March Recap Part II

At long last- our first month home in Canada!!

Where we live: Currently everywhere. In March alone we slept in four different beds (not including the airplane seats!)
How long we’ve been here: One month (as of April 1^st)

Favourite thing to eat:

Homemade, western food. Like potatoes and non-fatty beef and regular salad with 5 different salad dressing choices,

Coolest thing this month:

Um… BEING HOME!!

Favourite place you’ve visited/ Favourite thing you’ve done:

Just seeing our friend and family again!! Also, the plane ride home was an experience. Here’s why;

Our first flight was from Taipei to Hong Kong- only a few hours, but this was the flight we had to check in all our luggage, so we knew this would kind of set the stage for the rest of our trip. While packing, Dave and I realized it either wouldn’t all fit or we’d have some overweight luggage, so we decided to go big and have one, very overweight piece of luggage. We knew best case scenario we’d pay for one overweight bag ($100), worst case two extras and one overweight ($300) (rules had changed since we left for TW). We had two carry-ons, two personals and four pieces of checked luggage, one being a box with Dave’s cahone

Thing you’re looking forward to most:

Settling into our own apt, visiting all our family members and friends!

Favourite thing to listen to: Anything on English radio!! Mostly we listen to the local country station though… yes, the same one we could get via the internet in Taiwan!!

Easiest thing to get used to:

Steph’s jet lag only lasted a couple days. Dave, however, got a full kick in the pants.

Josh, Tash and the kids met us at the airport with these adorable signs!

They say;

"Uncle Dave and Aunt Steph, I've missed you more than the miles you've travelled, more than the amount of rice you've eaten and more than the number of hairs in Uncle Dave's beard!"

Playing me a tune on his guitar. I sang and he followed along.

Our first snowfall!

Newspaper pieces from the early 1900's, found when my parents started their upstairs reno,

She is NOT allowed on the table.

Yay new apt!

The lights went out. So we ate by candlelight!

March Recap (Part I)

Yeah, you read that right. Part ONE.  Our last few days in Taiwan up to our first glimpse of Canada.

Dave and I went out for breakfast at Bus-7 before our last church service. Mmmm chocolate milk tea!

And walked the alley.

And squeezed Dave into the narrow door. Naturally, the paparazzi had to snap pictures of a giant white guy in such a tiny space.

Taiwan doesn't have fall like the west does. Because the leaves don't get a chance to fall and the tree to hibernate, the trees can only produce either flowers or leaves, or so I'm told. At least there's nothing in the way of the beautiful flowers!

Packing, about phase 2. A few days before we left. And yes, I made it all fit!

The Shaos treated us to one last hot pot meal!

I have never seen those mountains before. It's as if I needed to see them once before I left for good.

Saying goodbye to my sweet coworkers was hard.

Harder still, to my littles.

I ran around giving them hugs and kissed THREE times. I think each time was slightly harder, but I ended the day dry-eyed, even when dear, sweet, trying little Ajax came all the way to my upper-level class with his dad to say goodbye one more time. Nearly broke my heart in front of a bunch of teens. ;)

Bella, Mia and Demi. Bella taught my five-year olds, Mia and Demi my three-year olds.

With Debbie, our branch manager.

(Also, Bella just had her baby this week!!)

Tony and Joel.

Amanda and Andy. (Andy was pretty much in charge of us NSTs (Native Speaking Teachers. Basically he was our manager.)

Tim and Sakina.

Dane and Indigo.

Joyce, her husband Frank and their son Shauhausen.

Every week I wrote messages to the parents. Once in awhile they wrote me back!

Our final goodbye. 

Amanda's sweet farewell.

And then we were off! Luggage packed, goodbyes said, and ready to come home!!

Bye-bye Taiwan!!

Totally crochet in my bag.

Soaking up the mountains of Hong Kong.

Frost on the window.

And our first glimpse of snow in over a year.

A little concerned.

And excited!

Phew! We made it!

Stay tuned for Part II- our first few weeks in Canada!!