Coming Home!

Well our last day in Taipei was enjoyable. We booked a morning tour of the NOrthern Coast with the same guide we hired for the night tour, Jack. He speaks English well and was very pleasant. If you are interested in having him do a tour while you are there, I will send you his contact information. We saw another Temple in Keelung, which is a port area. This one had a large outdoor area with some huge statutes. I will post photos. They also had a nice gift shop. A good place to buy little trinkets at reasonable costs. We then went to a state park on the coast near Keelung that is known for its very interesting and unique sandstone formations. There is one in particular that is shaped like the head of an Egyptian Queen. There must not be too many personal injury lawsuits there as there were lots of walkways without railings that were a little precarious.

Finally, we ended our tour with a stop at a handicraft market in Taipei. I purchased a chop, which is a type of Chinese carved stamp with your name written in Chinese. I had Kai's Chinese name engraved on it. The handle has a carved rooster since Kai was born in the year of the Rooster.

After our tour we had a nice lunch at our hotel and then spent the afternoon packing. We checked out late and took a bus to the airport. I have changed my mind, the taxi was better. The bus made a lot of extra stops that made the savings not really worth it as we already had a long day ahead of us.

The flight from Taipei from LAX had terrible turbulence. I wasn nauseaous for the first half of the trip and definitely could not sleep. We had a bassinet for Kai which was nice. He really didn't fuss too much. At one point though he was crying and wouldn't calm with a bottle. I adjusted him on my lap and his eyes caught the chairside TV and he was instanly transfixed! This child at eight months does not know how to eat from a spoon, but he likes to watch TV and is dying for a coke! Yep, whenever one of us had a can of coke (our comfort food) he would grab for it and try to pull it to his lips and stick his lips out like he knows how to sip from a can!

By the way the vending machines there mostly do not sell American sodas. They do sell Asparagus juice though if you really have a hankering for some.

When we finally made it to LAX I was a zombie. We ate mexican food and tried to stay awake for the layover. The flight from California was 4.3 hours on Delta/Song. They had chairside TVs with movies, inflight trivia games (with lots of fashion and hair questions . . . weird), music, direct TV channels like CNN, Cartoon Network etc. etc. It helped pass the time. This time Kai was on our laps, which his preferred way of sleeping. When we landed in California we stopped to put Kai's little feet on the ground as he is a citizen automatically once he arrives in the US. Kai was pretty excited.

Kai was always very quiet when were out in public in Taipei. The Taiwanese people would try to coax him to smile or laugh and he would just stare. Once we hit California he was laughing at every Chinese person he saw as if to say, "HEY, you are here too??" There was Chinese airport worker at LAX who was clucking his tongue at Kai and Kai was just squirming and laughing. I also think Kai perks up in the cooler, fresh air over here.

Our friend Ashley picked us up at the airport and had meals and flowers and welcome home signs for us at our house. So sweet of her. We slept most of the day and had her lasagna for dinner. You can only guess how much that was appreciated. We were SOOOoooo tired.

Kai woke up overnight several times in a little bit of terror upon not recognizing the new place, we finally put him between us on the king Bed so that he would see us if he woke. He seems to be doing better tonight. We are really looking forward to some routine in his life as it will really be good for him.

Well, this will probably be it for the blog other than a few photos. Thank you to all of you for your prayers and good wishes and advice. We have enjoyed sharing this trip with you.

Love, Adam Connie and Kai