We Made It

Hello from Taiwan! It's Sunday morning here -- about 6:30am. It's 3:30pm back home. And we're just waiting for our hotel breakfast buffet to open at 7am. I am so excited for coffee...

We had probably our quickest drive ever to LAX on Friday morning. It took us just over 30 minutes, which never happens. I think it helped that it was Good Friday.

We breezed through security (high fives to all the hardworking TSA folks!) and hung out a bit before boarding. To no one's surprise, Taylor bought Starbucks and carried it on the plane (her drink of preference is a Strawberry Acai Lemonade, without the strawberries).

We flew EVA Air from LA to Taipei. And man, the flight attendants were efficient. We took off about 11:40am and I thought it would be a while until our lunchtime service was up and running. I was wrong. It must have been about 12:30pm and the flight attendants whipped out (a pretty yummy) lunch. 

When we travel internationally, we're so used to taking red-eyes. This flight was obviously different...and not being on a red-eye made our time in the air feel extra long. Tim told the rest of us not to sleep, as we'd be landing in Taipei early Saturday evening -- and we wanted to be able to go to bed local time. Buuuuut, we all slept. Tim slept the least; he took a 20-minute nap. I read an entire New Yorker magazine, Taylor read and watched a couple movies, and Wyatt took delight in watching a couple Adam Sandler flicks. 

We landed in Taipei close to 5pm local time. While still on the plane, we had been instructed as to what we could not bring onto the island, like fruit and vegetables and meat and a lot more. Clearly there were very strict customs policies for agricultural products...and disobeying those policies carried a steep fine. I had brought four Chomps from home for this trip (because, you know, #proteinsnacks) and I sadly had to get rid of them on the way to Customs. (Gosh, that hurt; those things are pricey!)

Also, look at this amazing water contraption at the Taipei airport! You can get cold OR hot water. I can confirm, the cold water is delicious.

We made our way through the very clean Taipei airport, to the ATM to grab some Taiwan banknotes, and then onto the MRT, the express train into Taipei. It was about a 35-minute ride -- on the cleanest subway we've ever seen. Lots of signs on the train about fines for various offenses, too, so you'd better behave (and I think everyone does...definitely a respectful culture). 

The express train ended at Taipei Main Station and we made our way out and up a couple long escalators. And then we made our way down another escalator, somewhat unintentionally, to a mall -- and we had to figure out how to get outside and onto a street to get our bearings. Long story short, we made it out, and then we tried to get oriented. Our plan was to walk to our hotel. A couple of local women saw us puzzling over Google Maps and they came over to help us (SO kind). We got re-oriented, walked for a bit more, and then opted to take a taxi the rest of the way.

On one of many escalators. This one is dropping us off in a mall.

And now we have to figure out how to get out of the mall and out onto a street.

Our taxi driver did not speak English and we do not speak Chinese. Once in the car, Tim showed him our hotel in Google Maps in English, and he showed us where he thought it was on his Google Maps in Chinese. We all just kind of hoped this would work out. And it (mostly) did. The taxi driver dropped us off at a park and pointed diagonally, nodding his head while saying words we could not understand. We took it to mean our hotel was "over there." 

After we made it "over there" to our hotel, we checked in -- and met a couple from Los Angeles while doing so. (They noticed Taylor's UCLA sweatshirt.) One of the women, who grew up in Taiwan, gave us some tips and encouraged us to use Google Translate to get around. Check!

We dropped our bags off in our room and headed out to find some dinner. Not too far from our hotel, we found a couple of alleys with small restaurants and food stalls. We quickly learned that many of the food shops closed at 8pm, which is the time we were out walking around. Tim and Wyatt ended up buying spicy beef noodles. Taylor and I landed at an Italian restaurant (I know, I know, but we don't do spicy and the other option at Tim and Wyatt's stall was "internal organ noodles" and that just didn't do it for us), where I ordered a couple of meat rolls (?) and Taylor got the pasta bolognese. Tim and I both bought some kind of peach tea, too, which was tasty.

Looking for dinner!

We brought all our food back to the hotel and ate outside in a little courtyard. When we finished, we looked around for a trash can and could fine none. The kind front desk staffer ended up taking our trash. We think trash works a lot differently around here...meaning that, thus far (for all of the 12 hours we've been here), we haven't seen a lot of public trash cans. And yet, there is NO litter!

Once back in our hotel room, we literally fell into bed. These are incredibly firm mattresses...and we did not care one bit.

And now, the breakfast buffet is open, and we're raring to go. Bring on our first full day in Taiwan! Or, as Wyatt has been calling it, The Wan.