Ooh, they've added new flavours to St. Louis Smoothie while I was gone. Mango! Not as good as Taiwan, but not bad. Found out when I went there to meet Susan and do some show-and-tell with her today.
Friday, 13th of July, 2001
Mom is still in Taiwan, and won't be back until Monday. My Dad and brother have been holding down the fort here. I get home, and the fridge is empty. Interesting. They seem to have run out of ideas for dinner, so I made my way to Dierbergs to buy what I needed to make Tacos tonight.
Thursday, 12th of July, 2001
So the trip home: Geez, security is crazy for people leaving (!!!) the country. Doesn't really make sense. So I rode Japan Air from Taiwan to Tokyo. The 3.5 hour layover at Tokyo was quickly expended. First of all, they unloaded a Boeing 747 worth of passengers onto convoys of busses (big, wide, airport busses, pretty awesome) and took us to the terminals. Then they used those busses to ship people between terminals, but they ran every hour or so. That's horrible. I spent 50 minutes waiting for a bus. But the bus ride was actually redeeming. I got to see the parking lot! Woah, there was a sweet section of it, where I saw two Legacy B4 Touring and two (!!) Nissan Skylines!! That car is definitely a lot more impressive IRL than in pictures, I'd say 10X. I can now fully appreciate the looks of it.
After car-spotting, I spent the rest of the time waiting in line to check-in, and boarded a Boeing 777 to Chicago. The movies I had anticipated watching on the in-flight entertainment have been changed, they change them every month. But all for the better, I got to view Save the Last Dance. Though it was generally a dissapointing movie for me. I like the situation that was set up, but the resolutions were way to shallow for my liking. Then I viewed Family Man. I guess the only good part of that was seeing Nicholas Cage in the Maranello (reimnds me of Gone in 60 Seconds). The character Jack is an idiot, and again, it's too shallow for my liking. Though those didn't put me to sleep. Oh Brother Where Art Thou did. In-flight music has also improved. The classical station has several pieces by Berstein with Joshua Bell playing solo, (!!!) including West Side Story. There's also a country station...
Cumulus clouds are so pretty from the plane, they look so nice and comfy and fluffy. And the way sunlight hits clouds. It's totally awesome.
But it all had to end, and now I'm home, where I can play with all my new toys, hehe.
Wednesday, 11th of July, 2001
Mom made me feel guilty about buying only two die-cast car keychains, so we went back down to Taipei to the Shin-guang Department Store to buy some more. Basically, after that I came back and packed... and came out one suitcase ahead of what I came here with. Woah.
Tuesday, 10th of July, 2001
Earlier in the day I saw some family for the last time, ate some final things (Yong-Ho Soy Drink), and walked some places in Taipei (Hsing-guang Tower)
Monday, 9th of July, 2001
11:04: Woah, complimentary water and snacks too. Nice.
14:36: I've come to a further conclusion. Everything is cheap here! I'm sitting here trying to work out margins of profit for things, and it doesn't make sense, I think money goes a very long way here, you can live comfortably off of US$20000 a year, and survive off of $10000 probably.
19:59: At Taipei, we went back to the Multimedia Tradeshow to meet up with a couple of my mom's brothers, who had boothes there and we missed Friday. One of my uncles sells radar detectors, and gave us an Escort 4800, good for Laser detection in the States, but pretty useless in Taiwan. I'll have to test it out when I get back.
Mom and I went to lunch with Mom's older brother, his wife and younger daughter. She's going to be a senior in high school.
OMG, they park cars on top of each other here, literally, using a carousel system, they lift cars on top of cars. Woah.
22:21: They brough Mom and I back to Shi-jr, where I'll be staying till I leave. Ok, I'm in a room, with a tree that grows up... (that was ditzy). I mean till I leave the country.
Sunday, 8th of July, 2001
21:16: I had dinner with 3 of my cousins. OMG, they've grown up... And are your typical Taiwan teenagers... Wow. I played pool w/ the oldest one, 16 I think? It's crazy, they felt so much younger when I last saw them 9 years ago.
Woah, lizards are everywhere, all over houses and stuff, it's kinda weird I guess.