Hello From Taipei!

Well, I lived through another 12 hour flight. I really don’t like being cooped up in a big tin can for that long. At least the flight was comfortable. One thing I have learned over the years about long flights is never fly economy class. It is just too uncomfortable to be sitting down for that long without any room to stretch out your legs. We flew EVA Every Green Class for this trip. You pay more, but it’s worth it.

Like many Asian cities, Taipei puts its airport very far away from the city. It was an hour cab ride to our hotel at a cost of $1,300NT – that’s over $40US. The US dollar has done well against the Taiwan NT. Last year when I was here $1US gets you $24NT. This year that same dollar got $31.5NT.

Our hotel has free wired and wireless ADSL internet. The wireless network is only 802.11b. However, each floor seems to have their own wireless because a search of the available network shows hotel 6F and 7F (plus a dozen other hotspots). We are on the 6 floor. Signal strength was “Very Good.” Still, the wireless isn’t as fast as we would like it to be. The wired network in a nice 100 Mbps line however. So we pulled out my Asus WL-530g portable wireless router to create a little in room wireless G network. The WL-530g is the world’s smallest wireless router and it really comes in handy in situations like these.

Right now it’s 7:45AM in morning on Sunday. Cameron from TweakTown says he will be by at 10AM to take us out to get a SIM card for my cell phone, and unlock Stephen’s phone. Joanne from ECS is staying at the same hotel as us. She flew in the day before. She’s most likely still asleep right now. I think I’ll go knock on her door and wake her up. Then get her to buy us breakfast.