Meeting other ex-pats through blog

I have been contacted by a few people through my blog with questions and comments. It was particularly rewarding to get an e-mail from a couple who is basically in the same boat as us, a couple months behind us in the process and also from CT. She is an actuary and he is in education so there is even some similarity in careers, and they have a cat.

They were in Taipei on a house hunting venture before they start the transition in August so we met up for dinner. Food can still be tough for me here; I am trying to strike a balance between the easy way out (McDonald's) and navigating a restaurant entirely in Chinese. So what's the middle ground? I had found in Japan that you can often find places with photos on the menus, that doesn't mean you won't end up with pig feet, tongue and intestines (as I think I did-all were good), but you will at least be able to get some protein on the table. You can also search around for menus with English subtitles, the availability of which seem dependent on location, neighborhoods with more foreign business travelers will be easier. Neihu is a little challenging in that sense.

Folks at work recommended the Breeze Center on the second floor of Taipei Main Station which ranges from food court to decent sit-down restaurants. It is also appears to be segregated by food types: Indian/pita/kebab type stuff in this corner, noodle stuff in that corner, Japanese together, etc. We ended up at a Japanese tonkatsu style place with a very strange sign on the front door, the least strange of which is you apparently can't bring cats, but dogs are OK? If anyone can explain the ban on astronaut bulls you win a prize.

Department store basements and train station areas tend to be easier to get by in English; we ended up with a picture menu and the staff was actually pretty good in English. It was fun to have other ex-pats to share similar stories with. They are struggling a bit more with finding a place. They were focused on living downtown and the spaces seem to be quite small there. Hopefully things work out!