An all-expenses paid trip to Taiwan, courtesy of China Air

Sad story...so we arrive in Taipei, book it off the airplane to go talk to an agent who claims we can get on the quickly leaving flight to LAX. We do that, they tell us to just stand patiently in line for a really long time. Eventually they walk us to the other part of the airport. We tell them how we want to get on that flight and how people said we could and how if we don't we have to buy new plane tickets and they just say "I know...I know" (we think they don't really know what that means in English) and then they book us on a flight to LAX the next day!!! I ask them if we can get tickets or some kind of confirmation that we really are on that flight the next day and they tell me not to worry about it. Then they put these stickers on us and tell us that someone will see these stickers and take us where we need to go.

that place was a golf resort!

Good news: in the Hong Kong airport I stumbled upon the third Twilight book...you know, the book Bethany had searched Asia for! I bought it figuring we might be a while. Bethany and I both started books at the Hong Kong airport and finished them before we reached LAX.

I must admit this day in Taiwan was not nearly as bad as the time Bethany and I got stuck in Grand Junction, CO for a day in 2001. We got put on this airplane to Grand Junction and once we're on it I ask the person next to me "what state in Grand Junction in?" Long story short, this four-terminal airport had cranky security guards and bad weather cancelled all the flights, leading to our trip from Austin to Salt Lake taking 24 hours. That was bad. At least this time we got free meals!

Here's the resort we stayed at. If only we'd golfed!!

After my track record with China Air, I was a little paranoid we were not really on this flight to LAX. We arrived early to see this line, and signs saying the flight was overbooked and if you were already booked on it and would leave the next day they'd give you $100. We were ready for the worst. And stressed out since Bethany had to be at work Monday morning and I had to go home and pack and move to D.C. in 4 days!


Miracle of all miracles, we actually did have spots on the plane. and the Taipei airport had free massage chairs! and the lady who was sitting next to me on the plane spoke English and switched seats with Bethany so we could sit together! And we finally made it back to America!!

Moral of the story: even though while we were stuck on the adventure home we talked about how coming to China wasn't worth it for this, it was! It just became very expensive when we had to keep calling Bethany's mom from Taiwan and having her buy us new plane tickets from LAX.

I was so glad Bethany was with me so I didn't have to do it alone!!

Matt was supposed to fly out of Hong Kong the same day we did, but he knew his flight was delayed ahead of time so he hung out with his friends for an extra day in Hong Kong.