Happy Sunday! Anne from Slow Shutter Speed is the hostess for this week’s Lens-Artists photo challenge and she has asked us to reflect on life changes.

After almost 24 hours of traveling, I finally arrived in Taipei, Taiwan at 4:45 AM on March 9, 2025. I barely slept 4 hours because I can never sleep on an airplane, especially not when I’m trapped in the window seat on a 12-hour flight with bad knee pain. There wasn’t time to rest though because of the time my mom and I arrived since we wouldn’t be able to check into the hotel until 3 PM.

After getting a bite to eat, we visited the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. I don’t know about you but Chiang Kai-shek was just about the only famous Asian historical person I studied in my one semester of high school world history class, which was almost 20 years ago. So my memory was a little fuzzy on who he was and what he did.

I’m not going to talking the history of it all. This is a post for pictures, not history lesson. I’m going to let you look that up.

We also visited the President’s Palace well, we just saw the outside of it since it wasn’t opened to the public.

Now, I you will ask me what’s all this got to do with the topic of “life changes”.

This trip has been a life change from the very beginning from the day the plane tickets were bought, despite it’s only a temporary change. At work, I had to train my co-worker to do my task and complete as many as tasks I could fit into my schedule. At home, I had to make sure my seedlings are cared for while I’m going. T

Then, I have to pack and I hate packing, not to mention getting on a plane.

So far, Taipei has been a big surprise because of the reminiscence of my hometown the way I remembered it as a child. It has so many of the same street names as my hometown that I’m constantly feeling a sense of deja vu. At the same time, Taipei is a much more diverse melting pot than my hometown. Unlike Japan, people in Taipei will actually speak English to you when you’re lost.

Anyway, back to changes.

Traveling always seem to be a life disruptor and I’m positive I’m not the only one who feels this way.