Same City, New Life

First of all and most importantly, our visit to the good ole' USA was amazing! It was wonderful to see everyone and complete our Tour De Babies. Also, thanks to all of our dedicated fans! Because of y'all, I promise to keep up the blog going even with school work. However, I am going to try out a new style - more pictures and less words - to reduce the amount of time it takes to write each blog.

Our return to trip to Taiwan was thankfully uneventful. Upon returning and readjusting to the time zone, we were able to set up our apartment, attend two campus orientations, cover teach and even squeeze in one Hsinchu County hike.

James running a race in America. Yes, his shirt has cookie monster on it. And yes, he was a cookie monster with Gammy's cookies on his birthday!

As with everything in Taiwan, it takes at least two tries to get things right. You may remember how disappointed James was when we first arrived to not have someone holding up a sign with his name on it at the airport. However, now our second time landing in Taiwan, things worked out in our favor. Here's our taxi driver with a sign reading "Mr. James Rockwell."

We are ready for action at the International Student Orientation! The Global MBA (held a couple of days after the International Student Orientation) was exciting and scary together (as James' old student would say "good and bad together"). It's going to be a tough but exciting two years!

The day after I paid my college gym membership fee, I was in this Olympic sized pool swimming laps. I had to wear a lot of sunscreen though! I'm going to have the tannest back at NCTU.

We were greeted at the Student Activities Fair with this friend! If I join the horse club, then James is going to join the archery club. Well...we will join the clubs if we have any free time between studies, cover teaching and hiking.

We also got to watch the cheerleaders perform! For those that know my friend Katy Vining, I texted her this picture immediately!

Now for the moment you've all been waiting for, our new apartment! It's a great little place. We are about a 10 minute drive from campus and a 10 minute drive from downtown Hsinchu, We aren't near any major roads so it's always quiet. In addition, we have been enjoying the running routes on the "country" roads.

The view outside of our residential area's gate.

Our apartment building. It's a two year old building and still feels very clean and new! There is also a parking deck underneath the building. We have our own car parking space which our scooters fit nicely in.

Our studio apartment "bedroom" and desk. Please note the "new" sheets that our friend gave us (along with quite a few other things) before she moved back to GB. Also, please note the little yellow rubber ducky in every picture. That was James' idea. The duck was a good-bye present from one of his students. Where's Waldo and the Luck Duck?