5 Years!

<-- Here's another picture from our Yuli visit, with Peggy Su, our Taiwan mom!

This week I celebrated Thanksgiving, though in a slightly unconventional way. On Friday a Canadian contingent from our office went to a delightful western-style restaurant in our very own neighborhood and feasted on turkey reubens, which were served with cranberry sauce (that may have been raspberry jam). They were quite tasty, and celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving, as always, reminds me of my arrival in Taiwan, which is now 5 years ago!
Although I was originally supposed to come much earlier, it didn't end up working out for me to get here until mid-October. The weekend before I left to go to Taiwan was Thanksgiving, and I remember having a dinner in our old house in Castlegar with my family and grandparents, and even great-grandma! At that time, I had no idea that I wouldn't be sitting with them over Thanksgiving dinner again for a very long time, so far five years!
I still remember getting on the plane in Castlegar, the following day nervously applying for my visa in Vancouver, and finally boarding that long flight across the ocean.
I remember that that taxi driver had trouble finding where I was supposed to go, and that my new (temporary) roommate Jessie, had the elevator doors close on her as she struggled to get my bulging suitcase inside. I remember the first noodle dish from Fat Joe's, one my favorite restaurants here now, and that Liz and Phil told me I couldn't go to sleep until after 9pm.
A lot of things about those first days are fuzzy, and how many things have happened since then that I've already forgotten? Regardless, it has been a great journey, and it's not over yet! I want to share with my blog readers that I'm right now in the process of applying for a field-based master's degree program that would keep me here for year 6, 7, and 8. It's really exciting, but that's all I'm going to say for now until I actually get accepted!