Sleep? I vaguely remember sleep.

It takes this much stuff to get us to Taiwan. Gone are the days of single carry-on travel!

As happy as I am to be in Taipei, all I can think right now is, “Surely he must sleep sometime!?” We’re ensconced in the Golden China Hotel, on the 12th floor, and thanks to the miracle of Tien and Mei-Ru, we even have soft mattresses because the maid and her helper just left after putting extra padding on our beds. All Roni and I wanted was to sink into the softness and sleep a couple hours. But J will have none of it. He has hollered, sung, thrashed, and generally made himself very unpopular. He has also proven more stubborn than his parents. We tried talking gently, ordering, putting him on step, confiscating BowBow, and just generally thinking bad thoughts about him, but he would not lie down, would not be quiet while not lying down, and would not stand for either of us to sleep. So I’m writing this. It’s 9:38 A.M. Taipei time.

It was similar on the plane once he woke up. He couldn’t stand that Roni, early on, or I later in the flight were still sleeping and poked, kicked and shouted until we gave up.

Sure, here it looks like he is sleeping like an angel, but this is at 9:30 at home, while we waited for Tina to pick us up.


Other than that, and right now, headachy and cranky, that seems like a lot, the trip went well. We went out for Mongolian stir-fry because there was no food left in the house, then separately ran last minute shopping errands. Tina got us to the airport in plenty of time, our flight was pleasant – frill-less economy seats, but the attendants were friendly, the plane was clean, and we all had our own seatback screens. Great lavender hand lotion in the bathroom.

J kept fairly busy with pipe cleaners, tinker toys, markers and a spirograph set. Not to mention Shaun the Sheep videos. I had so many toys for him, as well as the paperwork, my knitting, and enough reading in case we were stranded on the tarmac for weeks, not to mention snacks and lotions and potions, that I could barely lift my carry-on bag, much less fit it under the seat. But we went through most of it – except the knitting (I managed 6 rows of scarf) and the reading (I got through one Vanity Fair article). Traveling with a 4 year old is very different than traveling with my friends. My world travel buddy Andrea never required a lot of entertaining. He also turned out to be surprisingly (and newly) modest– he refused to change out of his pajamas unless Roni and Mom would hold up blankets to protect his privacy.

Mom and I tried to be adventurous in our meal choices and regretted it at breakfast – the Chinese option turned out to be bland sweet potatoes in gelatinous rice with optional fish flavoring and what we thought was chocolate frosted cake was tofu. Mom kindly offered to switch with Roni, but he declined to give up his chicken patty and pancakes.

Mei-Ru met us at the airport and whisked us to the Golden China, where we even recognized the front desk staff. There is a new bakery next door, so we found the ATM and after a brief stop at

Starbucks for Roni’s wellbeing, we picked out a variety of mystery pastries, came back to the room, and attempted that doomed naptime.

Mei-Ru is picking us up at 11:00 for lunch and a trip to the weekend craft market, which was one of my favorite tourist parts of our last trip here. Roni and I have promised not to turn on each other out of exhaustion.

We don’t see D until Thursday, which seems very far away at the moment. But we’ll all handle it better with a couple of days to acclimate. And maybe sleep. Have I mentioned sleep?

P.S. added later - 86 degrees at 6:30 A.M. when we walked out of the airport, and the humidity was like breathing semi-solid air. But I almost like it, because it makes it feel like we really are somewhere different. Counteracts the Starbucks a little.

We’re a day ahead here, on the other side of the international date line, so it is Sunday.

I forgot to mention our J scare. The Starbucks is on a corner, with two perpendicular entrances, both with automatic sliding doors. J, unwatched, was standing near one watching the scooters roar by. He stepped close enough that the door opened. One more step to see better and he was out and the door closed behind him. He didn’t know where to stand to get it to open again – must have just seemed like a wall sprang up. So when I turned around he was screaming Mama! and racing around the corner to look for me. We all darted out various doors to chase after him. He’s so good about sticking close that we were all briefly freaked out and he stuck to my hand during the rest of our walk.