Happy Sunday! A big thanks to Natalie of Natalie the Explorer for hosting WeekendCoffeeShare.

After nearly 24 hours, I’m finally Home Sweet Home after 13 days in Asia, traveling between Taipei, Taiwan and Kumamoto, Japan. Other than the constant pain in my knees, the journey home was quite uneventful. My knees have been misbehaving for years, which is why I hate being trapped on a plane, especially during international flights. I was in pain for nearly the entire 9 and a half hours ride from Taipei to Seattle.

It’s amazing how many people are traveling between the US and Taiwan these days. Both of my flights were nearly full. I think I’ll have to upgrade my seat on my next flight.

Anyway, how do I describe Taipei?

Taipei has an old soul. How does one say it? “They don’t make ’em like this anymore.”

It reminded me so much of my hometown in China. Not the version I returned to in 2017 but the version that lives in the deep recess of my memories, the version from my childhood in the 90’s.

When my mom and I were on an express bus from the airport on our first day there, as we sped toward the city, I thought the buildings reminded me of how my grandmother’s hometown used to be with its dirty-looking buildings. The way the outer walls looked, it would appears it needs a thorough scrub. “Why do the buildings look so dirty?” I asked my mom.

She laughed and said, “because it’s old.”

In our first 5 days in Taipei, we didn’t visit popular tourist attractions. We visited museums and historical sites like Chiang Kai-Shek’s house and Sun Yat-sen’s memorial house. Reading the history in the museums made me question about the things I learned in my high school history classes because there were some conflicting information. Perhaps what people say is right, “history is written by the victors.”

On the 6th day, we got on a short international flight and headed for Kumamoto, Japan. Kumamoto is… cute with its mascot, Kumamon. We were there in time to celebrate the cutie’s 15th birthday bash.

We were also there (unintentionally) to witness a couple of moderate earthquakes followed by a couple of mild ones. I personally experienced 2 of the 5 quakes – 3.7 magnitude and 4.8 magnitude – both in the hotel room. Not my first earthquake but it was the most I’ve ever experienced during such a short time (2 days).

In Kumamoto, we took a side trip to Aso-Kuju National Park, one of 34 national parks in Japan. We could see much of the volcanoes since we could only be outside for a few minutes before heading back inside to warm up. It will have to be a destination to be returned to at a later date.

We headed back to Taipei after 5 days in Kumamoto and decided to visit a park full of rock formation in Yehliu – near Keelung, about an hour by bus, distance about 15 miles.

The park’s located by the coast. This was most definitely my favorite place of the trip. I love it when I get to visit a place where I can play with my big camera instead of playing with my phone’s camera.

My biggest fail on this trip was finding out I still cannot communicate in Japanese. I’ve been studying Japanese for nearly 2 years but when I was in Kumamoto, I could barely form a complete sentence. I also think part of the problem was my listening was hindered by the muffle speech. Almost everyone was wearing a mask. Even in Taipei, I had trouble understanding the muffled speech. It initially made me wonder whether my hearing has gotten worse but eventually, I figured out it was not me.

Overall, I would rate this as a great trip. My mom and I only fought once throughout the trip. That’s a record low compared to our trip to Japan where we fought on a daily basis. I would also say that Taiwan is a place that I would definitely return to try more of its food.

I hope you enjoyed reading this quick version of my trip. If you want to read my daily reflection and observation during the trip, you can click on this link.