1:23 pm on 1/23/2014: Logan’s Birthday

Traveling in Taiwan

This post gives just a small glimpse at an overnight trip that Dave and I took this week. A glimpse because I am focusing on a particular moment in time that was targeted during this trip, my grandson’s third birthday. My daughter selected the time of 1:23 on 1/23 as the moment to focus on. You can see the details here.

To get a sense of the trip Dave and I took, you can start by locating Taoyuan, the area where we live. It is located on the northwest side of the island.  Before the trip this week, I had never been further south than Taichung (almost half way down the western coast). Now, if you look toward the southwestern part of the island, you will see the city of Kaohsiung (the name is actually off to the left in the water). To the east of Kaohsiung, you will see Pingtung City. These are the two cities that we visited on Wednesday and Thursday this past week. I will give a more detailed account of the trip in another post, but I want to talk about 1:23 on 1/23, Logan’s third birthday.

While Logan was asleep in Michigan, we were already fully immersed in the day on this side of the globe. What I liked about this day was that in spite of the fact, we couldn’t be with Logan, we were in the midst of an overnight getaway, which was a celebration of its own. In fact, it’s only the second time we’ve been away overnight in the 2 1/2 years that Dave has been here in Taiwan with me. Knowing it was Logan’s birthday added an extra spark of interest to an already exciting outing.

If someone had been watching me at 1:23 on 1/23/2014, they might have thought it was a boring moment, nothing too significant. After all, I was sitting in the back seat of a car that was headed north: destination a train station about an hour away, to catch a train that would take Dave and me on a 5-hour trip back to Taoyuan.

A Whole Lot of Coconuts

But if they had seen what we saw out of the car window, they might change their mind. To the left, there was ocean, to the right there were mountains in the near distance. There were rows and rows and rows of coconut trees. I had never seen coconut trees up close and personal. It was amazing. Prior to the car trip, we had been on the beach and got some pictures of the coconut trees.

Now maybe you think I’m nuts, but I was so impressed with them, especially their trunks. Check out the patterns and textures!

Maybe not a traditional way to commemorate a grandson’s birthday. But as I will reveal in posts to come, we had quite an adventure leading up to this car trip, and I think Logan would have enjoyed the things we did. Regardless, I knew that he would have a great birthday when he woke up a few hours later and celebrated his special day.

Pictures of coconut trees may not seem to be terribly related to Logan’s birthday, but they represent a time of stepping away from the everyday demands of life into a place where we could just celebrate being. That feels a lot like a birthday to me. And I know I will have pictures of the festivities in Michigan so that I will have the visual images of Logan’s special day.

Next time, I will share some of the activities and events that led up to this particular moment.