Day one and two involved a lot of travel in a lot of different forms. Gwynyth said to me yesterday, "Mom, I think we've traveled in every form of transportation except hot air balloons on this vacation." Our first day, I picked the children up at their school at noon. The kids were chasing us down waving us good-bye calling out all of the various international destinations they were headed for Spring Break. We drove four hours to Seoul where we stayed overnight at the Dragon Hill Army Lodge and relaxed and did last minute shopping at the PX and commissary. 
The next morning we drove an hour to Incheon airport and, of course, we looked like a traveling, multi-racial circus getting 7 children and 5 giant bags on the plane and through security. Our flight was only about 2.5 hours, but as it turned out, that was just the beginning of our trip. We were met at the airport by a woman who handed us a pile of Taiwanese cash, bus tickets and train tickets. We immediately jumped on a bus and traveled an hour to Taipei to the main train station (very similar to Seoul, only not quite as fancy and clean--and everything was written in Chinese--I can read Korean which helps me figure things out--we've been a little lost with the Chinese). 
The above picture shows that Taiwan is developing, but still much poorer than Korea or the US. On the top, right corner there are about thirty scooters, they looked like a moped mafia--all waiting for the light. This is the transporation of choice around here. We even saw five family members, a puppy and groceries all loaded onto one scooter. Crazy!! 
We had about two hours to kill at the train station. We were pretty annoyed with this until we figured out how to get into the subway mall and that the shopping was super cheap in Taiwan. Then we barely made it back in time to catch our train. 
Below the kids are drinking strawberry slurpees from 7 Eleven--which really are on every corner here. They tasted like amoxocillin that I used to give the kids for ear infections. In the 7 Eleven stores here in Taiwan they sell eggs that are hard boiled, but inside they have let the chick develop slightly--so when you cut them open there is a whole, cooked baby chicken inside. It's a delicacy here and people buy those like Americans eat candy bars.
We finally boarded a two hour train to Hualien, Taiwan, where we were met by our hotel conceirge at the train station. The hotel was fantastic. The rooms were so beautiful and in the basement the there was a rockclimbing wall and three playgrounds for the kids. We were too tired to do much besides eat Taiwanese food for dinner, play a little and then crash into bed. The hotel treated us to all kinds of amenities like we were royalty. It was probably the nicest hotel I've stayed in since we stayed in the Marriott in NYC when I was twelve. And this was probably one-fourth the cost! 
The travel was exhausting, but we made it to Taiwan without losing any luggage or any children. And, if we thought the hotel was great, that was just the beginning! 
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