In preparation of meeting Popo, I spent some time gathering and scanning old pictures to show her from photo albums we had at home. She likes looking at photos and she has a tablet she uses to watch tv shows and video call family members. Here are a few interesting ones I’ve found.
We are out of the 3 day restaurant quarantine now! I wanted to spend a little bit explaining how it all worked. Before leaving Minneapolis, we needed to take a rapid test 24 hours before departure on Thursday and fill out a long and confusing health questionnaire that I messed up twice and had to redo for both Joanna and me.
Quick story on how my Chinese family ended up in Minnesota: My mom was born and raised in Hong Kong and decided to study abroad at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis for her senior year of high school.
Covid protocols here in Hong Kong are in one word: Strict. Yesterday, it was 75f with 80% humidity. We were walking outside on the way to the subway to meet my cousin Tim and his husband John for lunch and noticed that everyone kept their masks on even after leaving a building.
Earlier this year, my sister Kimberly and I were discussing the possibility of going to Hong Kong to visit our Popo (maternal grandmother in Cantonese) considering Covid restrictions around the world were loosening up.
I can’t help but feel disappointed that I didn’t take anywhere near as many photos on my camera as I usually do. I think it’s a number of factors, of course we were only gone for a short trip but most of the time it was in Taipei, which is a big city like Tokyo, or Bangkok.
We chose to leave souvenir shopping to today so we’d have the best ideas on what to bring home for people. One of Taiwan’s specialties is pineapple cakes. You can find them everywhere but they all range on quality and price.
Because it was a Thursday, I didn’t bother getting our tickets back to Taipei right away. We packed up our stuff and walked in the sorta rainy weather to the train station at 10 hoping there were seats available within the next hour or so.
I have to say that yesterday was absolutely amazing and will be in my memories as one of the best trip moments ever. My legs, hips, and back don’t really work anymore but holy crap I had so much fun.
I’ve heard really great things about a national park here in Taiwan called Taroko Gorge. It’s supposed to be huge and one of the top things you visit if you’re in the country.
