ARRIVAL
Well, after yeeaarrrs of claiming we were really moving to another country, here we are finally in Taiwan! Why Taiwan? Well, its safe for the kids, 
its clean, the food is supposed to be amazing, and it has the same/lower cost of living as Indianapolis, Indiana (which was key in this whole experiment). We chose Kaohsiung over Taipei because it’s a little warmer in the winter and less rainy. We just wrapped up our first week and it’s been quite the adventure already.
The girls didn’t seem to mind the long flight and we eventually landed in Kaohsiung after over 24 hours in the sky or in airports. Ellie watched Frozen and Toy Story on the plane which kept her plenty happy.
We lande
d at midnight and the first thing we noticed was that we were exactly 12 hours later than Indianapolis. That’s about as screwed as you can be when it comes to jet lag. The second thing we noticed when we walked out of the airport was how hot and humid it was…a very moist 87 degrees. Although it was 87 degrees it felt like 107 degrees. After waiting in a long taxi line, Ly asked what had splattered on my shirt. It was sweat, from just standing there. We negotiated with the driver and settled on $240NT (32TWD = 1USD, therefore it was approximately $7.50 USD), only to see that our luggage didn’t fit in his cab. 
Eventually another one came and we were able to decide on $300NT for the larger Toyota “Wish” model. Since he didn’t speak English, we had to show him our destination in Chinese with my phone. We were barely able to stuff all our luggage in the back: 4 heavy suitcases, 3 heavy backpacks, a stroller, 2 adults, 1 toddler, and a partridge in a pear tree (Vera)….but amazingly enough we got it all to fit! It was like playing Tetris except much sweatier. Unless you played Tetris so vigorously that you started to sweat a lot. Then it would be equivalent.
Our first stop was the Airbnb accommodation in Sanduo Shopping district (first pic below), 
which gave us a little time to meet with a real estate agent to look at a longer term apartment. 
Over the next few days we eventually found a nice modern 2 bedroom in a high rise building next to Ruifeng night market in Zuoying district (shown below). The big plus is the building has a kids and adult pool, which we thought would be great to escape the heat and it also has a water filter built into the kitchen sink. Water is actually safe to drink here but we were just being extra careful because of the kids. Its also a 5 min walk to the MRT (subway), and 5-10 minute walk to the best park and most popular shopping mall in Kaohsiung (Hanshin Arena Shopping Plaza). There are so many shops and restaurants in the area sometimes we just walk around until we see somewhere interesting. Apartments here do not have carpet so we’re going to have to get used to the hard tile floors. Since Vera has been trying to stand up on her own and wanting to walk she has had a few accidents. So we ended up getting foam mats to put in the living room so Vera can play safely. The biggest pain (first world problem alert) is having to constantly adjust the temperature in 
3 different rooms with 3 different air conditioners and constantly losing the remote controls! Rent and building management fees came in at $23,000NT/mo ($716USD) for a 6 month lease. Also, since we are traveling on visa-exempt status, we don’t have an Alien Residence identification card, which is similar to a SSN in the states. This makes it very hard in theory to sign a lease, get medical care, get internet at your apartment, and even rent a bike in the city! But we were able to get around almost all those rules through the landlord and agent that helped us get the apartment. Here are some more pics of the inside of our crib and building…
RUIFENG NIGHT MARKET
Let’s be honest, the whole reason we left Indy was for FOOD. Lucky for us, we live right behind this amazing night market. There are a few night markets in the city and we’re at the one that the locals prefer to go to. Here are some pictures of all the stuff we had to choose from.
Delicious deep fried mushrooms on the left, and deep fried fish balls on the right (not our favorite)
Grilled pork, chicken, and gizzard on the left, and some sort of sushi balls on the right.
More rotisserie pork on the left and roast duck on the right.
A normal assortment of items from 6-7 stalls for me, Ly, and Ellie ran around $500NT (~$16USD) which is twice as much as we’ve normally been paying for a family dinner in Taiwan but waaay less than a similar dinner would cost in the states. We’re talking spicy crab, roasted duck wraps, shrimp/duck egg souffles, rice stuffed chicken, etc. The kids were hot and cranky at this point so we started the 2 minute walk home.
On another day, our agent took us to a place called Sushi express. It’s a chain but still awesome. The sushi is on a conveyor belt and zig zags all around the restaurant. See something you like? Just grab it! Each dish is only $30NT (about $1USD) including sashimi. Very fresh, and very tasty! About 25 plates later we were all stuffed. Please ignore me trying to figure out how to use the tea dispenser…how embarrassing.
FRUIT
Did you seriously think we’d post food and forget about the fruit? This is what Ly lives for! It was sad to hear that there are no mangosteens here (or are rare) due to bug problems. Ly considered leaving the country once she found this out. We did get lots of sugar apple, mangoes, dragon fruit, and passion fruit. The mango below is literally the size of Ellie’s head but hard to see scale. Also, we found this amazing fruit juice stand near our apartment that makes chilled fresh fruit juice to order. Below you see a passion fruit juice with jelly and a cranberry pomegranate juice with jelly….so refreshing on a 90 degree day!
The next day we had to stock our fridge so we made our way to the local grocery store to buy the basics. When I got to the liquor section I got excited to see what kind of beer they had here. Do you notice any resemblance of “Taiwan Beer” to “Heineken”? I mean, they could have at least pretended like they weren’t copying the recipe, packaging, and overall brand. But this is Asia.
Just as I was going to buy a 6 pack to see if it also tasted the same, I looked upwards and my jaw dropped. Actually my eyes squinted, but I digress.
That’s apple beer, lime beer, lychee beer, strawberry beer, pineapple beer, and grape beer! I was so confused as to what variety to buy and didn’t think we could weigh down our make-shift stroller cart anymore, so sadly I ended up leaving with no beer at all. That was a tough moment. *Update* I have confirmed that it tastes exactly like Heineken. Those bastards.
Here are some more pics from our first week living in Kaohsiung. As you can tell we tried to include as many pics of Doraemon, Ly’s favorite childhood (and who are we kidding, adulthood as well) cartoon character. He photobombed Ellie’s airplane pic, that rascal.
That’s all for now! We’ll post again whenever Ly runs out of picture storage on her phone….so like in the next week or so…:)