a stash of whole wheat pasta from home (but had to borrow a can opener from the neighbor).  Nothing else to go with the meal as we hadn't been to typical grocery yet.  No vegetables, no salad, nothing.  So everybody had a big plate of spaghetti and then dropped into bed exhausted.

The kids are in bed by 8 every night, and we're about 30 minutes behind them.  Despite the fact that we've done this before, it is mentally exhausting to be in a new place, to keep track of where we are at all times so we don't end up lost, to translate everything in your head before you try to speak....

Wednesday and Thursday - Use of a van again from a co-worker of Joe's, so we run errands until we're all ready to drop.  Our favorite moment is when we're in Carrefour (French supermarket chain, similar to Fred Meyer in that they carry a little of everything).  We're getting groceries and looking at the cheese selection (small & expensive!)  A caucasian women turns to us and says, "Hi, are you new?"  We reply "yes" and make our first new friends in Taipei.  In a nutshell, this is what we love about being ex-pats:  the friendliness, the openness, the willingness to reach out and introduce yourself, the offer of assistance and knowledge if we need anything.  Right now we're the recipients of ex-pat kindness, but we know that next year when we're "veterans" of Taipei, we'll be the ones reaching out and extending that kindness.

Friday - Joe is in China for work (and he's only gone for 36 hours!) and we stay home and wait for IKEA to deliver Olivia's new desk, the water guy to pick up the money, the telephone company to come turn on our service, and the air shipment to arrive.  Turns out the water guy came on Monday, but was intimidated when he figured out we only spoke English, so he left.  Fair enough, I'm intimidated every time I try to speak Mandarin.
Air shipment arrives to much fanfare from the children, only to discover that 90% of it is our kitchen, plus a few books, shoes and bedspreads.  They are disappointed, but for me, Oh Happy Day!  Cheese grater!  Can opener! Measuring Cups! Bowls! Salad spinner!  Although, in putting my kitchen away, I realize for the first time that I have only three drawers in the entire space.  Odd, that. 

It's been a bizarre week for me, so many things feel familiar because of our time in Shanghai, and yet this is an entirely new place and I'm starting over with very little knowledge.  Some random thoughts:

Smells - you never know how much comfort smells bring to you and make you feel at home until all the smells around you are just "wrong."  I'm certain visitors coming to America feel the same way...there is just something about the way home smells and everything else is strange.  And big cities have really gross street smells, there's just no getting around it.  We're teaching the kids to breath through their mouths...life lesson there.

Cities are dirty - we walk around a lot and every night we have to wash everybody's feet before we get into bed.  Our feet are filthy.  Having said that, Taiwan is much cleaner than Shanghai was, we are not afraid to wear flip-flops here, we never wore them in Shanghai.  On a positive note, we haven't seen a single person peeing in the street, yet.

Public transportation - It's easy, it's fast, it's affordable.  Why can we not do this in the US????  I love public transportation.  And it's organized and very civil in Taipei!  No shoving to get on or off, people wait politely for passengers to get off before getting on themselves. We are not in Shanghai anymore Toto.

We saw our first (and only?) Taiwanese transvestite while at a shopping complex.  Never saw that in China.

Kids in the city - Last time we lived in an urban environment, one kid was in a stroller and the other one very obedient.  Now we have three who walk everywhere with us, and two who pay no attention to anything going on around them.  It's nerve-racking!

Language - I suck at it.  I forgot how much I suck at Mandarin.  I try at every opportunity, but at one point I asked Gigi for some help on a phrase and she said, "well, I'm trying not to make you feel bad by correcting you all the time, but you really don't say anything right."  Thank you my darling.  Now, if you could just tell me the correct phrase, I'll continue on my sucky way.

Big Feet - I needed some indoor flip-flops, can't walk on wood and tile all day on bare feet.  Had to buy mens flip flops to get something that fit.  Joe suggested that I might be able to find something more girly at the "Big Ladies Foot Shop" which is near our house.

Old phones - We can't get a phone and contract until we have our ARC (Alien Resident Card).  So the relocation consultant kindly let me borrow her old phone...it's not a smartphone.  It is soooo incredibly painful to try texting on an old phone after you've owned a smartphone for years.  How did we send those long texts on those old phones???

Water - You can't drink what comes out of the faucet.  And sometimes it smells funny (read that as horrible odor emerges) when you turn the tap on.  And sometimes when you fill a white bathtub, the water is a funny color.  People in Portland, revel in the beauty of your clean tap water.

Taping drains - Kitchens and bathrooms all have drains so that when you clean the floors the water just goes right down the drain.  And everyone also tapes those same drains shut for two reasons:  odor and cockroaches.  Can everybody just say a big "EWWW" with me and have a good shudder?  I taped my drains shut the first day we were here!  I was warned about the cockroaches and I'm not taking any chances.  On our walk home tonight we saw our first cockroach, and of course like the crazy idiot I am I squealed and jumped out of its way on the sidewalk, which made all the rest of the girls freak out.  Mimi kept twitching and freaking out every time her balloon tied to her wrist brushed up against her.  At bedtime Olivia wanted me to check her bed for cockroaches.  Sigh.  Must try to be better example for kids.

OCD - Being OCD on an ex-pat assignment in Asia is really not allowed.  :)  But it takes a while for me to let it go, and right now, the fact that every single thing in my brand new kitchen is bright shiny white, EXCEPT the cream colored fridge, is driving me crazy.

So, that's the first week.  And I must say, I'm quite proud of myself for staying up until 11:00 to actually write it.  I've been in bed by 9:00 every night this week.  Jet-lag must be waning, real-life must be settling in.  I expect to write shorter, more frequent blogs after this.  So if you're eyes crossed from reading so long, sorry about that!  Will try for short and pithy in the future!

Cheers,
Steph