The time is finally here! What began as a flippant idea has become our new reality. Even though we’ve been planning and talking about this for 5+ years, it’s surreal that in 2 months, we will be living in another country.
In the past few weeks, we’ve been showered with many dinners, get-togethers and parties from our family and friends. During these moments, I pause and take a look around to appreciate what’s in front of me. I tell myself to remember this moment.
It’s human nature to take things for granted. We take things for granted on a daily basis, always with the assumption that if we need something it will be there. I’m no different.
But now we’ve come to a point where the things we are used to having may not be there anymore. So while it’s been incredibly hard to say goodbye, I learned to cherish everything about our life here, big or small – from how warm and cozy our apartment is, to the love and support we have from our family. I guess we sometimes need reminders like this to realize how lucky we are to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
In the middle of planning our move abroad, Baba suddenly decided he wanted to attempt the 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz. 😳
Baba has always been a decent swimmer, but open water swimming is a different animal. If you’ve been to San Francisco, you’ll know that the waters here are turbulent and freezing! But inspired by friends and never one to give up easily, Baba started his training on April 1st, just two months before our move.
He started swimming at China Beach and Aquatic Park in a wetsuit. We didn’t know this at the time, but he suffered from hypothermia after the first few swims – slurred speech, uncontrollable shivering, and drowsiness. It looked painful.
At this point, I suggested that maybe Alcatraz isn’t for him. But I should’ve known the man is stubborn. Baba went to the beach everyday, rain or shine, even if it’s to jump in the water for a few minutes. Not only that, but he decided to forgo the wetsuit entirely because it became too much of a hindrance. He also wanted the extra challenge. So the man is stubborn and crazy.
After almost 2 months of open water swimming, Baba took the plunge on Monday, May 22. Contrary to what many people think, he did not do the Escape from Alcatraz, which is popular triathlon. He worked with a company called Pacific Open Water Swim that organizes open water swims for individuals. They boated him out to Alcatraz and had a guide swim with him.
Before the plunge.
We took the boys out of school that day so they could witness Baba’s swim. There were a few swimmers out there that day, so we had to keep our eyes peeled for him and follow his swim route. About 45 minutes after he jumped from the boat, Baba emerged from the water in one piece! He was exhausted, shivering and dazed, but he survived!
Post swim.
We were all so ecstatic for Baba. He accomplished something he worked hard for and never gave up, even though the odds were against him. I guess you do have to be stubborn and crazy to achieve your goals. My only hope is that he doesn’t hatch any more crazy schemes from now until we move!
Any time I want to explain a complicated topic to the boys, I turn to books. Children’s books have such a simple yet thoughtful way of communicating a message.
So as we got closer to moving, I looked for books about navigating between different cultures. I think I borrowed 10+ books from the library 😅 but these are a few of my favorites.
This book is perfectly fitting for our situation because the main character, Lily, also moves from US to Taiwan. Lily inevitably compares Taiwan to her home and nothing seems right. But she learns that this is her mother’s home and over time, Lily begins to accept it as her own too.
A simple story of very few words, this book is about two kids moving to each other’s home country – US and Mexico. They both wonder if they’ll be able to enjoy the things they did at home, like playing in the park, buying snacks after school and watching concerts at night. But through side by side illustrations of life in their hometowns, we learn that we are not so different from each other after all.
This book isn’t about moving per se, but about the unbreakable bonds you develop with loved ones. The story starts off with two children having a hard time sleeping during a thunderstorm while their mom is in the next room. She tells them about the “invisible string” that connects them to her and all their loved ones, no matter how near or far. My hope is that C and O will understand that we are always connected to our family and friends back home.
Many people have asked how C and O are dealing with the change. They both acknowledge they will miss family and friends, but otherwise they are handling everything in stride. We gave away all their books (but supplemented them with new tablets), 80% of their toys – and yet, they just shrug it all off and move on to the next thing. I guess this is why people recommend moving when kids are still young. They are truly uncomplicated and resilient beings!
When we first decided to move abroad, we did a quick run-through of all the things that needed to happen: give/throw stuff away, pack, and move out. No sweat.
It wasn’t until we sat down and thoroughly mapped out our plans that I realized, “Wait – we need to do that too?!” 😅 Here are some important things to deal with that might not be super obvious when moving abroad:
Cell phones: We’re going to cancel our US cell service but we still want to keep our phone numbers for when we return. To do this, we can port our numbers to Google Voice (it’s $20 to port in and $3 to port out). This will also allow us to receive and make calls back home as long as we’re connected to the internet. While in Taiwan, we’ll have to sign up for a phone service to make calls within the country.
Stop all services: Services like gas & electric, internet, garbage, etc. can be stopped by scheduling online. Remember to also cancel subscription services like food delivery, lifestyle, or entertainment.
Use up gift cards and passes: We had to make sure to use all of our gift cards and passes (i.e., FasTrak, Clipper). Luckily, FasTrak allows you to turn in the device to redeem leftover funds so definitely check with each company.
Mail forwarding: Enroll in paperless communications if you haven’t already, but you’ll still need to decide where your mail gets forwarded to. It’s easy to request a change of address on the USPS website for a small fee.
Health exams: Taiwan has great healthcare, but it gives us a peace of mind to complete all our health exams before we move. In the past few months, we’ve done it all – annual physicals, blood work, eye exams, and dental cleanings.
Immunization records: Get a copy of your immunization records – this is especially important for kids. Baba and I had to dig up and scan our yellow vaccination cards (who remembers these?! 😂). We downloaded our Covid vaccination records as well.
School records: We’ve heard that public schools in Taiwan don’t care about transcripts from foreigners, but to be safe we made sure to get a hold of the boys’ final report cards.
Scan documents: We’re bringing only the most critical documents with us, and scanned everything else into an external hard drive. This actually took weeks to do – locate the documents, scan, save and file accordingly. We also saved a second copy of the documents in a USB drive that we are leaving with a relative here as a precaution.
Banking: Baba researched banks with no ATM fees and good exchange rates for when we’re traveling in Europe and before we officially set up a bank account in Taiwan. We found the debit card from Charles Schwab to be the best for our needs.
We probably missed something but hopefully it’s not too important. We like having our ducks in a row. You can blame it on our anal retentive personalities.
Since Baba and I are approved for the Taiwan Gold Visa, we were given a resident authorization certificate.
Upon landing in Taiwan, we will need to go to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) with this certificate and get our official Gold Card and ARC, or Alien Resident Certificate.
Naively, we thought it would be an easy process to get C and O their visas now that both of us are approved. We filled out the dependent visa application online and went to the Taiwan consulate to submit it, along with the required documents: authenticated birth certificates, vaccination records and our marriage certificate. We thought we’d get the boys’ resident visas in a couple of weeks and off we go! Right?
Not quite. We got a call from the Taiwan consulate telling us that the boys’ resident visas will last only 3 months. And since we won’t land in Taiwan until August 1st, they will not approve the visas until early to mid May. We will then need to report to the NIA immediately after arriving in Taiwan to get ARCs for the boys, which requires a separate application. This process can take up to 2 weeks. We need their ARCs in order to register for school so this step is crucial.
We’re honestly still confused as to why we need the resident visa from the Taiwan consulate if it only lasts 3 months, and then have to apply separately for the boys’ ARCs in Taiwan. We thought getting approved for a resident visa = getting an ARC. Baba doesn’t think the Taiwan consulate would mislead us into getting a resident visa if we didn’t need one, so we’re just going along in good faith. Maybe there’s a good reason why people hire immigration lawyers for this stuff. 😅
On top of planning our move abroad and clearing out our apartment, we had the brilliant idea of planning a 2-month trip to Europe over the summer before flying to Taiwan 🙄. I’m excited that we could go on this trip but planning so many things at once is a bit chaotic to say the least.
We thought it would be a good idea to spend time in Europe since we’ll be in Asia for the next few years. And because Spain was our second choice after Taiwan, we definitely wanted to visit it during the trip.
Our full itinerary:
Spain(26 days)
Barcelona
Valencia
Madrid
Portugal (14 days)
Porto
Lisbon
I’m really intrigued by Portugal. While I’ve been to Spain and Italy (over 15 years ago!), Baba and I have never been to Portugal. For the past few years, there has also been a huge influx of Americans moving to Portugal because of its easy visa requirements, laid back lifestyle and mild climate. I’m curious to see what the hype is all about.
Italy(15 days)
Venice
Florence
Rome
It will be HOT in Europe during the summer, but I guess that will prepare us for the inferno that awaits us in Taiwan? Ahh! I’m not sure my heat-sensitive body can handle.
We are mostly staying in the major cities but plan on doing a few day trips to smaller towns (e.g., Montserrat in Spain and Pisa in Italy). This time, we also have the luxury of staying in each place for an extended period. Our shortest visit is in Porto, where we’re staying for 4 nights. With two kids in tow and 4 suitcases to lug around, we thought it’d be best to take things slow. This is totally different than our previous trips, where we’re zooming to the next place every 2-3 days!
What’s also different this time around is that we’re not planning everything to a tee. We do have our airfare, train tickets and Airbnbs booked (we’re not that crazy!) but we don’t have a set itinerary where we have to see a certain museum on a specific date, or have dinner reservations at a certain restaurant. This is probably due to us having a lot more time to dabble around. But it’s more likely that we’re just being lazy.
One of the hardest things about moving has been clearing out our place.
When you move across town, you can rent a U-Haul to schlep your stuff to your new place. It becomes much more complicated when you move overseas. You have to either pay thousands of dollars for shipping, or have an employer willing to pay for it. Well, we didn’t want to pay ourselves so have resorted to bringing whatever can fit into 4 suitcases. This meant we have to decide what to toss, donate, sell or store.
It was easy to decide what to toss because a lot of the stuff we own was on its last legs anyway. We do have to plan around this part though – i.e., scheduling for Bulk Item Recycling services and asking family for help to move heavy things. As for storage, we are storing some things at my MIL’s house but need to be strategic about what we save.
The most difficult part is when we have to mull over an item that’s in between – not valuable enough to be stored, yet not shabby enough to be thrown away. Do we give it away? If so, to whom? Or can we sell it? Either way, this leads to a whole process of taking photos of the item, writing descriptions, posting it on the relevant platforms – whether it’s WhatsApp if we’re giving it away to family or Facebook and Craigslist if we’re giving or selling it to neighbors. Then, we have to spend time responding to messages, coordinating pick up times, dealing with no shows…which can be super frustrating.
I didn’t realize how time consuming and exhausting this part of moving would be. And we don’t even live in a big place! We dedicated a good part of March and April just to clear things out but STILL have about 30-40% of stuff left. As the big day approaches, we will gradually toss or give more things away.
Last week, we submitted notice that we won’t be returning to our school in the fall.
It’s a simple form, but I felt so conflicted filling it out. Even with our first year of kindergarten being completely virtual due to Covid, we found a wonderful, welcoming community at our school. I will miss seeing familiar friendly faces, soccer games and get-togethers, and the 5-minute walk to school.
Besides missing the obvious things like our school, family, and friends, I thought about all the “little” things I will miss about living in SF:
The oven: I LOVE to cook and bake with my oven. However, most Taiwan apartments don’t have ovens but maybe we can get a small convection oven as a compromise?
Food diversity: Taiwan has amazing food but I appreciate the variety of cuisines and ingredients in SF. Now that we’re only 1.5 months away from moving, I’ve been trying to cook and eat foods that will be hard to find in Taiwan (which includes Mexican, Indian and Southern fare).
Weather: I probably complained a little too much about the rain and cold this year but oh, I will yearn for the cool weather in SF when we have to face the typhoons and hot, humid weather in Taipei!
Neighborhood: While our 2-bedroom apartment is nothing to write home about, we love our neighborhood. Close to family, school, parks and grocery stores, the location is so convenient. I’ve heard that everything is incredibly convenient in Taipei so I’m not worried about that while we’re abroad. I just hope that we can find a place just as convenient when we return to the city.
As I get wistful about moving, it’s nice to find encouraging messages in unexpected places. One of those places is in a children’s book called Goodbye Brings Hello. I borrowed a ton of books about moving and dealing with change for C and O, but it turns out I may be the one who needs them most.
“There are many ways of letting go. With each goodbye, a new hello.”
This short but sweet book is about changes in life. It can be so difficult to say goodbye to the familiar. But the beauty is that when we say goodbye to something, we are often saying hello to something else. So as we say goodbye to our friends, school, oven, and neighborhood, we will say hello to many new things and experiences in Taiwan. And those hellos can be fabulous.
Within a week of going to the Taiwan consulate, we received our authentication certificates in the mail! They attached an official letter to each of the documents we needed to authenticate, which included the boys’ birth certifications and vaccination records.
Better yet, we also received our marriage certificate authentication from South Africa yesterday – yay! A letter with similar language was attached, but there were additional certificates with stamps and seals in the packet. Looks so official and all.
But the best news of all is….Baba’s visa application got approved!! After 2.5 months of waiting and following up, Baba finally got his very own Taiwan Gold Card Visa. That means he won’t need to go through the health exam (although we probably should still get his lung checked out 😆), and he would be able to work in Taiwan if he wants to.
This morning, Baba went into the SF Taiwan consulate to submit his passport for inspection. Once that’s approved, he will receive his temporary Gold Card and we can apply for the boys’ visas.
Slowly but surely, things are coming together. 🙂
Applying for a resident visa is like putting together a puzzle. There are a million little pieces: forms, documents, health exams, etc. that you have to get in order before you can even apply for a visa. It is very confusing and laborious at times. But hey, it’s all part of the journey.
To apply for C and O’s visas, we had to get their birth and vaccination records authenticated, or officially reviewed by a Taiwan consulate. There is an option of applying for the visa and authenticating documents at the same time but with only 2 more months left before we leave, I wanted to get the ball rolling as much as possible.
After 3 years of operating by appointment only, the Taiwan consulate in SF fully opened its doors on April 3rd and was first come, first served. We arrived at the consulate at 8:20am (it opened at 9am) and there was already a group of people waiting.
Once we were inside the office and got a number, the process was smooth and efficient. While waiting for your number to get called, a few consulate workers walked around and proactively assisted people with their documents. This was extremely helpful and they were all so patient and kind! They first spoke to us in rapid fire Chinese but after seeing the confused look on our faces, they switched to English 🤣. This is yet another time I regret not keeping up with my Chinese!
A really sweet girl named Doris helped us get our documents in order. There was an issue with Baba’s name on the kids’ birth certificates (one had his middle name and one did not) so we had to follow up with additional ID verification. But Doris accepted our application for authentication in the meantime, and by 10am, we submitted our documents and paid the fee ($15 for each document). The authentication process takes about 2 weeks.
In other news, the authentication process of our marriage certificate is done! The documents are traveling all the way from South Africa and should take about a week to arrive. I was initially nervous about this process, but the agent we worked with at Wakwazi International was really helpful.
Baba still hasn’t heard back from the Taiwan visa office about his application. In the meantime, he is also trying to apply as my spouse which requires a health exam. But we hit another roadblock. One of the health tests you have to pass is a tuberculosis test, and the radiologist who reviewed Baba’s first chest x-ray has some concerns which means more blood tests and CT scan – which also means a delay and more out of pocket medical expenses.
Baba pushed the CT scan appointment as far back as possible, in hopes that the Taiwan visa office will get back to him before then and he gets approved as an individual. An individual visa will spare him from getting a health exam. I hope this is the case too.
The pieces are slowly coming together yet at the same time everything feels untethered. There is a lot of uncertainty. I suspect it’s going to feel this way for a long, long time so I guess I better get used to it.
Hongs Abroad 