Day 1 (Taipei)

Sorry about bad formatting and duplicate pics. Hard to do complicated posts on an iPad. Hannah woke us up at 5am and was ready for the day. Kevin was ready to get up as well. I didn't get as much sleep as they did on the flights, rolled over, and refused to move from my bed. Kevin and Hannah explored our neighborhood a bit and came back with breakfast goodies from a 7-11. Steamed BBQ pork buns (really spicy and not so spicy), milk tea, and strawberry milk tea. Mmmmmm! I agreed to wake up at 7am on the condition that I could have one of their steamed buns. We loaded up funds on some MRT cards first thing. Good to know that one can return expired cards and have the remaining funds put on a new card. Hannah was soooo excited about riding the "underground train." It was so fun to watch her experience a subway ride for the first time. "Wheee!". We showed Hannah where to put her MRT Easy Card and she goes through the gate on her own. She prefers to hold onto bars rather than sit on a seat. Our first stop was to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial as our favorite photos of Hannah in Taiwan were taken there. I remember sitting her down on the bricks and having Daddy serve as a jester behind my camera to get her to laugh and smile at us. A few people had gathered around us grinning and watching new parents try to get their baby to laugh for the camera. This time it was super sunny, hot and sweaty as we took a few phone pics, squinting from all of the reflected light. Hannah pony pranced ahead of us and looked around. We went to little bridge on the pond and bought some food to feed the koi. This is the flower clip that she wore on her itty bitty pink hat here for photos three and a half years ago! We peeked at 228 peace park then tried to find the Taiwan Handicraft Market but were unable to without help from a map. We got there just fine before, and I'm sure we will again with a map. We walked from 228 peace peak back to the Taipei Main Station. It was only 10:30am and the Taiwan Mobile cell provider store didn't open until 11am. We went into the station for lunch at the Breeze Food Court. We had really good Japanese pork and chicken lunches with rice and gravy like stuff on top with cooked carrots. It was served with miso soup, French fries (I don't get it???), and a drink. Hannah slurped down both of our miso soups. The cashier from the food both grinned watching her eat her lunch. We get a lot of stares. Thankfully, I can tell most of them are just "cute kid" stares because people smile at us. Two ladies once tried to tickle her, and that did not go down well with my shy girl as she tried to get away from them. After lunch we got our Taiwan Mobile sim cards and prepaid plans. I'll have to have Kevin post about how that works. Unlimited data plan super cheap! Then back to our pad for naps. Hannah asked to go up Taipei 101 next. We'd been talking about that a lot at home and watched a video on the building, so she was excited about it. Kevin took the photo above from right next to Taipei City hall MRT station, my favorite of the trip so far! Her little legs are tired and we're having to take turns carrying her. Need to buy an umbrella stroller tomorrow! The above photo does not do justice to the magnificent views of Taipei. Unfortunately, look who started falling asleep while waiting in line to get in the fastest elevator in the world. Sigh. She did wake up when we went out to the outside observation area, and Kevin took her photo with the damper. Hannah's going to be an engineer, know, so seeing something extraordinary like the damper of Taipei 101 is important! :) For dinner we went to Tin Tai Fung in the basement of 101. Here come the food pics!!!! First are our favorite dumplings with the soup inside. (Miss you, Howard, Katie, and Henry!!!!) I heart Chinese cabbage! Hot and sour soup. I didn't snap a pic of mushroom dumplings. They weren't so good. Ate up the Taiwanese beef and noodle soup before pic as well. Oops! It was super yummy with huge chunks of tender beef. Yummy red bean bun below. Sticky rice dessert was an adventure, pictured below. Liked it. Very different. Red bean paste inside. Hannah was so tired that she fell asleep during dinner. She said, "I wanna go back to the hotel" and didn't even want to go to the toy store. We grabbed some snacks at Jason's grocery in the basement of 101 then taxied back for the night, home and in bed at 7:30pm. Above l to r: strawberry and apple milk, Pineapple cakes, dragon fruit, pineapple flavor Taiwan beer, ramen noodle like cups for kids, shrimp chips, and watermelon slices. Above l to r: strawberry milk tea, chocolate milk tea, lemon soda, and seaweed flavor potato chips.