First Full Day

Jet Lag was in full effect for me today so I was up at 7am with ease this Tuesday. That would be Monday 5pm central U.S. time. I'm not a morning person at all by the way, so this is a very bizarre thing going on here. I'll probably do a whole post on jet lag itself but will keep that separate from trip updates to not drag on too much and reserve it for those who are curious.

We ran by my grandparents' place to visit with them. They actually live with my youngest uncle so we get to visit with his family too. For anyone who is not familiar with most East Asian culture there is a great deal of emphasis placed on Confucian-based ways of life. So a great deal of respect and care is given to the older members of your family. As such you don't see many grandparents placed in nursing homes or things like that. Instead you will see them with their own home, with children giving as much care as they can or if that's too difficult the children will have them live with them. With my family the children who live in Taiwan each have a special room for the grandparents to live in or use when they visit.

After a couple of hours my dad, brother, and Shawna all decided to walk around the area and show her around. We headed toward one of the large and well known department stores in the area. Department stores are quite popular in Taiwan are for them what malls are to Americans. They are typically quite large 10+ floor buildings with just about everything you'd every need inside of them.

 A crew making an amazing genre of food. Dim Sum. If you don't know what it is educate yourself here (uncultured SWINE!): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dim_sum