Details of our trip and first day

OK so here are the details now that we have gotten to sleep for more than a couple hours. when last we left you we had a cancelled flight to San Fransisco. they booked us on a 9:57 flight to Chicago. that took a little over an hour. we knew that we were going to be rushed since we only had 35 min between our next flight we just didn't realize how rushed. A very nice man who was on our flight to Chicago and flys to Hong Kong 6-8 times a year looked up our gate number and walked us most of the way there. as it turns out our gate was at the other end of the airport we had to run and even with our flight getting in 15min early we were almost the last to board the flight. no waiting in lines when everyone is already there :)

so we made it on to our flight headed to Tokyo as we board the massive 787 we look around and it is awesome there are just rows and rows of these nice spacious seating tons of leg room an LCD with entertainment to choose from even power outlets for your laptop. we quickly walk past all of those to the second to the last row of the plane where we have been assigned the middle two seats in the middle section of 4. we squeeze our selves in after placing our other carry on up top and get ready for our 14 hour flight. despite our exhaustion neither Hannah nor I was able to sleep for more than maybe 45 min. Time passed slowly with several movies both from our tablets and in flight provided entertainment (on LCDs mounted in the aisles not in front of our seats ) but as with all things looking back it seemed to pass very quickly and doesn't seem that bad.

 

once we landed in Tokyo we again had to run  to catch our flight again it was at the other end of the airport. this time we also had to go through security again. upon arriving at the gate we heard an announcement that our flight had been delayed so we sat down and talked with a nice man from Taichung who had been in the US for a number of years and was just now coming back for a visit. As it turns out it was only about a 5 min delay and boarding began rather quickly. again we stowed our carry ons above and found our seats this time next to a window. this plane had an LCD in the back of every chair and a little remote / game controller. so we flipped through a few of the movies they had showing nothing that caught my interest and i played a game on the system. then sleepiness won and i was out for the rest of the flight so if anything happened that was noteworthy you will have to ask Hannah :)

Then after our 4 hour flight to Taipei landed we went through immigration,  found our luggage and went to a pay phone to call Tim and Jamie to let them know we had arrived and to get the details of where to go next. They told us to get on the bus to the High Speed Rail and take that to Taichung, once we knew when we would arrive they said to call them and tell them the arrival time and they would meet us at the station. We apparently looked very confused and a very nice man who was also headed to Taichung helped us buy our bus ticket, then helped us buy our train ticket and made sure we got to the right section of the train then met us at the end of the ride to make sure we got in touch with our friends. He was so nice and kept saying how brave we were, we got to witness to him and tell him why we were coming to Taiwan.

very nice man and his mother who helped us get our tickets.

 

From there Tim and Jamie got us a cab to take us to their apartment. then after bringing up all of our stuff and taking showers we talked with them over some oatmeal :). they are an awesome couple. they told us if we were up to it we could go to the meeting in the morning at 9:30. it is about a 15 to 20 min walk. unfortunately we slept through our alarm and woke up at 8:40 some how though we were able to rush and get ready and ended up only being a few min late. The congregation here is wonderful super friendly and very loving. Many have been to the university and there are even a few that are going to be attending with us although we don't know if they will be in the same classes or not. after the meeting and talking to the friends Tim and Jamie took us to a restaurant for lunch. Hannah was not feeling good so Jamie took her home, while Tim and I stayed and ate then we went and bought me a helmet so i could ride back on the scooter with Tim.

Congregation

 

 

Hannah has been asleep most of the day not feeling to well. Tim and Jamie had some friends over for dinner a Brother who recently attended BSSB and a couple who are serving as special pioneers here in Taiwan. it was nice to meet them and get to talk with them.

Well that is the news for now sorry about the long post hopefully it wasn't too boring. we love you all and will post more when we have it :)