{"id":8929,"date":"2004-01-18T22:46:00","date_gmt":"2004-01-18T22:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sch1auh0s7.site.nfoservers.com\/wp_lew1slau\/?p=8929"},"modified":"2022-05-03T23:08:12","modified_gmt":"2022-05-03T23:08:12","slug":"first-trip-home-in-18-years-taipei-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/2004\/01\/18\/first-trip-home-in-18-years-taipei-taiwan\/","title":{"rendered":"First Trip Home In 18 Years. Taipei, Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After I got my Green Card the first thing I did was get my paperwork ready (from a Taiwanese Resident to a Taiwanese Foreign National) to head back to Taiwan and visit my family. Finally in January of 2004, after 18 years away, I was home…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin picked me up from the airport the night before to stay at his place in Taipei… Kevin has a few dogs – this is one of them – SHIAO BAI, which means “Whitie”… Kevin got her from the shelter, who saved her from her abusive ex-owner, crazy people who thought it was fun to tie a rubber band around a dog’s mouth for months to stop her from barking… Next to Whitie is SHIAO-HEI, which is loosely translated to be “Blackie”… he’s the youngest of them all, a hyperactive one… can’t even sit still long enough to be in the picture…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kevin’s adopted puppies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Visiting mom’s resting place at temple<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Giant budda statue in the temple<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ceremonial gifts<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Since I wasn’t able to attend my mother’s funeral in 2000 this is the first time I got to visit my mother’s burial place in Jin Shan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After visting my mother’s place of burial, my brothers Philip and Kevin took me to nearby Keelung Temple Street Market for a late afternoon lunch. The weather is wet and humid, which caught me by surprise (coming from Minneapolis in the middle of winter, I totally underestimated how WET AND COLD it is up in the mountains in Taiwan… ACHOO!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Walking around Keelung after visiting Jin Shan temple<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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All food prepared right in front of you
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“Nutritious” Sandwich, (approximately) US$1.50
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What seems to be “healthy” ingredients…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Famous Keelung Temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Yummy Chinese pork hocks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Steam-cooked in special sauce for hours…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This stand is always packed with customers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cheap eats, great food!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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If you ever have a chance to visit Keelung, make sure you visit stand #22 – the BEST pork hocks, bar-none!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stand #28 has really good Glutinous Oil Rice and Pork Thick Soup<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Another shot of the Keelung Temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Taipei traffic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My good friend Tom and his family moved back to Taiwan from Hong Kong a few years back. I ended up spending some time hanging out with their daughter Megan (my god daughter) and playing with her toy collection<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Megan has all the cool toys, including this electric car<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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You can actually DRIVE it!<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Megan got bored quickly since the car moved too slow…<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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And proceeded to show me her favorite horsey toy<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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<\/a>How come I never had a cool toy like this when I grew up?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Toyota Celica Convertible<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Megan’s own toy house<\/strong> (from Minneapolis)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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My good friend Tom Lin<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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And his wife Jess<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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My god-daughter Megan, always making funny faces<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Another shot of cute Megan<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After I got my Green Card the first thing I did was get my paperwork ready (from a Taiwanese Resident to a Taiwanese Foreign National) to head back to Taiwan and visit my family. Finally in January of 2004, after 18 years away, I was home… Kevin picked me up from the airport the night…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/DSCN0536-1-edited.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8929"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8974,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8929\/revisions\/8974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}