Location: Taipei, Taiwan

Ass o’clock indeed.

Katisse and I stayed up till 2 AM chatting so I got in a very restful two hours of sleep… my alarm was set for 4 AM to catch my next flight to LAX where I was meeting up with Garrett, who is joining me on the next leg of the adventure! I blearily (and a bit tearily!) said my goodbyes to Kat and made my way to the airport. Maybe all this lack of sleep will help me with the horrendous 15 hour time change I’m about to experience? Fingers crossed. I’m honestly a little surprised that I made it to the correct metro station in the dark with no map and a basically dead brain.

The Seattle airport was (excuse my French) a total shit-show. The lines were insane and even though I gave myself just about 3 hours for a domestic transfer I still ended up sprinting towards my gate and made it just in time.

Um yes… starting off 24 hours of travel super sweaty was exactly my plan… just getting my exercise in for the day that’s all.

Garrett was already waiting for me at LAX and I couldn’t have been happier to see him. We grabbed some food and he listened patiently while I excitedly told him all about the TS concert in very. specific. detail. And I didn’t even get all the way through!

Pretty sure he’s eventually going to become a Swiftie just by like osmosis or something.

We lounged around the airport for a few hours, waiting for our next flight to… drumroll please… TAIWAN! I have been a few times and seeing as it’s one of my favourite places I’m very excited to show Garrett around – if his ability to listen to me go on about Taylor Swift is any indication of his temperament than he’s going to be a great travel partner for me.

I mean anyone who has travelled with me, or read this blog for that matter, knows I’m a bit of an over-excited tornado when I get to adventure.

Turns out arriving in Taipei for the fourth time was no exception! 13 hours surrounded by screaming children (I counted five in our immediate vicinity) and we had arrived! Everything felt so familiar and I, internally, was definitely grinning ear to ear. Externally I was a sweaty, fuzzy haired, red-eyed, hunchback who probably looked a little manic from the whole lack-of-sleep-and-excitement combo. Garrett was exhausted as well, having slept very little on the plane due to my insistence we stay up as long as possible so we don’t get hit with the time change so hard. Together I bet we were quite the duet of pretty princesses getting off that plane!

I was familiar enough with the city to get us all the way to Meander Hostel, (go me!) while Garrett stared at everything, wide-eyed. I could almost have cried at seeing the same familiar old streets, shops and landmarks and am beyond thrilled we get to dive in first thing in the morning. The hostel was just as I remembered it – clean, fresh, fun and thank god air-conditioned. I forgot just how humid it is here and by the time we arrived at the hostel we were both dripping in sweat. Shorts it is for tomorrow!

For now though we’ve both been up for more than 24 hours basically and although I’d love to dive in right this very minute it is midnight and some sleep is in order. Snoooooooze.

ADVENTURE DAY TOMORROW THOUGH!

Sav