Currently trying to get a little bit of a head start by writing this post. — Honestly, I feel like I’ve adjusted a bit better to jet lag because we’ve been staying up so late from our packed days that I end up sleeping at a regular hour and waking up at a kinda regular hour as well!

I’m currently typing this from the high speed rail because we’re now headed over to Kaohsiung, Taiwan! This is home to my dad’s side of the family. We’re heading down south where the people are a bit louder and our family is a bit more wild :P I remember back in the day we used to have to take this janky plane and it would be 45 minutes, but you’d have to take a plane and go to the airport which is just SO annoying sometimes! It also takes about 4.5hr by car… so when they developed this high speed rail in 2007, it was clutch! now there is a clean, spacious train that goes at over double the speed (up to 186 mph!) so we can get to kaohsiung in less than 2 hours. I highly recommend their HSR if you are traveling from place to place in taiwan!

Once we arrived in Kaohsiung, we went straight to my uncle’s family’s family restaurant to eat. They already prepared all this delicious food for us and we ate outside as it started POURING outside. A typhoon had just passed and it was supposed to be raining every day (the day before lots of places were flooded!)

Afterwards, we had a bit of time before dinner and checking into the hotel, so our uncle took us to go finally try some Tiger Sugar. In NY, since it just came out, its been an hour wait to get it. So we wanted to see the hype! It was creamy, tasted like such a treat, with the yummiest sweet, plump bobas! Unfortunately, you can’t adjust sweetness level, which i wish we could!

We were then able to check into the hotel, which was SUCH an adorable place! It was the Holiday Garden Hotel situated right near Taroko Park. It’s a kid friendly hotel that i HIGHLY recommend if you have kids to take to kaosiung. The hotel rooms are painted so adorably and there are play places for the kids throughout the hotel. And then for me and felix, we were able to stay in a standard room ;P even though I’m sure Felix would’ve wanted to sleep in an airplane bunk haha!

We then had dinner with the family - and I would tell you where, but I really have no clue. LOL - but it was with our whole family. It was so nice to see everyone - their warm hospitality and complete rambunctiousness is something so unique and special to our family. Although being an introvert can make it quite intimidating, their warm hearts always make it easy to be back.