Human trafficking?

Just something on my mind over this trip that I will share more about later. Don't let me forget.

Oh... and empowering young people. What if we could... because we will, and we must... empower them to act on the issues of this world. They care... or they might not care because they are not aware... in a world of what if's... let's change it to a world of let's do it... together... as one global community.

Somewhat out of the blue, but this is where my mind goes... will right more later. The cafe I'm in is closing now!

Kaohsiung & Kenting - Beaches of Taiwan

We just returned back from a nice relaxing trip, first to Kaohsiung and then to the Southern coast of Taiwan - Kenting. My cousin moved to Taiwan last year and started a test prep'ish school (more than just test prep but you get the gist) in Kaohsiung. We jumped on the bullet train from Taipei and arrived in Kaohsiung about an hour and a half later, hung out and got a taste of his life. We went to Modern Toilet for dinner that night - twas quite entertaining. I mean, while you eat, you sit on a toilet and depending on what you order, you are likely going to eat out of a toilet (or a sink), and well, if you don't for whatever reason, you eat ice cream that looks like poo from a squatty toilet. Yes, it was quite wonderfully disgusting? How else do you describe it. It was fun though. We had a great time. The kind of humor my family enjoys. Then we played some guitar hero at his place, and I introduced the wonderful game of blokus to my cousin.

The next morning a driver came to pick us up for a day long drive down and tour of the Kenting area - the Southern coast of Taiwan. It was prettier than I expected. My dad had set my expectations low reminding me that it's not Hawaii or the Caribbean. I had Jersey shore in my mind, so I was pleasantly surprised. We stayed in Kenting for a couple of nights, vegged at the pool and beach for one of the days, and the next day went hiking through some national forest with lots of interesting trees and caves that we wandered through. Then headed back to Kaohsiung where we jumped onto the bullet train back to Taipei.

pictures to come....

Taipei - nonstop eating...

Wow it sure has been a whirlwind, super busy trip so far. After we all arrived in Taipei - mom first, then my brother, then me, and then dad - all arriving on different days and from different cities - our crazy days of meeting with friends and family, constant eating began and continued for what I feared might be never ending. Now, you might think - eating - Tammy loves to eat so she must love that. Well, I do love to eat, and while in the US, I usually say "I eat anything". Well, that's not totally true. In the US, I am pretty comfortable eating anything "American" or international foods that are "Americanized"; but I know myself well enough to know that in Asia, I definitely do not eat everything - in fact, far from it. In Taiwan, it's always hard because we're constantly meeting up with family and friends who tend to invite us to "nicer" meals - meaning, no beef and broccoli or general tso's chicken, but fancier seafood dishes - some of which are quite normal and really nothing to be afraid of, but I'm quite strange when it comes to certain sea creatures, and well, also some body parts hailing from some land creatures as well.

Anyhow, in an effort to not look like a totally uncultured Chinese-American kid, I try my best to try as much as I can, but quite frankly, some of it just makes me gag. Over the years, I have learned to discretely sneak food from my plate to my brother sitting next to me, but that can only get you so far. Strangely, eating can be quite a tiring and stressful times.

But anyhow, literally, our schedule everyday for a few days was: wake up, eat breakfast, head out to town, meet with some family friend for a nice lunch, hang out in the city, snack more, meet with another family friend for dinner, hang out, maybe hit the night market for some more food, head home, sleep... repeat the same the next day.

Lots of eating... lots of walking... very tiring...

Oh... don't get me wrong... there's awesome food here too. I love the street food here, and the pastries, and the coffee and milk tea and interesting fun drinks like bubble tea... it's just the "complicated" stuff I'm a bit tired of.

Enroute to Taipei!

It's been awhile since I last posted. I think I owe an update on life the past couple months. Here are a handful of things (in no particular order at all)...

1. I entered the world of twitter. Still trying to figure it out and all, but somehow I got it to connect to my facebook status (which btw I never used to update...so if you're wondering why all of a sudden I am... that's why). That's also why I have not replied back to any responses you may have sent on facebook - sorry but thank u for the responses - I do appreciate them!
2. StartingBloc Social Innovation Competition has occupied a lot of my time the past couple months and this past weekend, 1 of the 18 teams was crowned the winner! All the teams did an awesome job - I'm very proud of them... and gives me confidence in the future of our world - that there are a generation of people who not only want to, but can effectively collaborate and innovate and tell/sell a story around why we must change whatever it is we need to do to create a more sustainable future. A lot of work leading it but very rewarding as well.
3. My family is really cool and I love them.
4. I'm snowboarding and attempting to play sports on my knee again - the knee itself doesn't feel great but playing outside makes me feel really great and energized!
   
5. SmileTrain won an oscar award for Smile Pinki! Maybe I'll blog about SmileTrain another time, but I would say my experience interning there opened my eyes up to the world and to the issues our world faces... so the organization means a lot to me!
6. Gmail Offline capability... is great. On my flight, I was able to delete and respond to a bunch of old emails... going from (literally) over 3000 UNREAD items to 628 total emails!
   
7. I'm sure there's other things, but that's it for now... but last update - I'm headed to Taiwan right now to hang out with family and celebrate my grandpa's 90th birthday.
   

So here I am, sitting in Narita International Airport for my connecting flight to Taiwan. In addition to Taipei where my gramms, gramps, and other family live; we're supposed to travel around the country a bit...

Thought I might share about my eventful (or not so eventful but nonetheless memorable) journey thus far. So my flight this morning left from Philly at 5:35AM. Horrible time of the day. Since I would have had to be there around 3'ish, I figured I might as well just go earlier when I could con someone into driving me to the airport (thanks Jenny). I was also worried that I'd snooze away my alarm and miss my flight entirely. So I arrive at the airport around 1:30AM or so, thinking I'd be able to go through security at least and hang out by the gate. That was a negative. It was so eerie because the airport was so empty - void of cars and people. A couple of airport workers and a handful of passengers similar to me; but not much else. The security checkpoint area was closed apparently until 4AM, so I took over a nice, soft bunch right outside the checkpoint. Not having passed through security, I was a little less comfortable with completely zonking out... but I did end up getting some shut eye here and there. I mean, I was pretty bored out there, and tired. I started taking pictures of myself (how vain of me) and my sleeping quarters. Here a couple of (glamorous...hehe..) shots. Umm... yeah, I was very bored and delirious.


So here was the next challenge that I was somewhat stressed about. Because I am cheap and was using miles and points to get to Taipei, I had booked 2 completely separate flights - totally unconnected. I was concerned I would have to go through customs and all in Tokyo, and then re-enter to get to Taipei. I had this whole luggage strategy in my mind which in the end, got all taken care of during my layover in Houston. Too boring to explain. In Tokyo, I did not have to go through customs and I was able to follow a group of other folks who were traveling to Taipei and squeeze myself onto their shuttle, and, well, here I am, getting ready to board my next leg to my final destination - gramms and gramps in taipei.

Signing off until the adventures truly begin in taiwan!