Very Moving

I received this URL from one of my uncles... so moving it almost reduced me to tears! (and I'm most assuredly NOT an opera fan)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0dzZTPWrSM

Jetlagged in Taiwan

I enjoyed a full hour and fifteen minutes last night of sleep. Can't remember having had quite this much difficulty adjusting timezones my first few days back on previous trips. Looks like I'll be savoring another 4 hour nap later this morning/afternoon. Depending on when I begin to feel like I can sleep, I may be worshipping at a church with an afternoon service!

Appendum: Wound up sleeping 6 hours this afternoon after church and am now enjoying a Latte at Starbucks in order to send/check e-mail. So it'll be another long night! :-)

What was Lost is Found

My lost bag (containing my digital camera and new notebook computer not to mention lots of new books and winter clothes) has been found by United Airlines! Thank the Lord.

Summer Night Exploring

Summer nights in Taichung are much cooler than the blazing hot daytime humidity. Plus, because of jet lag, I wasn't going to bed anytime soon. So this evening after a quick dinner catching up with a friend, I decided to ride my scooter around town to see what changes I'd see in a year's time.

In Taichung it's not uncommon to see small mom-and-pop family businesses open and close within a matter of months. So I wasn't too surprised to see that the scooter shop where I bought my scooter 5 years ago (and swapped owners 3 times while I was here)  is now closed with the space being absorbed by a electronic appliances chain store.

The large Wellcome grocery store near my old apartment has now leased part of their building to a pharmacy.

A huge new park has opened.. never too many of these in a city of over 1 million.

Near the neighborhood where I use to live stands a giant new Carrefour (Taiwan's French equivalent of "Super Walmart"). It lies not even a quarter mile away from where the old one continues to do a brisk business.

I observed at least THREE new Starbucks in a city that already had no lack of them. So I guess the coffee craze that hit the island around 8 years ago certainly isn't just a passing fad!

In light of all these changes, it was nice to bump into a few stall-keepers and store workers that remembered me. I'm looking forward to opportunities for follow-up conversations these next 4 weeks.

Home at Last

I'm back! Last night I arrived at a temporary guest apartment in Taiwan where I will spend the next few days. I was on the road and flying the skies for about 29 hours.... blissfully short when you recall how earlier generations had to travel by sea! Though the flight was cramped and uncomfortable in economy class as usual, amazingly I actually managed to sleep a few hours.

Speaking of sleep, last night I slept soundly from about 10:30pm to 1:30 am... after that I was wide awake the rest of the night! Now, after a four hour nap this afternoon, I should be good to go until the wee hours tomorrow morning.... Jet lag is so fun. 

Best Investment Made for this Trip: A noise-reducing stereo headset. It really came in handy with a crying baby directly behind me during the first leg of my flight to San Fran! Hardly noticed him.

Worst Investment (in a good way): All the time spend pre-packing and meticulously weighing my 4 check-in overweight bags and two carry-ons. I had it all figured out to fork out an extra $400 to check my luggage (as it turned out at the counter it should have been $450 as the scale at the regional airport was apparently slightly different than the one at Dulles International), but the customer assistance at the check-in counter was apathetic and indifferent. 

Almost everything is done electronically these days. After the check-in computer console told me to speak to an attendant for customer service, the first attendant merely told me to use the computer and walked away for a break. The second lady seemingly pulled a dollar amount randomly out of the air. When I told her what I thought it should have been she merely responded "Do you want me to charge you more?" So now I'm grateful for an extra $130 I can spend somewhere else! 

Worst (Potential) Loss: The bag which holds my new hardly-used Acer laptop and Canon Digital Camera which hasn't appeared yet.  Hopefully it will make it down in the next few days. Praise God this is the only out of the four that I didn't need to pull something out of for the weeks ahead... I won't be needing any winter clothes when the temperature is in the upper nineties, or any books for pleasure reading while I study Taiwanese intensively for 4 weeks and look for a new apartment! Two Canadian co-workers told me last night that 4 of their 9 bags didn't make it with them on the same plane.