And We're Off....

For those of my readers who are personal friends of mine, this will come as no surprise, but for those of you who aren't... I have some sad news.

Nick and I have handed in our one-month notice at our teaching job. At the beginning of December, we will be ending our 11-month stay in Taiwan.

It has been an great year, no doubt, and we will be sad to say good-bye to all of the awesome friends we've met here. Although we have lots of good reasons for heading back home, we will miss Taiwan and I will especially miss studying Chinese at Feng Chia!

Once we leave in December, we'll be off on a 4-month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia before heading back to the US and making our way to Denver - Our tentative plan is to arrive in Pittsburgh, PA in early April and to be getting settled in Denver by the time summer arrives.

Although I'm sad to be leaving Taiwan, I'm super excited for our backpacking trip. We're not exactly sure what we'll be doing, but probably some variation of this trip through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam:

(from Travelfish.org)

We're also thinking about adding Indonesia and southern Thailand in the beginning of the trip and a stop in Southern China in between Thailand and Laos.

Of course at this point I have no idea what will happen in the next 5 months, but there is no doubt that it will be exciting!

For now I'm just going to focus on finishing up my last month of Chinese classes and soaking in all of Taiwan that I can while I'm still here. Lots of people to see, things to do, errands to run, doctors to see (gotta take advantage of Taiwan's fantastic NATIONAL HEALTH CARE!)... and the list goes on and on.

Soo... I guess that's all my news at the moment. If anyone has any suggestions for my trip, I'd love to hear them!!!