"Leaving Taiwan, never easy"

Just like REM sang: "Leaving New York, never easy (it's pulling me apart)"

Yes, leaving Taipei, never easy.

Time came where we needed to say Goodbye and Thank You to Taipei.

It has been a great year. It started a bit in a sense where I saw troubles instead of possibilities.
When my wife arrived in the end of January 2014, right before Chinese New Year, things started becoming much better and easier.

During the summer, I was asked for a contract extension for another year. I was considering a lot.
Weighing pros and cons. Sometimes, I wanted to stay. Sometimes, I thought we'd better go home.
It changed like this for a couple of months and I asked for more time to make a decision.
Finally, in the beginning of September, I announced that I have no intention to extend my contract due to several personal reasons.

2014 has been good to me personally. I believe it was good for my wife to have a longer break from her work too. I didn't become richer. I didn't became more urbane, since I already travelled a lot. I didn't learn much more at work. I didn't get more new friends. I already knew many of the office people before I moved here since I have worked with majority of them for many years.

What has been good is that I have spent my time here with my wife. We saw each other only in the weekends when we lived in Sweden. Another good thing was also my wish to learn Chinese.
I had classes with a tutor who came to office once or twice a week during the whole year. I learned a lot from her, but I still consider that my Chinese is very poor. It's too bad I don't have time to stay here to improve it.

We have seen quite many places both in Taipei and outside Taipei. Of course, I would like to see even more. I would like to go to Kenting, for example. We made it to Taroko Gorge though and that was a nice trip.

What I will miss the most here is all the shopping, nice and cheap food, possibility to get something any time thanks to 24h shops. Yes, we also miss ice skating there.

Taiwanese people are generally nice people. Not very open to speak English, but compared to mainland Chinese, they have better manner. I guess that's why Western people enjoy staying in Taipei because of the people and the easiness to get around the city. It's cleaner and more tidy here as well.

Something I also like is that Taipei has at least two seasons, seeing it from the eyes of someone who lives in Sweden with four seasons. It is either hot or less hot here. During April to Oct, it is hot and very humid. During Nov to Mar, it is colder and very humid. It is so humid that things get mould. My plants and luggages have experienced this.

My dream was fulfilled to move here, but no dream will last forever. Sooner or later, we need to wake up. Moving home is of course not our dream either, but it might open the door to something else. I believe we will for sure come back to Taiwan in the future as a tourist. My heart will beat a bit for Taiwan from now on and I will remember this as one of my homes.

I have not missed Sweden at all except for when important football games or other sports events took place. Well, I miss Sweden when I want a stable internet connection. Even though I paid a lot for the internet here, it was frustrating that it didn't work properly. Most of the time, we needed to disconnect and connect the cable several times a day.

The second last week of our time in Taiwan, the shipping company came to measure our stuff at home. On the agreed moving day (Fri 28 Nov), they came to pack our stuff. We chose to ship both by sea and air, since we had lots of liquid which we didn't want to leave or throw away. We were allowed to ship only 80kg by air.

I first thought that we could make it by air with all our stuff expect for the box with liquid. My estimation of weight and amount seems totally wrong. We ended up with four boxes by air and twenty boxes by sea! Crazy!

We tried to keep number of items down so that we didn't have to ship too many things home. Most importantly, we didn't want to shop too much stuff for the apartment here since we already have the setup in Sweden. Now, lots of stuff will be doubled when we come home. Some of the stuff, we will keep using them. Some others will be kept until any of my siblings will move.

On the moving day (Wed 3 Dec), we brought 5 luggage and 4 hand luggage with us. Since we both had Star Alliance Gold cards, we were allowed to bring one extra luggage (23kg) each. Besides, my company could pay for one more extra bag or 20kg overweight each. Since we didn't go home straight to Sweden, but to Thailand on 3 week's vacation, we found it quite troublesome to bring so many bags, but we had no choice. Check-in went smoothly though.

Ya, everything is now just a memory.

Goodbye and Thank You, Taipei! See you again!