2 Months Back in My Second Home

Exactly five weeks following my return to Taipei was Christmas Eve. For me Christmas has always been an important time of year to spend time with those whom I care for the most and as this was to be the third Christmas I'd spent away from my home and family I knew it would be lonely one.

Don't get me wrong, coming back to Taipei has been just as wonderful as I anticipated it would be. I admit, I had some fear that I would regret my decision to boomerang back to Taiwan; however, I've been extremely joyful to be back in one of my favourite cities in the world.

My foremost priorities upon returning were finding a place and means (employment) to live.

Just as had when I first arrived in Taipei in April 2012, I spent the first week in a hostel.  Both my goals were accomplished far quicker that I expected. Following just six days in Taipei I had found and moved into a great and large apartment with 3 roommates.

 



Less than half a week later I was employed by a promising job, teaching elementary aged children.  I actually have ended up working at a school owned by the magazine company that I had previously done acting work for and it's going very well.

Things had gone very well for me to this point, and I had become reacquainted with all of my Taipei friends and was quickly transitioning back into the Taiwan expat lifestyle.

Despite having no national holiday to commemorate the occasion, Taiwan does embrace the consumerist hype of the holiday season. The presence of Christmas spirit is most evident at shopping malls and department stores with their bright, colorful seasonal decorations, lights and over-sized Christmas trees.

Returning to the Christmas Eve, with which I started this post, it was an unmemorable one spent in a bar, joined by one of my roommates and for the second year in a row, I worked on Christmas day.  Fortunately for me I had already celebrated Christmas at home with my family over a month earlier in Vancouver.

Beautiful weather for a New Year's Eve bike-ride!

Christmas passed without too much pain and soon enough I was ready for (Western) New Years Eve.  I marked the end of 2013 by watching the Taipei 101 fireworks on a crowded street surrounded by friends. 2013 was a year full of highs and lows and difficult decisions; but let's be honest, what year isn't.

The first weekend of 2014 I attended the Taipei International Auto Show. While I don't consider myself to be a major auto-enthusiast, I did enjoy the spectacle of the show and it was a nice way to spend a cloudy and windy Saturday afternoon.

My teaching schedule had gradually filled up since I arrived back in Taipei and I have also been filling my spare hours working as an actor for the English education publication company, as I did before I left Taiwan last July. Recently we have been filming a DVD to accompany a book for Hospitality management students.   The scenes require me to play hotel, restaurant and airline staff and customers and for sets we have ubeen using the training classrooms of a technical university in the city of Taoyuan.   Taoyuan is about an hour drive from Taipei, but to save time we have been commuting with Taiwan's high-speed rail which takes just 20 minutes.  The /University classrooms are really neat and include a full floor set up as a mock hotel and an impressive faux airplane interior and airport, complete with security-check, customs and check in counters. Needless to say, the acting work is hardly anything like work at all.

Everything about my Taiwan life has settled neatly back into place.   Chinese New Year comes in just over a week and comes accompanied by an extra 4 days off work, It will be nice to have the four days off, though I'm glad it's not any longer than that as I cannot afford to lose anymore pay than that.

In the Chinese Zodiac this will be the year of the horse, and if it's anything like being saddled on the back of one, it'll likely be full ups-and-downs; I'm just looking forward to enjoying the ride!

(below are a few random leftover pictures)

A small section of a massive line for the newly opened Krispy Kreme.

My favourite Taiwanese food!

The Return of Taipei Goulet

(**Includes pictures I took while in Vancouver and Montreal that may not be related to the content of the writing)

It's been over 4 months since I relinquished my title of Taipei Goulet to return to my scenic home, just in time for my sister's wedding.

The transition from an exciting expat lifestyle to the relative calm of home was eased by the apprehension of the coming wedding.  After just one hectic week in Vancouver the wedding festivities were complete and my sister was happily married to her husband Steve.  The wedding itself was as fun as it was breathtakingly beautiful; however the beauty of the wedding itself paled in comparison to my sister on that day.

With the wedding behind me, I took up residence in my sister's home while the happy couple departed for their honeymoon.  The central, downtown location was ideal for job-hunting and interviewing in the downtown core.

I took several interviews for teaching positions at small private schools.  The interview process went seemingly well and before I knew I believed I had lined up a jobs.

The first of which was teaching conversation classes to small groups of adult students. I enjoyed the job but sporadic to non-existent working hours left me only slightly less unemployed than prior.

The other teaching job prospects I had fell through or fizzled out leaving me to return to a job I had worked in the summers between university semesters, house painting.

Painting isn't all that bad of a job, at times it's even pleasant and relaxing, but for me it represented the failure of finding a job that I wanted and a regression to a job I had when I was less educated, experienced and worldly.

The start of my work as a painter coincided with my decision to return to Taiwan.  The knowledge that I could be making more money, doing a job I enjoyed and working far less sealed the decision and I booked my flight for mid-November.

Midway through October I was afforded a break from painting to assist my father's financial services company at a medical conference in Montreal.  

I had never been to Montreal before and save for a trip to Thunder Bay as an infant I had never been anywhere in Canada, East of Alberta.

I'm happy to have now seen a little more of my own country and had a great time checking out the local pubs while spending time with my dad.

Once back from Montreal, I picked my paintbrush back up and carried out painting my sister's home and several rooms in my parents home.

The past 2 years I spent my favorite holiday, Halloween in foreign countries.  Only in North America is a Halloween a night of fun for adults as much as it is for Children.  Throughout the three nights of celebration dressed in three different costumes I was reminded why Halloween is the best holiday of the year, but only in North America.

Before long my departure date was a mere week away.

The Sunday one-week before my flight my parents surprised me by putting up the Christmas tree and giving me the gift of an early Christmas spent with my Family.

As I complete this post, I'm sitting in the departure lounge of ShangHai PuDong Airport awaiting my flight to Taipei.  Right now I'm torn between feeling like I failed at returning home or I successfully continued to pursue a life that makes me happy.  I'm not sure yet how long I will stay in Taipei for on this journey or where my next destination will but I excited for what the future may bring.