Our family and friends in Asia

We have been back in the US for about five days now. Lina is taking a while to get over jet-lag - can't really force it with a 16-month old (can't very well give her melatonin or Ambien!). As such, Liz and I have been on her schedule as well. We are taking our time getting settled back into our apartment and into a more regular schedule. And we are obviously still processing our trip. It was a great trip - a bit rigorous, but a great experience nonetheless. Still going through the pictures, so I think I"ll have a few more posts left regarding the trip. Here's a quick one on the people we saw in Tokyo and Taipei.

The best part of travel is of course the people - reconnecting with family and good friends, and sometimes meeting and making new friends. Here's a sampling of people we spent time with on our three week trip to Asia.

Albert and Brenda Lin are our good friends from Taiwan. They are currently living and working in Shanghai, and were able to schedule a trip to Taipei at the same time! When Liz and I lived in Taipei in 2002 and 2003, Albert and Brenda were our constant companions! In retrospect, it was a much more care-free time in our lives, and we have very fond memories of endless hours of hanging out and talking about everything under the sun in cool cafes and restaurants around Taipei. We've kept in touch since we left Taipei - Liz and I were back in Taiwan a couple of times, including for their wedding, before this last trip and they came to visit us in NY while they were living in Chicago for grad school. Great to see you guys! Which city next?





Some of you know that I actually have a lot of family in Japan. My maternal grandfather moved his whole family to Tokyo from Taiwan some time after the war, to practice medicine, and so half my cousins are in Japan. Below are Kazen and Karin (sp?), my eldest cousin Weili's kids. And below that is a picture of my cousins and a couple of their spouses.

(Picture below: from left to right (phonetically) - Kaori (Nobu's wife), cousin Dr. Nobu Asai, cousin Isa Asai, cousin Weili (our eldest cousin on mom's side), cousin Weina, and her husband Ken)


I spent most of my childhood summers in Tokyo living with my grandparents, so I kind of grew up with all of these cousins even though we've mostly lived across the Pacific from each other. It's always great to spend time with them even though the opportunities are fewer these days and the time short.

While we were in Taipei, we also got to catch up with our old friend Linda from LA, and got to meet her husband Campbell for the first time. We went to Din Tai Fung - the best xiao long bao place in the world - and had a really great time talking about life, marriage, having a kid, and God. Good times...


Lina was very into this "xiao long bao" statue as you can see...


And last but not least, it was really great to spend time with Liz's mom in Taipei. Due to a last-minute change in her work travel schedule, she was able to hang out with us in Taipei. Lina was just so happy to have her A-ma around. It's always cool to hang out with our parents in the motherland.