Day 2: On the Ground

So we land, and Calvin is there to pick us up. Good to have Nat's brother there as it saves us the headache on so many levels. The first 3 obvious ones are a ride, an apartment, and breakfast. Again, breakfast is the best meal of the day.

The drive to his apartment brings it all back in an instant. The country is enveloped in rain clouds right now but you still get the lush greenery, the mountains, and of course the traffic that's exacerbated by it being rush hour on Monday morning. Taipei makes New Jersey look like Maine. The rice paddies next to the highways are another neat touch. I could point out 100 things that are cool to look at but the best way to put it is that you're in a different country and it shows every which way you look.

First food stop is near the house, a little breakfast action as I get a rice ball filled with a bunch of different goodies like fried cruller,eggs, picked spicy veggies, and dried pork. On the side a cup of coffee and a warm soymilk. Yeah baby this is what I'm talking about. Fucking a Walter,life is good.

Took a shower and when I closed my eyes the world started to move. I am on an earthquake-heavy island and I have experienced a small one before. But no, this is also something that I remember from last time. Being overtired and showering almost washes it out of you. The funk of flight gives way to the weariness of travel in no time. I quickly turned the water to cold because a hot shower only makes it worse.

While Julia napped we had some lunch, where I got a little more of my roadside food on and had some stewed beef over rice with a side of meat-broth soup, a standard meal in these parts. Then I listened to my wife and napped for 30 minutes while she pulled the plug early and didn't nap at all. We woke up Julia at 2:30 in an effort to manage her jet lag and it went over pretty poorly so we put her back to sleep and got another coffee. The30 minutes will end up doing me a lot of good. But Nat is going to crash severely at some point for lack of siesta.

The first day on the ground is always this routine of food, coffee, and snippets of rest with copious amounts of staring into space and the logic circuits in you mind crossing connections and telling you things are different than they really are. With child, it's harder to manage it all and it's a fair guess that we fucked it up today. Not much in the way of vacationing gets done this first day.

As I'm sitting here writing this, while Nat tries to re-nap Julia, I swear I hear a rooster somewhere. I would later hear it again more clearly 2hours later. While there is a lot of country even right here in the city of Taipei, I'm currently on the 10th floor of an office/apartment building.

Dinner was dim sum, a pretty standard version with nothing exotic. Julia started to really lose it then, just lost in space. We played that one wrong by going out at all. Should have stayed in and made dinner at the house.

8:00 and the day is done for all of us. Just shot all around the horn. It is then when I realize I have not brushed my teeth in about 60 hours. Holy crap.