Asia Trip 2023

 Today is the final day of our Asia journey. All travel, pretty much. The day began by getting up early and finishing our packing. It just occurred to me that we didn't even turn on the TV once during our brief stay here. We went down to their breakfast buffet, which was actually quite nice: whole red apples, hash browns, scrambled eggs, sausages, noodles, and chocolate croissants. Servers stood on the side, just as they do in Chinese restaurants. With the help of Pleco, I was able to ask one server where the fruit was. (I had forgotten the word for fruit....it was 8 am and wasn't completely lucid.)  We then took a shuttle to the airport, and we got in the line at Korean Air. I love that one of the lines stated "MORNING CALM BAG DROP." I still don't know what this means. I wandered over to the "Sky Priority" line, and encouraged Kerry to do the same, since we are Silver Medallion members through Delta, and we got checked in there. We had to watch our bag...

We are nearing the end of this trip, and today we traveled from Taipei to Hong Kong. Fortunately, we were able to spend the first part of the day with White in Taipei--until mid-afternoon--and then onto the Taoyuan airport we went...to Hong Kong. We woke up and Taipei, making sure we had enough time for breakfast in the Midtown Richardson Hotel (did I mention what a crappy hotel this is?). The breakfast buffet was jam-packed, with at least 100 people there at the time we went down. They were out of watermelon, my favorite, and I had to have my mango juice in a coffee cup. However, I did like the noodles, and pineapple is always tasty. In our hotel room, we finished packing and listened to both Teen Titans and a period drama of some sort, both in Chinese, of course. After packing, we left our bags in the lobby and waited for White to show. White took us to a nearby restaurant for lunch. She had to write what we wanted on a piece of paper and hand it in. I was amazed that we got a table...

Today was our second day in Taiwan. We wanted to sleep in, so we tried calling Logan to let him know that we were going to be late, but he didn't answer the phone. Turns out that I put his phone number in wrong: there was not only a "country code" but a "2" for Taipei--it's complicated. He seemed to take our laziness in stride though; we were a half hour late. We began the day with a trip to Yehliu Geopark. Kerry wanted to stop at a 7-Eleven (they are EVERYWHERE in Taiwan along the way, so we could get some grub). It was a gorgeous place: beautiful mountain formations, gorgeous skies, lots of trees. We saw this one statue called the "Cute Princess" who actually wasn't cute at all. "She needs cosmetic surgery," Kerry commented. Apparently, she is the heir apparently to the main attraction at this park, The Queen's Head. We took quite a walk to get there, but we made it. It felt like being on the beach: lots of water around, ancient...

So we spent today touring Taipei. After breakfast at Kerry's new favorite restaurant of all time (ha ha--the buffet that he hated from last night), it was time to begin. Our guide's name is Logan; he dressed in a pretty funky way. He had a multi-colored shirt and multi-colored hair to match. I immediately felt relaxed and comfortable with him.  Logan began by taking us to two temples. First we went to the Bao'An temple, which, as Logan explained, was a Daoist temple in Taiwan. It was incredibly beautiful and colorful, and probably the most stunning temple I've ever seen. Bright, shining statues everywhere, the smell of incense, and gold, dragons, and tigers everywhere. I noted that some of the gods in the temple were women, such as one fertility goddess. You could also throw two red rocks and then ask a question to get an answer from the gods: one up and one down means "Yes," both up means "Maybe" ("or a smile from the gods," Logan said), a...