Three Peas In A Pod

Wednesday, August 27th was the last of what seemed like an endless string of tearful goodbyes. There was something slightly liberating about walking into the Raleigh/Durham airport knowing that I don't have to do that anymore. We will all adjust to this move like other moves in the past and soon the distance won't leave such a knot in our stomachs. Thankfully, we have already planned to return to the States for the holidays, so there is great comfort in knowing that we will see everyone again. Until that happy time, let me take y'all through the last few days...

We hopped aboard our plane to Chicago a little bit early. A sure sign of a great travel day to come...or so we thought. We sat on the runway for a half hour due to a torrential rainstorm. This put us a little close to our connecting flight, but in theory we should still be able to make it with a little time to spare for trips to the bathroom and a quick bite to eat...or so we thought. The Chicago airport doesn't make connections for international flights all that convenient. We had to leave the terminal we were in, exit the airport, take a tram to another terminal, check in (again) and go through security again. It's worthy to note that getting through security with a toddler in tow is not easy. Each time we have to do this it's a process of taking her out of her car seat, shoes off, everything on the conveyor belt, walk through metal detector, gather belongings off of the conveyor belt, put her back in the car seat, shoes back on and we're on our way again. Apparently Japan Airlines, the airline we took for this leg of the tip, knew all this and happily escorted us through some special line where they only checked our passports and then directly on the plane. God bless that man.

Completely starving and praying to the "Depends" God that we didn't wet ourselves, we got ourselves situated for a 12 hour flight to Tokyo, Japan in the bulkhead aisle of the business class section aboard the biggest plane I've ever been on. This was perfect set up for us (way to go, Matt)! Once in flight (and trips to the bathroom/diaper change) we were happily roaming about the 3 or 4 feet of space in front of us.

Hmmm...what to do with a toddler in a confined space for 12 hours? Well, I thought she'd sleep. Apparently I underestimated all the stimulation a plane ride can offer. Caitlin might have slept 45 minutes the entire ride. You can imagine how long her mommy and daddy slept! So, for the other 11 hours and 15 minutes we played with her magnet doodle pad, sorted "pet" rocks, "tullowed" (that's Caitlinese for colored) and stuck stickers everywhere she could. She stuck stickers on top of stickers. Paper? Oh yes, I packed plenty, but really who needs paper when she can stick them all over the plane? Better yet, all over her parents! The stickers became a much needed facial-type pore cleaner for me. Caitlin stuck them all over my face, quickly ripped them off and promptly stuck them on the next stationary object. Somehow Matt lucked out and only got them on every square inch of his shirt. We endlessly sang the ABC's, Ring Around the Rosie, Twinkle Twinkle and Mary Had a Little Lamb. We also ate Cheerios, fruit bars, puffs, chicken nuggets and drank a ton of milk. Of course, with drinking a ton of milk comes changing a lot of diapers. And with all that fun comes a lot of clean up. We chased crayons, Cheerios and rocks out from under our seats upon landing. We peeled stickers and Cheerios from our clothes. I feel completely indebted to the person who came up with washable crayons. We were quite a sight when we landed in Tokyo.

Luckily, we qualified to spend our layover in the lounge. There were very clean bathrooms, room to run and food to eat. We all cleaned up a bit and hopped aboard our next flight to the Taipei Airport. It was a 3 hour flight with the best and most cheerful service we've ever experienced. They showered us with more food, diapers, gifts for Caitlin, gave us children's books written in Japanese(nice gesture regardless of whether or not we could read them) and just loved to get Caitlin's attention. They also recognized how tired we were. I'm sure it wasn't hard to spot - given the serious luggage under our eyes. Depending on how you look at it, we unfortunately or fortunately missed out of most of this wonderful service. Caitlin's little eyes closed the second we were in flight. Matt and I took advantage of this and found ourselves sleeping within minutes. I felt someone put a blanket on me...not sure who it was, but thank you, thank you, thank you!

Alas, we landed in Taipei, Taiwan. It's now Thursday night and we've been in transit for 24 hours (we crossed the international date line and lost a day). Happily, all 5 of our bags popped up out of baggage land and back into our possession. Matt and I love to travel light. This whole maneuver from the US to Taiwan was anything BUT that. We had bags full of shampoo, wine, soap, toothpaste, conditioner, hair products and all sorts of liquids the packing company wouldn't take. We had clothes, sheets and towels just in case our shipment didn't show up promptly. We had tons of diapers, clothes, games and food to get Caitlin through the air travel. We had her car seat on wheels, Matt's laptop, our hard drive, my jewelry, cameras and important personal documents all in a million different bags. So, in total we had 5 suitcases, 1 diaper bag, 1 laptop bag, 1 game bag, 1 car seat on wheels and 1 important document bag. We had to be an absolute scream to watch! Needless to say, we needed one of those metal luggage carts to get anywhere. Actually, we needed at least 2 of those carts, but I couldn't steer one and pull Caitlin behind me with one hand. Funny thing about Asian people and carts. If they have just one piece of luggage that has wheels on it, they get a cart. Even if they have just a purse, you'll see them pushing a cart with the purse in the top basket. Not sure what the interest in carts is, but imagine the looks we received with a cart loaded with 8 pieces of luggage and a toddler on wheels kicking her feet every which way!

We made it through customs without a hitch and maneuvered through the airport to the waiting area. Last time I was here there was a happy little fellow holding a sign with our names on it. This time, no guy. We looked and walked (with our overloaded luggage cart), but still no guy. Matt bought a cell phone the last time he was here and planned to call the transportation company, but couldn't get the phone to work properly. Luckily a very sweet Taiwanese girl who had just returned home from the University of Florida insisted that we use her phone to find out what was going on. When we found out that there was no actual reservation for pick up she even offered to help get us to the hotel. We kindly refused , but what a kind gesture! She represented her country very well. Anyway, I changed a poopy diaper and Matt found another way to get us to the hotel. One more hour to go...I swear that this time when I put Caitlin back in her car seat she looked at me and said, "No more Mommy. Please."

We arrived at the Grand Hyatt Taipei sometime near 10:30 or 11:00pm on Thursday, August 28th. We were tired, hungry and confused, but mostly too tired to care. We slept so soundly, like three peas in a pod, tucked into a Taiwanese king sized bed. Ahhh...

At about 3:30am we awoke to a little girl saying "muscles" and trying to push us out of bed. Let the joys of jet lag begin!