One journey ends, another begins

I have arrived.

Both Malaysia airlines and China Airlines were very pleasant and efficient to deal with in handling the rebooking. Both flights left the tarmac precisely on time and arrived precisely on time. Both had wonderful service, and the food was... well, ok, not everything can be perfect, right?

I maintain, however, that LAX is a nightmare. I did get some chances to practice what little Chinese I knew. One group of Taiwanese women seemed to think I was amusing, since I spent so long trying to discuss the simplest of matters with one of their husbands, who was only a little bit more proficient in English than I am in Mandarin. They also apparently thought my height was amusing, since they asked me to be in a few pictures with them--I don't think any of them were five feet tall.

The transpacific flight was uneventful. Thank goodness; I had been getting quite sick of things being eventful. The in-flight entertainment options were pretty decent, but except for the GPS views and occasionally the very puny games available, I ignored them. My seatmate was part of a group of CS students from UCSD going to Taiwan for a 2-week vacation; I had some decent conversation when we were both feeling bored. I must have gotten some ok sleep, too, since he said he watched both Iron Man and "some Ashton
Kutcher movie" and I only ever noticed the last 5 minutes of the former. I read A Wizard of Earthsea, listened to some music, but mostly just tried to sleep. My new in-ear headphones actually did a better job of comfortably reducing the noise level of the plane than earplugs did.

The Taipei airport was impressive in many ways. It was huge, clean, efficiently organized, uncrowded, and quiet. The terminals looked like malls; the employees of each store stood ready and waiting for customers in their entryways, but didn't harass anybody like mall employees in the US tend to do. The variety of expensive gadgets you could buy there is surprising.

Gadgets weren't on my mind, though. Food was. I found a noodle shop where I again got to practice my Chinese; I ordered a beef noodle soup that was $7. It was a big, filling bowl, and came with mango juice and a side of vegetables that I can't name. It was also delicious; it qualified simultaneously as the cheapest, most filling, and best meal I've ever had in an airport.

I didn't have long to linger, though, and quickly made my way to the gate lounge, where I was again impressed by the poshness of it all. My flight was completely boarded within 5 minutes of the first boarding announcement (LAX took an hour), and off we went in our Airbus. This time I watched about half of Iron Man, and then it was touchdown in Kansai International. That's when the reality of my trip finally caught up with me, and I started grinning like an idiot. With the extra day's wait, I had been in zombie traveller mode for long enough to lose track of the duration; the idea of an actual destination had started to elude my mind as I just went from one place to the next in airports and planes.


After calling Kelsey, my dad, and my school to announce my safe arrival, I headed off to the shuttle service to get to my dorm. After a 45 minute wait and then a three hour ride, I was there. I'm going to hold off on my initial impressions of the city. Right now I'm overwhelmed and exhausted. The most obvious bits of news to share, though, are that I found my dorm, and the internet works (and it's quite fast, actually).

I'll have plenty of amusing pictures (at least I think they're amusing) once I get settled in enough to spend time on that--hopefully tomorrow. For now, it's time to sleep. Tomorrow the real adventure begins!