A Walk Around the Neighborhood

After I got home from work and picked up the baby on Friday, Noelle and I went for a walk around our neighborhood. We thought it might be fun for everyone to be able to see a candid look at what life is like where we live. So we gave the stroller a "Bill Miller Special" (after a few attempts and failed ended up using a bungee to strap the iPad to the stroller at Noelle's level) and headed out on our adventure!

The video is shown at 8x actual speed. It's still a little long and I apologize in advance if some of the amateur camera work makes you dizzy and/or seasick (Be forewarned!). Some of the sights you can glimpse in the video include our nanny's apartment building, my favorite tea shop, the food street next to us, the discount movie theater, and the local baby store. I hope you enjoy #NoelleCam!

What's a Bǎomǔ?

I've gotten this question a lot lately... "What did you do with the baby when you went back to work?"

The awesome thing was I got to leave Noelle with Grandma (my mom) for the first seven weeks that I went back to work! It was such a blessing to know that someone I love and trust was watching over my sweet eight week old baby girl. As mom got closer and closer to going home, Jimmy and I had to buckle down and decide what we were going to do.

What do you do for infant care in Taiwan?

If we were Taiwanese, we would probably have family members available to take care of her. However, we are foreigners in a strange land. We have no family here permanently. So what were our options?

Number 1: Baby Center
A baby center is similar to daycare in the USA. They often have a lot of babies, a lot of sickness, and rarely speak English. On the plus side, the workers do activities with the babies. They send you pictures of things your baby is doing or has done. They fill out a communication book for you so you know how your baby's day was. If you are really, really fortunate there might even be another foreign baby there.

Number 2: Bǎomǔ (保姆) / Nanny
So what's a bǎomǔ? Basically a bǎomǔ is a nanny or a private childcare provider. You can find one that will either come to your home and only care for your child (uber expensive) or for about the same price as the baby center you can send your child to their home where they care for a few children. Just like any child care provider, a nanny can be good or bad. The nannies here almost never speak English. Also, you should make sure to use a registered nanny so they have some accountability on their standards and the number of children they are able to care for at one time. On the plus side, a registered nanny will often fill out a communication book for you. Their schedule is more flexible when it comes to pick up and drop off times. They might live really close to you, and they also do activities with your child!

After lots of research, interviews, and visiting baby centers, we decided that a bǎomǔ would be the best for us and for Noelle. We love Mrs.Wu! She is a really sweet Taiwanese lady who lives right around the corner from us. She doesn't speak much English but she is teaching us lots of new Chinese words and she goes the extra mile to make sure she gets important information translated for us so that we can understand it. Noelle is one of three kids she looks after and they all play well together. If you are considering your childcare options in Taiwan, do what works for you and your baby. But we love our Bǎomǔ!

Well, Taiwan. It's been a Year!

It's officially been a over a year since we moved to Taichung, Taiwan. There are so many things that we have seen, done, and experienced! Some of them have been amazing--like having a baby--and others have been depressing--like having a horrible boss, but they have all been a part of our ramblings.

In the last year we have...

Had a baby.

Noelle is the most amazing addition to our lives! We tried and tried to get pregnant in the USA and our first week in Taiwan, we unknowingly made a baby. Go figure!

Moved to a new country.

Ok so this one was obvious. We moved to Taiwan. Rented a new to us apartment in a new neighborhood. We were surrounded by strange and unfamiliar people and culture. We had to learn a new money system and had no clue what people were saying to us.

Started new jobs.

When we first came to Taiwan, we didn't have jobs. It was highly recommended to us that we would find the best jobs for us by looking for them once we had arrived and were settled. For me, this was true. I worked at an awesome school with good management and super co-workers! For Jimmy, he had a really bad experience at the first bushiban where he worked and ended up changing jobs at semester. His second job was better but still not great.

Made new friends.

We have met so many amazing people in the last year that I can't even list them all! Taiwan is full of people from all over the world and we now have the most diverse group of friends we could ever imagine! We love them all and we look forward to meeting many more people in the next year.

Re-learned how to drive.

Yes, it's been over a year since either of us has driven a car! Our main modes of transport here are the buses, taxis, or our scooters.We were totally intimidated by the traffic at first, and there are times (like when it's rainy) that driving can still be really, really stressful. Overall we enjoy it and their actually is a flow to all this madness--even if it can be a little like playing Frogger!

So what's next for year two...

Starting Chinese lessons.

Although we have learned some "survival" Chinese in our day to day lives and work, we haven't actually had any Chinese lessons yet. That's all changed now. On Sunday, we officially started studying Mandarin with our Chinese tutor. We are looking forward to learning more words and phrases soon!

Working at new schools.

As I said, I loved my school but I was offered a really sweet new contract with a new school. After some prayer and discussion, Jimmy and I decided that I should make a switch. Jimmy has also been offered a contract with a new school which we believe will be even better than the last school so we have both started new jobs.

Traveling to new places.

Now that Noelle is here and we are more financially stable, we are looking forward to a little travelling. I was able to go on some adventures while my parents were here visiting us but now we are planning some family outings too!

Making new friends.

We hope to continue to make new friends and meet lots more interesting people. We have already started down that road with all our new co-workers!

Well, I guess that's about it for now. Year two in Taiwan has gotten off to a great start and we hope to share lots more joy with you!

Until next time,
Jimmy, Christiana, and Noelle out!

Our First Month

Things have been crazy her in Taiwan over out first month! It's been one wild ride of trying to get in and settled, make friends, and find jobs. Still I don't think there is much I would consider changing.

One of the most interesting cultural things we have encountered so far is Ghost Month. Typically no one moves in or out of their place  but we did (silly Westerners). So there are no doubt neighbors around us who believe e moved the ghosts in with us. If that wasn't enough, I often forget to bring the laundry in off the line on our balcony before dark so once again I am bringing ghosts in who have gotten into our clothes. We have also seen many people burning paper money to support the needs of their loved ones in the after life. I know there have also been parades and fireworks because I have heard them but haven't seen them myself.

Also, Jimmy and I have both been successful in finding jobs this month. We start classes on Sept. 2nd.  We are both excited and nervous. Jimmy is working in a cram school (buxiban) and I am working in a private elementary school. We are both still in the process of getting our paperwork processed so pray that goes through smoothly.

We have also been blessed to start making some pretty amazing friends here too. Some of them are expats like us but many of them are Taiwanese. We have enjoyed spending time with Jamie, Lily, Simon Lewis, and Jamie's mom at L.A.X Burger (Jamie's Restaurant). We have also gotten to know Jessie, a sweet server at one of our other favorite restaurants. Keep Jessie's family in your prayers as her father is very ill. One of our new friends was an unexpected house guest. We always want our house to be open and used for God's glory so when Kyle asked if Jed could come and stay with us while he looked for a job we said of course! I think it was probably harder for him than it was for us since Kyle and Jimmy were always ready with some brotherly ribbing. Still he survived and has just started his school year in Taipei.

Well, I guess that's really all for now. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to seek out a church where we feel we can worship and ministries we can partner in. We also want to get a routine schedule hammered out so we can start adding in some language learning activities. So many things to do! Thank you for all the prayers and support which have already been offered up on our behalf. We couldn't have made it through without your support!

Grace and Peace,

Christiana

Welcome to Taiwan

The last few days have been a crazy fun adventure in our new home--Taiwan. 

We landed safely in Taipei on July 30th. There were so many times on our trip that we were truly blessed. When we arrived at the airport, the airline charged us much less in baggage fees than we anticipated. They also needed more carry-on room on the plane so we were able to voluntarily gate check one of our bags for free. This meant less baggage to drag through all the airports.

On our flights we had at least 1-2 empty seats beside us at all times (including the 13.5 hr Atlanta to Tokyo flight). So we were able to spread out and not be cramped. We had excellent flight attendants and the in flight entertainment was good too.

When we arrived in Taipei, we made it through customs quickly and without issue. We each received a 90 day visa for free. When we picked up our bags in baggage claim, they were all there. PTL! We were a little worried about our gate checked bag but it turned out it was the very last bag on the belt so there was nothing to fear.

After departing customs, we found our driver waiting for us as planned. He didn't speak English but he was very nice and we had directions prepared in Chinese to give him. He found our hotel without issue and we were able to check in with the owner, Sam. Sam spoke English well, and made sure we were all settled and had everything we needed.

Our stay in Taipei (2 days) was fun. We went around and did some tourist-y things. We had fun and were able to make it back to our hotel each night.

On Friday morning, the same driver who picked us up at the airport came back to drive us and our bags to Taichung. The drive was beautiful and took a little over two hours. Upon arrival we were able to check into our temporary housing. This was a little challenging as they didn't speak much English but we managed.

The last two days we have been busy running around Taichung with our new found friends Kyle and Jenny Mulaney who have been invaluable in setting up our new apartment. I don't know how we could have done all this without them!

Now as we sitting here waiting for the phone/Internet guy to come, I am writing to you. Thank you, God for our new friends. Thank you for everything we have been able to get accomplished in the past two days and the chance to relax in Taipei. PTL for our save travel and for all our baggage arriving in one piece. Hopefully I will be able to upload pictures soon so you can see what we have been doing.

Grace and peace,

Christiana

Skype Interview with Giraffe

Waiting for our interview with Giraffe to start.

This past weekend Jimmy and I went to Fulton to visit my family and to celebrate my sister Mary's birthday. We knew it was going to be a fun weekend anyway, but then we got an email saying that Giraffe English School would like to have a Skype interview with us on Friday night! Well, no problem. We cancelled some of our plans and re-arranged others so that we could be sitting on my parents' couch at 8 P.M. on Friday night to Skype with the school's recruiter.

Although we were told that it was only going to be a voice interview we decided that we would still dress up--just in case. You want to make a good impression and since Skype does have video options it's way better to be safe than sorry. In the end, we ended up being on video while our interviewer was voice only (I don't blame her since it was 9 A.M. Saturday morning her time!).

The interview lasted approximately one hour and fifteen minutes (according to the call timer). It seemed to go well, and this week we hope to hear whether or not we will officially be offered the two positions in Taichung. Until then I guess we will just have to continue to wait and pray.

Grace and Peace,

Jimmy & Christiana