Day 1 in Taichung

This is my first time in Taiwan, so everything is new and interesting to me.

I booked my SIA ticket online, check in online and even printed my ticket. So all I need to do thereafter is get to the airport and endorse my ticket at Row 9. I even pack all my stuff into 2 handy bags. Well, I forgot my credit card; I told the guy at the counter, he has my passport and my printed ticket and his system confirms it. However, his system also needed my credit card (I brought a different one and left the one needed at home) for security purposes. He finally helped by asking me for the last 4 digits of my credit card. Does anyone of you ever remember the last 4 digits of your credit card? Well, I didn't.

But he is nice, he helped get the power up on my computer, registered for a $6 for half an hour Internet usage with Starhub. Login to my maybank2u internet banking site and viola, they show me my last 4 digits of my credit card.

My flight was 8:35am, when I pass the custom it was only 7:55am. But when I check the Departure screen, it says GATE CLOSING. I take a look at my printed ticket and the ticket says 7:35am boarding. Wow, when did they start letting us board an hour before departure. I trotted off quickly to the gate E4 and realised that the gate is far from closing.

On the flight, I got a chance to chat up with the gentleman next to me. He is a Prof. at NTU's school of biz, going on a conference with a few of his colleagues. The flight was largely uneventful, Got to watch 3 movies; The Promise, Memoirs of a Geisha and a Japanese one about a Maths Prof who lost his memory after an accident. This one was interesting, at least I get to learn something interesting about maths; Perfect numbers: 6 & 28. The definition is that the Perfect number is the sum of consecutive numbers starting from 1 AND it is also the sum of its possible divisors, so 6 is the sum of 1+2+3 and the divisors are 1, 2 & 3 and the sum of them is also 6. 28 is even more interesting, it the the sum of 1 to 7 but I wasn't too clear about the divisors.

I arrived at Taipei CKS Airport a 1:06pm, got out and went off to the bus station, bought a Taichung bus ticket for NT220 and reached the "Chong Ching" bus station by 4pm. Jones of Titan got his assistance to pick me up at 4:30pm. I finally reached the track at 5:30pm. It was drizzling. I didn't get to meet Mr Tay (Singapore driver), he had left earlier. The whole Kawahara team was there (8 of them), I also met the 5 member Philipine team lead by Ricky, the 1 member Oz team and a couple of Taiwan drivers.

Temperature was a cool 26, light drizzle which comes and goes. The good news is that the typhoon that hit Hong Kong has weaken and moved off towards mainland China. Jones say that this is the first time they had rain in May. This is usually a very hot month. We are keeping our fingers cross for fine weather tomorrow and the days to come.

Will post more and picture later. The sky was so gloomy, I didn't take my camera out at the track. The official race website is at http://www.team-titan.com.tw/femca/