Help! I’m a Single Mother Abroad

Our visit to Taiwan is past the halfway point. For the boys and I, at least. For HapaPapa, vacation has come to an end. Last night, we sent him off on a shuttle bus to the Taoyuan Airport. That’s right. I’m now a single mother abroad for the rest of the week.

It seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time. You see, HapaPapa had a few holidays from work last week. So we wanted our trip to take advantage of those days off. And this week is the boys’ Spring Break , so it made no sense for us to all to fly home when school isn’t even in session. When we kissed and hugged goodbye at the bus stop, I had a moment of mild panic.

What on earth was I thinking? I am  in Taiwan for five more days with two unruly American boys.

Okay, I’m not completely alone. My dad is here with us, too. But a grandfather is not the same as a father and husband. Although, seeing as how HapaPapa speaks zero Mandarin or Taiwanese, maybe he wasn’t of much help anyway, except for when it comes to crowd control (see: unruly American boys).

 

 

The pace of our visit should slow down, as we’ve visited the relatives and hit many of the major attractions already: night markets, temples, Taipei 101, just to mention a few. Today, we visited the Taipei Zoo at a leisurely pace (which I’ll tell you more about some other time — it has a panda exhibit that beats San Diego or Washington D.C.), and topped that off with a trip to the local equivalent of Target/Walmart/Fred Meyer to replenish our supplies of Hi-Chew candy and sushi flavored Lay’s potato chips.

 

 

Tomorrow, it’s time to catch up on independent study (but no piano practicing– I’m such a softie), shopping, and Din Tai Fung.