Staycie's Taiwan Journey: 3 Months in Taiwan

So I have officially been in Taiwan for 3 months and it feels like just yesterday I was saying goodbye to everyone! This is turning out to be an even more amazing experience than I could have ever imagined.

Celebrating Deb's birthday

A couple of weeks ago, the Indiana FETs met in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on the west coast to celebrate a fellow FET, Debra's, birthday. Debra, her family, and I traveled together to Taiwan, but we haven't been able to see each other since orientation in August. It was great to see Debra, her husband Rommel, and her kids, Gabe and Josephine. I stayed in my first ever hostel, which actually turned out to be pretty nice. It was more of a two bedroom apartment, so we had a private bathroom, a kitchen, and a sitting area.

On Friday, we met up with our friend, Mike "Fatbat," and he took us to Kaohsiung's famous night market, Liouho Night Market. Mike also took us to the mountains and to Love River, where we saw lots of ferry boats.

We visited the Dream Mall and road the ferris wheel, where we were able to get a look of Kaohsiung at night. It was amazing!

And of course, what would the end of October be without celebrating Halloween. My friends from Hualien came to Taipei for the weekend and we all got costumes or became creative with the clothes we had made up our own costumes. It was a lot of fun, and I'm so glad I have friends who were here to celebrate with.

My broken toe continues to heal, slowly but surely. I've had to wear a splint for the past 3 1/2 weeks and I go back to the doctor on Monday to see if I can go back to normal activity. I will be so happy if he says I can stop wearing the splint. I'm dying to go shoe shopping!

I'm 1/4 of the way through this year, and I can't believe how quickly time is passing. There are still plenty of times I crave the normalcy of life back home, but I've also created a new normal here. I realized about a week ago that this is the longest I've ever gone without physically seeing my family, and the recent change for Daylight Savings has become a bit problematic, but these are the kinks you deal with, I suppose. I'm grateful for all the weekends I've been able to travel and experience the culture and sights of Taiwan because I know that July will be here before I know it. The weather has continued to cool, but I can honestly say I will not miss the brutal Indiana winter this year. I hope you have all enjoyed reading about this adventure; I know I have enjoyed sharing it with everyone.