Arrival in Taipei

We made it safe and sound late last night. Our driver drove very sensibly compared to others that we saw on the freeway. It's not quite as bad as Angela remembers from other trips to Taiwan, but it was still unnerving to see the motorcycles zip right around us as if our one lane were two or three!

We slept until 8:00 AM local time and then ventured out by ourselves. Angela's mom will not arrive until late tonight, so we had to go to a convenience store and the grocery store by ourselves. It's amazing how similar they both are to what we have back home. The convenience store had hot dogs rotating through the heater just like we are used to seeing in the US. We bought a calling card to make local calls and had a little bit of trouble communicating with the clerk. She thought we had a cell phone and we had no way of telling her that we didn't. Fortunately, the next customer spoke English and was able to translate for us. A similar thing happened at the internet cafe.

The grocery store was smaller than what we are used to, but had most everything that we needed and was very orderly. Allen commented that all grocery stores should be this way. He loved that all four wheels on the cart turn, making it much easier to navigate through the store. Milk is about US$5.50 a gallon. OUCH! That's comparable to what we paid in Hawaii several years back.

We used the MRT (Metro Rapid Transit system) to find an internet cafe. The MRT was very easy to use. It's extremely clean. This is probably due to their policy of no food, drink, or chewing gum being allowed in stations or on the trains. We bought rechargeable cards for NT$500 (about US$15), which should last for quite a few trips.

We have an appointment at the Jonah House tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM (Tues. 8:00 PM CST). So, next time you hear from us, we should have William with us.