The Final Countdown

With just a few hours before Yudi and I head to the airport for our marathon flight(s) to the States, it's the final countdown. I am perched one last time at my desk overlooking Roosevelt Road and Taipei 101, reflective, anxious and feeling low. Quite literally low as I just clocked in at 43mg/dl. As evidence of my hypoglycemic haze, I had my final batch of postcards to send out to the OC, so I just walked to the post office to put them in the mailbox and instead of just depositing the cards, I accidentally threw in a brand new vile of One Touch test strips. $25 gone. Poof! Just like that. I tried fishing them out of the mailbag, but it was a fruitless endeavor. I knew I was low and my brain was fuzzy, but I just wanted to mail the postcards before leaving Taiwan, and that was the final chance. Grrr...Yudi called to check if we could get the strips back, but it would be until Monday, and we'll both be in Wisconsin by then. Ah well. On a happy note, when I came out of the post office station, there was a group of carolers singing English Christmas songs, and three sweet little Taiwanese girls giddily wished me "Merry Christmas" and gave me candy, which actually came in quite handy for my low blood sugar. It's the small stuff, eh?

My final day in Taiwan was spent shopping for pearls at the Jade Market, packaging up the rest of my belongings, grabbing lunch from a little alleyway noodle stand, cruising around Taipei on the scooter one last time, going to the Nightmarket for games and a little last minute shopping, getting a fabulously relaxing head massage and hair wash along with a haircut in Shilin, and saying one final goodbye to my neighborhood. Despite a brief catnap, it was a busy day, and in six hours (at 4am)I head to the Taipei airport to board the first of three airplanes bound first for Osaka, Japan, then on to Detroit and finally O'Hare. My biggest concern is Figgy, and I hope that everything works out easily and well taking him across the big wide ocean with us. Say a little prayer for us, please.

As my final post from Taiwan, I'll leave you with some photos from my last day. Enjoy, and if I don't post for a while, just know that I'm well and probably just don't have easy internet access. Happy Holidays to you all, and thanks for your unending support. The postcards are in the mail (along with my test strips!).

I bought a pearl necklace for my mother and my sister from this woman at the jade market.

Day 80: December 22nd, 2007

Preparing to go on a trip as a diabetic requires extra precautions. I leave Taiwan for America tomorrow, and I wanted to be sure I had enough extra insulin just in case the airline lost it, or something went awry. I had extra Lantus and Novolog pens, but I wanted a bottle of Humalog and a bottle of Lantus, just in case. Humalog is rarely used in Taiwan, so they didn't have any Humalog at any of the pharmacies in Gongguan, but I did buy an extra bottle of Lantus and syringes, which set me back $55.

The subway to the Night market was packed. These cutie pies were my neighbors along for the ride.

Juice stand at the night market. They make wonderful fresh juice, but it tends to raise my bloodsugar too much, so I opted for iced Oolong tea instead.

Yudi introduced me to this snack--it's like an omlette with some glutinous sweet potato and vegetables smothered in a kind of gravy. I had no idea what to bolus for it, or if I'd like it, so I waited until afterwards to inject. I also had soup, and ended up taking 6 units which landed me at 141 90 minutes later. Not too bad.

This is the little lane behind my apartment. If you look closely on the right hand side, you can see the crotchety old woman I wrote about here at her post, per usual. I smiled and said my goodbyes to her today (silently, hahah) and snapped this photo discreetly.

See you later, Taiwan! I'm not sure when, but I'll be back.