At the end of July, we spent 5 days in Taipei with the Liu family. Everyone, from Wai Pao and Wai Gung to Isaac and Elena met up in Taipei for the start of a 2.5 week family reunion. The main purpose of this trip was to celebrate Nai Nai's 98th birthday in Taipei. After that, we continued on to tour parts of Eastern China for 10 days.

July 21: We got up at 5 am that morning and loaded up all our bags into the SUV we hired to take us to Logan Airport. Then we flew from Boston to Detroit. Here, Aurora and Jon are chilling in the Detroit airport.


Albert, Julie, Isaac and Elena were on the same flight from Detroit to Tokyo to Taipei as we were. We met up with them near our gate.


Luckily, Aurora had her own seat for the Boston to Asia flights, so Jon boarded first to set up her carseat (always at a window seat). Aurora and Kathy boarded later. Here Aurora is getting comfy for the long flight (13 hours) from Detroit to Tokyo. And soon after the plane took off, Jon and Aurora were both fast asleep.



July 23, 2009: We lost a day crossing the International Dateline, and arrived in Taipei on the evening of the 22nd. Aurora and Kathy were jetlagged for days. This is before 6 am on our first morning at the Howard International House Hotel in Taipei. Aurora woke up a little past 5 am and was ready to explore! While Jon slept in the bedroom, Aurora pushed her new pink stroller all over the living room, played with the buckles, etc.


At one point, she even managed to get to a box of Cheerios on the desk and pull it down. Here she is wondering how all those Cheerios ended up on the carpet!


Every morning, the whole family met for a buffet breakfast in the hotel. Here we are about to set off to see some of Taipei.


Outside of Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world. When Jon and I were last in Taipei four years ago, it was the tallest building.


Meeting one of the Damper Baby mascots.


View from Taipei 101. Nai Nai's apartment building is across the park, the third building from the right.


We got to go out on the Observation Deck this time (it wasn't open yet four years ago). It was really windy up there, but Aurora loved it!


Jon and Aurora goofing around in front of a mural of the tallest buildings in the world.


Checking out the giant damper (and another Damper Baby) that helps keep the building from swaying too much!


There was a special exhibit of deep ocean coral at Taipei 101. Here Aurora is showing Wai Pao that there are lots of fish in that display case.


We all went to Nai Nai's place for lunch that day. She has a great view of 101 from her living room window!


Nai Nai is happy to see three of her great grand kids.


That night, Aurora experienced the first of many banquets in Taipei. Here she is showing Jon how to use his chopsticks and enjoying her first tastes of shark fin soup. Mmmmm!


By the end of the banquet, Aurora and her "cousin" Ryan were tuckered out!



July 24, 2009: Here Aurora is trying on some new "bracelets" she found. She's really getting into jewelry these days (Jon better watch out!). We had a banquet lunch at Uncle #5's official government residence that day (forgot to take photos, but the taxi driver sure was surprised to drop a bunch of Americans off at the Premier's residence and see us stroll right in through the security gates!). The funny thing, Uncle #5 doesn't even live there - to help out with Nai Nai, he stays in a room in her apartment and his family lives in their house in Hsinchu!


That evening, we celebrated Nai Nai's 98th birthday at the Taipei World Trade Center. As you can see, it was a special occasion and everyone got dressed up.


Here Aurora is being shy with Uncle #5.


Even at 98, Nai Nai had no trouble blowing out the candles or cutting her cake!


Everyone sang Happy Birthday and showered her with good wishes.


A Chinese tradition is to serve peaches for longevity. Here Aurora enjoys a steam bun shaped like a longevity peach.



July 25, 2009: We spent the morning visiting the graves and paying our respects to Kathy's relatives. These are taken at Kathy's Yeh Yeh's grave, in the Air Force Military Cemetery. It was so humid that day, Kathy's camera fogged up!


These are taken at Kathy's Wai Pao and Wai Gung's gravesite, on Yangmingshan. In the last photo, Aurora is paying her respects to her great-great grandmother.



July 26, 2009: We spent the day at Window on China theme park. It contains the world's second largest collection of miniature structures. It was really hot that day, but luckily the theme park had misters to keep guests cool. We started in "Mini Taiwan" where Aurora enjoyed models of the highway, airport, and an amusement park, complete with moving cars, planes, and rides. She stood at the amusement park for quite a while, clapping along to the music!


We then moved on to Mainland China, where there were displays of pandas, the Temple of Heaven, and the Forbidden City. We should have paid more attention to the models of the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven to get a better feel of the sizes of each. When we were actually standing at each in China the following week, they were so crowded, it was hard to sense how grand and immense it all was.


Aurora loves to mimic others. Here she is looking at the map, since that is what Mama and Wai Pao were just doing!


After lunch, we took Aurora on her first carousel ride. We assume that this was not Elena's, Amy's or Albert's first ride.


The Taiwanese version of Disney's "Small World" ride is a gondola ride around "Mini Europe".


We then wandered over to see Mini USA.


We ended with a train ride back to where we began.


That evening was our last in Taipei. Nai Nai treated us to dinner at the Grand Hotel, and then we had to say good-bye to all our Taiwan relatives.



July 27, 2009: Early in the morning, we got up and headed to the airport for our flight to Beijing. Here Aurora demonstrates how experienced she already is as a traveller, confidently walking down the jetway to the plane.