A visit from Mum

My mum has never travelled. She grew up in a single-parent household, had to drop out of school young and worked her entire working life in a factory.
After marrying dad, they both sacrificed everything for my brother and I.

Her upbringing, could not have been further from mine.

As a massive traveller since the age of 17, I have wanted nothing more than to show both my mum and my dad the world. Whilst I was living in Japan for 13 years, I offered on several occasions to pay for them to both come and visit me but there was always a reason why they couldn't.
It wasn't until about 3 years ago, after dad semi-retired that they actually started to look, research, save for and plan their first overseas trip - to Europe.

Then dad got cancer.

On his deathbed he insisted that he still wanted mum to go. He wanted her to see all the things she has always wanted to see, and he wanted her to see them for both of them.

And so, shortly after dad passed away, I took mum off to flightcentre and we started to plan. And plan. And plan!
With some of dad's ashes in a locket around her neck, on September 29 this year, mum and her best friend (who also lost her husband - my dad's best friend - to cancer 3 years ago) boarded their first international flight and headed overseas!

Proud doesn't even begin to describe how I felt.

In a way I felt like I was the mum, watching my daughter go overseas for the first time. I was just sooooo happy for her! But a little scared that something bad would happen aswell.

Anyway, after 9 weeks, 3 bus tours, and a 10kg box of fridge magnets later, mum and my aunt arrived safely here in Taiwan to stay with us.

After living mostly overseas for the last 18 years, this was the first time my family had come to visit me so I wanted everything to be perfect.
We planned and we organised.

Then of course we got stuck in traffic and were late to the airport.
Then of course the bus back to town never showed so we had to take a crazily expensive taxi.
Then of course the "twin room" that we booked was actually a "double room".
Then of course I got sick and came down with a whopping fever....

Yep, glad that everything went just to plan.

But all of those minor hiccups aside, we were able to show them alot and they seem to have enjoyed it. They even managed to get on the back of our scooter for a bit of a burl through the crazy Taiwanese traffic, and the beautiful Taiwanese countryside!

Mum says she wants to come back to visit - and that was so nice to hear.
This is our home for the moment and I'm glad she got to see where we live and how we live, and, why we chose to live here.

Now, I'm just looking forward to getting myself pregnant so I can give mum a reason to go out and book those tickets back over here again!