Pre-Residency Trip to Taiwan!

After finishing up my last rotation ever as a medical student, I flew back to Taiwan for a quick trip. Lucky for me, my parents are always up for upgrading our plane tickets if at all possible, especially for a long 13 to 14 hour plane ride as is the case from SF to Taipei.

On the menu....

Can't forget the ice cream on board!

It's pretty crazy how my energy level is these days especially when I look back and remember that I used to be able to not sleep the entire overnight plane ride to Taiwan, land at 5 to 6 am local time, and then have enough energy to last the entire day in Taiwan before going to bed at 9 pm. That's me not sleeping for 36 to 48 hours!! Oh, those were the good middle school and high school days. Now, that's certainly not the case anymore. As soon as I finished eating the late night dinner, I completely zonked out for nearly 7 hours.

A cool little travel pack

Sleep time...

After I woke up I decided to watch Spectre 007 on my tv screen (another big and positive change to flying) followed up by another 1 hour nap. Spectre was good although I wouldn't say it's one of the better James Bond movies. After waking up, I watched Big Hero 6 while eating the morning breakfast meal. Practically everyone had told me that Big Hero 6 was a really good movie and so many little kids have seen it that I felt that it was about time to catch up with the times and watch it for myself. I must say...I teared up quite a few times during the movie, basically because of Tadashi!! Anyway, solid cartoon movie and one of the better recent ones!

Finally, after eating and another 40 minute nap, we arrived! Even though I slept close to 9 hours on a 13 hour flight, I still felt exhausted!! Seriously getting old, sigh.

Spotted the giant Taiwanese flag as the plane was pulling in

Welcome to Taiwan!

We left Taoyuan International Airport and took a quick bus ride to the Taoyuan High Speed Rail Station where I grabbed some 7-eleven food. Taiwan is known for its amazing convenience store food and atmosphere. Whether its 7-eleven, Family Mart, OK, or Hi-Life, all the convenience stores here never let me down. An interesting fact is that Taiwan has the world's highest density of convenience stores per person, with a rough estimate of 1 store per 2,500 people. It's pretty common to see multiple convenience stores on one corner of the street here.

A korean BBQ + kimchi onigiri (NT28) and garlic spicy cold noodles (NT39) from 7-eleven translates to just about $2 in American money and a very, very full Evie. Solid food.

Once the high speed rail train arrived, we took it all the way to the last stop, 左營 Zuoying, which is in 高雄Kaohsiung. My cousin picked us up and we drove back home to 屏東Pingdong! All this and it wasn't even noon yet!