- Iced papaya milk
- Talking out loud about anything we want and not worrying about people listening ... though more people probably understand English than we think...
- having my kids tell me "I love you Teacher Rachel" every day
- the Thai restaurant 2 minutes from our house
- beautiful Dahu Park and swimming in Dahu's outdoor Olympic sized swimming pool
- riding trains, but I won't miss the Taipei subway
- Ikea
- Exercise Time every morning at the beginning of the school day with the whole school
- riding my Fever 50 scooter through Taipei City, especially at sunset
- yummy $1.50 coffee every morning from 7 Eleven's "City Cafe."
- incredibly cheap shopping at the Night Markets and cute Asian styles
- hearing about the beliefs and cultural practices of my friends in Taiwan- it's also so interesting to learn about Chinese folklore. Example: You can't whistle during "Ghost Month," the seventh month of the lunar calendar, or ghosts will hear you and follow you straight to your house!
- hearing a foreign language everywhere we go- I'm always caught off guard when I hear someone speaking English in the subway
- Using crazy hand signals and trying to act out things to people that we can't explain in Chinese. When we first got here, Brian would make the animal noise of the food he wanted to order at restaurants: "moooo" for beef... it was so pathetic but it always worked... we quickly learned the food words!
- feeling such a sense of "togetherness" with our fellow foreign friends here- we are all learning to live in this culture together- it's really cool
A new challenge...
I found this on someone's blog and love it- It's difficult to uproot yourself from the home you've built for a year and the people you've grown so close to. Taipei feels comfortable now, just like Oklahoma City was before we left. I remember having the same feelings before we left America, but the reward of moving out of our comfort zones and into a foreign culture has been so amazing. Challenging, frustrating at times, and AMAZING!
I also found this and it reminded me of Brian, my honey-
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