We've settled into our apartment pretty completely now.  Our stuff from the states came a couple of weeks ago, it's all unpacked and shoved into corners and shelves, and I think we've been living here about a month.  So I guess it's about time to post some pictures of the place!

Our building is very new.  We are the first to live in our apartment and we don't have many "neighbors".  On the first floor there is a front desk where at least one guard works, but more often there are four or five people - guards, doormen, and a lifeguard milling around with nothing to do except say good morning to us, open the door, hand us an umbrella if it's raining.  They are all very polite and friendly but it's a little strange to have so many people ready to take care of our every need.  The pool and gym are also on this floor - I don't have any pictures but they are both outstanding and rarely used.  There is also a large living area with a t.v. and kitchen where tenants can meet with friends.


This is our living area.  It's small but has a decent couch and a good t.v.  The views from the 17th floor are beyond imagination.  We hover over the city.  Straight out our window is the world's tallest building, towering over everything.  Taipei 101 and the much smaller skyscrapers around it light up every night from 7:00PM until 9:00PM and put on light shows.  The color of the tower changes every night.

This is the other half of the room beside the living area.  It's our kitchen, dining room, and to the right, our shoe storage.  The munchkin sized refrigerator wasn't in the apartment the day we looked at the place.  They told us they were going to buy one.  It showed up the day we moved in.  I think I might have axed this place had I seen it.  Cooking is very difficult here, but I'm starting to get used to it.  My old kitchen feels like such a luxury now.  I wish I would have appreciated it more when I had it.

This bed looks comfortable but looks are very deceiving.  Our first night in this tiny double was hell for both of us, feet hanging off the end, hard springs sticking into our backs, scratchy sheets.  The very first shopping trip we made was to get a mattress pad and new bedding.  Now things are much better.  This room is also really small, but has built in closets where most of our clothes fit.  There's a t.v. in here too.

My writing room is small too but just right for its purpose.  I sit here in the morning, do my writing with my tea, and watch people in the park below.  It's a good view for inspiration.

Finally, the bathroom.  I know it's a little messy.  We still haven't found any good shelving to organize our stuff.  At least we have plenty of counter space.

The bath and shower are both fantastic.  The bath has jets and the shower is plenty high enough.

Overall, even though the apartment is small compared to our home in Arizona, it is beautiful and peaceful and has outstanding views.  I know we are really lucky to have such a great place, and that there are many people living in much more cramped spaces here.  I'm glad we chose our Fortress of Solitude.  So far it's keeping us sane :)

I've done two new Taiwan related food posts on my other blog.  I think they'll make you hungry...

Spicy Hot Pot - Oo La La!



Weekend Lunch - Shanghai Style

One of the best things about Taipei is the prevalence of parks.  I've never seen so many green spaces in a big city.  Or even a small city.  Every district has large and small parks where locals go to walk their dogs, meet up and gossip with their neighbors, play Mahjong, and exercise.


A lot of the parks have these little paths of knobby rocks arranged and cemented into the ground with or without railings.  We've seen a lot of people walk on them without shoes on.  One day walking home in the rain my husband and I walked on one with our shoes on.  The rocks were still hard and painful even through thick soles.  It must be really tough to walk on them barefoot.  Although it might feel kind of good after walking around town all day.  Like a free foot massage.


In the ten minute walk from our apartment to the subway station there are three parks.  One is fairly large.  It's the one I can look out of my office window and see, where Tai Chi and dance groups exercise in the mornings.  The other two are a little bit smaller but just as well kept.  Gorgeous indigenous plants, many flowers, and nice rocks, fountains, tiles, and benches are always present.


I love all these parks.  They are well kept.  They are peaceful.  They are used by the local people (which is more than I can say for some parks I've been to in America).  My favorite thing about the parks is watching people come to meet their neighbors.  They have the right idea.  Getting out of their houses towards dusk, getting a little fresh air and exercise, catching up with old friends.  I can't think of a better way to spend an evening.

I don't really have much of a story to tell today.  We've had a pretty quiet life here this week, just working and living.  Watching some World Cup in Chinese which is interesting.  Doing some shopping and some eating.  We did go to the night market on Friday and Karaoke yesterday, both of which were really fun but I haven't downloaded the pictures yet so those stories are yet to come.

So I just wanted to post some pictures here, give people a little glimpse of what daily life is about for us now.  Enjoy the pictures!

Last weekend after we finished our tour of Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, we visited a couple of markets they have here every weekend in Da'an district (part of Taipei City), called the Jade Market and the Flower Market.  Both were pretty overwhelming - a lot more than either of us expected to see.

First the Flower Market - this place sells everything from freshly cut beautiful flowers to potted plants, herbs, vegetables, and even huge trees.  It's also a place you can get potting soil, seeds, pots and vases, and pretty much anything else related to plants.  It was literally dizzying to look at everything in the market.  At least it was under a covering so we didn't have to walk through the rain.

The Jade Market was equally overwhelming.  It was a huge room full of vendors that sold all sorts of jewelry, jade, and beads, as well as some pottery, paintings and carvings.  I'm amazed that they have these markets every weekend.  After a while everything started looking the same so we decided to leave.  I think I'm going to have to go back before we leave Taiwan and get some things to take home with me.

In other news, we experienced our first earthquake here on Tuesday morning.  It wasn't a huge one (5.6 and centered in the east of Taipei - read about it here), but still strange.  I think it's weird how the body reacts - you feel like you are getting really dizzy and that you are the one moving.  It's a really disorienting feeling; you feel like you're swaying and might fall over.  Then you realize things around you are moving - light fixtures, curtains, cupboard doors - and your body starts to readjust and feel the room moving.

Last Saturday we went out exploring.  Unfortunately it rained the entire day, so it was a pretty wet excursion, but overall we had a lot of fun.  It was the first time we both went out and did really tourist-y stuff.  We've been focused on getting our house put together and getting our bearings and haven't had a lot of time for fun stuff (which is part of why the posts have been so few and far between).

We started at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.  It is an impressively massive square with traditional looking buildings on all sides.  The buildings were constructed in the 80s but they look like they could have been from several centuries ago.

This main building was the actual memorial for Chiang Kai-Shek, who was the leader of China until he had to flee from the communists to Taiwan in 1949.  After that he ruled the Republic of China (Taiwan) until 1975 when he died.  The memorial is very impressive.  There is a hall with pictures and a lot of his personal effects.

If you climb to the top of the stairs on the outside of the memorial (and there are a lot of stairs!  We were definitely out of breath when we got to the top) there is a gigantic room with a statue of Chiang Kai-Shek, protected by guards.


Every now and then they do a sort of changing of the guards walk which is pretty interesting to watch.  Too bad so many tourists were in there hiding from the rain.  The guards almost didn't have room to turn around properly.

 The stairs are quite a bit easier going back down, although with the rain it was pretty slippery.  I'm glad we both had on good shoes.  On a side note, in case you're planning to come to Taiwan for a visit, make sure to pack non-slip shoes.  I can't believe how slippery things are around here.  Most of the sidewalks are tiles that get really slippery in the rain.  Even the paint on the streets gets slippery.  The first week I was wearing flip flops and nearly killed myself about 10 times.  I've since learned my lesson and tend to go with running shoes (even though they get completely wet).

The other buildings in the square are mostly concert halls.  The day we went, there were a bunch of kids out near one practicing dance moves.  It looks like they were going to have some sort of performance in the middle of the square.  I wonder if they still did it with all the rain?
The best part of the memorial to me are the gardens on all sides.  On the side we walked through there was a small lake (I think it was too big to be called a pond) that had a ton of big ugly koi fish (sorry but I've never liked these things.  They creep me out for some reason).  They were all different colors and kept jumping out of the water and making a lot of noise.

I know this is getting to be a really picture-heavy post so I'll just put one more in.  I really loved this garden.  I think I might come back on a day it isn't raining and do some writing here.  It seems like a very inspirational place.

This week looks like it's going to be filled with a lot of fun and surprises.  Wednesday is a national holiday in Taiwan - Dragonboat Festival.  We're excited to see what it's like.  Hopefully we'll get to see some races and have some good food.  Then on Friday my Chinese class is going on a fieldtrip!  I'm pretty excited.  We get to go to a little village and learn about traditional ceramics and food.  I'll be sure to write about it!

I just added a new post to my food blog called Taiwanese Roulette!  It's a great story about a dinner my husband and I had a couple of weeks ago.  Check it out when you get a chance!

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes" - Marcel Proust

I started intensive Chinese class last Monday and so far it’s kept me really busy. I love it, and I’m already starting to understand some things I hear around me, but it is extremely difficult to learn because pronunciation is so different from English and you have to learn to speak in four tones, not one like English. The class will last until late August – I’m hoping by then I’ll be able to make my way around this city relatively easily. I know fluency won't come so quickly, but it's a start.

I'm finding it strange how quickly a person adapts to new surroundings. The first week here for us was outrageous. We took pictures of everything we saw. I blogged every day. Everything was completely new and foreign and interesting. But now after three weeks, it all seems fairly normal. We don’t stop to take pictures of chickens with black legs and heads still on at the grocery store anymore.

I ignore the men in the park doing Tai Chi that I can see out my office window every morning.

I barely hear the tinkle of mahjong tiles in the park as I walk by. And the smell of stinky tofu (chou do fu) doesn’t assault my senses the way it did the first time I smelled it.

I’ve always wondered about early explorers and adventurers. Especially women explorers. How would it feel to be one of these people, going to a completely new place that you had only heard about? You’d never seen this place on CNN. You didn’t study this place in your college history class. You have no idea what to expect. Did these early explorers adapt as quickly as my husband and I have? Is it a part of human nature that new experiences become dulled after they’ve been experienced for a while?

I’m trying as hard as I can to stay excited and surprised by everything. But I can feel the shock of it all wearing off as daily life takes over. I wake up and write, have my breakfast (which I still cook at home). I study some then make my way to class (which takes me about an hour each way). I sit through class for three hours every afternoon and leave with a brain heavy with the singsong of Chinese. I go back home and eat dinner, read a little, watch some t.v. Go to bed. I don’t think about the strange things of the day – the butcher with large cuts of meat dripping onto the sidewalk in the heat, the blaring noise at the grocery store on a Sunday, the kids in all their different brightly colored school uniforms. It’s just another day in the life now.

Check out the newest post on my food blog - it's all about a traditional Taiwanese dish - beef noodles.  Amazingly delicious!

I know it isn't Friday... sorry to those who waited patiently (or not so patiently) to see where we chose to live...


In the end Quiet Luxury won out.  I titled this post "Fortress of Solitude" like superman's lair because that's just what it is to us - a fortress of solitude where we can go to collect ourselves after a hectic day in the city.  It's hard to understand without living here but it's precious to escape from the noise and insanity every now and then.

Also, I know a lot of you commented on not having a big kitchen.  And I agreed in the beginning.  The thing I'm coming to realize though is that I'm going to be doing very little cooking here.  Not because of how small my kitchen is but because there is so much amazing food to try and it's almost always cheaper to eat out rather than cooking for yourself.  I can't even explain how many different restaurants and food stands there are here.  I've never seen anything like it.

So we're in a small place with no oven but we have a beautiful gym and pool and it is quiet and beautiful in this area of town.  We also have an amazing view out of every window (and floor to ceiling windows in the living room and bedroom)

I wish I had some better pictures of the place to post here.  Right now I'm having trouble getting my pictures off my camera :(  As soon as I can figure out the problem I'll post some better pictures of our place.  Sorry to disappoint all of you that voted for other options.  And I want everyone to know that although it's really small we still have plenty of space for guests to come stay with us!  So anyone who's thinking about it, please come!  We'd love to have you.