Last Days in Taipei and the Big Surprise

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Lunar New Year Trip to Taiwan - January 7 ~ February 6, 2020

February 4, 2020 -- Shenkeng

Continued with our day after Yilan, our host decided to take us to Shenkeng, a small town in New Taipei City which used to be a mining town and now a tourist spot famous for the various tofu products and restaurants. We have passed through this town a couple of times before but have never set foot on this area. Again, there is an "Old Street" in town that attracts many visitors on weekends and holidays. 

Shenkeng Old Street, a narrow strip of pedestrian walk with old buildings on both sides.

At least the front of the buildings were kept the way they used to be.

Many unusual and interesting stores.

Definitely old, but well-kept.

Beautiful wood work.

Row of stores.

One of the restaurants that looked interesting, but we were not hungry for anything after that roast duck lunch.

It was like taking us back to the old days.

A river running through town.

Our host and hostess purchased some steamed stinky tofu to take home.

We were ready to get 'home' and relax after a day out. Weather was not the best but we had a great time in Yilan and Shenkeng. 

February 5, 2020

Our last full day in Taipei before flying home. We just wanted to leisurely enjoy the day with no particular plans to do any sight-seeing. We still need to pack our bags for the long journey home.

Morning walk to the bus station.

We finally got to try out the Emmanuel Fish Soup place in Taipei. What attracted us was the name "Emmanuel" and sure enough this business is owned by a Christian family. With the many good reviews online, even though we were there before the lunch crowd, we still had to get in line and waited for our turn.

Row of vendors in the back alley.

Fish soup with a whole tilapia (the tail was broken off underneath). Fresh and tasty for less than USD $3.00. What a deal!

After lunch, we decided to check out the Costco in Taipei, so we took the subway and headed over to the Costco in Beitou. Not the nearest Costco but one that is closer to a subway station. The Costco here seems to have a lot of interesting things, especially in the meat section, with plenty of choices. We did not buy anything though since we were getting ready to go home. This Costco is between two subway stations on the red line so we still had to walk quite a bit. This was the Zhongyi  station taking the train on our way back.

As for dinner, once again we stopped at our favorite Hong Kong style BBQ meal at the Feng Cheng in Xindian before going back to the house for the night.

February 6, 2020 -- Live Fish Lunch and Trouble Getting Home

Our flight was for 9PM tonight from TPE to ONT. We felt so lucky that this flight was available because Ontario Airport is much closer to our house and that son wouldn't have to drive the many miles to pick us up. After the month-long trip, we are ready to go home!

Our host and hostess came to pick us up for our trip to the airport. Of course, we had to have our favorite meal of live fish before taking the dreaded flight. So, off we went to Longtan, Taoyuan for another round of good food at Shi Yuan Houyu Restaurant.

So empty!

Love these fried fish filets.

Sweet and sour fish tail.

Steamed fish with bean paste.

Soup with fish head.

What a meal!

We were dropped off at the airport quite early because we did not want our friends to waste their day having to work around their schedules for us. We did not want them to go inside the terminal with us either since that is one busy place with chances of being an infected area. We don't usually mind to get to the airport early so we have time to prepare ourselves in case there is any hick-ups. I also enjoy people watching in busy places like this and there are certainly a lot to see, especially at the arrival area.

We got a comfortable spot where we could charge up our phones while waiting to check-in for our flight.

After waiting a while, we discovered a self-check counter for our flight and we were able to go through the process with help from the staff.

Now, we are settled for the flight, we thought. Going through security and immigration was just a breeze since there weren't that many travelers on that day. Off to the Premium Lounge where we could relax and eat at the same time.

Cream and mushroom soup.

Beef Noodle

Chicken rice

Variety of snacks to munch on.

Getting a cup of cappuccino. 

The lounge was quiet for some time until a couple of loud passengers came along.

The Big Surprise

Finally, it was time for us to board our flight. From what we could see at the gate, this flight was pretty full. We followed the instruction and got in line to board, but when I handed my boarding pass to the ground crew, an unusual beeping sound came off as she scanned the pass. Then I was told to stand aside and wait. Same with MOR's. We were then told that we would not be boarding this flight because they had a warning from the US Immigration that we had been in China within the last 14 days, which was not true. It was a month ago that we had the stopover for a few hours flying Xiamen Air before reaching Taiwan and we had been in Taiwan the whole time since then. Upset and confused by the 'accusation', China Airlines could not give us any information other than they were instructed by the US Government and we had to deal with them. There were a total of four passengers including us that were having similar problems. One business man said he knew that the 14-day rule applied but had purposely waited one more day to fulfill the requirement by booking a new flight. Well, if we had gone with the original plan of flying home on Xiamen Air, we would have been in China that day, but, this is a totally new booking. Oh well, what can we do but to wait and see. 

After OUR plane left, the ground crew had time to deal with us. While they were closing down the boarding gate, we were so worried that they will leave us stranded. Fortunately, after some juggling, they were able to put us on a later flight that would get us to LAX that evening. Apparently, it was all because of Ontario Airport being a small airport with no CDC staffing and procedures set up, we were not allow to access that particular airport but LAX would be OK. 

When it was time for another boarding, we were very nervous and did not want to hear that 'beep' again. Fortunately, we went through with no such problem this time around. We were not happy campers to see that we would be separated with several rows between us on this long flight. I have to give a shout-out to the female ground crew who went above and beyond her duties to ask a single passenger to switch his seat with us. After boarding, this young man checked out his seat and finally agreed to change seats making this a better arrangements for this troublesome flight. We are forever grateful to this young man for his kindness. Now all it matters is to get us home, safely!

First meal on the plane.

Second meal before landing.

After the two meals served on the flight, we were back in LAX. Oh, while we were waiting for our flight, we already contacted our son and also a friend who provides transportation service in Los Angeles. Instead of having son picking us up we decided we might just as well asked our friend to do that instead. He is more familiar with the new set up at LAX with all that busy traffic around the terminals. I think, better yet, next time we will rent a car from LAX if we ever fly there again.

Now that we are back at Tom Bradley terminal, we did not know what to expect since we will probably have to go through some red tape. When we used the Global Entry kiosk, our print-outs came out with a big, giant "X" over the form. As we turned that over to the border patrol at the Global Entry kiosk, we were instructed to go see the CDC staff who was just standing nearby. I was expecting a long line of 'suspects' going through this process, but no, we were the only two there at that time (then another couple came a few minutes later.) It was totally painless without her even giving us a scan for temperature. We told her the mistake being made of our stay in China and she just said nobody seemed to know what is happening and what should be done. She stamped our little paper and asked another border patrol officer to take us back to clear the system. This border patrol person apparently didn't know where to take us with all the booths being occupied with long lines of people trying to go through the immigration process. After taking us around a bit he then asked the officer at the booth closest to the CDC person, and we were told to just wait right there until he was finished with the client that he was working with. Then, it was just a matter of him clearing our entry in the system and we were stamped and ready to go. I should have asked him how that mistake was registered but there were just too many things in my mind and I totally forgot about asking. No matter, now we are free to go. We were given a post card telling us to stay in contact with the L.A. Health Department in case we experience any health problems. And yes, somebody from that department did call to check on us a couple of days later and left us with their phone number in case we need to report our condition. This whole process of going through the CDC check was totally too casual, if you ask me. That maybe why the US ended up with such devastating number of cases during the next few weeks. The borders were wide opened for anyone from anywhere possibly bringing in the virus. By the way, all through this process at the airport, we saw very few people, staffers and such working at the airport, wearing face masks. Other than the many passengers who had masks on, only a few Asian officers had masks on. Neither the CDC staff nor the border patrol officer who worked with us had mask on. I was perplexed and surprised. And that was in February, when the pandemic was running wild all over the place in many countries. 

Picking up our bags and getting out of the airport was just like normal. Our friend William came and picked us up after waiting at the very congested curb-side. He said business was way down because nobody wanted to travel and people intentionally avoided ride share like Uber, Lift, and business like his during this time. We were glad that at least he got to work a little this evening. It was close to mid-night by the time we were home. It was so good to be finally back to our home though after this unexpected saga. God is good and he was with us throughout this trip! 

"Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name forever; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory."   -- Psalm 72:18, 19