Arrival in TaiPei....

Well, we got here. The travel was 2 hours from Boone to Charlotte via bus beginning at 4:30am.

Of course, here we are at 4:30 am heading out. Don't we all look so awake and ready to roll.

Ahh, Charlotte-Douglas Airport at last. I kind of forgot to take a picture while we were here but I guess it isn't that big of a deal since it is just a local airport. Any way, continueing on with the story about the travel. The departure from Charlotte-Douglas was at 9:00am est. This leg of the trip was very quiet. I didn't really have much to say about this other than I had to pee for like three hours while on the plane.

To the left is a picture of us on the monorail at Dallas-Fortworth International Airport. It is hard to believe just how big this airport was.

From Dallas-Fortworth, we took a 13 and a half hour flight to Nairita international airpot in Tokyo. It was really interesting the difference in the size of plane we took. Our first plane had less than 100 people on it but the one we took from Dallas was huge. I think they said a 770 or something like that. Any way, there were just over 220 passengers on this flight.

Once we landed in Tokyo, we were all screened to make sure we weren't carrying the Swine Flu over to Japan. As you can see to the left we were screened with a thermal imaging camera to check for fever. We were also given surveys to fill out to check for illness prior to getting on the flight.

After we arrived in Tokyo we had a three hour layover then we departed for Taipei, another 3 hour flight. Turns out the layover was a really good thing, because we got quaranteened on the plane for about 30-40 minutes. It would seem that one of the passengers about four rows behind me, was sick. The Japanese officials gave him a quick blood screening on the plane and then we had to wait to find out the results. Obviously, since I am not in quaranteen in Tokyo, he came up negative, but still it was a big scare. It was also, really funny because had we been quaranteened, half the class wouldn't have been, but the professors and myself and few others would have been stuck in Tokyo for three days. I did take a couple of pictures for the screening process we went through. THe officials were really nice considering the circumstances of what they were having to perform.

To the left is Nairita International Airport. To the right is more of the screening process that we went through on the plane before they let us off the plane. To the bottom left is the shopping area/ food area in Nairita International airport. I know you can't tell from the picture, but can you believe that you buy anything just right out there in public. They had beer, liquor, food, gifts, magazines, books, etc all right there. Unlike America, people can just buy alcohol and drink it right there, even in the airport. I guess since it is more widely accepted and open in other countries that there aren't as many problems with it as there are in the US. I knew it was going to be like this , but to see it first hand was very impressive. All the people I met at the airport were so kind and didn't run you over trying to get to the next place they were going like in Charlotte. Ohh, before I forget,The funny thing to this story is that the very next day three Canadians were quaranteened at Nairita along with about 60 other people sitting near them for testing positive for the Swine Flu. I guess we got really lucky with only such a minor scare. Any way, moving on, We took a three hour connector flight from Nairita to Taiwan. Needless to say at this point, I really don't remember much more of this flight than the take off, landing and the random bits inbetween where I constantly woke up. I remember the food being really good on this flight thoguh. Turns out that airline food as a whole isn't as bad as I had heard it would be considering it is all basically microwaved.

After arriving in Taiwan we traveled another hour by bus to our hotel. Here is a picture of the inside of the bus we were taking. I must admit that most of our travel accomidations have been very nice to say the least. We are staying at the hotel flowers in TaiPei.

And here are a couple of pictures of our Hotel and my room. I share a room with Charles, but he is cool. He was in my Japanese class. I hope to get more posted soon. It may be a day or so behind what we are actually doing because loading up all the pictures and movies is taking a while. I hope that the process will go faster since I am getting more familiar with using this blog.