abaek5

Feb 125 min read

The Early Days (Daze)

We recently passed the 6 month anniversary of our move here to Taichung ... it feels like it has gone by in the blink of an eye, but the big move to get here and our early days seem like a lifetime ago! Here's a flashback post to commemorate the beginning of our Taiwan journey.

Getting here:

Although the official move date was July 31st 2023, the move really started in May, when Kelley received the expat assignment offer that would take our family to Taiwan for 3 years. It had been a hypothetical possibility in the back our minds for a few months already, but when the offer was official and we knew we were going, it was time to actually get ready. May - July was a blur!

Pre-move, we had a lot to sort through and take care of. Some big things went mostly smoothly, like selling our vehicle (we couldn't bring or store it), renting our house (we found a great family we knew from our local community), and getting the kids enrolled in their new school from halfway around the world. Other things were more tedious .... namely, a household with 10 years' (and two kids') worth of accumulated stuff, all of which needed to be stored, shipped, or disposed of (sold/donated/trashed).

For many weeks (months?), life boiled down the cleaning, discarding, and organizing of the house before the movers showed up. 10 years in a house leads to a lot of life hiding in places. We had boxes from our original cross-country move to Oregon, boxes of items from when the kids were literal babies, boxes of clothes we hadn't worn in years...you get the idea. At the end of weeks worth of round-the-clock effort, we had 3 very full dumpster bags taking up our entire driveway, gave away a bunch of stuff on Buy Nothing lists, and made many trips to the dump. Once the movers arrived, things went even faster somehow, and our house was empty before we knew it, as we checked into a hotel for our final few nights in Portland. We made a pit stop to visit family in the Seattle area, before catching an overnight direct flight from SEA -> TPE

Just looking at these photos sets off the 'Relax Reminder' on my Garmin watch

Our First Weeks:

We landed at 6 AM on a hot & humid Monday morning, riding high on the adrenaline of a much-appreciated business-class flight. Once we got through customs and grabbed all of our luggage, we managed to meet up with someone who has since become a big part of our daily lives - Kenzo! (We're lucky to get the support of a driver as part of this assignment, but even luckier that it's Kenzo) The drive to Taichung took about 1.5hrs, and by 9am we were checking in to our temporary home, a 2 bed, 2 bath serviced apartment with a kitchenette and a living room.

Not pictured: The loud sigh of relief upon boarding

The first order of business was to check out the hotel's breakfast buffet, since it was still open and we were determined to stay awake and adjust to the new time zone. It was here that I had my first Taiwanese food experience: chicken nuggets. Yes, McDonald's style, pressed form and fried chicken nuggies. It turns out these are a menu staple everywhere! We have split our meals between familiar and comfortable foods and introducing new Taiwanese flavors - we'll do a full post just on food in the future!

Home sweet Huan! With the right dongle and VPN, movie night is still possible!

After that first breakfast buffet, we set out to explore our new neighborhood, and started walking. There are two westernized mega malls in Taichung, right next to each other: Top City and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi (just Mitsukoshi for short). We spent a lot of time walking from the hotel down to the malls, where we ate, watched movies, gamed at the arcade, window shopped, and escaped from the heat on a pretty regular basis. Those two shopping malls (and the things we walked by on the way to the malls) became a hub of our first few

weeks in Taiwan, mostly because they were reliable sources of air conditioning to escape the sweltering heat. That, and the rooftop pool of our hotel, where we spent many evenings in our swim caps.

"Arcade ~ Movie ~ Pool" - The Gym-Tan-Laundry of our first few weeks in Taiwan

Arcades are both plentiful and on another level. I call this "Hand DDR" - The Deluxe Edition comes with a selfie stick and streamer setup, just like these kids do.

Outside of the mall, we spent a lot of time going around the city exploring. School wouldn't start for a few more weeks, and we wanted to make the most of the free time before things settled into a routine. We threw ourselves into every experience, and tried every restaurant along the way while we had the benefit of a per diem allowance. We borrowed racquets so the kids could do a tennis camp, where we made new local friends (who generously shared their homemade itch salve for the awful mosquito bites we were getting!). We purchased four new bicycles that got stored on the hotel balcony, and even a few houseplants. We did all of the touristy sightseeing (some of my early favorites were going to Rainbow Village, Animation Alley, the National Science Museum, and Feng Chia night market). And, when all else failed, we went back to hanging out at the mall.

The Baek Bees land in Taiwan!

Family Memories:

Here are some memories of those early weeks, in the words of the rest of the family:

Question: What is your first memory after landing in Taiwan?

Jack: "Looking at the scenery outside during the car ride from the airport to Taichung. Everything looked different. The city was a much bigger city than Portland. The temperature - it was really humid and hot. I also noticed there's a lot more greenery here and plants everywhere."

Ava: "I remember feeling really, really shy of trying new things, but when we did, they were really good. I remember that we walked a lot and saw a lot of new things. We went to the mall and played at the arcade a lot!"

Question: What was your favorite part about living in the hotel?

Jack: "Definitely the breakfast."

Ava: "We could go down to breakfast every single day, and not have to order breakfast."

Kelley: "Yeah, actually... that was very convenient."

Question: What was your favorite moment from our first weeks here?

Ava: "Biking to 7-11."

Jack: "Walking to 7-11"

Kelley: "My first visit to 7-11. And the Family Mart theme song"

Hmm, I sense a theme here. The convenience stores of Taiwan have clearly been a hit with the family.

That was a fun trip down memory lane... next we'll share some more current events, including our recent vacation to the northeastern coast of Taiwan, and some highlights from the Year of the Dragon Chinese New Year festivities around town!