We have booked our flights. Packed our room. Packed our backpacks. In short: we are finally ready!

By we, I mean me…for the time being anyway. T is meeting me in Honk Kong in two weeks. Until then, I am on my own and traveling through Taiwan and Shenzhen.

Since I (we) were pretty busy organizing and packing before my flight to Taiwan, I didn’t get around to starting the blog. So bear with me, I am in the process of creating and figuring out how to blog along the way.

After traveling for over 30 hours (train, plane, layover in Dubai, plane, bus, train, train, train, and scooter), I finally made it to Yaunlin, Taiwan! A friend from Colorado, whom I met during my study abroad semester in Heidelberg, Germany, moved to Taiwan with his wife and three kids in January. As it so happens, I have always wanted to go to Taiwan, so I thought that it would be appropriate to visit them. I guess that means that I am not really alone, I have a lot of company here and Thom and family have been really great hosts. And the most impressive part of Taiwan? Thom’s three kids (aged 9 – 4) speak Mandarin, so they are a great help! Thom and his family deserve their own post, so I will do that soon.

For the time being, I have been hanging out with Thom and family, eating a lot of great food, none of which have thus far been questionable, and being a passenger on the scooter, which is one of the best ways to see and discover a city, you don’t have to drive, the wind in your face, you just lean back (as far as possible without falling off the scoot) and enjoy the scenery!

Keep an eye out for more (soon, hopefully) posts about our trip to Changhua today and on our weekend trip to Taipei, which we will start tomorrow!

For now…Happy Travels!