Itinerary 9.0

As I wrote before, our in-country itinerary changes every few days. So, here we go yet again with another revision, 4 days prior to travel:

March 2nd - We are now going to prey upon the good graces of my aunt's friend and stay at her house in Pingdong with my parents for one night. You may recall that we were originally planning to stay at The Tayih Landis Hotel in Tainan the night before picking up William at St. Lucy's.

However, we have since been forewarned by several of my Taiwanese relatives that the hotel is well-known by the locals to be haunted by ghosts. Apparently, when the Japanese occupied Taiwan in the earlier part of the 1900's, many Taiwanese people were killed by the Japanese within the building. Nowadays, my mother tells me the hotel is loud during daytime and eerily noisy at night. I personally don't put much stock in ghosts, but I also don't have any desire to stay in a hotel that lays claim to such a gruesome past.

The next morning, my uncle will graciously drive us all up to St. Lucy's from Pingdong. He has offered to make a practice run there today with his wife because word has it that it is very difficult to find. Uncle has generously agreed to lend his skills as a professional photographer to capture our pickup day on film. Having his help behind the lens will really free us up to make sure our first moments with William are truly memorable.