Deciding to spend the 4th of July weekend at our friends in Dallas ended up being a great decision, as it also made my trip a little shorter. The plan had been to be at a wedding in Chicago, but after looking over the cost, a better idea was to be in Dallas, more so, we love our friends in Dallas and our relationship has become more like a family. I was up early Saturday morning, hurried to the DFW airport and off to San-Francisco. I got to SFO pretty early, thanks to the two hour western time, my flight to Taipei wasn't until 2p, so I had a good opportunity to take a little tour of the Millbrae area of SFO. San-Francisco is a gorgeous city I must say.
The flight to Taiwan was really smooth in my opinion, apart from the initial mis-communication on seating arrangements, which I wouldn't wanna go into now (Clark is going to blog about that I’m sure). Let’s just say I finally got to seat by this American Taiwanese lady who’s been living in Taiwan for 6 years teaching English. We said our hellos and she didn't fail to educate me on how long the flight was going to be. “Its a 13.5 hrs flight, and it going to be so tiring, and you’ll need to walk around a bit too. Let’s just say it’s like watching 3 movies and we won’t still be there”. Wow!! Okay, now I’m wondering how I’m going to survive this tube ride for another 13 hours!!? Well, it turned out that I slept most of the time, except for when the food cart came around. I also saw a couple of movies. The Monuments men, Labor Day and a few episodes of The Big Bang theory. The conversation with my new friend, the teacher, was my induction about Taipei and Taiwan in General. I was warned however not to take offense if people stare or stared at me, as they’re not very accustomed to black people around here.
The immigration brouhaha
So I walked up to the immigration officer right in front of me from the box, and handed him my passport and visitors card. My initial thought was “WooHoo!! about to see what lies at the other side”. Well, that thought was quickly wiped off my head, when I noticed how the immigration officer was intently looking over my passport with a device that looks close to a magnifying glass. Clark was right behind me. What was he looking at? Does he suppose this is a fake visa. Well, he looked up, with his facial expression showing signs of dissatisfaction, he beckoned on his colleague who walked over,and took my passport and started his own round of inspection. A few minutes later, he asked me to follow him, Clark touched me behind and said,I”ll be waiting at baggage claim. So I followed him another section. This time it was two gentlemen, I suppose his superiors, and he gave one of them my passport. He also looked through each page carefully, and looked up to my face at each turn. Finally they broke the silence. With the little English he could use, he said “can I see another ID, or a license or whatever”. I pulled out my US. Drivers license and showed it to him, and then he said, "I have a problem with the picture on your visa page, you look old here, but in your other pictures you looked very young. Are you sure this is you?" In my head, I’m like really??. I tried to answer him by letting him know how old the other pictures he was referring to are, and how i may have "changed facially". He took a look at me again and muttered some words in Mandarin, and then handed the passport to the other guy, and I guess told him to go ahead and stamp it. Well, my passport finally got scanned and stamped and I walked through, looking through the baggage claim area for Clark. (Will post pictures soon)
So I walked up to the immigration officer right in front of me from the box, and handed him my passport and visitors card. My initial thought was “WooHoo!! about to see what lies at the other side”. Well, that thought was quickly wiped off my head, when I noticed how the immigration officer was intently looking over my passport with a device that looks close to a magnifying glass. Clark was right behind me. What was he looking at? Does he suppose this is a fake visa. Well, he looked up, with his facial expression showing signs of dissatisfaction, he beckoned on his colleague who walked over,and took my passport and started his own round of inspection. A few minutes later, he asked me to follow him, Clark touched me behind and said,I”ll be waiting at baggage claim. So I followed him another section. This time it was two gentlemen, I suppose his superiors, and he gave one of them my passport. He also looked through each page carefully, and looked up to my face at each turn. Finally they broke the silence. With the little English he could use, he said “can I see another ID, or a license or whatever”. I pulled out my US. Drivers license and showed it to him, and then he said, "I have a problem with the picture on your visa page, you look old here, but in your other pictures you looked very young. Are you sure this is you?" In my head, I’m like really??. I tried to answer him by letting him know how old the other pictures he was referring to are, and how i may have "changed facially". He took a look at me again and muttered some words in Mandarin, and then handed the passport to the other guy, and I guess told him to go ahead and stamp it. Well, my passport finally got scanned and stamped and I walked through, looking through the baggage claim area for Clark. (Will post pictures soon)
