Welp, I may have mentioned before that the stars aligned in just the right way for us to head over to Thailand for Spring Break. There was a lot of work involved in that “alignment,” I might add! But there was also some magic that came along to pull that off. But wait, here I am skipping ahead. We’re going to get to Thailand later this week. For today let’s talk about how we had a quick 15-hour layover in Taiwan en route to Thailand. Taiwan is pretty special to us since Dave and Max both lived there for two years of their lives as missionaries. And I’m here to say, where you live as a missionary weaves it’s way into your heart forever.
We have been lucky enough to go to Taiwan together before this trip. Once on a layover when we met my family in Bali (which some day I’ll really sit down and blog about because it really is one of my favorite places in all the world.) And the second time we went to Taiwan it was with Max following his missionary service there. When Dave was booking the tickets to Thailand and there was an opportunity to visit once again, we jumped on that chance.
What to do with a Layover in Taiwan
We connected through L.A., then crammed into a giant airplane, every single seat taken. Nearly fourteen hours later we arrived to Dave’s old stomping grounds for our overnight layover. We were all in such a tired fog getting off that plane, but Dave and I tucked Lu into the hotel and headed out on the town.
Shilin Night Market
This is one of Dave’s most nostalgic spots: a night market filled up with people and interesting foods and all kinds of people watching.
It’s so crazy it’s still so busy in the middle of the night.
We all woke up before 6:00am with jet lag, but so grateful we could at least sleep that long! We headed out to walk through Dave’s memory lane from his mission.
Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial
Our first stop was the Chiang-kai Shek Memorial, where Dave did so much finding during his mission days. We were there early enough that we practically had the whole place to ourselves.
We were there just in time for the doors to open so we could watch the changing of the guard.
Then we walked to the temple complex where Dave spent six months of his mission.
The mission office where he worked is right across the street, and on the right below is where he lived:
We meandered through the streets trying to find some of Dave’s favorite nostalgic street food. We found some cool markets to explore.
Lucy was such a good sport, so content to keep walking, her cane poking out leading the way everywhere we went, lots of eyes on us with that thing. She never complained and asked the nicest questions. I don’t know if she’s maturing or if she’s made a goal to try with all her might to be the best travel companion ever, but she was so incredible.
Makes me realize it’s time to take this family of mine to Romania (my own mission stoping grounds).
There we go, that’s what we did with our quick 15-hour layover in Taiwan!
Then we were off to Thailand! This time thankfully with a little more room on the plane.
I want to remember how Lucy figured out this number thing to pass the time on airplanes. She writes down the names of all her favorite characters from books she’s read, gives each letter a number according to it’s place in the alphabet, then adds up those numbers in groups. It is so fascinating how her brain works, she’s so good with numbers!
Anyway, hopefully by the end of this week I’ll take you on a little trip through pictures to Thailand.
