Reporting from the future..

The first thing I noticed on arrival to the airport in Taipei was all the masks. About 60% of all the people I saw were wearing them, and there was a disease control area which checked your temp if you looked or felt bad. Later in the trip, it was so funny to see young couples walking around holding hands. Think of Carrie from Sex in the City walking around with Big with a mask on. The romantic aspect of it just doesn’t jive. The taxi ride to the hotel was long so I passed out in the car towards the end. I was done for, but was still feeling that travel-wired. Though I was psyched to get into my room and take a good long nap.

But, that didn’t happen. I arrived at 8 am and was informed by the really nice man that my room wouldn’t be ready until possibly 2 pm. At this point I felt bad for anyone who came even relatively near me because I smelled. I just really wanted a shower. So, what did I do? I had him direct me to the fitness center where I took advantage of my dirtiness and my overtired wiredness and went to the gym, for almost an hour and a half. The only thing that kept me from continuing was that the man came back to find me to let me know my room was finally ready. It felt so wonderful to finally take a shower. I reserved my nap for later after I had sent some emails.

Edit arrived and we spent a good hour chatting. We decided to nap (which I had to drag myself up from) and meet up around 7 to go find some dinner. The concierge directed us to the street which had long stretches of “typical” Asian cuisine so we walked down and checked out menus determined to find one with some English, but no luck. We picked a place to walk into and although there were no English menus, the waiter spoke English. The funny thing I noticed about the Asian culture is that if they see a white person, immediately they are going to think there is no way they speak Chinese so if they speak English, you will be greeted in English. That prevents the whole awkward “do you speak English?” conversation which kinda makes life easier! There was a wait, but we decided we would wait. One very large beer later, we were sitting down to Japanese barbecue. It was awesome, like fondue, but with a grill and no cheese! Our waiter cooked raw chicken, shrimp, beef, ricecake, squid, and vegetables for us, right at our table, on the grill. He mixed on different toppings for everything. It was delish.

That was it. We were done, and went home to bed. I was in bed passing out by 12:15 (which was so strange to think that while it was 12:15 am here, it was 12:15 pm at home!) So, ultimately I come to you from the future 