My eldest son flew in on Feb 4 I hadn't seen him for 3 and a half years, to say i was a bit choked was an understatement. After picking him and his girlfriend from the airport, we got a bus to Taipei main station so we could get a train down to Taidong. We had decided to start off out tour of Taiwan down there and booked a place for 3 nights which turned out to be a nice place, a kind of homestay/hotel run by a guy who spoke good English who also picked us up from Taidong Station. We took it easy on the first couple of days so Gaz could get aclimatised, hired a couple of scooters to get around, took a journey up the coast just past Chenggong. It was a bit cool that day but i think he enjoyed driving for the first time in Taiwan. We introduced them to 7-11 life and how easy it is to survive if you havent got the confidence to walk into a noodle shop with no knowledge of the language. Gaz was a bit worried about the food before he got here but once he'd seen a Pizza Hut, Macdonalds, and tried a jipai in the night market, i think he knew he would be ok. On the sunday we were off to Hualien for the second stage and a trip to Taroko (my first time back there for 7 years).