travels and events: Kaohsiung, Taiwan--day 1

The purpose of this blog is to keep account of my thoughts and destinations I would make in my first time in Asia. Sunday, May 24th, I prepared myself for the 26 hours of traveling in order to reach our destination of Taipei, Taiwan. First, I want to list my objectives for this trip to Taiwan, China, Vietnam, and Hong Kong: 1) First and foremost, I would like to feel more comfortable with speaking Cantonese. 2) I would like to experience as many types of foods and nightlife 3) get a little bit of history under my belt 4) learn how to not be as alpha female and be a team player (as I am traveling with my father, eldest brother, and baby brother I tend to feel a little bit of a power struggle. But as my friend Doug advises "Don't fight something you can't win. Let them control things because in the end, if it fucks up, it's not on you.")

So I arrived back home from a BBQ at a friend's house at around 12PM. We took the free shuttle bus in Chinatown at around 6PM, inside of Holy Redeemer school. It took a few hours to get to JFK airport, and we settled into our seats in China Airlines at around 11:30 PM after getting through customs. I was expecting international airplanes to have the typical amenties + some (ie. individual televisions per seat with an abundance of movies), but I suppose those things will have to be cut when you buy a ticket that is $400 cheaper than the typical. We had a layover in Anchorage, Alaska for about an hour. I bought a keychain at the airplane shop. Udon noodles there were $7.95 per bowl SCAM! I'm tellin' ya. I must apologize...I haven't blogged in a while. I will have to clean this up in a few days. Once we arrived to Taipei, we exhanged money @ .33 per USD. I am not very good with money unless I spend it, and I wasn't the one handling it. We took a bus to get to a speed train from Taoyuan to Zuoying, which were about 5 stops from each other, and about 1 1/2 hours of a trip. There, we would meet my great aunt on my father's side for the first time, as well as my first cousin once removed (verified by this site). We met them at the exit, and it was interesting to see how similar she was to my grandma, with the same voice and hairstyle. They haven't seen each other in 50 years, and she will be traveling back to the states with us by the end of the trip. I have to admit, things were and are very overwhelming. My cantonese is busted, and I was relieved that my first cousin and his girlfriend spoke English.

So we went to Kaohsiung, one of the older parts of Taiwan. Nearby was the biggest university in Taiwan, in which the girlfriend is attending. It took 5 minutes to ride the ferry, and a good number of scooters drove onto the boat.

from left to right: Me, great aunt, father, chi, and buu

We found a small seafood place and had 9 dishes of yummy fish, some taiwan dishes, and some taiwan beer and plum juice. It was very good. I was exhausted by then, and we decided to head back to the hotel and clean up. Took a 3 hour nap, and was ready to head out to the night markets.