Our Trip to Taiwan - Day 8

Our last day in Taiwan had finally arrived. We were sad to be leaving the Kuo Family and sad to know that our days of seeing exciting, new things was over. But we were also looking forward to our own beds, American food, and being on our regular schedule. Tim showed up at our hotel to help get Nate to a nearby bus stop that would take him to the airport for his 1pm flight. Since he'd booked through work we were unable to get on the same flight home, so the rest of us wouldn't be leaving until our 11pm flight. We waited at the bus stop for almost twenty minutes before it became apparent that my back had had enough of carrying around a 30+ pound toddler all week. While having Nate hold Abby did help alleviate the pain it soon got to the point that even just standing was causing me to hurt. Since Abby wasn't content just sitting in our arms (and we weren't going to let her down to run as we were on a very busy street) I asked Nate if it would be alright for us to say our good-byes now and then head back to the hotel with Abby so I could lay down and she could play. I wasn't in the hotel room but ten minutes when Mom showed up. She was worried about me and also a little bored of just standing there. :-) So we decided to take Abby to a park two blocks up from our hotel so she could get lots of wiggles out. Yes, it did mean that I had to carry her again with my protesting back but I knew that we were facing hours in a small apartment and then even more hours in a cramped plane. I knew that freedom to move was priority one for Abby.

Saying our good-byes before Nate heads off to the airport.

Once again, playing phone.

A view of the street that we walked up to get to the park. It was pretty amazing how we'd go from concrete jungle to city park with trees and bushes in just a few steps.

Abby had a blast on the "bouncy" rides. She started rocking so hard she almost hit herself in the face with the handle bars.

This is actually one of the two adult exercise stations that were at the park. You are supposed to stand on the yellow circle, put your hands on the red bars, and then twist your feet right and left to work your core muscles. Abby thought it was a great hanging bar.

Here's the second exercise station. You grab onto the ends of one rope (there were multiple ropes of varying lengths) and pull one arm down (which forces the other up) then the other arm down for a good bicep/shoulder workout. I thought these were neat additions to the park.

   

Here's another look at a cement slide. The kids walk up these steps and then slide down the other side. While we were at the park there was another family there who was originally from London but were visiting family (well she was from London, he was from Taiwan, and they were currently living in Brazil!). I thought they had two twin boys and then the girl in this picture but it turned out that the girl was some random other child in the park. No idea who she belonged to!

All too soon we got the word that Nate was off to the airport and we needed to get back to the hotel to meet with up with Tim and Dad. The plan was that we were all going to hang out at Tim's place until it came time to leave for our flight. Then we'd travel back to the hotel where our luggage would be held (as Tim had given the van we had borrowed during the week back to his Aunt and Uncle and was now driving his Camry), meet up with a shuttle bus who would take all of us and our belongings to the airport, and then meet back up with Tim (who would be following the shuttle bus) to make sure we got through the gate okay. At first I was worried that spending almost eight hours in the small apartment with nothing really to do would be a hardship of trying to keep Abby entertained. But the reality was that when we got to the apartment I decided to try and lay down with her to see if she'd take a nap and then she and I passed out for almost three hours. When she did wake up she was still super cuddly so we spent the next hour just sitting and watching TV with the rest of the crew. The remaining four hours in the apartment went just as smoothly. Abby was content to play with the hide-and-seek coffee table, watch TV with us, or quietly roam around.Then it was time to make the drive to the hotel, then to the airport. Iris surprised us by showing up at the hotel to help send us off in style. She hadn't gotten to see a lot of us due to work and wanted to make the effort to see us one more time before who knows when we'd see each other again. 

At the airport I was once again thankful for having a small child to speed things up. Having natives also helped! We were quickly ushered into the premiere line with no waiting to get our boarding passes and check our luggage. When Tim and Iris got us to the security line we said our good-byes and began our long flight home.

Abby chilling in her carseat rolling contraption. She was more than content to people watch as we headed off to our gate. 

As soon as we sat down in our boarding area we got the bad news that our flight was delayed. I had horror images running through my mind of how horrible this delay could be. Thankfully it was just for an hour so we were able to maintain peace. Abby and I went up and down the stairs a lot, played with the public telephones, and looked out the window to see the various planes nearby.

When a boarding call came for small children our family shot up and practically ran towards the boarding door. We wanted out of that waiting room! I was able to book all four of us in the same row so it was nice to know that I had easy access to help as well as knowing that if I leaned too much in one direction I wouldn't be molesting some stranger. I got Abby settled in her seat and within a few minutes she was out like a light. I had learned my lesson about skipping a meal on the flight over so I made sure to stay up until food was served by watching the new Jack Reacher movie. It wasn't bad, but the book was way better. Isn't that the case with most movies made from books? Once the movie finished I put in my ear plugs, put on my eye mask, and planned to sleep for the next seven or so hours. Yeah, that didn't happen. Our turbulence was just rough enough that Abby's poor little head was bouncing all over the place waking her up time and time again. It eventually got the point that she'd woken up enough that she was awake. Only three hours into our ten our flight. Ugh. Well, I grabbed the Ergo and she and I went to a bulkhead section to rock and try to get her to fall back asleep. After twenty or so minutes it became apparent that this plan wasn't going to work. So we settled back in to our seats with me holding Abby (as she wanted nothing to do with her seat) and I turned on one of the free cartoons from the airplanes entertainment section. A little bit later I realized that Abby had gotten pretty heavy in my arms so I looked down to find a sleeping angel in my lap. I tried following suit but it was darn hard holding on to her and laying back to rest. I eventually gave up and turned on SkyFall and then once that had finished Rise of the Guardians. I also read through a good portion of a book on my Kindle app. Just as the pilot turned on the seatbelt warning sign for landing Abby woke up. She slept almost seven hours in my arms. Yay!

Now we had to battle through customs. Going through customs in Taiwan was super easy. We just walked right up, spent a few minutes handing over papers, and went on our way. Not so in Seattle. First we had to wait in a long line to get to the customs agent (and by long I mean almost an hour), then we had to wait for our bags to be on the baggage carousel, then we had to go through a second custom's agent for a baggage check, then we had to go out to the main terminal to recheck in with our connecting flight, and finally we had to go through security to get to our boarding gate. Two hours later we were finally in the security line to get to our boarding area. Abby was so not happy. She desperately wanted to be let down but I knew that as soon as I let her down she'd want to run off and play and this wasn't the place for that. I'd had to hold her through the first customs line and then, since we were trying to see if we could make an earlier connection, I'd held on to her as we raced towards the main terminal. She got to be down for a little bit as we waited in line to get our boarding passes, but she was up in my arms again for going through the security line. Abby had had enough. She was crying, wiggling, sobbing, and fighting my hold. Eventually she put her head on my shoulder and we began to snuggle as I continued to tell her over and over that as soon as we were done with the line I'd let her down and play. It was about half-way through the line (as EVERYONE was in this security line) that I felt her little puffs of sleeping breath and realized she'd fallen asleep in my arms. She remained asleep as we finished going through security, as we made our way down to an airport bar and grill, and as we ate dinner.

Abby sleeping in my arms at dinner. I feel like I look at this point.

I should have known that mention of food for Abby would have woken her up because as soon as I said we should head to Wendy's so I could get a to-go order for Abby for whenever she woke up, she woke up. And that's when I discovered that sleeping on Mom for almost ten hours leads to a nasty heat rash.

My poor baby was covered in this tiny red welts from her head to the middle of her back and chest.

We got Abby fed and then headed over to our boarding area for the final leg of our flight. This last flight was good in that it was short and sweet at around 40 minutes, but bad in that Abby was DONE being on planes. She didn't yell or scream but she did get in trouble for kicking the seat in front of her after being told no. Thankfully she was pretty satisfied playing games on my phone until I was able to point out the lights of the Tri-Cities as we came in to land. Gathering up our gear we departed the plane, walked through the boarding area, and saw Nate! It was so good to see him after such a long day apart! He was excited to see us as well. Once bags were gathered we said good-bye to my parents and drove for home. The pizza he got us for dinner was the best pizza I've ever tasted. American food! Yum! At around 2am Pacific time we decided that we should probably get Abby to bed and then ourselves as we knew we were in for a tough time getting back on 'normal' time. Falling asleep was the easy part. Staying asleep was also managed. Getting up was another story. We didn't get up until 12:30pm! So much for getting back on schedule as soon as possible. :-)

All in all I can say that our trip to Taiwan was one for the memory books. We had a blast seeing Tim and Iris again, had a great time meeting Jane, Jen, and Grace, saw amazing sights, experienced new things that we wouldn't have been able to experience otherwise, and had a generally fantastic family vacation. We were so glad we made this trip!!!