The second week of our business trip was much like the first, meetings with our U.S. colleagues all morning followed by a usually large and spicy lunch and meetings on other ad hoc technical issues in the afternoon, then capped off typically by a very large dinner. Of course, I had to insist that one of these dinners was at
Latina, one of the many Brazilian
churrascarias in Shanghai. For the uninitiated,
Churrascarias are basically all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbecue/steakhouses. But it isn't a buffet - the servers bring out slab after slab of freshly roasted meat on pikes and stop by your table asking if you want a slice or two or ten! I usually go here for lunch, but since most of our lunches on this trip were at the other side of town, we had dinner here this time around. Dinner is about twice as expensive, which makes it about on par with what it would cost in the U.S. (lunch, however, is a very good deal at around $15 USD, all inclusive!). However, apparently sometimes at dinner there is live music! I always get a kick out of seeing foreign performers sing Chinese songs:
Our last day of work was Thursday, so on Friday, both Dr. Ying and I both began our sidetrips to Taiwan. For some reason, scheduling our airline route through Taiwan seems to make the airfare several hundred dollars cheaper, which works out well for those of us who have relatives and friends to visit in Taiwan. Incidentally, both of us did!
Going to Taiwan is always a rushed affair for me, because I usually don't spend many days there but I have many people to see all over the island. So for my first stop, I decided to go straight to my maternal grandmother's house in Hsinchu:
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| Grandma making some dinner |
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| I went hiking with Grandma the next morning. She said it had been years since she hiked this far, and I felt it too... I'm out of shape! |
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| Some live music on the trail! |
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| My aunt and cousins stopped by to visit! |
The next afternoon, I headed back up to Taoyuan where my paternal grandparents live. They are not doing very well these days... it's was really quite a shock to me because just last year they seemed to be that much more energetic. That said, it didn't stop them from going for their weekly hike either... which made two hikes in two days for me!
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| Cousin Tingen is now doing his mandatory military service. As a result, he's lost over 20 pounds since starting just a few months earlier! I should look into doing some boot camp :P |
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| A nice view of the reservoir |
After the hike, I made a special trip up to Taipei to see an friend that I hadn't seen since about 2002 or so! I first met Liz at a Chinese American Student Association meeting when I was a junior in college and we hung out at a few parties over the years as we shared interests in Chinese culture and fitness. Since then, she's gone on to become a Foreign Service Officer and is currently posted in Taiwan. She starts her next post in the Philippines next year so this trip was a great opportunity for us to get together!
With a bit of phone tag, we met up at the main metro station and headed over to a nearby park where we talked about her experience living overseas and my own upcoming overseas adventure and otherwise caught up. Eventually made our way to the famous Wisteria Tea House where we drank
a lot of tea and felt like idiots trying to unwrap the rice paper off of the sticky tea snacks. Finally, we had some potstickers for dinner and I headed back to Taoyuan. It was really great to see Liz doing well after all these years!
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| Gator Reunion at the Wisteria Tea House! |
The next day, Grandma got up bright and early to get me some breakfast before taking me downstairs to have the gate guard call a cab for me.
And with that, I met up with Dr. Ying again and we made our way back to the USA!
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| Travelers at the Delta Sky Club in Narita, Japan |
