Blogging is a Luxury

Blogging is a luxury unknown to people involved with 18 month old boys. That is why you haven't heard from me in a little over two weeks.  Taylor and I have been in Taiwan, and we are extremely busy with our buddy, Solomon Soup, aka Dan Jian Sen, or Sen Sen to his child-buddies (we don't know what to call him). I hope to return to my India stories in the new year - 2017.

Here's a sampling of our lives:

Introductory dinner at David and Chia's favorite buffet restaurant.

First walk outside with grandpa.

First and last time down the big slide with grandma.

Supervising grandma cooking dinner.

The beginning of a very long hike up a very steep mountain.

Exercising daddy with a box.

Taipei Zoo with Christmas lights.

Boy in a box, reading to Dutch Bunny.

Making friends with our doorman, Li Xiansheng.

On the way to the traditional market a lady we passed gave Soup a balloon.

Nap time with Dutch Bunny and an empty bottle of green tea.

Playing in the sand at Da'an Park.

Mother and boy.

Playing with other kids at the park.

All good things must end.  It's time for a public shower and a change of clothes.

Getting prepared for a professional photo shoot.

Playing at the Songshan Children's Center.

As you can see, we are very busy.

Central Lush 2-BR Apartment@Guting/Da-an

I love reading the titles of Airbnb listings. Fortunately, the listings include photos and maps so I can figure out where I am considering renting since the titles don't necessarily tell the full story. I have learned to read between the lines to decide if I think the listing is somewhat accurate.  In our case, our apartment is lush because there are some dead Christmas cacti and orchids in the cage attached to the bedroom window.  It does indeed have 2 bedrooms. As far as the Guting/Da-an assignation - that is a bit of a stretch. The Da-an and Guting MRT stations aren't close at all. The apartment is in Da Xue Village (University Village) and is very close to the Taipower MRT and the Gongguan MRT.  I suppose if a potential renter is familiar with Taipei the title of this listing would grab their eye, more than the actual location. Who knows?  We are happy with our selection.

Here's the street sign that indicates you've found our Alley.

Walking toward our building which is on the right, beyond the bicycle.

This is what you see when you first walk into the apartment.

This is the room with the window filled with lush dead plants.

Solomon's room has a crib to the right in the photo.

Here's the two burner cook top and full size refrigerator.  Many apartments have dorm room size refrigerators. I doubt anyone has an actual oven.

If you look closely you can see that we have plenty of appliances: hot water machine, Nespresso machine, blender.  There is also a rice cooker. The door to the left goes to the laundry porch.

Here's where we wash and dry our clothes.  There is no dryer so we hang them on hangars from rods on the ceiling.  We also sort our trash in this room.  It gets pretty crowded on laundry day, but we appreciate being able to wash our clothes.

Bathroom with the Taiwanese shower.  You can see the drain just under the shower curtain.

Bathroom door to the right.  Notice our rubber sandals that we need if we use the bathroom.

The best part of the apartment is that Solomon Soup comes to visit every day.

I could stay in this apartment indefinitely, if I could snuggle with this guy every day.

Soup's On

You may ask, what do we do here in Taipei?  How do we fill our days in a foreign city on the other side of the world?

Mornings are pretty much spent taking care of basic needs, like laundry, mopping the floors, shopping for lunch and dinner, and going out for breakfast.  Taylor and I also take little exploratory trips around the city.  We like to be home by noon though, because that's usually when David brings Soup to our apartment.  That is when the most important part of our day begins.

Soup's first project is to take off his socks.

Tah dah!

We have several story times.

Soup likes to check out his own special cupboard.

There's always a meal or two.

Soup gets tired with all the activity, so he takes naps.

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Grandpa also needs to take a little rest while Soup is snoozing.

Living Like the Locals

It is 6:00 a.m.  Taylor and I have been up since 3:00 a.m.  We just slept our 3rd night in our Airbnb apartment in the Da'an District of Taipei.  We managed to fall back to sleep the first 2 nights when we had our 3:00 a.m. wake up,  but there was a lot to do this morning.  Taylor had it in mind to mop the floor, and I had it in mind to read my novel and fix a knitting mistake.  Now we're having Nespresso made in our little Nespresso maker.

This is a nice luxury.

I know my readers are wondering about the accommodations.  Yes, we had a cleaning frenzy but it wasn't as intense as last year.  This year's frenzy was confined to the kitchen area and the rest of the apartment was very clean.  We especially appreciate the tile floors that can be swabbed up after feeding a 9 month old.  It makes for a clean environment for our precious Soup.

None of us would have allowed our boy to crawl on last year's floor.

Learning from last year's experience, I made some changes in selecting our current apartment.  One major change was to up my price limit  $600. The result is that our 2 bedroom apartment is much smaller and cleaner than the previous one. It is easier for David and Chia to come visit.  The neighborhood is fabulous.

There are two considerations that didn't occur to me to question.  The first is the Taiwanese bathroom.  I knew that there would not be a shower door, but I thought I could live with that.  However, what this means is that the bathroom is basically a shower with a toilet and a sink in it.  The floor never seems to dry. Try walking into a wet bathroom all day long.  

You can see the corner of the sink.  The toilet is just to the left of it.  You can see the drain below the shower curtain.

The second question that I never, ever thought of is, "Is there garbage service?"  Well, the situation is that in addition to doing all the sorting that we do in Portland, plus used toilet paper, we actually have to take it to the garbage trucks ourselves.  At 9:00 p.m. every night but Saturday and Wednesday we can walk 4 or 5 blocks to add our trash to the trucks (separate trucks for refuse and recycling) that come through.

We are ready for our first trip to the garbage collection sight.

Dealing with the bathroom and the trash seemed like insurmountable situations for me in my jet lagged state.  However, now that I am rested and recovered I have come to terms with both.  After all, we like to pretend that we are living like locals when we travel.  This time we have the privilege of paying a higher price to really live like the locals.

Safe and Sound in Taipei

We are here, in Taipei. We made the journey with no drama.   However, the 13 hour flight from San Francisco to Taipei was a bit grueling.  This is what that long flight looks like on a woman of a certain age:

Morning coffee at Mr. Brown's, the only coffee shop we found that was open at 7 in the morning.

As Taylor and I struggled through jet lag on our first day, we kept our sights on our first meeting with Soup.  I worried he would have forgotten us and would take a while to warm up to us.  It didn't take long

The first meeting of grandpa and grand boy.

Soup was happy to show us his new skill of slithering around the floor in our apartment. He's a busy boy.

When we've had full recovery from the jet lag, and when we have cleaned the apartment, we'll begin our exploration of Taipei.

The Adventure Begins

Our bags are packed, we're ready to go.

This is more than our usual "one carry on" each. We made an exception to our rule so we could take a few items to the grand boy and his parents.

Good bye house

Good bye garden

We have great confidence that our journey will go without a hitch. We fly out of PDX at 9:30 pm on Monday night.  We arrive arrive in Taipei at 6 am on Wednesday morning. Since it's not typhoon season everything should go smoothly.  When we get there we will give our address to the taxi driver.  Yikes.  This is our new address.


台北市大安區溫州街74巷3弄2號


Our Airbnb hostess sent us these pictures of our apartment, with instructions to get the keys.

We should recognize our own front door because it it next to this book store.

This is our front door.  When we find the key, hidden in a secret place, we are to let ourselves in and take the elevator up to the third floor.

Here's our front door.

No matter what happens on the journey to Taipei, Solomon/Soup will make the trek worthwhile.

9 month birthday

More news to follow from the other side of the globe.