Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Maine → Boston, MA USA
i.e. the first travel Tuesday! The voyage officially begins in Maine, without counting James’ travels to get here.
- We take the Downeaster Amtrak to Boston
- My sister picks us up at North Station
- We go to a bon voyage dinner with my friends at (where else?) bartaco!
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Boston, MA → San Francisco, CA USA
I think I would still prefer a super early morning flight over a red-eye, but at least the nice thing about having our first flight in the afternoon is that we get to have a relaxed morning and aren’t rushing to the airport.
- Breakfast in Boston
- Uber to airport, check-in, security, etc.
We thought we might be in a tricky situation with our bags, but it actually worked out incredibly well. Between us we have five bags: a small backpack, a messenger bag, two large backpacks, and a suitcase. It was unclear whether we would have to pay for checked bags, but it turned out we each had a free checked bag and a carry-on! So I checked the suitcase, and James checked his large backpack. We were skeptical (but naively hopeful) that my large pack would fit as a carry-on. She is shaped rather like a large turtle that has another medium-sized turtle on its back. But I had the genius realization that since this bag splits into two smaller backpacks, we could each take one half as our carry-ons, and have our other small bags as our personal items. Hooray!
- Flight to San Francisco
- I read The Seas by Samantha Hunt on this flight. 3 out of 5 stars. I also watched The Holiday, never gets old, and started the first season of “Ted Lasso.”
- Layover in San Francisco, get dinner, hang out.
- I read Lady Susan by Jane Austen, 3 out of 5 stars, quick and entertaining.
- Flight to Taipei, Taiwan!
Thursday, January 15, 2026
somewhere over the Pacific Ocean
This day didn’t really exist for us because of the way the 14-hour flight and time zones coincided, so for this day I will just put what we did on the flight.
We tried to sleep. We were not altogether successful. We were very tired from the full day of traveling we had technically already done, but even exhausted, sleeping on a plane is not easy. We made sure to score some good seats, probably one of the best options you can get for economy. We were in the second row from the very back of the plane, but there were only two seats in our row, and we had a window seat. The row in front of us had three seats, so we got some extra leg room from that, which was very nice.
We were also well equipped with good neck pillows and eye masks, which definitely helped get us a few hours of fitful, upright rest. But I didn’t manage much more than that. I woke up, and then I made my fatal mistake. The flight attendants were going around serving a sort of dinner meal, and I was feeling peckish so I went ahead and ate most of the chicken chimichanga sandwich. Then I wasn’t falling back asleep, so I figured I would watch the rest of season one of “Ted Lasso.” This took until the very end of the flight, I think I was finishing the last episode while we were taxiing. However, by this time I was starting to feel quite terrible indeed. I had a massive headache and felt very nauseous. I picked at the breakfast meal that we had been served, but was feeling too nauseous to eat much. This story continues…
Friday, January 16, 2026
Taipei, Taiwan
- Around 5:45 we arrived in Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport
- Picked up EasyCards at the airport (for public transportation in Taiwan)
- Uber to Airbnb
At this point, I was feeling like complete and utter shit. Basically just a shell of a person. My head was pounding and I was feeling incredibly nauseous. Very ill. But we made it to Taiwan! James was very tired, but he handled the logistics of picking up the EasyCards and ordering an Uber like a pro, and I merely followed him around.
We took an Uber to the place we were staying and it took everything I had to not throw up once the car got moving. It was a very nice Lexus and I really didn’t have a receptacle, so I held it in. The Uber dropped us off and someone came out of the lobby of the building and tried to help with our bags. But there was some confusion with the address, and we thought the Airbnb was actually down a side street nearby. So we told this person “no thank you,” and continued down the street.
We wandered down the side streets on one block before realizing that we actually needed to be on the other block. So we wandered around there and tried to get into this apartment complex that was fenced off. A person, who was likely a parking attendant, kept trying to give us directions to go around on this walkway. We managed to sneak into the area, and realized that wasn’t our destination at all. By this point the parking attendant had pointed us away maybe three times??? We looked at the Google maps address again, and this is when I realized that we had two different addresses from Airbnb. The address on the listing was the pin we were trying to get down these side streets, but the address we were sent in a message was the one we had used for the Uber, and brought us to the big building with the lobby on the main street.
So we made our way back to where we had started, and the person in the lobby greeted us and helped us with our bags, and we didn’t refuse this time. At this point it was around 7:30. Our official check-in time wasn’t until 15:00, but the person told us (through Google translate) that we would be able to check-in at 9:00. Huzzah! This was a huge win since we were exhausted and stinky from traveling and I was barely hanging on.
We left our big bags in the lobby and went to a cafe for breakfast! Well, James had breakfast and I attempted sips of a cucumber mint juice and water. I had done some scouting on Google maps beforehand and saved a few places, and we went to an Australian cafe called Woolloomooloo that had Western style food. It was a very trendy, cool spot, and the food and drinks were really good! We got a croissant to go for me to hopefully eat later.
We got back to the apartment building around 9:00, but they said we had to wait until 10:00. Still way better than 15:00. So we just sat in the lounge area on the first floor and James explored this little garden.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the apartment. It was super nice, there was a little kitchenette and dining area, a living room area with a couch and TV, a very nice bathroom (bidet included), and a sumptuous bedroom with a huge walk-in closet! Not to mention the little balcony with a washing machine and a fantastic view of Taipei 101!
An interesting feature of this apartment was that many of the surfaces were covered in mirrors. The bathroom and bedroom doors were just mirrors that you pushed to open. But it was a very lovely space and we were relieved to be able to rest after long travel days. I started to feel much better after napping and throwing up, and I was able to eat the croissant and a granola bar in the evening. Our top theory was that I had food poisoning from the plane food, in addition to being sleep-deprived and generally stressed from traveling.
We watched the movie Glass Onion and stayed up as late as we could before falling asleep (not very late). It was the end of our first day in Taiwan, and despite some setbacks, we were feeling excited to explore!
One response to “Travel Logs: Jan 13-16”
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Love this! Can’t wait for more!
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itsanothertuesday 
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