My Trip to Taiwan, Nov. 2 - 7, 2002 At CKS International Airport, Taipei, Taiwan

Finally, the long-awaited semester break, albeit a very short one, was finally here. I boarded a plane on Saturday Nov. 2 bound for Taipei for a long-overdue vacation. Just the bustling airport and the change of scenery were enough to rejuvenate me. Leaving all the problems behind, I immediately felt relaxed and unusually calm. Even the flying jitters I normally experience didn't bother me a bit this time. Three hours later, I was once again on the Taiwanese soil - the land of my birth, the land of the free (as opposed to the 1 billion Chinese under communist oppression), and the land of the rushed (because everyone seemed to be in a hurry to go somewhere). The temperature was a cool comfortable 20 degrees Centigrade.

Spending some quality time with Mommy and Pa in their house in Taipei

I spent 2 days visiting Prof. Jason Kao in Hsinchu, a windy city about an-hour drive away from Taipei. Hsinchu is also home to the Science Based Industrial Park, a high-tech complex which has been the heart of Taiwanese economic growth engine (but the name begs the question: why the name "Science Based". Are there other kinds of Industrial Park, such as "Magic Based"?). Jason is a long-time friend and classmate from the Northwestern days who is married to my wife's best friend, June. He was a great guide. We spent 2 days sightseeing and sampling local cuisines, and visited a Chinese temple on a heavily wooded mountain. I marvelled at the serenity of the place. The air was crisp and fresh. It's a great hideaway if one seeks tranquility and shelter from the burden of the modern society.

Jason, June, and their two beautiful children in their apartment in Hsinchu

While I was happily playing tourist, Albert Liou, another long-time friend from the Boston days, was frantically looking for me. Albert is an entrepreneur who founded and runs a multimillion-dollar Taiwanese clinical research company. He is also a trans-Pacific flying junkie who alternates his time between Taipei and LA, where his wife Sue and their two children reside. How he manages to do this is completely beyond me. With the help of his executive secretary Ms. Vicky Lee, we finally met up in his spacious office. We had dinner in a nearby restaurant. The evening outing ended with a workout in an exclusive health club, equipped with state-of-the-art exercise machines, an indoor and heated swimming pool, a jacuzzi, and a sauna. It was a very refreshing experience.

Albert and I in his spacious office at Apex International in Taipei

The trip back to Bangkok was uneventful, although the taxi driver, who was my wife's cousin, had his car broken into just the night before. As a result, my father-in-law had to suffer silently in the backseat because the window to one side of him was wide open. Fortunately, the weather was quite moderate, although the exhaust fumes from the cars and trucks did get in to cause some discomfort. Other than that, everything went very smoothly and I landed in Bangkok once again around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday Nov. 7. However, my pickup (my wife) was nowhere to be found, as she was caught in the ever-infamous Bangkok traffic on the Expressway. Only then did I realize that it's life back to normal again, and that my holiday was indeed over.

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