Post Script Jersey Shore Payback

Treating Chuni and (mostly) Chia to lobster, steamers and shrimp at the Parker House in Sea Girt. I will say my man Chia knows how to eat the whole carcass of a lobster like an ear of corn. He is my idol and I will never waste any part of the lobster again!

I am enjoying a nice email correspondence with Brother Simon from the Trappist Monastery on Lantau Island and settling nicely back into a hot, but bearable summer back home.

Back in the USA!!

As my daughter's said "You survived an 18 hour plane ride on Friday the 13th! Congratulations and welcome home."

5 movies and 3 really bad airline meals later, we are home. Mama San and Chia were waiting at JFK airport for us at 3 pm. Since it is 12 hours earlier here, we didn't have to re-set our watches! We tried to not sleep on the plane so we could just go to bed at a regular time and just wake up on time. So far, so good!! It's great to see my family and friends here and our garden and plants are still alive thanks to a team effort!!

Thanks again to all the wonderful family and friends of Chuni and Chia who were so welcoming in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Your hospitality and generosity were amazing and very much appreciated. My regular email is colleenmmeyer@gmail.com. Please keep in touch and be sure to let me know if you are coming this way so I can repay some of your hospitality!

Goodbye Taiwan

Yesterday was our last full day in Taiwan. GooGoo took Michael to buy the mechanical pencils and lead he can't get in the US (.3)? Then they joined Margaret for the famous steamed buns and mango shaved ice.

I stayed home with GooGoo and Gooling to organize my stuff and pack, though I was relatively certain Chuni would repack me!!

It has been really hot in Taipei-38c, which I'm guessing is around 100f, though no one seems confident on the conversion, not even the physicists we've met. Chia, want to make a stab at it? Michael and Chuni were happy to come home to AC and watch a movie made in Taipei about high schoolers in love. It made Michael wish he could go to HS here as well as in a bunch of other countries in addition to US. He must've had a wonderful HS
experience to want to relive it in different ways!

In the early evening GooGoo and Cheng-Nan took us on beautiful ride up to Yangming Mountain. We saw Taipei from a distance as the sun went down. We went to dinner right in the park and tried new dishes like sautéed fern shoots and sweet potato leaves. Very good, and as everything else here, good for you!!

I went to bed early as we were leaving for the airport at 6 a.m. GooGoo and Cheng-Yan drove us. En route, Chia called to wake us up! With one little glitch of being at the wrong terminal first, then running to repack the car with the 6 bags and rush to the correct one! At least Chuni got to claim her VAT refund for her millions of shoes.

We took pix from the plane as Taiwan disappeared from sight. Now we are on a quick layover at Narita outside if Tokyo.

What an amazing trip- the perfect blend of sightseeing, friends and family. Chuni says I could write an exposé with all the information I now have on her...hmmmm. I was watching the Joy Luck Club on the plane. Maybe a screenplay for a movie???

Xie xie to Chuni, Michael and Chia for allowing me into this wonderful world if yours. I will treasure these memories forever!!!!