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.

Departing New York

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We left New York on September 13. Our flight wasn't until early afternoon, so we were all able to go out to brunch. We went to a place called Bubby's. It was quite good. I'm also about 95% sure we saw Jake Gyllenhaal there. He seemed much more Donnie Darko than End of Watch in person. Maybe I'm biased.

We got some strangers to take a group picture after brunch.

Last day in New York

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Grace's work ran a bit late, so we didn't end up playing tourist for that long today. We visited the American Museum of Natural History. Natural history museums tend to get hilariously dated pretty quickly, and this was no exception. Still, there were some interesting highlights. One of the pieces of jewelry displayed was basically an exact copy of Grace's engagement ring, except about 28 times larger. A testament to her taste, if not our wealth. I learned lots of facts about minerals, all of which I have now forgotten (so, a lot like my semester of geology).

The highlight of the day was hanging out with my family. We got to walk along the waterfront with my sister and nephew on our way to meeting my brother-in-law for dinner. Toddlers walk pretty slowly and are easily distracted, so this took quite some time, but it was a lot of fun. And we got a ton of pictures.

Opposite the restaurant was the Irish Hunger Memorial. Very pretty; the pictures below don't really do it justice. Dinner was great, but the best moment was from just before: right in the middle of the entrance to the restaurant (as soon as you could hear the music they were playing), my nephew started an impromptu dance party of one. Luckily, people didn't seem to mind as they skirted past.