早安，台南!

good morning, tainan! after arriving taoyuan at 6:30am, we headed straight for tainan to meet my father-in-law and my mother-in-law's brother, uncle austen. after a little freshening up, we went to visit kevin's grandmother, who is in her 90s, and still living in the home where my MIL grew up. we had a nice lunch together with ah-ma and my MIL's relatives, and then went back to ah-ma's house for chitchat.

that's when the sandman came calling for me. i passed out for 1-2 hrs on kevin's shoulder while they reminisced in taiwanese around me. it felt reallllly good :)

then we headed up to yuanlin to check-in to our hotel and set our eyes on the first horizontal sleeping surface we would experience in the last 48 hours. had a fancy seafood banquet style dinner with the cheng dynasty at the hotel restaurant, met kevin's dad's cousin's wife (!!) who runs her own shaved iced store nearby (!!), and oggled at hana and kiki for the rest of the night. 

sleeping on a flat surface that night never felt SO GOOD! well, actually it also felt pretty darn good after camping for 4 nights in patagonia, but who's counting :p

best: fresh watermelon juice made while you wait at taoyuan airport! a great start to my morning, which started at 6:30am after our 16 hr flight from jfk, during which i watched 6.5 movies :)

really the best: seeing kevin's dad and uncles get together in yuanlin! what a festive, fun occasion for the five brothers and their families to celebrate, and with much anticipation for the tomb sweeping events and more relatives to meet the next day. they had a heckuva mom, who gave them family and a support network for the rest of their lives. and reasons to make the annual trip to taiwan year after year as well.

worst: waiting for what felt like 1.5 hrs for lunch to be served in tainan ... it was probably more like 45 minutes, but a combination of starvation + jetlag + inability to converse in taiwanese with kevin's relatives left me a bit hangry while i watched waitresses come out with bowls and bowls of food, but none for us.

smile: today was my time taking the 台鐵  (taiwan railway) and it was very cool! we took the 高鐵 (high speed rail aka shinkansen) from taoyuan to tainan for lunch, but for dinner, my FIL took us on the taiwan railway from the old school tainan train station. it was a partial open air station built back in 1936 during the japanese occupation and looks like it hasn't been touched since its inaugural ride. it reminded me of the taiwan-japanese baseball movie, kano, which we saw last summer. the taiwan railway train was quite similar to the hsr inside, lots of leg room, reclining seats, and large windows to enjoy the countryside views.