Arriving and settling in

This blog will be my attempt to chronicle our adventure as expatriates in Taichung for the next 18 months. On April 1, 2008, my wife Teresa and I arrived in Taichung for our official relocation. We have travelled many times to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan before and have each spent up to 4-6 weeks in Asia on project work. So the prospect of moving here was not too scary. And as one of our friends said, you can do anything for 18 months.

We had already made a housing trip to Taichung in March (along with officially accepting the assignment), so we had chosen an apartment after visiting 12 of them with our real estate guy, Andy, and our helper MT. So on April 2, we worked a 1/2 day at the office and (not too jet lagged), returned to the hotel where our lease car was delivered and MT met us. We drove to our new home to sign papers and officially move in. Sometime after going through all the papers, and getting MT to translate some of the devices, jet lag set in and I had done about all that I could of mindful work.

Days 2-5 were a mixture of washing everthing, shopping for all the stuff we did not pack (or have shipped to arrive next week), and settling in. We found two different Carrefour stores close to our place - one more modern than the other. We also found Hola (housewares) and Poya (lots of small stuff). It seems like a whirlwind now but we do seem to be finding our way around the maze that passes for streets in Asia.

How foreign is foreign? One example can serve. We have a combination washer/dryer made in Japan. The manual is in Chinese and no English version is available online. MT translated some of the buttons for us, but realizing that Japanese and Chinese are not synonymous means built in confusion. We were told we had cold water only to wash (this is typical in Taiwan). So Teresa pushed buttons and I looked at the pictures (of sad and happy clothes) in the manual and we managed to run a load of laundry. I doubt either of us could replicate what we did - I should take that back, she probably could.

Other appliances are equally confusing. The air conditioners are programmable with a remote control in Japanese. They can be set for day/night and various things. By pushing buttons and copying the one that is running, we got somewhere. Same goes for the water boiler, microwave, and a wireless router I requested. You do not realize how foreign foreign can be until you cannot read the buttons or signs and have no clue or even a guess as to what they might be saying. Oh well, part of the adventure.

I cooked my first omelet, one of my weekend specialties, on Friday. In my wok. Using minimal spices and lacking cheese, it still felt like a first step in making Taichung home. I think I'll buy a frying pan for the future however.

Oh well, that is it for now. We bought more food today and now it is time to cook my first dinner. No more eating out every night. And I get to return to my roots in kitchen chemistry.