The Grandkids Arrive!

 Today is Saturday and we still have more exploring to do in the neighborhood.  We went out to check out the Carrefour grocery store and find the metro station.  Success on both parts.  PX Mart, the local Asian grocery store does not take foreign credit cards - which means getting cash out of the ATM frequently.  Carrefour will take our American Credit Card!  And they have a lot more western style items.

Next we explored the underground mall with a metro station on each end.  This afternoon we are taking the metro to the Songshan Airport to pick up the Grandkids who will have flown in from Shanghai.  Our metro pass cards from 2017 still work - all we have to do is top them up with cash!  Here it is one card per person, so you can't use the card and pass it back to the next one.  So we will have to buy two more pass cards.  The airport is on the Brown line and is only three stops from here.

                                                 

The metro is pretty easy to use.  You just have to know what the last stop on the line is to figure out which direction to go.  If you check the metro map above, you see that the station designations are in Mandarin and in English.  I feel so fortunate to have been born in an English speaking country.  It is the world's universal language (except for maybe in China!)  so a lot of people have learned it.  

The metro trip to the airport was painless.  The wait was longer -as the kids don't usually fly without parents and Mom, Lisa, understands Mandarin.  So she would have made sure all forms were filled out before arrival.  The kids did not fill out the arrival cards until they got to Taipei.  We are communicating on "WeChat" which is a Chinese App.  They needed the address of our apartment.  Once they got the form filled out they had to get in line again to go through Passport Control.  Meanwhile more planes had landed.  But all was OK.  Jocelyn's  apps to get "uber-like" drivers in China did not work in Taiwan.  Surprise! Surprise!  No not really - with the political situation between Taiwan and mainland China.

We took a taxi back to our apartment as they had one very large suitcase they were sharing.  We will be going out for Chinese food in another hour.  It would have been difficult to navigate the large suitcase onto the metro and then up the steps and walk from the metro to our apartment.    Once back at the apartment we talked about food likes than went out shopping. Their is a local fruit stand close to us - with great quality fruit.  So between the Carrefour and the fruit shop we got what was needed.

Now back to photos from yesterday.    Our first night's stay was at the Monarch Hotel.  We were on the Nineteenth floor.

We had to have been upgraded -We paid a little over $100 for this suite.  MP is standing in the area behind the bed - there is a huge desk there.  Below - our view from our 19th floor windows.

Yes - there is a Costco down the street/

Also strange temple like structures on top of office buildings.

This mall is just across the street from our hotel.  We both woke up very early.  We needed to take a walk - so headed towards it at around 9:30am.  It did not open until 11AM.  Another hour or so.

A playground between our hotel and the mall.  I have not seen swings like this before.  No one was there at this hour, so I am unsure whether the mother should sit facing her child - or it should be an older sibling!

There were a lot of rules about how you should climb on this structure - but I have had a lot of grandchildren who would have loved this.

Now we walked on to Costco.  It looks just like our local Costco.

Food court

Membership area

Except for here.  It is hard to see - but there are 10 - 15 people queuing up for the grilled pork tasting.  We joined the que - long lines always means it will be fantastic!

So the day has not quite ended.  The grandkids are relaxing in their rooms.  I am uploading photos and typing text for this blog.  Michael took a nap.  And the we will go out to dinner.  More tomorrow.