Arriving in Taipei

The Vancouver airport is a big place, which feels really odd when it is empty, except of course, my departure gate. Sitting in the departure gate I already felt like I was somewhere else. I couldn't understand the announcements, there were swarms of people generally shorter than me, and free tea was everywhere (ok it was at a single table). One asian woman came up to me to ask if I knew what was going on and when the flight was boarding. I didn't. She then went on to tell me how much she liked Eva air, because there usually weren't sick people. She told me this story of a flight full of really loud, really big, really impolite sick people. I thought that indeed sounded like a bad flight. After a few more minutes of my commiserating with her over bad luck flying with sick people, I realized I was engaged in a conversation talking about how we hated flying with people from India. I went to look for someone else to talk to.

The plane ride was hellaciously long. I wasn't beside any sick people, and fell asleep nearly before the credits had finished running on Tropical Thunder. My first nap was roused by the serving of chicken dinner and tea. I nabbed a red wine as well. I fell into one of those truely amazing deep sleeps and was shaken awake by the little guy next to me (he must have been like 50 years old, but let's face it he was not having my troubles with leg room) who was shaking me and saying "bathroom, bathroom" over and over. So much for my comfy aisle sleep.

For the rest of the flight, my little friend got up had to go past me approximately 58,012 times before we had breakfast at 3am. Taipei time I think.

Jim had arranged for me to be picked up by a driver, so I was one of the cool people who got into the arrival area and had someone waiting for me with my name on a sign. I always love that. All the nice sedans in Taipei are Mercedes or BMW, with the Benz being far more popular.

Inside the airport I had been a bit bewildered. I missed being able to follow the crowd due to an urgent call of nature, so I was left in the near-empty early morning quiet. Eventually I lined up in a line called "non-citizen" where I was breezed through without anyone discovering the kilograms of drugs or 10 pounds of C4 I had in the bottom of my bags.

An hours drive takes me from the airport to Jim's place. Once we got off the freeway I had my first sign that I was no longer in Kansas. We rounded a corner and literally 50 scooters carrying over 100 riders swarmed around the sedan.

And so I arrived, 20,000 kms from Calgary.

written by

Lleviathan on November 2, 2008 from Taipei, Taiwan

from the travel blog: Leif in Asia

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