Friends gathering in Taipei

Seems many of my friends are gradually gathering in Taipei...

Andreas is now living in Taipei along with his family for an overseas assignment. Franziska is thus attending a Chinese language course to fit herself more into the local life. Little cute Jakob now greets "Xie Xie!" during the weekdays after spending most of his day times in the local daycare center. He switches to "Danke!" during the weekends when spending more time with his parents and back to "Xie Xie!" in the next week. In addition, Andreas' sister will come to Taipei for a short visit next week. The last time I met her was in Newcastle, wow, in 1996 or 1997!! Oh, then our old time common friend Ruth would certainly have a visit to Taipei sooner or later...

Ralf, Andreas' colleague, will also have his business trip here next week. We become friends thru Andreas when their first business trip to Taipei. It's just so coincidence that we often miss meeting each other. His arrival date to Taipei is usually the same date of my departure to Raleigh. Last year in March, he arrived Taipei in the morning and, the same day, I flied to Raleigh in the afternoon. We had a quick lunch together near my office, along with some of my colleagues... ahh... in a vegetarian restaurant... This Jan, the same thing would almost happen again. He decided to postpone his business trip and we at last will meet each other next week too...

My French friend, Laurent, is having his 1-year Chinese language course here. He is very brave to make such a big move in life, stopping his freelancing jobs, leaving his flat in France, and being a student again. He works very hard on his study, dedicating all of his time on practising pronounciation, conversation, writing and memorizing Chinese characters. By the way, another French friend, Myriam, is planning to move to Taipei for a short stay later this year too...

The interesting thing is... while friends are flying and moving over here, my plan of leaving this city is soon ongoing and my craving to life change is growing larger and lager... why so... i dunno...