December 4-5, 2008

"An invisible red thread connects those who
are destined to meet, regardless of time,
place, or circumstance.  The thread may
stretch, or tangle, but will never break."

-An Ancient Chinese Belief

Tom, Amelia, Grandma Dee and I left today for our LONG trip to Taipei.  We sailed smoothly through Detroit Metro Airport without a hiccup.  The initial leg of the flight was about 14 hours from Detroit to Osaka, Japan.  Amelia did so well…for Amelia.  She only had approximately one hour of melt down where you couldn’t console her or get much cooperation.  Not bad!  She wasn’t exactly quiet, although often it was her singing songs:  “Big, Big Water”, “Hicky, Dicky, Doc”, “Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star” and a whole host of Christmas Carols.  She also liked the fact that we let her up to stretch her legs often.  She was only reprimanded once by the flight attendant for running.  I’m sure many are wondering about our parenting skills, God knows we try.  She is just spunky!

I also have to mention that my mom did well on the plane also.  She was really nervous and came through like a trooper.  The only issue I had was that in 46 years she has not learned that I value my sleep.  My eyes would be SHUT and guess who is tapping me on the shoulder to whisper something that absolutely could have waited?  We will work on that for the return flight.  Although, somehow I suspect that the opportunity to sleep won’t be there. 

We deplaned in Osaka just long enough to go through a security check and let Amelia run a bit.  They basically cleaned and refueled the plane, and we were off.  Both flights had more turbulence than I’ve experienced before and none of us felt that wonderful by time we landed in Tapei.  With Amelia in tow, we weren’t exactly quick getting through customs/immigration and then baggage claim. (Amelia slammed a immigration officials door shut so that several other guards all stood to attention, and then a manager had to be found to unlock the poor guys little “cage”.)  Our documents were then stamped rather quickly. I think they just wanted us out of that area.  Grandma, she didn’t make it through quite so quickly. Our sweet guide, Fion, must have been waiting outside for an hour for us, but that didn’t stop her from greeting us with a big ole JOH sign and smile.  We loaded way too much luggage into her car and were off to the hotel. 

We checked in about mid-night Friday night (Tapei time) and tried to sleep right away to get our body clocks switched.  Didn’t work so well: Amelia was up crying from 3:30-6:30am.  She finally told us her tummy hurt. Let’s just say Tom took the brunt of that! (I think the long flight, airplane food, turbulence, off her schedule, etc. just did her in.) Once she was cleaned up she perked up and we are looking forward to exploring on our first day in Taipei.

 

Gloria and Suzy came over and painted Alayna's name on the wall the day before we left. Thank you ladies. I love it!

Osaka first, then on to Taipei

As Amelia says, "Big, big plane!"

Staying at the Golden China Hotel

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