What's For Breakfast?

Maura:
We left Paris on Sunday morning, and headed straight into a full 24 hours of traveling. First, we took an eleven and a half hour flight to Shanghai. I have to say, it wasn't as bad as I expected. I really thought I might have serious claustrophobia by the time we landed, but I slept some, and with a minor miracle (my ipod normally lasts for 4 hours before it needs to be changed, but it still had half a battery charge by the time we landed), it worked out ok. It ended with the smoothest landing I have ever experienced; Tom and I didn't even realize we had touched down!

In Shanghai, we had  9 hour layover, and had hoped to be able to go out and explore the city, especially since China had recently passed a law allowing travelers with lay overs to visit the city for up to 72 hours without needing to go through the visa process. However, we landed at 5:15 am, our flight to Taipei was at 2:30, but we had to take our luggage and couldn't check in for the next flight until noon. So, we spent the day in the airport (boo). It actually wasn't that bad. Tom even had his first authentic Chinese breakfast of pork dumplings, baby bok choy, and a pork soup. Um, yum?

The bok choy and dumplings were delicious; the soup broth was tasty but the pork was mostly bone.

We then had a quick 1 hour flight to Taipei and we had arrived!