18TH DECEMBER - 3RD JANUARY

Taipei
18th - 19th December

We arrived at Taipei airport on our KLM Asia Jumbo Jet, which it has to be said was the best flight we’ve had so far. The seats were really roomy and comfortable, and the food was simply delicious! First things first we needed some cash, and Jerry had advised that it would be best if we’d got it from the airport. To my astonishment as soon as I had requested that the cash machine gave instructions in English, it started talking to me!! I guessed it was a flavour of the technology orientated country which would be our home for the next couple of weeks!!!

We met Jerry outside the airport and he whisked us off in the direction of Taipei. It was about an hours

drive to the city from the airport, and on the way we caught our first glimpse of the Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in the world!! We were quite surprised at how chilled the drive was - considering it’s such a busy city, and in no time we were at Jerry’s apartment, where we met his wife, Brenda, and their son, Ian. For those of you who don’t know, Jerry works for Aria Technology, my old company. He’d been over to Manchester a couple of times, which is when I met him, and he offered us a place to stay if we ever wanted to visit Taiwan.

After settling in to our room, and a cup of tea, we all went off for a walk to see the surrounding area. Round the corner was a pretty Westerner friendly supermarket, and a McDonalds - Brenda explained that McDonalds and Starbucks are very prevalent in Taiwan. America seems to have quite an influence!! We walked down to the local department store -