The most oft' asked question of me over the past for weeks is,"Do you like Taiwan?" The is always followed closely by ,"Why?" so I have been thinking about what I like about Taiwan. So here goes.

I like that Taiwan is a safe place. The crime rate is low and the Taiwanese like Americans. I can pretty much go where I want without interference. There is a danger of Mainland China invading Taiwan at some point in the future but that possibility doesn't really worry me much.

I really enjoy living in a modern cosmopolitan city. Taipei City doesn't have the name cache of other large cities in Europe and Asia but it should. There are many fine arts venues, clubs, restaurants and shopping. The tallest building in the world is there but also a museum about paper.

I have devoted an inordinate amount of blog space to food because there is truly something there for every taste. Whatever I want to eat, there is a restaurant for that.

Although it hasn't been warm yet, I like that Taipei is a warm country. I don't like cold or snow. I like the heat of Texas and Taipei promises to hold some of that for me. But Taipei is tropical and I love the flowers that we plant in Texas growing as weeds there. In fact some of my favorite annual flowers are just weeds in Taiwan. Oh and I love orchids. Since about 90 % of the world orchid production is in Taiwan, I can enjoy them and not spend much money indulging myself.

So what I don't like is being so far away from my family. But my daughters are adults now and frankly I wouldn't see them as much now anyway. I am very excited though that they will both be visiting soon after we return from the USA.