Day 10 — Taipei, Taiwan

6/10/2024 Monday

Itinerary:

• Incheon Airport
• Matina Lounge
• Taoyuan Airport
• Dinner
• Grandpa’s home 

We left Myeongdong early today as we have a 10:30am flight to catch to Taiwan. We had arranged for a driver with a big car to pick us up as we have 4 large luggage. It took us about an hour drive to Incheon airport and there was no traffic. After we checked in and printed our boarding passes, we had to queue up to drop off our luggage and the line was super long. Took us 30 minutes to drop off our luggage and after that, we also had a long line to go through the security line. It was another 30 plus minutes. So it took us over an hour when we arrive at the airport to getting inside. There were too many people travelling and I wasn’t expecting it. I thought it was Monday and shouldn’t take us this long. Luckily, I always try to arrive 3 hours before our flight, so we had time to visit the lounge. The lounge at Korea was pretty good and I left early to go buy some gifts to bring to Taiwan and US. I had to run to the gate after buying the gifts as I was getting close to boarding time.

After a quick 2 hour and 40 minutes, we arrived in Taoyuan Airport and went to pick up our sim card. And we were picked up by Anthony’s cousin. It took about an hour to go from the airport to our hotel in Da’an district.

We checked into our hotel and Anthony and his cousin went to a cafe to catch up while I took the kids around. It was so hot and humid, that we bought some snacks and drinks ar 7 eleven and headed back to our hotel quickly. There was not many stores in the area as I heard from Anthony’s cousin that this is a rich residential area, so they don’t want too many people and the rents are high, so not many stores want to open here.

Afterwards, Anthony and his cousin came back to our hotel and we all walked to the restaurant that his cousin has booked in advance. We waited at the restaurant as we were a bit early before their opening time. Soon after, Anthony’s uncle and his auntie as well as his cousin’s wife and 2 kids came. We had a room for all 10 of us and the dinner was good.

After dinner, we went with his uncle to take the metro to see Anthony’s grandfather who is 105 years old. We spent some time with him before we left for our hotel as we were all tired since we woke up at 5am this morning to get ready for our flight. 

Our main purpose for this Taiwan trip was to see Anthony’s grandfather as he is getting so old. I am glad that we were able to see him.