Washington + Beginning of Taiwan

Hello and Nihao!

Well, we’re finally here in Taiwan! We’re still settling in, so it has been a crazy week.

Before coming here, we were able to spend time in Washington with Hannah’s family and just take a week to relax, eat, and eat.

Thursday, 8/27: Un Bien in Seattle, Fremont area. Apparently this is a new Cuban sandwich place by the original Paseo owners. Definitely a must try!

Got coffee at the Starbucks Reserve. Forget going to the original Starbucks on Pike Place, way too many people! Go to the Starbucks Reserve instead and try their unique coffees and see their roasting line. It’s huge!

Moscow Mules at Ba Bar. Apparently their Moscow Mules are critically acclaimed. This was just one of many, many stops we did that day. We went to Morsel, Un Bien, Quinn’s, Seattle Reserve, Piroshky’s, Beechers, Elysian Brewery, and of course, got Seattle dogs. I also had chicken teriyaki like 4 times throughout the week. What is it about Washington teriyaki that makes it soooo good???

Saturday, 8/29: The highlight of our Washington trip! I was channeling my inner Meryl Streep and rafting like my life depended on it. So much fun. We highly recommend Wet Planet in White Salmon, WA.

Monday, 8/31: So we went rafting on Saturday morning and our flight to Taiwan was early Sunday morning at 2:10am. Having that super long day was great since it made us absolutely exhausted. We pretty much slept for over half of the 13 hour plane ride. Upon arriving at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, we needed to take a 2 hour bus ride to Taichung, the city we are staying at. Here you can see me with our over abundance of luggage. And no, that is not a toilet seat cover attached to my backpack.

Here is a shot of our apartment building from the taxi we had to take after the bus ride. Our place is pretty nice and safe. I thought it was neat that you need your apartment key to use the elevator. No unwanted guests! Upon arriving, we had to get a lot of cleaning supplies. We ended up bleaching almost everything. There was so much to clean. Actually, it’s never ending. We miss our Blancas!

Big shout out to Gene! He has been a HUGE help to us, and still is! We are so thankful for his assistance. He is like our Moses. There he is looking all cool in the rain. Also, that is the intersection right by our apartment. Our location is pretty awesome. We have that A Mart grocery store across the street, along with a bunch of other useful stores and restaurants. As the picture shows, rain is pretty much the norm here in Taiwan. But it’s also SUPER HUMID. Some days, just standing outside will leave you drenched in sweat.

Another big shout out to Jeff! He’s a local brother here that speaks English very well. Apparently he only learned it through school. Very impressive! He has been a huge help to us as well. Here he is leading the way at Ikea. By the way, we eventually went back to return that chair I’m holding a few days later. Also, all of this (what I’ve posted about Taiwan so far) happened on the same day we landed…so you can imagine just how exhausted we are.

Tuesday, 9/1: So the next day, Gene and Lisa, a sister from the congregation, helped us look around for scooters. At lunchtime, we stopped for some beef noodle soup. For those that don’t know, beef noodle soup is Taiwan’s most famous culinary dish. It’s like what pho is to the Vietnamese, kimchi to the Koreans, cheese to the French, Hamburger Helper to the Americans. This particular one, which was incredibly delicious, sells for $120 NT, which is roughly $3.50 US dollars. Food in general is much cheaper here in Taiwan.

Speaking of scooters, Taiwan is full of them! It seems to be the preferred method of transportation. There are swarms of them on the road. A sea of scooters parked along the street like you see above is actually a common scene.

Speaking of scooters yet again, here is ours! We have yet to find an appropriate name for it. Any suggestions? Riding a scooter is a ton of fun but also pretty nerve-wracking since there are so many other cars and scooters on the road. Also, the traffic rules are a little different and we are unfamiliar with the streets. But whatever, it’s really handy to travel around in a scooter and FUUUUNN.

Wednesday, 9/2: Bonus pic of me carrying detergent and a memory foam mattress top back home. We broke down and got that mattress top after suffering through two nights on the stiff mattress that came with the apartment. I felt like Edmond Dantes at the Chataeu d’If.

Thursday, 9/3: It was registration day at school! We will be attending Feng Chia University Language Center starting Wednesday, Sept 9th. Time to learn us some zhongwen! Duibuqi, wo de zhongwen buhao. By the way, I’ve been using that sentence everyday so far. (It means, “I’m sorry, my Chinese is very bad.”) Here we are with our school packets. Kinda interesting going to school together as a couple.

Thursday night is also meeting night. Here I am locked in trying to follow Gene while Hannah holds on for dear life…to the GoPro. We also got our own helmets. Hannah’s is so cute. :3 I had to get an XXL for my fat, round head.

We realized we didn’t take any pictures at our first meeting…except for this one shot of Gene giving the first Service Meeting part. We are planning to attend the Xitun congregation here in Taichung. This congregation has many foreigners, which seems to be the norm here. There is one Korean family of 4 from New York that just moved in about two months ago. The only Chinese they knew when they arrived was “nihao”. They plan to stay in Taiwan for 3 years. Such an incredible example. We are looking forward to getting to know all of the friends in the congregation. They were all so incredibly nice and eager to meet us new people.

The meetings for field service are never held at the Kingdom Hall, but rather, at different locations throughout the week. It could be at an intersection, a grocery store, a 7-11…wherever. The locations get listed on the information board every week. So yeah, we have absolutely no idea where it’s going to be…haha.

Friday, 9/4: We had sort of a free day today. We ran a lot of errands and did a Costco run. Yes, you read that right. Taichung has a Costco! So awesome. Of course we had to chow down on pizza and hot dog. It’s only been about 4 days since we left the US but we already missed the greasy pizzas. Riding back on our scooter with the stuff we got was a bit tough though.

So that’s pretty much what we’ve been up to so far in a very condensed summary. We miss all of our family and friends…and the freeness to do what we want with ease. But we are excited for what lies ahead. We are keeping the endgame in sight; learning Chinese so we can assist the Chinese speaking field. We are extremely thankful for this opportunity, especially to our family.

Well, that’s all for now. Don’t forget to leave us a comment!

—
Andy & Hannah