Hey, Mister!

I finally feel like I'm settling in to my life up here in our new apartment. We haven't got the most fantastic view from our third floor walk-up flat, but the view from the roof isn't half bad. One of the pictures is a view of the neighbour's rooftop apartment, laundry and all, and another pic is my view of the street below and the neighboring apartment blocks. The apartment itself is the best one we've lived in so far in our stay in Taiwan. It has all the amenities one could wish for, save for a gym and a swimming pool, and both of those are walking distance. We've discovered our local markets and eating areas and shopping areas, and the greatest thing about living where we do, Tienmu, is that there is a very high concentration of international residents. Not just big fat white monsters like the two of us, but Japanese, Korean, Indians, Europeans... It makes for a more full-bodied flavour to the area. 

Another side effect of having so many international people is that we have more import shops, and they are global. Of course, the dominance is really the Japanese import shops, and I could really care less because I'm not really into seaweed-flavoured everything, but I do enjoy being able to easily purchase just about anything I could think of (sometimes at quite a hefty price; a small box of Rice Krispies, for example, is about ten Candadian dollars!).

Forgive me for the really low-quality images; whoever shot them forgot to take the lenshood off, so we ended up with a shadow at the bottom. Whatever, in the picture of the dining room, I'm stuffing my face with biscuits and everyone else doesn't look particularly enthused. One would never know we were actually enjoying a great conversation about national identity and travel!

More pics to come when get off my lazy butt and fix some up to be presentable...