On May 20th, I left the United States for a nice visit back to Taiwan, a country/sovereign nation/state/whatever have you, which I hadn't stepped foot in since one of the best experiences of my life (OCAC2006). So naturally I had high expectations to live up to.
Quick personal history lesson for those of you who will ask: both sides of my grandparents were born in China. Then when the Kuomintang Party (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War, my grandparents moved with the party to Taiwan. There, my mother and father were born. Then they both moved to America and I was born.
So ethnically, I'm Chinese. But Taiwan is cooler than China.
I took notes and pictures on an HTC One. I just got it, so the whole trip was a learning experience. Hopefully I can post pictures and files in a convenient manner on this blog. I was going to make a website, but that would have taken too long for me to figure out and set up and I would have forgotten everything that happened on the trip by then.
So lets begin:
Save for 45 minutes, I stayed up the entire night before when the thought that I would be so tired I would sleep for the majority of the flight. I was wrong. After taking off at 930, I slept about 3 hours on the entire 13.5 plane ride from DC to Narita, JPN. I took United, nothing to complain about, great movie selection, I watched, Bullet to the Head [Netflix/Redbox movie tier], Trouble with the Curve [Excellent], Hansel and Gretel [Despite Gemma Arteton being in it, I turned it off after 15 minutes], The Hobbit [Not the same as LOTR trilogy, but still decent], Resident Evil Retribution [Online Stream tier].
For some reason my mom told her friend who helped book the flight to give us all special dinners. By special dinners I mean Low Sodium meals, Low Fat meals, and Vegetarian meals. Eating this was below the quality of food I reserved for airline food. Gross.
At Narita, it was awesome. The difference in professionalism and work ethic between the United States' TSA and airport staff and Japan's is amazing. I didn't really notice the difference until my return flight. More on that later on day 21.
I have never seen an airport/airline worker in the United States run.
Literally every couple of minutes I would notice a Japanese worker running around the terminal. It was amazing. Everything was clean, everything was orderly, they are so nice and professional. They even had people check up on the bathroom stalls to make sure people were ok (at least tahts' what I THInk they were doing).
btw, of all three airports I visited (Dulles, Narita, Taiwan Taoyuan International), Narita had by far the best looking women. Though Taiwan had the most convenient Wi-Fi access [with Narita a close 2nd].
We took the 3.5 hour connection flight from Narita, Japan, to Taiwan Taoyuan Airport. Our airline was ANA, which has gorgeous airline hostesses. Gorgeous. Taiwan had pretty ones too. I guess Asian airlines are very conscious about their workers. They were all very pretty and put together, even the dudes! And the women all wore heels. Can you imagine wearing those for a 13.5 hour flight? Even the ones running around in the airport too!
On the flight I started watching Wreck-It-Ralph and then passed out right after he got his medal from Hero's Duty and woke up periodically to see him covered in chocolate and fighting with a little girl.
We landed in the airport around 10 pm local time, but had to wait for my sister who had to take another flight.
While here we observed a cute dog sniffing not for drugs, but for "restricted agricultural items". My mom cautiously kept an eye on it, and after noticing it hanging around a passenger waiting for their bags remarked: "他不走了!" ["He's not moving!"]
We met up with my mom's cousins, who I will refer to as my cousins from this point on. One of them is retired in his 40s after working the 20ish years of military service, another is vice president of a coffee shop chain, and the third is working in software.
After a 30ish minute drive back, at 1 in the morning we arrived in Taipei, went to go eat at many of the quick eat food shops they have. These are so convenient, but so oily, greasy and fried- [I'm foreshadowing my stomach adventures!!!]
These eating places are so convenient, and literally at 1 in the morning on a weekday there are still people walking around and eating food. It was amazing.
So at around 2 in the morning we arrived at my mom's friend's apartment who was lending it to us for three weeks. In Taiwan, there is no central air, so each room typically has an AC unit. So it's very hot, and the bathrooms generally don't have shower curtains (you're lucky if you have a tub) so when you shower, water gets all over the place.
Then pass out for the night.
Interesting notes:
I have yet to see an obese person, and I have not seen a Jeremy Lin jersey/shirt yet. I made a counter for these two occurrences. Any bets on which will be higher when I reveal the counts?
Also, for someone like me coming from the East Coast of America, young asian people dress very asian.
Sorry no pictures today, just words.
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