life's adventures lately

it's pouring rain today in Taipei, and so I find myself inside the apartment and sitting in front of my computer. I've been pretty absent from the internet lately. no particular earth-shattering reason why: I just wanted a break and realized I could take one.

so here's what's been happening...

Taiwan elected its first female president

America isn't the only country with a potentially course-changing election happening in 2016. last weekend, Taiwan elected Tsai Ing-wen as their next president. she is a highly educated, multi-lingual cat lover who was highly supported by Taiwan's youth. this article gives you a brief idea of what she's about, while the New Yorker discusses more about how this could effect the country's future. I can't claim to be the most informed about the political situation here, but I'm interested to see how this turns out.

editing my book manuscript

remember way back in fall of 2013 when I decided to write a book? it took about 8 months of writing to get me to a very rough rough draft. I took a break before printing and reading it through for edits in summer 2014, slowly started making my edits and gave a portion to a friend for her notes that Christmas. in the spring of 2015 I started rewriting things into past tense. which first involved rearranging and gutting the first third of my manuscript. by the time I finished that and got to the actual changing of tenses it was so painful I had to take a break. I went back to it - maybe twice - last fall but I really wasn't ready to pick it back up until a few weeks ago.

right now I'm about 18,000 words into the revisions. sometimes that feels like I'm not very far at all. but looking back over what else has happened while I wrote this book - all the visitors we've had, keeping up with the blog and the teaching I did, moving to Taipei, traveling for nearly 3 months of every year - it's actually pretty damn impressive. and when I sat down at the beginning of this year to read through what I had already revised, I felt really proud of what I have written.

exploring around Taipei

before Anna [of Slightly Astray] left for Malaysia, we managed to have a few adorable adventures together - including the Taipei Zoo, a Disney Tsum Tsum exhibit, and a cat cafe. my friend Sharon took me to the historic Dihua Street, where all the shops are setting up for Chinese New Year. [and where delicious peanut-covered mochi balls can be found.] I met another expat downtown in Ximen to walk around and chat while drinking coffee, and have made habits of biking around our neighborhood, shopping at the local market for produce, and mid-week pho lunches with another friend.

planning travels for 2016

it's the time of year where everyone is talking about travel plans... and while I'm not quite ready to reveal everything yet, we've been making steps. a lot of this involves the least fun part of travel planning: making a budget. when I heard how gas prices have been dropping, I thought we would luck out on plane tickets... but no.

one thing I can say is that I won't be heading back to the states this summer. [I know that makes certain of you very sad - and me too.] but after three years of not planning to go back and somehow ending up in the US for a month or three each summer, I'm at a 99% confidence level that this will be the year it doesn't happen. but what Husband and I are trying to plan for instead should be pretty awesome.

what have you been up to lately?

Read more

life's adventures lately

popping in quick to share a bit of life lately! aside from my trip to Jiufen last week and still sorting through my thousands of New Zealand travel photos, here are 5 things that have been going on around these parts:

preparing for singapore

somehow this trip snuck up on me, and it's only a week away! Husband and I will be spending Christmas [and a few days extra] eating and relaxing in Singapore. this is the first Christmas since 2011 that he won't have to work, so we wanted to do something special. I'm really excited to get some sun, explore, and of course EAT.

decorating the house

this year we went to IKEA and purchased an upgrade from the disco dinosaur tree. [don't worry, we just put that one upstairs this year.] since it's become a bit of a tradition around here to share pictures of my tree, you can expect that post next week. also I feel it necessary to make the statement that I'm sure is cliche by now but: how the heck is Christmas only 10 days away?

battling sickness

I tend to avoid Facebook more often than not these days. but it seems like every time I popped in this past week it shared a "memory" of me posting about being sick, from just about every year since 2007. I suppose it's not surprising that this sickness thing is an annual tradition, because I've felt pretty crummy the past few days. hopefully I'll be on the mend by the time we leave for vacation.

cooking indian food

we've been taking cooking classes from another expat here in Taipei, and learning how to make vegetarian Indian cuisine. this has been both fun and delicious! I've already managed to make some tasty chana masala at home, as well as chai tea, and I'm hoping to tackle dal tarka this week. what I cook has changed dramatically since I moved abroad - thanks to increasing food allergies, unfamiliar shopping situations, and lack of kitchen equipment. so it's great to learn some recipes I know I can find ingredients for, and actually make and eat.

planning for the year ahead

though I think I'm skipping the annual "blog reader survey" this year I have been thinking a lot about where this space will go in 2016. I also might have maybe purchased some new fonts... which of course means a design tweak is likely on the horizon. this year - especially the second half - has been a bit of a struggle with the blog. so thanks for sticking around, and I hope to give you many more reasons to stay in the coming year.

what adventures have you been up to lately? do you have any holiday plans?

Read more

life's adventures lately

it seems fairly appropriate that I just wrapped up my series on tips for visiting Taiwan this week. it's been a whirlwind of sightseeing around these parts lately, since my sister-in-law is visiting and we've been showing off our favorite places around the island.

[so I guess you can consider this a preview of things to come, as well as a list of random thoughts I've had accumulating over the past few weeks.]

I actually signed up for NaNoWriMo this month, with a little encouragement from Helene's Novel Blogger group. I thought it might push me to get on with my editing. well... we've been a bit busy so I'm just under 10,000 words through. hopefully I can dedicate some more time to it once I'm done playing tour guide. [not that I mind playing tour guide - it just makes for a busy few weeks!]

rather than catching a city view from the deck of Taipei 101, we hiked Elephant Mountain. it was a bit sweaty but we had clear weather and a lovely picnic lunch. I had also climbed the elephant with Anna of Slightly Astray earlier that week... but with views like this who cares? I think from now on I'm adding this to all visitor's itineraries.

we hit up some of the "classics" like Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall and National Palace Museum, but have also been visiting places that are new for me as well.

one new place being the Taipei Zoo - we had a rainy day where we saw the famous [and adorable] pandas. and though there wasn't much in bloom, we spotted lots of birds and bird photographers at the Taipei Botanical Gardens.

I also finally figured out how to register my EasyCard so that I can rent YouBikes. and so today we rode down to the local cat cafe - 小貓花園 or Cafe & Cats - which happens to be credited as being the world's first cat cafe, ever.

we also spent a very lovely weekend in Taroko Gorge - one of my favorite places on earth. I know I've written about the gorge before, but we explored a few new trails this time and the weather made for beautiful photos. you can expect a lot of mountainous things in the near future. maybe even a Taroko-specific guide. which reminds me:

Margo from The Overseas Escape is collecting submissions for a City Guide Database. I'm really looking forward to seeing what other bloggers have to say and using this resource to plan future travels! if you have a guide you've written, you can submit your guide to the database.

and if worldwide travels are not in your future, consider checking out Polly's newly re-branded website: Let's Love Local. she's all about encouraging people to get out and explore what's right around them - and is even issuing local adventure challenges you can participate in each week. even though I'm living an expat life, I still need motivation to get out and explore my city sometimes.

have you come across or been up to anything exciting lately? with all our traveling and touring I've fallen a bit behind on keeping up with everyone. but I at least wanted to pop in to say hello + happy friday. that's all for now - I'm late for a date with the night market!

Read more

life's adventures lately

aside from scooter adventures, catching up on our New Zealand road trip, and climbing every mountain I can see - life has still been happening. in an effort to keep the small stuff from falling through the cracks, I've assembled a life update. here's a few random things I've been up to lately:

becoming a bus girl

I'm not sure why, but I kindof love taking the bus. it makes me feel so accomplished to have figured out how to get from A to B without springing for a cab or spending an hour walking. the other day I discovered a new bus that has the most convenient route from my house to the MRT and I got so excited. maybe that's strange but I'm just going to embrace it.

girls weekend in Kenting

two weeks ago I went on my first Taiwan beach day. that led to planning a girls weekend in Kenting over the 10.10 holiday. we had such a great time! the weather didn't downpour the whole time like it was supposed to, we found a gorgeous hidden beach, ate some truly tasty meals, and made friends with the coolest bartender named Mars. I'm so glad to have found friends that understand food allergies, have the occasional need for wine o'clock, and will jump on the beach 40 times for a photo op.

loving on Taiwan

it's kindof hard not to after these past few months of exploring. the whole weekend I was just in awe that the beaches of Kenting were on the same island as the mountains of Yangmingshan and towering marble walls of Taroko Gorge. I could have been in Hawaii or New Zealand, but I was only a few hours from home. I know I'm biased, but I'm so grateful to live on this island. and in case I haven't sold you on visiting yet, you may want to read this article on how Taiwan became the hottest food destination on earth. it also gives a succinct and straightforward summary of Taiwan's political history.

blogging from the heart

last week I started an e-course through Susannah Conway called "blogging from the heart." I've always loved her end-of-year workbooks and have been considering this for a while. I really want to get back to the guts of blogging, and this course seemed to line up with my philosophy more than any others out there. I'm a little behind on my lessons [what with the long weekend and all] but I'm hopeful this will have a good impact on my space here.

homesickness for fall

as awesome as it was to spend a weekend on the beach in October, a part of me longs for sweatshirts and crunchy leaves, apple cider and tailgate. I always miss Michigan in the fall. [if you've ever been, you know why.] I also just watched the New Jersey episode of Bourdain's Parts Unknown... and was completely caught off guard by how nostalgic I got for the state that was my east coast home for 4 years. fall is the season where we would visit the apple orchard, shop at the farmers market, order wings or hoagies and host football parties. Taiwan weather has been attempting to cool off, but it's not quite to the fall I remember just yet.

planning for the end of 2015

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who is feeling stunned at how little time is left in this year. we've been working on booking our Christmas holiday, preparing for my sister-in-law to visit in a few weeks, and dreaming up an expat Thanksgiving menu. we are also trying to sort out our big plans for next summer. destination[s?] have not yet been set but I can tell you that I'm going to be exploring a new continent!

and that's about it for now. anything exciting going on in your life lately?

Read more

life's adventures lately

life is full of little adventures. this morning, I woke up to what sounded like rain. but then I realized it was coming from inside my apartment. I thought maybe Husband hadn't turned the shower off all the way and went in to check, when water started dripping on my head.

because nothing says "happy monday!" like a leaky ceiling.

I freaked out and called my realtor, who of course didn't answer because it was 7:30am. I would have tried to call my landlord but he doesn't speak enough English and I don't speak enough Mandarin for that to be productive. [also, I don't think I have his phone number.] so what else can you do but set buckets under the leaks and wait?

it's also frustrating as only a few weeks ago we had a leak starting in our bedroom, a few feet from the bathroom. they're been doing work on the roof to [hopefully] address that issue but it seems they may have just diverted it. I've since gotten hold of the realtor, who got ahold of the owner, who sent someone to check on things. in theory it will be fixed tomorrow.

I think the urgency of "there is water dripping from my ceiling" was lost in translation. in Taiwan [as in many cultures] tomorrow can literally mean "tomorrow," or it can mean "sometime in the future." so I'm not hoping too high. especially given our experiences with the last major leak we had.

despite the rude awakening this morning, this past week was actually quite awesome.

the weather has been clear and sunny so I took advantage by going on three different hikes [the first of which was Elephant Mountain.] if you haven't figured it out by now, I have a serious thing for mountains. and I am just loving that Taipei is surrounded by them. the forecast isn't looking as great this week, but I already have another hike planned.

I've also been making friends with the new teachers at husband's school - we had a bbq with a view to die for this saturday. and of course a TON of food. but it's also nice to meet people who are more on my schedule. thanks to the large yet small world of blogging I was connected with another expat in my neighborhood, who in turn introduced me to a whole network of expats here. [if you're into sewing at all you should check out Alisa's blog at A Stitch in Between.]

other than that - there's been yoga classes and finally starting to watch True Blood. we've also started planning our trip for over Christmas. we are hoping to swing through Hong Kong and Singapore [though nothing is booked yet.] I think we have our HK plan pretty set, but I've never been to Singapore and am open to suggestions on what to see and eat! please send me your links, friends.

sometimes I get wrapped up in sharing the "travel blogger" side of life, so I want to be sure I also keep you up to date on the daily adventures like this. maybe a monthly thing. next up: more Taipei discoveries and the never-ending backlog of New Zealand. I hope you all have a great week, or at the very least: that your ceilings are not leaky.

xo

Read more