This past year has been quite unusual. After leaving Ireland in the summer of 2019, my family arrived back to the Washington D.C. area. Somewhat quickly, I started taking classes each day to learn Chinese. This, along with all the normal activities of a family of five, made life very busy. Unfortunately, taking a break from blogging for awhile became necessary in order to focus on other things.

Less than a week ago, my family arrived in Taiwan. We are currently in mandatory quarantine. We are shut in to our apartment, and literally crossing the door threshold to the hallway could result in a fine of $1,000,000 NT$ (approximately $33,000 USD). Thankfully we have awesome families in our building that helped stock our pantry before our arrival, and have delivered little pieces of Taiwan straight to our (unanswerable) door. We also have food and grocery delivery services available.

Flying into Taiwan right now is very interesting. We walked through the normal steps in the airport such as baggage claim and immigration. Additionally, we registered with someone from the Taiwan CDC. They whisked us from one point to another through the airport and we ended at special quarantine taxis that took us directly to our quarantine location. The police call us each day and check in on us and we submit our temperatures on an app every morning. If our cell phone runs out of battery the police will show up at the door to make sure we are all inside. Our trash has to be double bagged, and environmental control has arranged a special time for our trash collection. Everyone we have been in contact with has been very kind as we navigate this process. I have absolutely no doubt that it is a priority to to keep people safe.

I do look forward to the day our quarantine time is over and we can step into this beautiful city that right now I can only admire from our windows.