Tag: moving abroad

Ramblings

Apartment Hunting in Taipei: Real Estate Agents

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I want to interrupt our Europe blogs to share our experience apartment hunting in Taipei. We’ve actually been in Taipei for over 2 weeks now, so I’m obviously very behind in blogging 😅. But there’s just too much that has happened, and I want to document it all before I forget.

If I had to sum up our experience apartment hunting in Taipei, I’d say the overarching theme would be “expectations vs. reality.”

Let’s start with real estate agents.

In the last post about Taiwan, I shared that we’re using a real estate agent to help us look for an apartment. Normally in the US, this would be a DIY effort. We scour the internet to look for listings and work directly with the landlord to rent. Case closed.

Taiwan is different. Not only can we not speak the language, but we’re unfamiliar with the rules, laws and conventions of apartment renting. So, about a week before we left the US, I reached out to an English speaking real estate agency to get on their radar.

There is a cost to working with an agent. If you rent an apartment from the agent, you pay half a month’s rent as a service fee. The service includes negotiating the rental contract, assistance with utilities setup, acting as a liaison between you and landlord for the entire duration of your lease, and some agents can even help with purchasing furniture or appliances.

We told Kathy, our agent, what we were looking for in an apartment:

  • Ideally, the apartment is in Da’an district
  • It has 2 bedrooms
  • Near MRT (Taipei’s metro) or bus stop
  • At least semi-furnished
  • At least 30+ pings. Taiwan uses pings 坪 as a measurement of floor space. One 坪 is equivalent to about 35.6 square feet.

About a week before we landed in Taipei and while we were still in Rome, Kathy sent us a list of properties to look at. We were interested in a few of them, but we noticed the listings were all from her agency. We had seen a number of apartments that fit our criteria on rent.591.com.tw (which is equivalent to Craigslist in the US). Why weren’t any of those included?

This is where our expectations did not align with the reality. In the US, your agent can show you any property available. They collaborate with the buyer’s or seller’s agents and split the commission.

In Taipei, agents do not work with each other. If you wanted to view an apartment that isn’t listed under your agent’s realty company, you’d have to contact the representing agent yourself by phone or Line. (Line is the communications app commonly used in Taiwan.) Many times, the agent doesn’t speak English very well so Google Translate quickly became our best friend.

It’s possible for your agent to try and call the landlord and arrange something, but more often than not, the landlord doesn’t want to engage with another agent.

We had expected our agent to be a one-stop solution. She tracks down all apartments that fit our criteria, works with the landlord, negotiates the contract, and voila! We move in. The reality was Baba and I had to do a lot more work ourselves. Almost every night for 2 weeks, we’d scour rent.591.com.tw, create a spreadsheet of potential apartments, contact the different agents and schedule viewings with them. We were on a timeline (we rented an Airbnb for 2 weeks) so we had to act quickly.

On top of all this, we had to consider how the apartment would affect school registration for the boys. I’ll share more about that next.

Ramblings

Reality Check from Taipei

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A lot of people asked if we have an apartment in Taipei yet. We don’t! Renting an apartment in Taipei is like anywhere else. Unless you’re willing to start paying rent before moving in, you’ll want to physically be there to check out the area and apartment before signing a lease. So, we rented an Airbnb for the first two weeks of August for apartment hunting. We do have an idea of the district we want to live in (Da’an).

In the middle of our vacation in Madrid, we got our first reality check. Our real estate agent in Taipei asked if she can look for apartments in both Da’an and Xinyi districts. I told her we wanted to concentrate in Da’an because we plan to use our Airbnb address (also in Da’an) to register for a nearby school. Then once we find our own apartment, we will update our address with the school. This is what some expats have done in the past, according to forums I lurk in.

But Kathy, our real estate agent, asked: “Did you ask your Airbnb host if you can use her address to register for school?”

Oh. Whoops.

It turns out our Airbnb host couldn’t let us use her address for school registration. We’re not sure why – maybe that address is already registered with a school – but we had to come up with Plan B, whatever that is.

We struggled with deciding what comes first – do we look for an apartment and then find a school nearby? Or find a school first, and then an apartment? I posed this dilemma on an expat forum and people advised to look for a school first because by the time we arrive in Taipei in August, many of the schools may be full.

Thankfully, a helpful stranger on the forum sent me a PDF of all the schools that were full in Taipei. I did some cursory research on schools that still have space (just based on Google reviews, the school’s website and Facebook page), and narrowed the list down to three. They are all in Da’an or Xinyi districts.

So now, our apartment hunting strategy is to find an apartment within walking distance to any of those schools, which is easier said than done. Apartments apparently get rented out quickly in Taipei so we’ll have to act fast. We have about one month to find an apartment and register for school before school starts on 9/1. We signed up for an adventure and we sure got it! 

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A Fond Adieu

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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.

See you on the other side of the world. 😉

Ramblings

By the Book

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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 Is Not My Home by Vivienne Chang and Eugenia Yoh

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 New Home by Tania de Regil

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.


The Invisible String by Patrice Karst and Joanne Lew-Vriethoff

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!

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Sweat the Small Stuff

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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.

Ramblings

Goodbye Brings Hello

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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.

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A Million Little Pieces

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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.

Ramblings

Mental Preparation

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This is a graph I often see that illustrates how foreigners adapt to a new place over time. Most expats start off in a blissful, honeymoon stage for the first couple of months. Everything about their new home is amazing and new. But resentment starts to sets in after people can’t fully assimilate to the culture, have difficulty learning the language or making new friends. Now everything seems so complicated and they get frustrated. It’s not until 6 months after the move that expats come to terms with all the upsides and downsides of their new home.

However, this is what I envision my adjustment will be like:

Apologize for my terrible graph-making skills 😅

I can pretty much guarantee things are going to be rough the first couple of months. We’re arriving during hottest month of the year (August) and will be stressing out about finding an apartment and registering the kids for school. Accomplishing these things will not be easy. We won’t have jobs in Taiwan so landlords might be hesitant renting to us. Similar to the US, school assignments usually come out in March. By August, a lot of schools will be full so we might not get a school of our choice. Then, the boys will have to get adjusted to a new school in a new country, but I know I am the one who will have the hardest time adjusting.

It’s also inevitable I will compare our life in Taipei to what we had in SF. I will long for the mild SF weather, our 5-minute commute to school, our friends, our neighborhood and of course, our family. I will miss how easy everything was for us back home, and question if we made the right choice everyday. I have to remember to be patient with myself.

Eventually though, we will find our rhythm and a community in Taipei (we’d have to!). We will learn to appreciate how wonderful this experience is and everything will be great until the newness of it all wears off. Then, life will feel normal again.

This isn’t me overthinking because throughout most changes in my life – whether it be starting grad school, changing jobs or having a baby – I go through these exact emotions. I start off being a Debbie Downer, but once I meet new friends and/or find my groove, I am happy. I just hope my “hostility” stage won’t last very long, and I’m able to enjoy our time in Taipei as long as possible.

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Close, But No Cigar

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Whew, it’s been a minute! I have some good news and bad news. First, the good news: my application is approved! I’m now officially a Taiwan Gold Card Visa holder. Bad news: Baba’s application is still in limbo and there are still so many things to do before we can all officially move to Taiwan.

Our visa application process hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park. A couple of weeks after I submitted my employment certificate, I received a response that my application does not belong under the Field of Economy but rather the Field of Finance because my former employer is in the insurance brokerage industry. The problem was, I wouldn’t exactly qualify under the Field of Finance. In addition to needing to have earned NT$160,000 a month, I would need some kind of financial expertise which I don’t have.

We decided to write a letter of appeal. I argued that while the my company could be classified under the financial industry, my job responsibilities and degrees are purely in business.

Meanwhile, Baba also received a similar response. His application under the Field of Economy was denied but they offered to do a special review with the National Development Agency. We learned that this process could take 1-2 months. We were already approaching March and plan to leave on June 3rd so we didn’t have the luxury of waiting.

We felt stuck. Doubt started to seep in and I was stressed. We started googling visa requirements for Spain. Although we could qualify for their Non-Lucrative Retirement Visa, timing would be extremely tight. And do we apply for Spain while waiting to hear back from Taiwan? How much time should we give Taiwan to get back to us? Is there anything we can do now for Spain’s application that is easy and low-cost in case our Taiwan visa gets approved? Why didn’t we apply for our visa earlier?! We had many questions but no answers.

But then, on the evening of March 6, I received the fantastic news: my application got approved! The next step was to submit my passport for inspection, and go through a final review by the National Immigration Agency. On March 15, I received my temporary Taiwan Gold Card. (I will need to pick up the official Gold Card when we’re in Taiwan.)

Baba’s application is still under review. At this point, he had written a letter to the visa office with more information about his work experience and education. He requested that his application be approved under the Field of Finance since his former employer is in the finance industry and he had worked closely with finance managers.

Initially, the visa office denied Baba’s request to move his application to the Field of Finance. They told him they need to do a further review of his “unique expertise.” But just this morning, Baba received an update that he could apply under the Field of Finance. Wish they could’ve made this decision when we made the initial request – that could’ve saved us 2 weeks!!

At this point, Baba could technically apply as my spouse but he won’t be able to work in Taiwan and there is more administrative work. For one thing, he would need to get a health examination that includes a chest x-ray, syphilis test, skin exam, among other things. He would then need to get a health certificate from his doctor and get the certificate “authenticated” by the Taiwan consulate. For now, our plan is to do two things at once: Baba re-applies under the Field of Finance and goes through the health exam in case the former option doesn’t work out.

But wait, there’s more! We have kids! Before we can apply for visas for C and O, Baba and I have to prove that we’re married. (Apparently, Taiwan doesn’t recognize children born out of wedlock 😆.) But the joke is on us, because our marriage certificate is from South Africa which complicates things a bit. All documents issued outside of Taiwan must be authenticated by the Taiwan consulate from where the document originated. Well, we obviously don’t live in South Africa so we had to hire an agent to help us with the authentication process of our marriage certificate. The Taiwan consulate in SA sent us a list of agents, so I contacted one, wired him money and prayed that this isn’t some elaborate scam. Our agent told us the process can take 4-5 weeks so we continue to wait.

In addition to the marriage certificate, we have to provide and authenticate C and O’s birth certificates and vaccination records. We also had to get a health exam and certificate for C, which of course needs to be authenticated too. (Children under 6 years do not have to get a health exam so O is spared.) Thankfully, since these documents were all issued in the SF Bay Area, we can bring them to the Taiwan consulate in San Francisco ourselves. And this all needs to be done before we fill out the actual visa application for the boys!

At the very least, my application is approved so there’s a high chance the rest of the family can get their visas too. But there’s still so much do to before we get there. I’ll post another update as things move along!

Ramblings

Employment Certificate

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A few days after we submitted our visa application, we received a request to submit supplementary documents.

“Your CV was not considered as work certificate and was not accepted. Please provide local or foreign employment certificate with related work contents in economic industries or field. And the certificate shall be issued by the company shown on your tax statement which paid salary and hired you in the financial year. Also, the certificate shall have your employment period, work position and content, company logo, company information and signature of person or supervisor in-charge.”

At first glance, I thought this sounded concerning. Did we make a mistake on our application? Did they find something suspicious?!

Though uncommon in the US, it turns out that an employment certificate is a customary practice in Taiwan. The certificate is basically a short letter in which your company verifies what you wrote on your resume is true. It needs to be on company letterhead and signed by HR or your supervisor. Thankfully, we just needed to provide one employment certificate. The certificate had to be from the company that is on the W-2 we submitted.

Example of an employment certificate:

Worried that our old employers would be confused about an employment certificate, Baba and I drafted a letter they could repurpose. Fortunately, both companies seemed unfazed by it and sent back a signed certificate/letter within a few days. Whew, one hurdle down! We uploaded the certificate in the applicant portal and again, now we wait.