In Dec 2012, my parents, my brother and his family, and we went to Taiwan for a super long holiday. It was meant to be the first and quite possibly last family (3 generations) overseas trip. We didn't really fantasy Taiwan but we decided that my parents would really like us to go with them. So, we tagged along. Why do I say 'tagged along"? It's because that's exactly what we did. We didn't get involved in the itinerary and we hardly know where to or how exactly we were travelling.
To cut the story short, I suffered food poisoning on the second day and it was downhill all the way for me since then. My kids and I soon caught a super potent stomach flu bug (noro virus) spent the rest of our holiday either in the toilet, on the bed or desperately trying to stay upright while travelling from places to places. I never really recover from that episode both psychologically and physically. I came back with areata alopecia. Even though I eventually recovered from it, I would never forget the humiliation I had to endure from ignorant people and their comments. Shortly after, I was diagnosed with Sjogren's Syndrome (an autoimmune disorder) and fibromyalgia. Apparently my autoimmune has been screwed up big time and thus, I'm stuck with this for life. So pardon me if I sounded rather negative and apprehensive about Taiwan for the past 3 years.
We don't have the habit of planning our trips early, which is unfortunate since air tickets are crazy expensive if not bought way ahead of time. In the end, we decided to try Taiwan again. The thought literally made my stomach tightened. I didn't like that feeling but I hate the fear even more. I guess it's time to detox and let go of this psychological burden for good. We engaged Taiwan Sky Tour to coordinate our tour. It was a leap of faith since we didn't know them or what to expect. So, Taiwan here we go!
By the time we reached Taipei, it was in the late evening. We dumped our luggage in the hotel (福容大飯店中壢) and took off in search for a decent meal around the night market area. We were super cautious with what we wanted to eat for dinner. I was quite apprehensive about the street food even though a part of me really wanted to try some. It took us quite a bit of exploring before we settled for 王品牛排 as our first official dinner place in Taiwan.
The kids were already too tired and hungry to eat by then. Fortunately, the food presentation and service were superb, so their mood and appetite got better. We were also happy that the children could eat for free if we order 2 set dinners.
We finished dinner around 9pm and we heard from the staff that it was raining very heavily outside. I panicked a little because we had no umbrella or raincoat. And really, I didn't want the kids to fall sick on the first night of our stay in Taiwan. We got lucky tonight. The rain stopped as we left the restaurant and we managed to get back to our hotel soon enough. Needless to say, everyone KO pretty quickly. We survived the first night!!!
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