our taiwan trip

the last few months at work have been crazy busy, and i was on the verge of burning out. so at the end of march, i headed to taiwan for a week long vacation with just me and ally.

but 12 hours into my vacation, i was really really regretting the decision to take a 14 hour flight with my almost 4-year old daughter. she was great at the airport, and even for the first couple hours of the flight. i had been worried that her ears would hurt during takeoff, so i kept feeding her gummies. then, i popped on her headphones and "wonderpets" on edward's video ipod, and she was a happy camper for another hour.


so far so good. but then it all started. quick summary:

• i spilled tomato juice and benedryl on ally and her seat (2 separate incidents)
  
• lots of crying and kicking violently as ally struggled with falling asleep in her seat; eventually had to hold her as she slept
  
• ally: ate 4 mini-bags of gummies, slept 4 hours, watched 3 hours of wonderpets, woke happy as a clam
• ellen: ate barely anything, slept less than 1 hour, watched 2 episodes of heroes, felt nauseated and generally miserable
  

the good news is that once we were in taiwan, we both had a great time. ally adjusted very quickly to the time zone change, and she had a grand ol' time hanging out with the extended family. we stayed with my parents and spent some good quality bonding time with them as well.


here's a brief recap of what we did:

• ate excellent food at every meal -- japanese food, hsiao long bao, beef noodle soup, oh-ah-jian
  
• sipped coffee in cafes with relatives several times a day (cafes are the rage in taipei)
  
• visited a botanical garden and a taiwanese cultural center, and stayed at a beautiful hot springs resort (hotel royal chiao hsi)
• did some shopping (101, miramar, etc)
  
• slept a lot (more than 9 hours for me a night!!)

ally had a blast, and i got what i wanted -- a relaxing, leisurely vacation with nary a thought about work. of course, i missed griffin a lot (oh, and edward, too, of course :P ). and i was thrilled when we landed and saw that he actually remembered me!

but as much as i enjoyed the trip, i am also quite sure that i won't be doing long distance travel with little ones for quite some time. that is, until the next time i'm desperate for a vacation ...