We've arrived! For a trip halfway around the world we couldn't have asked for smoother traveling. No delayed flights, no missed connections, no lost luggage. The worst I can say is that United's food was mediocre at best.

We were met at the airport around midnight by the school superintendent and the administrative assistant and dropped off at our new apartment. They couldn't have been nicer. We learned just enough to know how to get around in the apartment and then they left us to settle in.

This is our living room. The apartment includes 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a galley kitchen. The "laundry room" is a little porch with the washer, dryer (!) and clothes lines for hanging out the wash. Given the humidity I can't believe anything could possibly dry outside right now.

We also have a balcony off of the living room. It faces directly east. Here's the view:

There's a park and a middle school across the street from us. You can see the track off on the left. We're on the 10th floor of a 19 floor building. I haven't had a chance to look around in the lobby yet but it looked pretty impressive last night.

I was quite pleased with myself when I figured out how to read the toilet flusher:

The character on the left means small and the character on the right means big. The rest is self-explanatory.

The taxi is picking us up in a half hour and we're off to see the school and our new city. 

We've made it to Hong Kong. Three hour layover. We seem to have lost July 30th - we left on the 29th and it's now the 31st.

We flew over the north pole (thought of you, Julia, when we passed north of the Arctic Circle). It gave me pause to fly over Russia but there were no "incidents." Last leg of the journey is an hour and half hop over the South China Sea.

Here's our plane from Bradley to Newark. Yes, it's as tiny as it appears. For some reason there were no rows numbered 8 through 17. I'm hoping someone put them on our next flight, just to give us a little extra leg room. Thanks to my lovely sister, Jenner, Lee and I are spending our 3-hour layover in the United Club at Newark.

So tomorrow is the big day. It's been 33 days since we sold the house and hit the road on our Goodbye Tour. We've been to New York and back to Simsbury, to Virginia, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, Maine, plus three separate trips to Amherst. We put about about 3500 miles on the car, which we sold today to my brother and sister-in-law. Now there's nothing but us and our luggage.

All ready at the airport hotel.

Imagine picking up everything you own and deciding whether or not to take it with you for the next two years (or more) halfway around the world. The other options are to get rid of it or pay to store it. And in the end it all has to fit into 4 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, a purse and a briefcase. 

I did "cheat" a little and packed one box with cool-weather clothes, a couple blankets and a handful of books plus a second box with weaving/knitting/sewing supplies. Those boxes are taking the slow boat and should arrive by the middle of October. By then I imagine I'll be looking for a distraction from the culture shock.

Our plane leaves tomorrow from Bradley to Newark at 10 am. Then we head to Hong Kong (16 hours in the air!) and a final hop to Kaohsiung. We are due to arrive just before midnight Thursday night, Taiwan time. From Bradley Airport to the Kaohsiung airport it should take 25 hours. Then 9 hours after we land the taxi picks us up to start our new faculty orientation. I think we may be too busy to be tired. 

Here we are, stop number 12, back in Amherst one last time. The family has traveled off to Chautauqua so we're taking care of the cats, doing laundry and packing one last time. This time next week we will be attending the new faculty dinner at the head of the school's home in Kaohsiung, Taiwan!

The trip to Maine was everything I had hoped for - time with the boys and Cierra, peaceful, relaxing. I even took the time to unpack my suitcase for the first time in a month! Here are the promised photos.

The house was on its own little island. The bridge on the right is the footpath to the mainland. The tides were about 12 feet so at low tide there's no water under the bridge.

This is the view of Penobscot Bay from the porch. Imagine having your morning cup of coffee with that view every morning. Fabulous.

We spent one day at Acadia National Park. This is me and Josh at the summit of Mount Penobscot.

Josh and his kayak

Cierra and her kayak.

Zach and his kayak. (We did a lot of kayaking.)

We spent a couple days with Lee's mom outside Boston, then headed north to Maine for a week with our three sons and one girlfriend. The cabin is on its own tiny island on the coast near Bucksport and clearly a piece of heaven on earth. Pictures will come when we drive the extra 30 minutes to Blue Hill where the Dunkin Donuts has wifi. I guess heaven doesn't come with internet service.

We left Amherst, once again, and headed to the Boston area for a few days.
A note for my dad: When we got ready to say goodbye your eyes lit up and you had a huge grin on your face. It was the best bon voyage I could have hoped for. You reminded me that this adventure is truly an adventure: exciting, daunting, stepping off the cliff edge into the great unknown and thrilled to do it. I think you're a little jealous that you're not coming along and can't wait to hear all about it when we come back. Thank you for being so excited for us.

Before I start crying again let me tell you about yesterday. We spent the night at our long, long, long-time friends Steve and Jody's farm-in-the-making. They've teamed up with a goat farm down the road that makes the most delicious cheeses. Steve and Jody "foster" some of the adolescent goats until they're old enough to breed and the goats help clear the brush in the overgrown meadows.

Lee and I got to bottle feed the baby goats.

The cheeses mature in their cheese cave.

  Now we're at Lee's mom's place for a couple nights before we head up to Maine. We're planning on going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and going on a Duck Tour. Good touristy things.