First day in Taipei

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We met Grace's parents for breakfast after a very satisfying sleep. We had a pretty typical Taiwanese breakfast, consisting of many things for which I do not know the name. Highlights were fresh soy milk (very different from what you get in stores - less an imitation of milk proper than its own, separate entity) and some sort of breakfast sandwich with eggs and fried doughy goodness akin to churros.

After breakfast we met Grace's grandparents (on her father's side). They don't really speak English at all, so I couldn't offer much in the way of conversation besides saying "Hello" in very poor Mandarin as coached by Grace. Some funny tidbits from the meeting, but maybe I'll let Grace go back and fill them in.

We spent the majority of the day at the National Palace Museum (on Wikipedia). No photographs allowed there, so you all won't be tortured with a massive gallery. I will include one picture of what is apparently the most famous piece, the jade cabbage.

The jade cabbage. Apparently famous for how well the sculptor used the flaws and natural variations in the jade as assets to make the piece more lifelike.

The jade cabbage. Apparently famous for how well the sculptor used the flaws and natural variations in the jade as assets to make the piece more lifelike.

Grace described the jade cabbage as something like the Chinese Mona Lisa. Perhaps a little underwhelming in person, but with a perpetual giant crowd surrounding it.

We saw a lot more things, including other jade sculptures. Unfortunately, I have even less appreciation (and context) for Eastern art than I have for Western art, so a lot of the beauty was most likely lost on me. In particular, there were many famous examples of calligraphy that, while interesting, probably had most of their significance lost to me.

We had dinner that night at Din Tai Fung. As usual (they have a couple locations in Seattle), it was very good. Particularly the black truffle dumplings (yum!).

We grabbed a couple pictures of ourselves at the restaurant.

Arriving in Taipei

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We arrived in Taipei on September 15th in the afternoon. Grace's parents met us at the airport, which was very nice. We were both a little out of it from all the travel and jet lag, despite the shady miracle drug my parents express ordered from New Zealand. It may have actually helped - it's hard to be sure since I haven't done enough traveling involving major time zone changes lately to have a good comparison.

The airport is a bit outside Taipei, so the cab ride to our hotel took about half an hour. Our hotel was an interesting mix of old and new - or maybe just things I am used to and things I am not used to. No swipe card for the door. Just a regular key (that you leave at the front office when you depart the hotel for the day). A mostly clever but occasionally irritating system is a little slot by the door in your room into which you deposit the key. This allows all the lights to turn on. It's nice, since when you're leaving you can just leave everything on, take the key out, and it will shut off. Less nice when it also unpowers the outlets your laptop, camera, whatever is plugged into for charging.

The hotel also had incredibly fast internet (around 60Mbps, or 6 times what I was happy to get in Arlington), but no WiFi. Not sure why these things tend to happen. Maybe Taiwan just developed so quickly that by the time WiFi was common everyone already had fast wireless internet through their phones? Anyway, not a big deal. Figured out how to use my laptop to broadcast a wireless signal from an ethernet connection for our other devices (handy to know!).

Also, Taiwan (and maybe a lot of East Asia) is all about hard beds. The bed in the hotel was maybe the hardest one I've ever slept on. Left me really sore the first couple days but was actually pretty nice after that.

Unfortunately, I don't think Taiwan caters to a whole lot of people in the 2m and up height range, so the ceilings were a bit low, and I didn't exactly fit in the shower.

After checking in to the hotel, Grace, her parents, and I went out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. Lots of good food, particularly Peking duck (so good!). Grace and I were in a fugue state at this point, so went right to bed after dinner. It was nice to be done with flying for a little while.

New York to Tokyo to Bangkok to Taipei

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Not a whole lot to say here. Lost of flying, overnight at a hotel in Bangkok (was actually quite nice), some more flying.

Delta's in-flight entertainment was pretty great. Got to watch the entire first season of Silicon Valley, which I really enjoyed. Also watched a couple movies, including Neighbors. Grace and I attempted to sync our movies, which was surprisingly difficult. Mine seemed to play back about 5% faster. Weird. Like old computer games that are tied directly to the processor speed and therefore completely flip out on new machines. Also got about halfway through The Grand Budapest Hotel (as per my sister's recommendation), but didn't get to finish it. Unfortunate, as I was really enjoying it.

No real impressions of Bangkok. Cab from airport to hotel, sleep, breakfast at hotel, cab from hotel to airport. I'm sure we'll be back.

We flew EVA Air (Taiwanese airline) to Taipei. Apparently they are rather strict with luggage allowance and with our four suitcases at 50 lbs each we were way over. The overage fees were $15/kg. We were more than 40kg over the limit. So, yeah, that wasn't going to happen. Luckily, the Bangkok airport has a place you can leave luggage for about $3 per suitcase per day. It seems to be well run and trustworthy. Would recommend.

We managed to snag Exit Row seats (thanks to Grace's dad for calling EVA on our behalf; they technically have English speaking agents, but it can be hit or miss), but the seats were still... Taiwan-sized. Not the most comfortable, but the flight from Bangkok wasn't too long.