First Day

What day is this? Wednesday, I think.

A looooong day. Never let it be said that a 14 1/2 hour plane ride is short. Getting to JFK airport from Philly was a breeze, and parking and the little train ride to the terminal was fine. We stopped into the Duty Free store and they were sampling the most delicious flavored liquors. We bought the mango and coffee to carry to Paul, since I didn’t want to carry them with us for the next 2 weeks. Since we were flying business class, we were allowed in the Cathay Pacific / British Air lounge. We made a few phone calls, answered some email, and munched on the sandwiches and fruit. Ann went to buy a neck pillow, and could only come up with one that had “I (heart) NY” plastered all over it. Ugghh.

The plane was called, and we were off. The business class was a new experience. Individual pods or cocoons tilted sideways to the aisle, with enough room to lie back and really get horizontal. Nice view of NYC as we took off, and turned to fly over Long Island and the Sound to go over New England. I took some Tylenol PM, had some drinks, turned on Broadway music on the entertainment system, and fell asleep somewhere between Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. I awoke 6 hours later, and realized we STILL had over 8 hours left in the air.

The route took us over the North Pole, over Russia and Siberia, west of Beijing to get to Hong Kong. The plane’s video system had a little map to follow the plane’s progress, and it gave a North Pole/Polaris view of the trip. A little weird to see it from that angle. It was dark out then, so there was not much to see. Even when it got lighter, the cloud cover was too great, and I never really see anything out the window. I busied myself with a Wrist fracture DVD that took a few hours. It helped that there was a regular plug at the seat for the computer. A few hours on the Kindle (Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond. More when I finish it). Some food. More reading. Ann slept through most of the trip, growling at me when I tried to wake her at about 2:00 and again at 3. Whether that was AM or PM, I couldn’t really be sure. Trying to switch 12 hours produces a lot of jet lag. Being horizontal made it soooo much more endurable. Backs and hips at our advancing ages (!) don’t take kindly to sitting that long.

It was dark already as we landed in Hong Kong in the rain. Thankfully, the typhoon had passed, and it was only rain. We disembarked and headed to our next gate for the flight to Teipei. There wasn’t much time, or so we thought. Once we got on the plane, the captain announced that one runway was closed due to a cargo plane running into a ditch (I guess the typhoon was stronger than he thought), and takeoffs were delayed by 2 hours. They were pleasant enough and fed us and plowed us with drinks. A cute 3 year old 2 rows away with a very annoying video game. I finally had to ask the parents to turn off the sound.

We got to Teipei at midnight or so and were greeted with a sign saying that drug trafficking is punishable by death. Cute. Such fun-loving people,

Getting money from the ATM was fun. Ann convinced me to get $100, and I got a nice shiny 100 Taiwan dollar note. Then we realized that the exchange rate was 30 to the US dollars, so I nicely had about $3US in my hand. So back to the ATM to do it again for more. Well see how much my bank charges me for that stupidity. An hour bus ride into the city and finally to our hotel in the city center. We collapsed into bed at 2AM, but still being on east coast time, it was hard to fall asleep.