Reunited for the holidays in Taiwan
Our first vacation out of Singapore was to Taiwan for Christmas and New Years. Janae left at the beginning of December to be with her parents and I joined her two weeks later for Christmas and New Years. Mom, Mary and Debbie were going to Taiwan as well - I was excited to be able to see everyone again!
This would also be the first time Verene sees her great grandmother, great uncles and aunts as well.
Grandma lives in the same house that my mom grew up in. After seeing Verene run around, she said it reminded her of when I was little running around the same floor. I wonder if Grandma had similar thoughts. It becamse a special cross generational moment. Grandma is in ok shape for being well in her 80's and even took us to the market in the morning. One of the highlights coming back to Taiwan is eating Aunt Haowei's yummy food - she should open a restaurant! Every meal was extravagant. In addition to visiting family, Mom put together a fantastic itinerary for us to visit Hualian and Taidong while we were there.
Verene run
First order of business after arriving in Taiwan was to make a Verene run. Janae wasn't going to join us for the first few days of our travels since she had a girls weekend with friends in Taizhong planned. Her family lives in Kaohsiung in the South and I was in the North at Grandma's house. After learning about the new high speed rail which only takes 1.5 hours to travel to Janae's home, I decided to run down, stay the night, get Verene, and come back the next day in time for our train to Hualian.
Good thing I had the help of Mom and my sisters in taking care of Verene. This was the first time I had her by myself for longer than a day! I wasn't too nervous about it since I missed her so much. Not only did I miss her because she had been in Taiwan for two weeks but also because I don't see her much even in Singapore due to my hours at work. This was my vacation and I wanted to make sure I had as much time as possible with cute Verene.