Hello Everybody… I am now here in Taipei, Taiwan after over 24 hours of travel. The experience was very interesting. In short, it was very tiring, but a good trip. There are couple of things at I have learned on this trip. First, do not fly on a Boeing 777 aircraft for any 16 hour trips. Even though, it is the newest and the best in its technology, it is actually pretty small plane. The seats were not comfortable. The food was bad. The service was bad. There was no stretching room to walk around on the plane. And the video games on the Entertainment system sucks. 16 hours on a 777 was very, very painful. Second thing I�ve learned, the services aboard American airline companies are no comparison to others around the world. From Hong Kong to Taipei, we rode on Cathay Pacific Airline and my goodness it was incredible. It was only about 1 � hour flight, maybe even a little bit shorter then the flight from Houston to Atlanta, but the services on board was incredible. I can say this, their service in the coach section was better than my experience in first class from Houston to Atlanta in the US. I mean for such a short flight we actually got a full dinner and it is real food. Once again, the service was incredible. Finally, the third thing that I have learned, when flying over north poll around December, watch out for Santa.

Our trip from Houston started on Dec 14, 2002 4:00 am. From my house in downtown Houston, we caught a taxi to IAH. After about 2 hours of waiting and processing, we were finally on our way to Newark, NJ. The fight to Newark was not bad at all. Now, the so called �breakfast� on board needs a little improvement. Yeah, I mean, one banana and special K. umm umm� The Newark airport was very new and very, very sharp. We had about an hour to walk to our international terminal, which was only couple of terminals down. It gave us plenty of time to grab some real food. Around 12 pm we boarded the flight toward Hong Kong. When I first got aboard the 777, I did not know what I was about to go through. I thought� cool� your own personal tv and game center. This will be wonderful. After waking up after a �long� nap, I�ve realized that I still have 12 hours of flying time to go. That is when I realized, �man! It �s a long flight!� There were only about 8 different channels of programming on the mini tv on the airplane. 8 channel�s is not bad, but their program were only about 3-4 hours long each. This mean they repeat. So on the flight to Hong Kong, I�ve watched Austin Power�s Goldmember for about 3 � 4 times. About 10 hours in to the flight, I didn�t want to eat anymore. My legs were tired from sitting, Hsiu Hsiu was tired. All I wanted to do was to get to Hong Kong and get to Taipei. When we finally got to Hong Kong, we only had an hour to get to our flight and the terminal was not close at all. Luckily, there was a Cathay agent waiting for us at the arriving gate. See, once again, SERVICE. She was wonderful, she ran us down to the ticket counter, got our boarding passes and rushed us through to the departing gate. During the meantime, I got stopped by the Hong Kong airport security for random check. But it was quickly processed through because of harassment from our Cathay agent. When we got to the boarding terminal, they were originally going to break Hsiu Hsiu and my seats up, because of our arrival time, but we told time that we would like to be seated together. They went on the plane made some seats exchange and got us some seats next to each other. Service!! After a short flight of one and a half hours, we landed in Taiwan. It was very strange entering Taiwan as an American (non-citizen), but in some ways it was quicker process. How strange right?

Well, after we got our luggage, we waited for Hsiu Hsiu�s parents to arrive to pick her up. This was my first time meeting her parents. After greeting her parents, which I hope I made an ok impression, and helping Hsiu load her stuff in the car. We said good bye and I am off to my grandmother�s place. On the way back home my uncle took me to a �goat soup� place for some night snack. It sounds pretty nasty, but it was very awesome. The foods here are great!! So after about 27 hours of travel, I am finally here in Taipei. My uncle was nice and gave me a cell phone to use while I am in Taiwan. Well, everyone has one here so� I am off to bed and the adventure begins tomorrow!!!