Much like our last trip to Asia, Ryan and I decided we couldn't fly all the way to Hong Kong and not also spend a few days sight seeing in another Asian country, so we flew to Taipei, Taiwan the day after Pau Pau's birthday party. Copeland "helped" us pack:
We spent a little more time with family before leaving for the airport. They were headed back to the US:
And then headed to the airport:
Where we bid everyone adieu except...Pau Pau and Mo Ching! They went with us to Taipei! I was so, so excited about spending more time with family. I knew Mo Ching was planning to come with us but she surprised us by bring Pau Pau with her.
The flight to Taipei from Hong Kong is about 1.5 hours and we expected to be there ready to explore no later than 2 pm, but the flight was delayed for a couple hours. It's probably a good thing because we were cutting it close on boarding time, partly because we spent some time searching for one of our bags that we didn't know Mo Ching took while we were changing Copeland's diaper and partly because we'd had a leisurely lunch with the entire family before heading our separate ways.
The flight was pretty standard, minus being pointedly asked by a flight attendant if everything was okay. I couldn't figure out why she had singled me out and I'm pretty sure I looked at her like she had three heads. I later felt bad about looking at her like she had three heads when I figured out Copeland had been repeatedly paging her with the remote.
With the flight delay and the 45 minute taxi ride to the hotel, we didn't get settled in until around dinner time. Pau Pau and Mo Ching were in another hotel, because the hotels in the metropolitan area where we were staying were very small and they couldn't get into ours, so we decided to part ways and meet up the next day. We wandered around a bit in search of sustenance and were immediately impressed. The city was clean and walk-able and everyone was SO nice. And the sidewalks were sparkly and that pleased me irrationally.
Everyone in Hong Kong had been telling me how good the food was in Taipei so I was determined to find something for dinner that the city was known for. Unlike Hong Kong, English speakers are not as prevalent in Taipei and Mandarin is spoken, instead of Cantonese. In Hong Kong, if I have to I can limp along in Cantonese and make my basic requests known, but I know nothing about Mandarin except how to say thank you (and I'm pretty sure I say it with such a strong accent that it's barely understandable). As we were wandering around, I was finding it difficult to locate an authentic Taiwanese eatery where we would be able to order easily. Lo and behold, Mo Chang and Pau Pau were inside a restaurant and saw us wandering around and pulled us inside and ordered for us. Thank goodness! So glad Mo Ching can speak Mandarin (as well as Cantonese, English, Portuguese, and Korean)! She ordered us a noodle dish, which reminded me greatly of PF Chang's dan dan noodles, a cold chicken dish, and a tofu dish. No pictures - we must have been too stinking tired.
Note: After I finish my blog series about our Hong Kong/Taipei trip I plan to write a question and answer blog as I've received a few questions and realize there are probably many other interesting tidbits I haven't addressed. Please feel free to comment with any questions about our trip, about Hong Kong, Taipei, etc. and I'll try to answer them.
