Stay positive.
Don’t talk about food.
Stay positive.
Don’t talk about food.
Fuck it. The food on the flight was terrible, and our first order of business was eating.
We got to my in-laws’ at around 5:00 AM, and they were up and waiting for us. (My eldest child couldn’t be bothered to wake up for our arrival.)
After killing a bit of time, Chuwan and I went walking, where I managed to find some early-morning green onion pancakes and garlic bread.
Side Note: I fucking love the fact that bakeries in Taiwan sell different types of bread rather than exclusively selling pastries and cakes like back in Phoenix. I hate cake bakeries. I love bread bakeries.
More from the “a certain amount of negativity is inevitable” department: That miserable seat on the plane for 12 hours has fucked up my lower back. My maximum walking distance was minimal today.
After a couple of kilometers, I was done for. If I can’t get past this quickly, it will be a problem. Here, you walk.
While Chuwan and her parents chatted, I slept for three hours on their sofa. That saved me from listening to but not participating in their discussions, which I cannot understand.
True story: When I can understand what they’re talking about, they’re talking about eating.
My eldest was finally awake, and the three of us went out, on foot, to — you guessed it — eat. It was my kid’s idea, not mine, but we went to a Taiwanese steakhouse. They’re cheap, they come with an egg, noodles, and all-you-can eat soup, ice cream and soda.
The presentation is always fun, too, as the food comes out sizzling on the plate.
Just walking to the steakhouse, I could tell my back hadn’t recovered yet, and it was still too early to check into the hotel. Returning to the in-laws, I spent time “fixing” my time.
You lose a day traveling from the USA to Taiwan, and while it’s just an arbitrary thing to a human, your tech doesn’t think so. One year, I lost a really long Apple Watch daily exercise streak when I jumped the International Dateline. I had time to complete the daily workout in my 24-hour day, even with the long flight, but when my phone and watch updated automatically to the new day, poof, my 400+ day streak was ended.
I’m still bitter.
So now, I make sure one of my devices is set not to update the date and time automatically, so I’ve got something to work with until I straighten it all out. I had no activity challenge going on this time. However, I still needed to complete my NYT Crossword and Duolingo exercises before I lept my iPad into the future like all my other devices.
We checked into our hotel room, which is within walking distance from my in-laws’ and after getting settled in… my wife and child decided to go to the Raohe night market to… you guessed it: eat.
I was game. My back was not. I bailed out at a nearby MOS Burger for dinner, and they continued without me.
That three-hour nap earlier in the day, and shower immediately afterwards, really seemed to help with the jet lag, if not with my back, but by the time I was back to the hotel, it was still early evening and I could feel the inevitable call of the circadian rhythm fighting back.
I decided if one shower earlier in the day helped, maybe another would help now. Then I realized the hotel had a tub, and I could soak my aching back.
Do you see where this is going? I fell asleep in the bath. I don’t know for how long. Luckily, I’m just too big to slide under the water and drown.
I didn’t actually spend the night in the tub and even managed to stay awake until about 9:00 PM before, inevitably, succumbing to sleep.
As I went to bed, I hoped I’d sleep till 6:00 AM.