Summer wasn't quite over yet once we returned from the eclipse cruise, but we only had a week to pack everything up, finish what paperwork we could, and say our goodbyes. This included a day where the packers came a day early to start packing, while we had 2 kid playdates, met with the realtor, and one adult friend come over... needless to say, packing mistakes were made. Oops.
Then, we set to the skies!
The paperwork shenanigans deserve their own post. So, I won't go into them too much yet, because there's two tales to tell: human and cat. To put not too fine a point on it, due to mail delays we do not yet have our cat, and will be returning for her soon (cross your fingers everything goes right).
But we are in our new home, and Teacup has started her new school.
It is a 16-hour flight, and we are 12 time zones away, so the jet lag is real and painful. Also, there is a whole new round of paperwork--but good news! I got married! To my (same) husband! Again!
Basically, adding me to the household registry is considered the equivalent of a courthouse marriage. (Achieved through showing them records of our US marriage)
We have also been eating delicious food already, lots of takeout as we don't yet have a microwave (coming soon) and some experimenting with local dishes.
Breakfast sandwich --ham and cheese croissant.
The ham is sweeter and almost sausage-like. Kind of like a sweet country ham.
Turnip cakes. These are everywhere in Taiwan and very good.
Common breakfast dish--eggs in a savory wrap, cooked
Pokemon Mezastar: Not currently available in the US! Teacup enjoyed playing and got to keep the handful of tokens she won from the videogame. Also strategy to keep her entertained and sane and enjoying the first few days.
I started the family tradition of Sunday morning pancakes, and I wasn't going to let moving countries stop it! I couldn't find baking powder or soda, but luckily I managed to find a local pancake mix--it was sweeter than US pancake mixes, almost cake-like.
Getting over jet lag and picking up living supplies included a day of going to a nearby mall. Teacup noticed the slime studio and wound up taking a slime-making class. We did not actually get the supplies we originally went for, but Teacup DID make it past 7pm that night, so we consider it a win.
One the morning we found a random popup street festival in our local park. In exchange for visiting 10 booths in the fair, we got some prizes--this included 2 bags of random local greens from nearby farms. I experimented and made some lemon-garlic-pepper amaranth greens for lunch. They're pretty good! Also, the bread is more cake-like than it is in the US. It was fluffy and very sweet whole wheat bread.
I have a recipe in the US for a delicious pasta sauce my husband loves. Unfortunately, spinach, oregano, canned kidney beans, and cloves were not at the local grocery store, nor was my usual pasta sauce; and beef is very expensive. So I decided to start experimenting with local ingredients. Instead of beef, ground pork; sweet potato greens in place of spinach; much more onion than previously; Prego as a base... I have more experimentation to do before it's ready to share, but it's not bad.
My husband and I also went out for dim sum one day, trying one of the sit down restaurants at the mall (and yes, we had a bit more luck with our shopping list time, too!).
chicken congee
shrimp dumplings, shumei, steamed egg buns
turnip cakes and steamed cabbage
Sweet egg custard bao
Egg custard filling!
Mango porridge dessert
While at the mall, we came across a random tea tasting, and joined in. We got to enjoy a couple of delicious raw puerhs.
While a lot of our time has been the usual moving/ paperwork /settling-in stresses (and some less usual ones), the food is good, and we're having fun experimenting and making ourselves feel at home.
Now just wish us luck on getting the cat.
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