Back to Taipei

It's been raining our whole time in Taitung, which curtailed our activities pretty significantly. We were supposed to leave today, but apparently there is no radar in the airport (?!?!), so the planes don't fly in the rain. (I'm glad I didn't know about the radar thing when we flew in!). Plan B involved taking a 6-hour train trip from Taitung back to Taipei. In the end, we are so glad we did this. The train was very comfortable, and except for the ridiculous amount of luggage we have, it was pretty easy to navigate. We loved getting out of the cities and seeing the countryside. Taiwan is SO beautiful. It is easy to see why the explorers called the island Formosa. Truly, it's exquisite!

Two women with two Chinese babies traveling through the countryside of Taiwan is akin to being exhibits in a zoo! Oh, the way the people stared. At one point, a junior high badmitton team got on the train with us. They gathered around us in a semi-circle to watch our every move. They even attempted to surreptitiously video us. It was hysterical!!! We finally turned around and started speaking with them, which caused whispers and giggles.

When we finally got off the train, we had so much luggage to haul and so little time that the people on our train car (not the badmitton team) were openly laughing at us. We have to admit, it was funny. In the end, each Taiwanese person grabbed one of our bags and hauled it off the train for us. That left us with all our bags on the train platform in Taipei in the rain at night. People were walking past us and pointing and laughing. It was okay - we were laughing at ourselves. We ended up moving the bags by placing Sara and Lucy at the bottom of the escalator and Amelia and me at the top and sending the bags, sans human escort, one by one up the escalator. Oh, Taiwan has never seen the likes of our luggage. The cab driver shrieked when we showed him what we had. Then he very sweetly loaded us up and took us to the hotel.

Note for future international adventures: no more large bags than there are adult humans to schlepp them!! Just saying.

We are happy to be back in Taipei and hope to take in some of the sites if it EVER stops raining!