Taiwan - the unplanned, extended version

While our short vacation initially felt a little too short (we didn't see downtown Taipei, swim in the ocean, visit sea turtles, watch the hot air balloon festival), we were still ready to get back to our apartment and back to work.  But then, Mother Nature hit in a few ways and our too-short vacation turned into a very long vacation.  Typhoon Lekima roared through the Pacific and worries shut down most of Taiwan.  Schools were closed, shops were closed, and they decided to cancel all Friday flights.  We then quickly organized to buy flights for Saturday.  The typhoon missed Taiwan, we had some strong winds and some rain, but nothing too bad, but then the storm headed right for Shanghai.  So Saturday brought in a fresh round of flight cancellations and no flights connected our two areas for two more days.  This backlog meant we couldn't get back until Wednesday.

The storm doubled our time in Taiwan. Kara has always liked that Type A and Taipei are nearly indistinguishable sounds in English.  Well, it was impossible to be Type A on this trip; this called for lots of flexibility.

Windy weather pic   

Oh yeah, there was an earthquake one morning, too.  The girls slept through the shaking, thankfully, and it was about an hour away from our hotel.  There was no damage where we were and minimal damage at the epicenter.

After a trip to the laundromat, we decided to hit a few things on our list that we missed.  Heading up to the Northern Coast in Keelung, we visited the beach and a few more night markets.  The girls loved riding the waves and could have visited this beach for weeks.  Keelung also had a Marine Science Museum that was a fun escape from the heat.

Bubble tea!

Night market snakes    ----     Where they won some toys

The last two days of our journey were closer to downtown Taipei.  Our hotel had an Ikea in the basement, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and Jamba Juice next door, so we were pretty comfortable sticking close by and swimming in the pool as the feels-like temps stayed near 115° for the second half of our trip.  Our last unplanned part of the trip was Pip losing her first tooth.  It went from somewhat wiggly, to very loose, to spinning in her mouth, and one morning she work up and it was out.  Luckily it was the morning we flew back and she was able to get Chinese money from the tooth fairy that night.