Week 1 in Taiwan!

Ok! Now that I've given an abbreviated summer update, I suppose I should share about our adventures here in Taiwan in our first week!

It started with an uneventful plane ride. The plane from San Francisco to Hong Kong was only about 1/2 full, so we had lots of room to stretch out! We flew Cathay Pacific, so the plane was big, comfy AND had personal TVs! yay!

In this next picture, the paper on Ellie's head is to help keep the big earphones in place and the scratch on her cheek is compliments of Siri.

This happened for only about 2 hrs total the entire 13 hr flight. Thanks a lot Benadryl!

We arrived in Hong Kong at around 6pm and then waited in the airport for our 1 hr 10 min flight to Kaohsiung. We were all pretty tired at that point as it was about 3Am San Francisco time. So, we got to our gate and sat down however rest, we did not due to the crowds of people gathering around to see the "cute, chubby" blond haired, blue eyed little girls! UGH! While they were kind, it was a little exhausting at that point in the trip! Some took pictures and some even took video! It was quite the welcome! :)

We arrived into Kaohsiung around 11:30pm and were quite tired, so we went straight up to our place (unpacked a little) and went to bed! Upon entry into the lobby of our apartment buildings, I was greeted by a cockroach crawling into the elevator with us! I faked not being totally grossed out and went right up to it a smashed it with my foot! HAHA! Thankfully I haven't seen anymore since that night!

We bought a car from a teacher's family who left taiwan this past May! :)

We also got our international licenses before leaving the US, so our first full day in Taiwan we were able to drive and explore! :) (This is the main road in DaShe.)

We found an AMAZING bubble tea shop. My favorite large passion fruit green tea with pearls is only $30NT (USD=$1)!!

Oh and can you see how RED the girls' faces are? That's because it is SOOO HOT here! Yep, so incredibly hot! We were just at the market before getting teas and we all were just dripping sweat! That's what we get for being south of the Tropic of Cancer! UGH!

We've been to IKEA several times and Costco twice which are both in downtown Kaohsiung which is where we found this park

Siri is apparently over her swing fear! YAY!

We've also had Shui Jiao (dumplings) a few times and some other yummy slushy drinks and treats. Today I even had starbucks! SO needless to say we've been quite busy here, but are finding our way around and trying new things which has been lots of fun. We've been most preoccupied with furnishing our apartment as it has some basics in here for now, but we are to be fully equipped with everything we need by October (which is actually a long time but we'd like to be settled in before then). We've put a lot of our things on a big container which is probably crossing the pacific ocean as we speak, so hopefully that should come by the end of August! Until then, we are attempting to buy furniture and bookshelves, to place all of our things in!

Here is a look at our kitchen for now (with lots of junk and no real kitchen items!)

Well that's all I have for now! When we get a little more settled, I'll upload some more pictures of our place!