Friday, July 27, 2007

Stuff, Stuff, Stuff

Packing and cleaning is a nightmare!!! I now understand while most of my previous roommates who left Taiwan also left a load of "stuff" in the apartment. It is overwhelming to try to sort through the possessions that you brought and the things that you've picked up along the way. In a cruel twist of events, I was allowed to bring 32kg (70 pounds) coming to Taiwan, and I am only allowed 20kg (40 pounds) when flying to Australia! Needless to say, I had several boxes that I hauled over to the post office. They were so heavy that I had to take a separate trip for each box. I must have looked like a fool lugging a huge box for several blocks to the post office! Thankfully, it's pretty cheap to send them on "the boat", even if they do arrive in three months completely banged up and torn.

Aunt Carole asked a great question: where am I going? I am flying to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and from there to Hanoi, Vietnam and Siem Reap, Cambodia (famous for the Angkor Wat Temples). The Asian leg of my trip will take about two weeks. Then I fly from Malaysia to Perth in Western Australia. I am hoping (fingers crossed) to stay in Perth, find a job, get an apartment and join the gym. Carole and Jill did the adventure travel version of Australia, but I'm hoping for more of the bland "settling down" version. I'll be there for either four months (home for Christmas?) or ten (home for grad school in the fall).

But as for now, I am saying goodbye to Taipei. I'll have to wax poetic about my time here in a later post. How about some pictures instead? The other day Kathleen and I went out with Liz (Roommate Paul's significant other). The first pictures are from a new swanky department store, one of our favorite restaurant and one of our dearly loved cupcake place, Ginjer!
The picture below is not of children's clothes. Nope, those are clothes for dogs. It is truly amazing the things people will put on innocent animals! A denim skirt, tank top and leather belt? Are you kidding me?

Posted by Kathleen @ 4:15 PM