Friday Morning in Tainan

Our first full day in Tainan, Taiwan is behind me. The Brackens met me at the hotel for breakfast before we started our day. The day was intended to be a day of recovery from the travel over.

After breakfast we drove into town to do a little shopping....mainly to get me some underclothes and a sport shirt to get me through the day with anticipation that my luggage would arrive by night fall. From there was we went to their off site storage site to pcik up some suitcases for our up coming journeys. From there they took me to see the new home they purchased in Tainan. They were able to sell their property in Kaohsiung and more than cover the new place. It would remind you more of a condominium. It is four floors. Because of a huge shortage for land, houses are built tall and narrow.

From there we found a nice authentic Chinese place to eat. Sister Bracken was very helpful in picking me out a couple of choices. But using the chop sticks to pick up noodles was a challenge enough. The place would remind you a little of a garage with a few cooking facilities. But the homemade noodles were awesome. We were covered by a shelter but you felt like you were eating in a garage with the garage door open. And the shelter proved valuable as the skies opened up and it poured. They really haven't had much sunshine since the typhoon moved through last week. Today's rain was a remnant of a major storm that hit Hong Kong.

Our final stop was to visit the church and the current studio apartment above it. The church, like the Taiwanese housing is deep but narrow. Sunday morning I'll get a picture or two to add here of it. Very nice facility in the business district of a campus area. We met a couple of the sisters of the church who were there working. They were all smiles.

As soon as I could after the visit to the church, I got back to the hotel, took a shower and changed into my new clothes, took a nap and got in some reading.

About 8:30 we went about a block down the street to eat. I really enjoyed the dish I found. It was a lightly fried quarter of dark meat chicken coated in a sweet honey sauce. The soup was good too...but the side dishes had me a little concerned so they remained as a nice decorations.

About 10:00 pm while finishing dinner, Brother Bracken got a call from the airport that my luggage had arrived and that they would bring it up tomorrow. He and Sister Bracken protested strongly on the phone that we wanted it tonight! By the time I got back to the hotel at 10:30, the airport lost and found had already called to say it would be 3:00 in the morning! With great difficulty, I was able to relay to the hotel staff that I desired to be woken up when it arrived.

Finally at 2:06 in the morning, after 52 hours of separation, I was reunited with my belongings.

Brother Bracken is planning to pick me up at 10:00 and we are headed to Taipei for the day and night. It is about a 4 hour drive. We will accomplish some business he needs to take care of, spend the night before returning to Tainan tomorrow. There is a small work in between that we will stop in to visit tomorrow on our way back. So tonight I will be in Taipei for the first time and tomorrow night the plan is to be back here at the Justwin Hotel in Tainan. On their website, it you look at "Room Services" and then "Fashionable Single Rooms" you have an EXACT picture of my room including the red chairs and the huge bath tub.

Time to go!