This is the Beginning

This blog is to primarily share my experience in Taiwan. The name of the blog is incorrect pinyin for “I am crazy”. I used it to make my first personal email account and don’t want to change it now to the correct “wofengle”. Hui-ling was trying to teach me Chinese, but neither of us knew about pinyin so I made up my own spelling system.
I didn’t find this site until it was too late.


The photo at the top of the page is the view from the back balcony of my sister-in-law’s apartment in Kaohsiung. I took it on our previous trip.
Feel free to visit my flickr site for more photos. www.flickr.com/wofungla
I don’t expect to add much until we get there. Come back the 26th or 27th!

Hotel

We booked a hotel room today. It’s cheaper to stay at a hotel near the airport than to park our car in longterm airport parking! I really didn’t want to leave our house early enough in the morning to make a 7:30 AM flight. We’ve got a free shuttle to and from the airport too.
Sure, friends offered to drive us, but I hate to take someone up on that offer. Also, we wouldn’t all fit in any of our cars. Too many people and too much luggage.

The Trip

We made it to Taiwan with almost no difficulty. The only scary part for me was at BWI. While checking in, we realized that HL forgot her Alien Resident card. Getting back into the US without it could be difficult. Luckily I am coming home a month and a half before she is. I can send it to her with plenty of time to spare.

The flight from BWI to Chicago was uneventful. Chicago to Tokyo Narita was 13 hours in the air, plus almost an hour on the ground in Chicago. We waited for people who were rebooking from a cancelled flight to Shanghai.

Joy behaved wonderfully. We had books and other things to keep her occupied. We walked around the plane a little bit. At one point she said she wanted to go outside. Fortunately for all of us, she did not fuss at all when I told her we could not.

Our layover in Japan was only about one hour. We were on the upper deck of the airplane. The seating was tighter than the flight from Baltimore, but there was plenty of space between the seat and the window. There was actually a ledge about 10 or 12 inches wide. Plus there were only 2 of us each in 2 three-seat rows. This flight went from Tokyo to Kaohsuing, our final destination, in about 2 hours and 45 minutes. I got to watch most of The Bourne Ultimatum. I thought we were stopping in Taipei. I’m very glad I was wrong.

We got through the thermal testing and immigration with no problems. Hui-Chen, Mei-Chen and Kuo-Yen were there to pick us up. Joy was a little bit shy at first, but that didn’t last long!

Strobist on a Big Scale in Taiwan

On the drive from the airport to the pharmacy (where Mama and Baba Tseng live) I saw street lights pointing up with flower petal shaped reflectors that bounced the light back down. I immediately thought of strobist.com. What a great site. Check it out if you like photography.