Taiwan Day 1

It’s been 9 years since I’ve been back to Taiwan. After the first exhausting international traveling experience with PL when she was 7 months old, we thought about trying again maybe in 2020. Well, covid happened so everything got pushed back again. Now finally all the kids are old enough to really enjoy and remember their trip.

Evening flight, haven’t had one of those in a while. School just got out about a week ago, then we lost power due to a giant storm in town, so we spent three days staying at my parents house. It made for a very hectic few days leading up to today. But here we are, in the Uber heading to the airport.

Austin traffic, a little stressful because I’m always worried about a giant wreck on the way to the airport making traffic a standstill.

We’ve been staying up later and later the past few days in an effort to get a head start on our jetlag correction. Little KL is feeling a bit of the lack of sleep.

ABIA, yay to more construction.

Let’s do this! I’m already tired. Got each of the kids travel backpacks for this trip. Just like baba and mama.

The kids, they love escalators. We thought they’d outgrow this like 8 years ago…but even today they are so excited to see and ride on escalators. Le sigh. They didn’t even ride on this one, they just asked to go over and check it out.

Check in was a breeze with no lines. I guess there’s benefits to flying out later in the day.

United Club lounge. We are flying business class this trip. My old man back and RL’s leg nerve pain just pushed us over the edge to spring for it. We haven’t told the kids yet, and they didn’t pick up on the hints yet when we checked in at the business class counter. It’ll be a nice surprise for them, especially the older two who are more aware of the luxuries in life. I hope this doesn’t spoil them…too much.

Their luxury, ipad time.

Was hoping to grab dinner here, but their boiler is broken so no hot water, which means can’t do dishes, which means, no food.

Let’s down these drinks and go find some food outside the lounge.

Dinner of champions, Salt Lick. Well for me at least. Kids wanted pizza and RL wanted a sandwich.

They sold live cactus at the airport gift shop. Are people really buying cactus in a pot at airport gift shops? Seems odd…

Kids are antsy. I took the girls on a walk and left Little KL with RL. I’ve got the easier job.

Due to construction, part of the airport has these portable AC units.

Work off that extra energy kids.

Time to board. First leg of a really really long travel day.

They finally discover that we’ve got the upgrade seats. Little KL is whatever about it.

Girls are much more excited and surprised by it. In fact, they actually thanked me for getting them first class seats. I do all these other things for them that’s much harder, but never get a single thanks. I get them nice seats on a flight, and they are so grateful. They seem to think that I got the upgrade seats just for their sake…Don’t know what I should make of this.

See you in about 3 weeks.

I guess this is a perk.

Might as well have a second dinner.

Even Little KL ate some second dinner. He was getting tired and sleepy towards the end of this flight and complained about how uncomfortable he was in his seat…in first class. Little spoiled punk.

Odd routing for this flight. I wonder what they had to avoid, weather?

Bay Area, with SF in the distance.

SFO, and now a really really really long walk to the international terminal. Seriously, why did they make this walk so long with no moving walkways?

Paul Madonna mural. I’ve got a couple of his coffee table books. Cool.

The food court where I had spilled hot pho all over my pants and smelled like musty chicken for hours on the rest of my trip.

Taiwanese flag.

Still walking and walking.

…and walking

It’s a huge, two levels escalator. The kids enjoyed it.

Just can’t keep up. Losing his shit from being overtired.

I already feel really exhausted. It’s about midnight already, and oddly I had a craving for an orange. I never have cravings for orange.

Can’t believe we’ve got 13+ hours more of flying after this.

Falls asleep, finally.

RL went to the restroom…Hey girls, you wanna do an innocent little prank?

Well, that escalated quickly.

LOL. They couldn’t stop laughing.

RL finally came back out from the restroom, and she laughed too.

Girls were very excited to get into their business class cubicles with the lie-flat seats. Lucky, spoiled kids. They thanked me again for the business class seats. I guess that’s something.

Probably doesn’t care that much about business class seats. Perhaps will appreciate them later when we take off and he can sleep laying flat.

I’m so tired already. Really glad I can lay flat and sleep for the rest of the way to Taiwan.

I guess I’ll eat some food, not that hungry. This was served within an hour of taking off. Odd time to serve dinner since it’s like in the middle of the night in America. I guess if you consider this as lunch for Taiwan time, then it makes sense.

Another flight with weird routing. I’ve always remembered this one as goes through around Alaska and down through closer to Japan. Is it because of the current wars going on with Ukraine and Russia to avoid Russian airspace from far away? Is it because Taiwan and China having hostilities so we avoid anywhere close to Chinese airspace as well?

Breakfast. A Real Pain, love Kieran Culkin as an actor. Lie-flat seats are great, but sleeping on an airplane is still not great. Still grateful to have these seats, totally worth it for my old man back.

Our airplane is GIANT!

Another weird routing. It hopped from one Japanese island to another on the way to Taiwan.

Finally here!! It’s been a really long travel day, but it’s not over yet.

All our luggage arrived, which is always a relief.

The plan is to get to Taichung with MRT and high speed train and then more MRT. I had inquired at the airport counter for private car services, but seeing that our flight landed around 4am, none of the services were running yet.

Down to the basement to the MRT station. At this early hour, all the restaurants were closed except for good ol’ McDonalds. I guess we’ll get a snack and some water to power us the rest of the way to Taichung.

Everyone here are also waiting for the MRT station to open. We’ll need a wait about an hour and a half.

Everyone’s tired, but these three animals are happy to have their ipads.

I wish some of these other restaurants were open. Much rather have some Taiwanese fare rather than McDonalds. We had some chicken nuggets to tie us over.

All the signage is so cute here.

MRT is now open, let’s move.

First train of the day, very crowded.

It’s been rainy here in Taiwan.

Now at the HSR station.

Alright, so tired, but we’ve gotta keep on pushing. It’s so hot and humid here.

We did find a 7 Eleven at the HSR station and STOCKED UP!!

Fuck yeah, egg pudding. It’s been 9 long years, oh how I’ve missed you.

Still hit the spot and still as good as I remember.

45 minutes or so to Taichung.

Taichung.

Restroom break. While RL was in the restroom, all the kids wanted to do was to go up the escalator and walk down the stairs….sigh.

Now connect to MRT in Taichung. When I came here 9 years ago, I don’t think they had MRT connecting the airport to the HSR. And they most definitely didn’t have MRT in Taichung connecting HSR to the rest of the city. Nice to see some progress in public transit.

PL wanted to sit in the pink seats. She covered up all the priority passenger sign to make it “ok” for her to sit there. The train was pretty empty so it was fine.

Reached our station and there’s ah gong at the bottom!

And ah ma too!

Everyone’s happy to see each other again after a month away.

A short walk to ah zo’s apartment.

Please take the children, we’ve had enough of them already in the past day(s).

RL and I will be staying in our own hotel room a block away from my parents and the kids (there wasn’t room in the condo for all of us). They did want to take a photo of this bubble tea art in front of our hotel though.

Reached ah zo’s apartment. It’s nice.

On the 23rd floor, so has a nice view as well.

Typical ah ma fashion, we show up, and we are fed food.

I think the first time for the kids to have wax apples, they were fans.

There’s a mall across the street, it has a green roof.

Still lots of empty developable lots over here.

We chilled for a bit, and now it’s time for lunch. I went with Ah Gong to see if we can get an early check in at the hotel for me and RL. We’ll be able to get in at 1pm vs. the usual 3pm, so that’ll be nice. A nap is definitely in order for this afternoon.

Ah zo with her nurse assistant pushing her in the wheelchair.

This other lady is ah zo’s house cleaner. I guess Little KL has recruited her into dealing with his craziness.

Oh look, another 7 Eleven.

Crazy child. Never stops.

Lunch spot.

No holidays.

A cold beer is much needed as well.

I’ve never had these 18 days draft Taiwan beer before. I am a fan.

Let’s eat!!!!

My aunt also joined us for this meal.

Odd for some small hole in the wall seeming restaurant to be Michelin recommended.

Kids crazy, took them outside to take a breather.

Back inside to eat more food.

Alright, that’s that. Lots of food, lots of leftovers.

Ah zo’s apartment building. RL and I grabbed our bags and are headed to our hotel to check in. Most importantly, we left the children with the grandparents. Ahhhh, freedom!!!!!

At hotel check in.

Our room, small but tidy. This hotel is trying too hard to be cool though to the point of being really cheesy.

Shower to wash all the travel grime off, then ZZZzzzzzzz.

Woke up from our stupor to eat dinner and go shopping with everyone. Can you see, we are tired and want to keep sleeping. But…must…fight…jetlag.

Dinner is at a restaurant in the mall across the street.

What could be better than escalators and more escalators?!

Dinner spot.

Typical Asian private dining rooms.

Jetlag is kicking in real hard. I wish we weren’t eating at a slow sit down restaurant, the kids are going to be hard to deal with here being so tired.

Food was great though, but for sure we are all feeling exhausted.

The kids were so antsy, we had to take them out of the restaurant to walk around the mall while we ordered food and waited for it to show up.

Yum.

Alright, we need to finish up with dinner and take the kids to walk around the mall to perk them up a little bit.

RL walking around with Little KL in an effort to calm him down a little. He’s acting a little hysterical due to being overtired.

Flan/egg pudding. I still think the Taiwanese eat these due to Portuguese influences.

Let’s do a little shopping to stretch staying awake a little longer tonight. If the kids go to bed too early, they’ll wake up in the middle of the night.