The Story Begins…

Hello… welcome to my very first blog post! After living in Taipei, Taiwan for nearly three months, it's well past time to start a blog. Better late than never I hope!

Because my Facebook posts and photos have been flooding people's news feeds with enviable tales of life in a subtropical country (or so I'd like to think), blogging may be a more reader-friendly way to see what I've been up to. At the moment I'm composing this post on my iPhone user the Blogger app, because I'm actually to lazy to open my laptop and type on the computer right now. But I figured that if I can maybe just get this first post out into cyberspace, then perhaps I'll be less nervous about writing future posts! So bear with me here if there are some weird formatting issues or anything.

Why am I here? As a tourism major, I have been lucky enough to meet people who are from, or who move or travel, all over the world. This past fall I had the opportunity to join someone in Taiwan (a small island in the Pacific, roughly between Japan and the Philippines) and so, off I flew! To give some perspective, it's about the same size as Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. Yes, I moved here from another small island in the Pacific: tiny and eccentric Salt Spring Island, notorious for goat cheese, organic food, hippies, sheep and [a plant that carries the death penalty here in the ROC]. To paraphrase Gary Fjellgard: an islander I'll always be!

So, the last couple of months I have been studying Mandarin Chinese full-time at a well-known university not far from my apartment. Let me just say, I am far from fluent. When I arrived here in November, I learned what it feels like to be illiterate. Being immersed in a language that shares no common roots whatsoever with your native tongue makes language learning incredibly difficult, and makes communication hugely frustrating. I have felt like a frustrated, tired child and have learned patience and humility at a level I didn't know was possible. So every word, every phrase I learn feels like a major accomplishment and makes my life easier every day.

It's not all tough though! Last week for example, I looked up at the full moon, framed by tall palm trees, and was awestruck at how I had ended up in such an exotic-looking setting. Oh, and let's not forget Thursday afternoon, when I rode a bicycle along the riverside and past a meadow of butterflies. That's right, there were so many butterflies fluttering over these short yellow flowers that I actually rode through a flock of butterflies! In the warm afternoon sun. In January. It's okay to be a little jealous right now. Just know I'm sending warm, sunny vibes back home to all of you in the grey and the cold.

This blog is hopefully going to be where I share my tales of daily life in Taiwan with you! I welcome any feedback, comments, questions, and send you all a ton of love!

And yes, there will be pictures. :)