funny sign in Tainan

end of day 5 .... beginning of day 6...

FINALLY! it is the weekend.  I cant believe i am still standing...seems like this week went on forever.....

I think my time is finally adjusted...because it is past midnight and i am still awake.

so i also managed to sleep all night last night.  I woke up once and felt very awake, when i looked at the clock it was 5am. I was shocked!...then i looked at the clock again...thought "wait, the alarm should have went off?!? hmmm".  Thats interesting...so i forgot to set the alarm and what do you know i wake up right on time!   Pretty Coool!  

So lets see...i collected a bunch of pictures today...it pretty much rained all day...and when i say rained....i actually mean "it rain like cat and dog!" or at least that is whatthe locals say... : )  

This first image is of a bus.  These types of buses are on the highway all the time.  the decorations and paint are always random....completely random.  This one in particular was very bright as you can see and had some sort of horse theme.  Check out that horse on the back of the bus....oh and they always have curtain

s with the little fuzzy balls and fringe on them...very 60's.

This next picture(to the right) is in front of the hotel....The mighty Hotel Windsor.  This picture is taken as you are looking to the left side of the hotel....O and what is that i see in the back ground?  the infamous Golden Arches!   ah yes!  you are correct!  yep there is a mcdonalds directly beside the hotel... I would say that with a little excitement, but i have eaten there on previous trips and i have to say its "Dicey" at best.  I dont want to say it, but sometimes i wonder what they are putting in that food. Its obvious that it is extremely greasy...even compared to McDonald's in the states....but really for that matter, pretty much everything cooked in Taiwan (an i emphasize "cooked", only because there is certainly a fair share that is not!) is cooked in oil or somehow oil is added to the recipe...and i dont just mean a dab of oil....gallons of oil... its rough....definitely not a weight loss diet.  i will address more food later...along with some interesting pics...

This next photo is also in front of the hotel...it is taken as your look to the right in front of the hotel....oh and what was that?  did you ask if that is a starbucks in the background...."yes"  yes infact it is! i will admit, this i am quite excited about.  This was not a starbucks on my last visit, so it is new to me...i manage to stop by for a visit every morning.  Nothing like a recognizable coffee to get you energized for riding thru traffic to work....ah yes, that reminds me...the driving here.....hmmm how to explain the driving.  Well lets see basically, at least to me there seems as if THERE ARE NO RULES!!! by no rules i mean, no lanes, you can ignore a red light and simply pull out in front of on coming traffic. Im not sure there is really a speed limit, but maybe...oh and basically there are about oh i dont know, 10 million scooters!!! yes i said scooters.  I will get some shots of that to show you!...its incredible! Hence the reason nike sets up a driver for visitors....so basically i have 1 person who is assigned to drive me around.  So he will meet me where ever and take me where ever i need to go.   It is primarily for work use, but an extra trip here or there is no problem....now at first this didnt seem to odd. but "the driver"  is actually paid all day for driving me... so that means if he takes me to one factory then he waits there until i am ready to go somewhere else.  Since i am only at one factory for the most part, he will pick me up at the hotel (with a nike van), and drive me to the development center and sit and wait all day for me until i am ready to go back to the hotel.  It is an interesting concept.

and on to another topic.....

so i have always been told when traveling to another country, it is polite to try to speak their language or try their customs.  It gains respect with them, plus broadens my experiences.  so i enjoy this alot....i always ask alot of questions about how to say and do some basic things, like greetings.  How do you say "hello"?  do you shake hands, or bow or nod or what? when you great someone or meet someone?  a couple other things i find out are how do you say thankyou and your welcome.  and it always seems when i try to speak the language, they absolutely appreciate the effort! they are also laughing at me because i butchered the language but at least they are having fun!....so when you great in the states, you say "hi how are you?" typical response.."im fine, thank you for asking" ...well in Taiwan, they say "hello, have you eaten?"...of course they say it in either Mandarin(Chinese language)  or Taiwanese (Taiwan language)....Interest huh!  well so i further explored this and the reason they ask if you have eaten was because back in the day a sign of good life in Taiwan was having food everyday and getting a chance to fill your belly.  What a difference!  it took be back for a minute on how lucky i have been to have grown up always having food.  Wow and i take it for granted.  here is a culture that struggled for centuries just to have some or a little food everyday.....this is so evident that years and years later, they still great each other and ask if they have eaten today.

think on that!  

ok off to bed...thanks for reading! and thank you for all the responses...I am glad everyone is enjoying my trip : )!

end of day 4

ahhh...yes the end of day 4....jet lag finally caught up with me....so i was very tired today.  it was very hard to concentrate.  jetlag is hard to explain sometimes, as you cant think straight. things that you normally could think of quickly and memory functions, do not work the same.  it takes me awhile to figure things out on days like today....which makes the days even longer. 

Work is going well still, however we have to work on saturday.  mostly because we are trying 

to meet a deadline on wednesday that is critical to the rest of my stay.  if we miss this deadline, then i will either come back early or stay an extra week.  most likely stay an extra week.....wont know the details on this until a few more days.......

Went to dinner last night and had India Food.  Was fortunate to be invited by a few expats to go to dinner.  Indian food remains to be one of my favorite foods.  If you know what to order, it is delicious!  specifically lentle items seem very tasty.

as for dinner tonight.  There was a factory dinner that i was invited to.  Basically both of the factory innovation teams along with some other folks were invited to go to a Turkish restaurant for dinner.  The food was exceptional.  good variety and all was very tasty!  Dinner was craziness as there were about 18 or so people there.  It is not a very formal dinner, people drink and walk around to the different tables and sit together, then get up and move somewhere else and sit and chat.  its very busy, always something going on.  People like to make toasts alot, which seems to be tradition in 

Asia.  make a toast have a sip.  I learned after my 2nd or 3rd trip to simply have a sip, other wise, in the course of a night, you would toast 50 or so times and would have consumed much more alcohol than you planned.  Factory dinners are very fun, however they make for a very long day...considering i get up every day at 5am...not so much because i want to, but more so because i cant sleep yet due to the time change.

Speaking of time change, wouldnt you know it, I am just getting used to the new time and figuring out what time it is at home...when here comes daylight savings....so now the time will change again.  so i am sure i will be at least an hour off.  (my apologies if anyone recieves phone calls in the middle of the night.)  Anyways, back to the long day....so after working all day at the develpment center and then heading to a factory dinner, your 11 hour day just turned into 15 to 16 hours.  If you are lucky, you didnt have to make calls back to beaverton in the am before heading to work...I 

 am not so lucky....!  : )

so for those who think i am in Thailand, you are wrong and I have attached a map.

So here is asia.  There is an arrow pointing to taiwan.  Taiwan is a very small part of asia.  It is a tropical island.  so lots of palm trees.....below is also a map of taiwan.  You can see the city named taipei.  this is the largest city in taiwan and also where i fly in and out of.  Taipei used to have the tallest building in the world, called the taipei 101.   that is until Dubai started to grow exponentially.  I always wonder what happens to buildings and how their atmosphere changes

 after they were once the tallest building in the world.  Its such a tourist attraction while they are, but what about when they are 

no longer the tallest, does tourist traffic just come to a halt? 

ok..so below is a map of taiwan....IF you can find Taichung,  that is where i spend most of my time.

the factories are 30 and 40 minutes from taichung, so it is a nice central location to go to either factory.  How do i get to the factory you might ask?  "oh, thank you for asking!" well i have a driver who picks me up everyday at the hotel and takes me to where ever i need to go that day.  Usually visitors like me borrow drivers from expats.  (by the way...an expat is someone who lives and works in another country that they are not native to.) 

I am planning to go to the southern most tip of taiwan, called Kenting for a little R&R(rest and relaxation) at somepoint durring this month.  Kenting is a beach type resort.  supposed to be very beautiful.

well it finally rained today.  Taiwan was only a few days away from running out of water, but luckily it rained...so below is the forcast for the next

 few days.

check out those temperatures!!!! that is if you brought your maginfying glass?!? oops....to tired to fix the picture.

Good Night!!! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Day 3

Good Morning, or at least it is morning here.  It is day 3 and work is going very well. It is very busy and i am struggling in the evenings to stay awake.  by the time i get back to my hotel, which is around 6pm here, i am starting to feel pretty tired.  By 7, 8pm i am absolutely unable to keep my eyes open.  Keep in mind back in portland it is 4am...for those of you on the east coast 7am...both the day before.  

time calculations...if you want to know what time it is where i

 am. 

From portland subtract 8 hours and make it the next day. (east coast, subtract 11 hrs).

or just look online at a world clock. look for taipei.

ok..so plenty to right but i am considerably late for breakfast....

here is a pic of the view out of my room.

oh and weather here has been great, upper 60's and 70's.  bright and sunny!

LEG 3 Complete Tokyo to Taiwan

Well i arrived safely in Taiwan, 20 minutes early.  I was very excited about this.  So now it looked as though i would make it to the hotel before midnight, which is super great.  Cause the longer the sleep before the first day of work the quicker i seem to acclimate to the new timezone.

Here again i feel the amazing race competition beginning. You see, once you arrive in Taiwan, you have to go thru customs. Knowing this plane is holding 300+ people, i don't want to be at the end of the line in customs. PLUS the sooner i can get out of the airport the sooner i can get to the hotel.  So as we are landing, i am mentally preparing. Making sure my documents for customs are all prepared, making sure i have all my stuff put away, so that when the seat belt sign is off i can get up and get my stuff out of the overhead with out having to open it and pack stuff in.  ANd most importantly, I am eyeing up the passengers around me, which ones can i move faster than, which can i shove and which can i just be rude and cut in front of....dont forget, they are all thinking the same thing.  Keep in mind they are mostly mid-aged asia and white business men.  So they are looking at me weird to begin with (female, little, not dressed in business clothes, matter of fact, dressed very causally).  They wont see me when i zip past them...i can do thus....plus i just slept for the last 4 hours. As soon as i sat down on this flight, i fell asleep and didnt wake up until we started our descend. am curious though if i talk in my sleep on the plane...it kinda felt like i did, because i was having uber weird dreams.

ok so seatbelt sign goes off, let the race begin. i manage to get into the isle and get all my stuff, cut in front of the 3 people in the seats ahead of me.  am feeling pretty good. its easy getting off the plane and now the fast walking begins.....hurry hurry, its a first in, first out policy in customs. ok i see it, documents in hand, passport in hand....i get in line and yes, i am one of the first from our plane, however another jumbo jet or two landed before us, so there are about 300 people in front of me in line and about 300 or so behind me now too.  Of course customs is the like grocery store because they have 30 "check out" lines available but only 4 open.  what is this, do then not know when planes are coming in?  fortunately i only waited for about 20 minutes. i was clear.

Now the race is still on and maybe even more intensely.  Ya see, now you have to go get your luggage.  Knowing that i have 4 bags, 2 checked and 2 in hand, i am gonna need a cart.  so i was able to identify my baggage claim number while in customs line..#1. I get to the baggage claim and of course the hand carts are not at #1, but they are at #6.  So i make a mad dash for number 6.  The urgency here, is with so many planes landing at that same time, they run out of carts.  And if i have to carry all my bags out of the airport, i am going to be hurting.  So i get to baggage claim 6 and WHEWWW! i get a cart.  Ok i turn and look at #1, and bags are already coming out. so its a mad dash with the cart back to #1. Breathing heavily now. i wait patiently for my bags....o about another 20 minutes. I keep watching because ya never know when the little Asian woman who forgot her glasses happened to pick up your red suitcase instead of her own.   

While i am waiting for my bags, i notice a sign stating Declarations.  I forgot all about having to go thru declarations.  oops.  well no worries. I grab my bags. and head thru declarations.  ya see, if you get stopped and didnt declare something say of value, they will fine you and a bunch of other stuff.  Well my plane is the put my head down, dont look anyone in the eye and just go thru quickly, kinda get lost in the crowd.  

It worked! i didnt get stopped.  Ok now i have to walk thru this hallway and look for my name on a sign.  all the drivers and what not wait in this area to pick you up.  I will be looking for a sign with my name.  And nothing. i dont see it and i walked all the way.  There was another option to walk to the left instead of right and there were some folks down there with signs. but it is kind of one of those spots at the airport where once you walk thru, you cant go back.  so i stand there trying to figure out another plan.  hmm. well its 10 pm. i could take a taxi, but thats gonna be dicy.  i dont really have a contact to call.  I could call the hotel, but i would of had to written their number down, so hmmm...not really prepared for this one.  ill just stand here until someone comes and talks to me......5 minutes.......and 10 minutes.......oh wait! someone is coming my way AND he has a sign...YES it has my name on it! wheww! what a relief!  well into the car we go.  now we have a 2 hr drive or so to the hotel!

more to come!!!

LEG 2 Seattle, wa to Tokyo, Japan

Well Leg 2...flying from seattle washington to Tokyo/Narita airport in Japan.  This is the long one.  approx: 10hrs and 45 minutes...ekkkk!!!  no worries though, thanks to nike i was fortunate to be seated in business class.  for those who are unfamiliar with business class, its pretty comfortable.  its about a seat and a half that almost reclines flat....its basically a big recliner. The serve you food and drinks...its all not too bad.  The food sounds way better than it actually looks or tastes..but i appreciate the effort at making an 11hr flight comfortable.  I just imagine that i am spending a day in the chair watching tv : )  The image above is the plane that i flew in to tokyo.  This plane is considerable bigger than the last one.  Lets just say there are seats as far as the eye can see.  I think it was a B777...or something.  Holds around 300 or so people.  so coach class is 3 seats, isle, 5 seats, isle, 3 seats.  business class is 2,3,2.  not a  bad way to fly at all.  

I spent most of my time watching "The Office" (my new favorite show). and reading on my new kindle 2....(its wicked sweet!).  I only managed to sleep for about 2 hours, which is good cause when i get to my final destination, it will be 2am in the morning, so i need to sleep when i get there. aka staying up on the plane is good.  This picture is from the plane window, descending into tokyo.

I am typing this from Tokyo Narito airport. Its funny because...its like this whole adventure when you land....first off you feel groggy, the plane was dark for the last 10 hours, so it seems like it was night and now its morning....WRONG, its actually evening in tokyo. I am not sure what time it is, but i will get to that in a moment.  so you get off the plane and of course, its no longer predominately english you are reading...in lies the challenge. Now to navigate to find your next flight....seems simple enough but everyone else seems to be in a hurry so that makes me feel like i might be in for a longer walk than i was planing.  I am thinking its around 4pm and my next flight is at 6pm, but i am not positive....so now they filter you into this area like a herd of cows and come to find out i have to go thru security again.  so pull the laptop out, make sure the secret black case gets thru...blah blah blah...whew made it threw with no problems...now to find the flight...luckily its close by and oh by the way there is the business class lounge.  So that is where i am now...but i got to go....U see the clocks are in military time, so it makes it confusing especially sometimes after long flights where I am out of it and groggy anyways...ok...will write more when i get to Taipei..actually taichung......taiwan!

ps...the bathrooms are weird and i forgot about that...definately not a high point of traveling in asia. ...but could be worse!

LEG 2 = COMPLETE!!! yes!! :)

Leg 1 Portland, Oregon to Sea-tac, washington

I in fact do sometimes think i am on the Amazing Race for some of these trips.  To the left is the plane that i was on from portland to Seattle.  It was quite small. I was very nervous because there was a big wind coming out of the gorge.  I had to walk out of the airport to get on the plane and the wind was almost blowing me over. after i saw that this was the size of the plane, i kinda thought we would be blown all over the place.....the pilot also said we would be hitting some heavy turbulence on our way to cruising altitude.  I was happily surprised when it was a very smooth flight, barely any tturbulence at all.

to let you know the size of the plane, it was a single row on one side with a double row on the other,  and only about 12 rows total, so about 36 people.

This photo is from the plane window as we were descending into sea-tac airport near Seattle.

LEG 1 = COMPLETE!  yes!