Things that I will miss about Taiwan, Kaohsiung and KAS
This will be a work in progress, along with the next post. As I've been getting ready to leave I keep thinking of things I'll miss, and the things I won't, and I want to remember them. So here goes, in no particular order.

• I'll miss my 7-11 guy. He starts getting my coffee ready even before I get through the door on Tuesday and Friday mornings. Last year I stopped at an earlier store on the commute route but I found the second one to be more friendly and now I've gotten to be one of the regulars.
• There's also the man who stands in front of his house many mornings who took about a year to warm up. We'd bike by the first few months and he would duck back in his house or just ignore us. Then I got to where I'd nod and smile and he started to nod back. We're now at the full-out "xiao" greeting with a smile.
• I wonder if I'll ever have another opportunity to have this conversation on the way to work: "How about we pick up sandwiches after school and go have a picnic dinner at the beach?"
• I will miss the vast array of dinner choices. There are the typical Asian choices - Taiwanese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Japanese - but I've also come to love Turkish and Israeli too. I am not in love with Italian, French or American around here. They're fine as fall-back when you don't want to have to worry about what you're eating and you can be pretty sure there will be food choices on the menu that are in English.
• Which brings up ordering food. I will actually miss wondering if I'll be getting something I thought I'd ordered. It's rare that we've gotten something we really didn't want to eat and there have been plenty of times that we're served something that we ate but wouldn't order again. And then there are those times that what comes to the table is much better than what we'd planned on eating. The trick to those occasions is figuring out how to order it again.
• The friends we've made here will be sorely missed. International teaching brings together a really interesting mix of people, but what we found, and friends who have taught at others places as well have confirmed, there's a commonality that lends itself to instant friendships. It's like being in college and your friends were right outside your door. 
• Hill biking was going to be in the "what I won't miss" post. Normally we have to work just to find hills to bike on around here so when we do make the effort it can be pretty brutal. But then we find that we really can handle it. We're not so old, after all. It's nice to be reminded of that.
• Fruit. The ease of buying, the price, the variety, the freshness.