星期一：It’s my last day in Kaohsiung which is pretty insane! I started off the day by going to brunch with both of my host moms plus a former host mom from two years ago who they both knew; it was really nice to just have a few hours to chat and hangout on my last day. I then went with my host mom to pick up my little host sister at school and head back for some lunch and then playtime. My host mom went out after an hour or two to pick up my older sister and grab dinner, so I spent the whole afternoon playing multiple games with my little sister. Once my host mom and sister got back, we had a really fun dinner of Taiwanese chicken, a bunch of wheel cakes, which are like little pancakes, and mango shave ice since those were all foods my host mom thought I will miss when I go home. Later that night I had to say goodbye to both my host sisters before my last host mom came by to help with luggage and with dropping me off at the train station along with my current host mom. Once the three of us got to the train station, we met up with all of the other host families and it pretty much became a tear and hug fest from there with everyone very sad to leave. After a really long goodbye and many unflattering pictures of us all crying, we all had to get on the high speed rail to head to Taoyuan where the airport is.
Once we got to the hotel, we spent most of the night hanging out together and exchanging cards and little gifts before going to bed at around 2 just to get up at 5 the next morning.
(view from my window on my last day)
(all of our luggage)
(group pic of everyone crying at the train station)
星期二：After a super early morning, we all dragged our insane amount of luggage to the airport to board our first flight to Tokyo. I sat by Liam on that flight and spent the whole flight either asleep or watching him flirt with all the flight attendants (though he did get free cake from them which he shared with me). Once in Tokyo I made it my mission to eat some sushi, though when that couldn’t be found, I settled for some rice triangle things and some fun strawberry flavored Kit Kats that are only available in Japan. We then boarded our long nine-hour flight to Portland though, since we all sat together, it wasn’t as terrible as I expected it to be.
When we got to Portland it was time for us all to split up, though we were all so tired by that point we weren’t even that sad, we just wanted to head home. I got to stay with Joey though since we were flying to Dallas first before another connection.
Once in Dallas Joey and I split off and then it was really time to head home. I met my family in the airport and then headed back home, putting an end to my Taiwan adventure.
(pic on the plane with Heather wearing her Gudetama pillow)
(a group goodbye hug)
(arriving home with all of my bags)
(saying hello to my dogs)
(family selfie)