Nearing the end?

April 04, 2023

Nearing the end?

Starting early in her mahjong training

Well folks, here we are, 8 months in and what we thought would be a fair amount of time, has truly flown by. Everyone told us a year would go by quick, and I think it's even truer when you have a family and child. You spend about half a year settling into your new environment and family routines, and then all of a sudden it's time to go. That said, we have some exciting life updates...

1) We are extending our year here! As time went on, we felt like we weren't ready to go back just yet. It feels too soon to say goodbye to our experience especially since Gemma is used to and enjoys her school now, and we are also pretty comfortable in our lifestyle and routines as well. We have honestly loved so many aspects of our experience so far. I grew up visiting Taiwan every 2-3 years over summer breaks, but as an unmarried, non-parent person who only went there for short summer vacations, I never appreciated the conveniences of truly living here. When you're just a traveling tourist, you go to the touristy sites, scenic areas, stay in a comfortable hotel. But when we came here to stay and live for a year, we really benefitted from all the life conveniences Taiwan actually has to offer. When Gemma got Covid in November, we were able to go to the hospital, take a PCR test that gave us results within a couple hours, and got medicine all for around $15 USD without insurance and citizenship. I've gone to the dentist twice for 10 bucks. Gemma's gone to a walk-in dermatology clinic and we were able to get checked out, get supplies, and walk out within an hour. We can walk or take public transportation to all our errands/activities and probably need a car once or twice a week. We've learned convenience is a really high priority when you're a parent to a toddler, and unfortunately, LA was not providing that. It really sucked to schedule activities around rush hour traffic and I remember having to plan to leave work early to stop by the grocery store and pick up milk because the extra stop would probably add another 20 minutes to the LA commute and I had to get home by 5pm to relieve our nanny. In all honesty, I don't think convenience would bother us as much if we didn't have a kid and we would gladly sacrifice time for the things that LA does offer--amazing food, beaches, hikes, scenery, weather. But, we have a 3 year old who has a lot of needs and LA childcare basically makes you sign a waiver to rob you. In addition, Taiwan's UberEats is super convenient and affordable, and also offers grocery and convenience stores deliveries. We've had diapers delivered to us within 30 minutes at 9pm at night through UberEats. We are now in the VIP status of UberEats usage. So, all this to say, we are doing another year and then seeing where life takes us. We are not ready to say goodbye to our California life, but we do want to take the time to really think about what can make sense for our family in the near future.

2) We are coming back to America to visit from July to August! We obviously miss family and friends, so we are coming back for about a month starting mid July and going to make our rounds to visit people. 💛 We're also interested to see how we'll feel about everything after a year away--will we arrive into LAX and kiss the ground with tears streaming down our faces? Will we have an overwhelming sense of nostalgia while driving along the PCH at the same time cursing the insane amount of stop and go traffic? Will we get culture shock again from the amount of influencers posing in yoga pants at Griffith Observatory? Will we look at our wallets after a week and wonder where all our money went? Probably all of the above. I am excited and have made a list already of foods I need to eat again when I go back--

It's true, I am not the most crazed fan of In n Out since I put it at the bottom of my list. I mean, it's a good pick me up. But as someone who has lived in LA for 7 years, I know there's a lot more yummy things to eat. There's restaurants I specifically have in mind for categories like "Mexican" "Thai" "Korean" etc, so if you're interested I could definitely give recommendations of our favorite go-to restaurants, but there were ones we would frequent and that I do miss a lot.

3) I get a lot of questions related to our finances. How are we living here for one year with me and Dan not working full time? And...how are we making this happen for another year financially? Dan is the mastermind of our finances, but I will confirm that we are neither in the secret mafia or sitting on millions of dollars. If you have further questions or would like to inquire how to make this happen, you can message me directly and I will most likely refer you to Dan. Every couple months or so, he pulls out a spreadsheet and explains a lot of numbers on the spreadsheet to me.

Here's some picture updates of our adventures recently: