Craig's First Overnight Trip

Back in the days before Craig was born, his parents liked to take the occasional overnight trip on his Dad's days off. One good thing about Craig's Dad working for a TV news station is that he has irregular days off. At the moment he has Thursdays and Saturdays. That's good because many tourist hotels have discounts for people who stay during the week.

Craig had his first chance to experience his parents travel habits last Thursday. The little family went to a place called Danshui (Tamsui on some maps) that's frequented by hordes of tourists in the summer. It's located not far north of Taipei where the Tamsui River meets the ocean and can be reached by train (MRT is the name of Taipei's suburban train system). It has nice sunsets and is locally known for being a "romantic" place. But, it's winter in Taipei right now and the main line of shops that face the river hadn't bothered to open on the cool, rainy morning when Craig and his parents arrived.

Craig didn't bother to wake up while his parents had lunch.

The restaurant still had Christmas decorations up. White teddy bears are not a normal part of Christmas but it's an idea that has potential, don't you think?

The room at the hotel had a little balcony with a nice view.

But Craig was tired and cranky.



So, he and his mother took a nap.

It was quite a long nap.

They were still sleeping when sunset came. The lights on the far shore of the river looked nice even if there were thick clouds covering the sun.


After dinner, Craig's Dad carried the boy while they went for a walk.


They were quite lucky because it started to rain almost as soon as they got back to the hotel after their walk.

The next morning the weather hadn't improved a lot. It was raining lightly and looking back up river towards Taipei the fog was quite thick.


It only looked a little better when looking down river towards the sea.

Then, it was time to get on the MRT and go home. Craig did the sensible thing and slept all the way back.