Taiwan-Getting there

I was invited by my cousin to travel to Taiwan to attend a Taiwanese style wedding then explore Hong Kong and Macau, being obsessed with Asia and their culture; I could not help but take advantage of the opportunity. This was a very exciting trip for me as the only international trip I have been on was only to England, Mexico and my native country Ghana. My long time dream is to travel the entire world before I meet my maker so this was huge. I began researching and reading travel blogs on Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau in preparation for my trip. After weeks of researching and preparing for my trip, the day had finally come. I was super excited that my mind had been literally checked out of work for the last week before the trip. I was soo excited I arrived to the airport too early. My flight was at 10:00 am and I arrived at the airport at 7:00 am so of course I had to wait and wait and wait some more but that was not going to ruin my excitement although I hate waiting especially by my damn self. My flight was from Philadelphia to Washington Dulles to Narita, Japan then finally Taipei, Taiwan.

After three hours of waiting to board my flight from Philly to Dulles, of course something had to go wrong. After everyone had boarded the little tiny airbus that seated about 30 people or so with barely any aisle space to walk, we got an announcement that the “check engine light” was on and had to be looked at by maintenance. At this point, I am thinking, "seriously?" Is this how this trip is going to begin? So I started praying because I only had an hour layover in Dulles until my flight to Narita and did not want to miss my flight to Narita. Luckily for us, the delay lasted for only 30 minutes. Philly to Dulles was only half an hour.

As soon as we landed and got out of the plane, I immediately took off running. Now, I am not athletic and definitely do not work out so this was a struggle for me. Dulles airport being as big as it is, it took some running, boarding a tram then some more running until I arrived at the gate to board my flight. When I got to the gate being right on time for boarding, I realized that everyone was “chilling”. Boarding hadn’t even begun, someone could have told me this before I used up all my calories running up and down Dulles airport. So being out of breath and now hungry, I decided to head to one of those expensive restaurants near the gate. I got myself some bagel w/cream cheese and a NAKED shake. As soon as I began to bite into my sandwich, they announced that boarding had started.

So I stood in line and finally boarded this massive plane, one of those Boeing 747 with three sections and three seat rows. As I was walking to my seat, I realized that I was literally the only Black person on the flight. Since the flight was going to Asia, obviously majority of the people aboard were Asians and there were a few caucasian people. I am sure they were thinking, “Is this black girl lost?” Like what was I going to do in Asia? Little did they know I had my own plans. I finally found my aisle seat and luckily for me and my seatmate, the middle seat was empty, “THANK GOD!”. I then got comfortable to prepare for the 15 hour flight. Right before the flight took off, I prayed to my good Lord to bring me to my destination in peace.

15 minutes into the flight, I had already finished my bagel sandwich and half of my NAKED shake. A few minutes later, here came the stewardess passing around menus for our dinner (because it was dinner time in Japan). There were two options on the menu, a Japanese meal and a continental one. Of course I chose the Japanese one. I was not really hungry but I was not about to pass out on Japanese meal plus I have always loved airplane food, I don’t know why but I do. I did not mention this earlier but the airline was ANA, one of the best Japanese airlines in the country sothey had free alcohol even in economy class. I took advantage of this and got myself two mini bottles of white zinfandel. Two hours into the flight, I had finished my meal and two bottles of white zinfandel plus ice cream that was later handed out by the stewardess. It was now time to relax and go into a sleep coma. I then took two sleeping pills. I started feeling sedated which is usually how the sleeping pills works but this time it was different. There was bubbling and ache in my stomach then I became nauseous. I immediately got up and started walking towards the bathroom; this was probably the most difficult walk in my life because I was highly sedated and very weak. I finally made it into the bathroom. As soon as I sat down and looked into the sink, everything I had eaten that day came out including the wine. Shortly after, the rest of the items in the stomach came out the other end. Do not mean to gross you out. I vomited a couple more times and thought I was done because my stomach was feeling better. It took several attempts for me to stand up and walk back to my seat due to the sedation. As soon as I sat down in my seat, I realized there was more vomit coming up. With no time to get up and walk back to the bathroom, I quickly reached for an empty cup that was given to me earlier for water and did my business in it without even caring whether or not my seat mate was staring. At this point, I felt completely sick to my stomach and very weak that I could barely talk.

I called for a stewardess and asked for a ginger ale but to my surprise, they did not have any so I settled for a coke. She asked if I was okay so I told her what had happened and the mess I left her in the bathroom. She asked if I had a fever, I told her “no” but she went to get a thermometer anyway. Keep in mind that this stewardess did not speak the best English so a conversation with her was very difficult and involved a lot of sign language. After taking my temperature 3x, she finally realized that I did not have a fever however she checked on me every 5 minutes. She probably thought I was having a side effect from swallowing drugs or something and being the black person on the flight probably did not help me look innocent. Several hours later and about 2 hours before landing I was feeling much better. I was able to eat and keep everything down and the stewardess did not bother me again, although she kept looking my way.

We finally landed in Narita Japan airport early in the morning, Asian time. I had to go through a security checkpoint before checking in for my next flight to Taiwan. While in line to the security checkpoint, I saw one other black person and immediately felt at ease. I even smiled at the black lady but the smile was not reciprocated. The security checkpoint was similar to the American one where you put your bag through the scanner and you walk through the metal detector. There were also TSA officers standing by doing random searches but nobody was stopped until it was my turn. I was thoroughly searched and felt violated. I thought to myself, “Why does the black person always have to be a target?”. The other black lady I saw was coming up and I was going to stand on the side and see if she is searched too. Sure enough, none of the other people (Asians) were searched but the Black was stopped and searched just like I was. My cousin later told me that she went through the same thing at Narita airport. I am not saying they are racist or anything but it was a bit suspicious that only the blacks were searched.

Narita airport is massive and filled with Hello Kitty everydamnthing. My layover was 2 hours but it felt like 10 hours. I spend those two hours getting some battery juice and using their free wifi to text my cousin and my boothang about my experience on the plane. My layover was finally over and it was time to board another flight. Again, I was the only minority on this flight to Taipei, Taiwan. The flight was 2 and half hours long. It went by quickly because I slept most of the flight. We landed in Taipei in the evening, almost 24 hours since I left Philadelphia. My body was exhausted but I wanted to explore. I could not help but notice how modern and advanced Taipei airport was. I was expecting a third world country village style airport lol. The immigration officer that stamped my passport was super nice because everyone knows immigration officers can be assholes. My cousin had sent a car for me so as I exited the airport I saw a man with a sign that read “TARA TETTEFIO”. I felt like a celebrity, I had never had this kind of treatment before. Lol I walked towards the driver and told him I was the person he was looking for. The driver immediately welcomed me to Taipei and told me he only speaks a few words of English (here we go again) but he was able to tell me how long the drive was going to be to the hotel. As we exited the airport, I was amazed by the appearance of Taipei even at night. My expectation of a third world village quickly went out the window. Stay tuned for more of my Taiwanese experience.

#Taiwan #Taipei #Asia