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!

Last stop in the US: San Francisco!

We spent our last six days in the U.S. with Joey's brother, Jesse, and his family in San Francisco.

Lucy:

Mary:

Edmund:

And baby Wayne:

They were more than kind to us, giving us their room to sleep in, providing meals for us and allowing us to borrow their van to make last minute trips to Target and things like that that they don't seem to have here in Taiwan. And we had lots of fun, catching up and meeting the newest Torgerson!

We had lots of fun hanging out around the house, too.

Mary is quite the artist:

We took the train to UC Berkeley.

And on our last day, Steve and Merrilee came to town.

We decided we had better expend some energy with Grandma and Grandpa at the park.

Joey is quite the photographer, in my opinion!

And of course, we had to get a picture of the grandparents with all their grandchildren!!

Thanks, Jesse and Kelly for a wonderful, memorable time!

Re-cap: Summer 2011

It has been quite the summer for us as we packed up our house and said goodbye to many of our loved ones we have in the states! Here is a VERY condensed version of the entire summer....First stop: Chicago

We had some nice hang-out time with Colette and Elliott!

Then we headed up to MN to visit family and friends there:

And of course it wouldn't be a very good MN trip without a twins game

And some more MN friends:

On our way back to Chicago we stopped in Fairmont to see Grandpa and Grandma Torgerson.

Then we were off to New York for pre-field orientation.

At the airport on the way to New York:

Our early morning walk:

After one week of orientation, we took a trip to Niagara Falls on the 4th of July weekend and met up with some friends (Joey's old classmate Katrina and her family)

Then we finished our orientation the next week, ending with a banquet

We then spent some time in Chicago, hanging out with family:

Then we headed up to MI for a day trip to visit the Schippers

We then headed back to Chicago for a few days. Then Joey and I drove down back to St. Louis for one last time to finish packing up our place and to say goodbye to friends. Steve and Merrilee met us down there and helped us clean up!

Then it was back to Chicago for one last time. We took a tour of Bucktown, my grandparent's old neighborhood

We then headed out to San Francisco to visit with Joey's brother's family. I will post those pics later as there are quite a few good ones I wanna post!

We are alive and well!

Hi all!

Just a quick hello to say that we are here!! We have arrived in Taiwan! We have been super busy these days figuring out life in DaShe, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan (yep, that's where we live: in Taiwan in Kaohsiung City in the district of DaShe). We will post lots of pics and more info later on how we are doing but just know we are safe and happy!

Bye for now!