We left Jan, John McKee, and John, Helen Pirini, and Micky Covich at Auckland Airport as we flew out on Quantis Airlines. I must admit that it still felt completely surreal like something out of a movie. Here we were on our way to start an exciting new lift in Canada, with an Amazing trip to SE Asia in between.
A brief stop at Sydney before we finally landed in Taipei after 13 hours of travelling. The flight on China Airlines was fantastic with Multimedia centres available on the back of each seat. Each of us watched 3 new release movies, downloaded the latest news, watched a bit of discovery channel, and played a few video games, before settling into some nice music. Pretty cool huh?
Taipei was nice. The people were very nice, very helpful and very friendly.
We never booked accommodation ahead so we ended searching for lodging 9:30 pm at night. This was equivalent to about 4 pm NZ time so we were pretty tired and a little bit edgy. We were near a market when Lauren disappeared. I proceeded to have a mini panic attack and started imagining the worst had happened - absolutely dreadful feeling. This deaf girl came up and asked if I was OK, and did I need help? I couldnt understand what she was getting at, so ignored her. However she persisted until I relented and followed her. Then she showed me a sign saying student accommodation on the 13 floor. She was emphatic. I had no idea what she was getting at. However, it all became clear when Lauren magically appeared out of the elevator from the 13th floor. Little monkey!!!!!
In the middle of the night Lauren asks me what time it is, but because she has been asking me to convert to NZ time all day, I automatically adjust for the 6 hours time difference and tell her it is 9 am. She freaks and gets up for a quick shower so that we can get to the airport on time. However half way through, I realise that it is actually 4 am in the morning! As if we didnt need the extra sleep! He he he, she still hasnt let me forget that one.
The next day we went shopping for food and met a lovely lady called Jessica who recognised straight away that we were from NZ. She wanted to get a photo taken with us. Hopefully we will catch up with her on our way back through Taipei to Canada.
