Taipei Days 2 and 3

The weather did not really cooperate on our second full day so we decided to look for some more indoor activities to do with the girls.  Searching through some other blogs, we could another play place that got good reviews and was within walking distance, mostly under cover.

Leo's Playland turned out to be one of the best parts of the trip for the girls, and again made us question if we should just stay in Tokyo and hunt for new play places.  We got there just after opening at about 10:15 and were rewarded with a largely empty facility.  It had trampolines, jungle gyms, air-powered ball guns, slides and many other things that kids (and daddies) love.  Joe was a sweaty mess about 5 minutes in and when not hovering protectively over the girls he hogged the ball guns for a good 15 minutes. It was a bit pricey at around $20 per child and $10 per adult but we felt we got good value for the money, especially considering the weather.  We also received a voucher for a free kids meal with the adult tickets.  

Almost the same size

On our final morning, we needed to leave the hotel at 9:45am to safely catch our 11:55am flight to Hong Kong.  We got up early so we could check out some other areas before we needed to leave.  We dressed the girls in their new matching Florence Eiseman dresses (possibly the nicest clothes anyone in this family has) from Grandma Susie, had a great breakfast in the lounge and headed out to see a temple not too far from the hotel.

Two beautiful girls in the lobby

There is a reason only one of these girls has booked a modeling gig in Tokyo

It is a very big building

A bit steamy out - Taipei City Hall in the background

The weather was finally cooperating and Annie and Lizzy ended up having a great time at the Temple grounds and the surrounding park.  There were amazing views of Taipei 101 and great lighting so I couldn't resist taking a billion pictures of them in their cute matching outfits.  There was a lot of activity going on at the park including a group practicing Tai Chi and a large group of ladies doing some type of Taiwanese Zumba.  There was a pond with strange looking birds and baby turtles that kept the girls entertained for a long time but soon it was time to head back.

Triplets, didn't match them intentionally but it's awesome

Best friends 15% of the time, every time

The further away you get from Taipei 101 the more you realize just how big it is

Lots of interesting exercise techniques going on here

Skyscraper in the jungle

Love the juxtaposition of the buildings

We stopped by the lounge for some quick snacks while Joe gathered the luggage and Lizzy made sure to give all the lounge attendants high fives before she left.  We got a cab for $1,200 Taiwan, which luckily was exactly what we had left in cash, and were on our way to the airport for our flight to Hong Kong!

Taipei Day 1

We arrived at the Grand Hyatt Taipei and were met by the bellmen who took our bags from us and pointed us towards the check-in desk.  The lobby was spacious and beautiful and the reception area was opposite the entrance.  The man who helped us said that since we were Hyatt Diamond members, we could do check-in at the Grand Club on the 22nd floor, but we just wanted to get to our room as quickly as possible so we did it there.  We were on our way a few minutes later.

We booked the entry level room and were given a small upgrade to a larger room on the Grand Club floors.  Unfortunately there were no Diamond Suite Upgrade suites available as they were all under renovation so we all shared one room with a king sized bed, a couch for Annie to sleep on and a crib for Lizzy.  First world problems, I know.  While it worked out just fine, whenever we all share a room I am thankful that we don't live in a studio apartment :).  I think this also might be one of the last trips that Lizzy can fit in a hotel crib - she basically took up the entire crib and I would sometimes see her contorted in a corner in horribly uncomfortable looking positions. 

Few things the girls like more than exploring a new hotel room

Bathroom with shower but no tub

Some welcome fruit that they replaced daily.  The pears were amazing

Everyone was tired from the day of travel and from getting up early so everyone was asleep soon after settling down.

Annie was up bright and early the next morning and watched TV in bed for a bit while Lizzy got a little more sleep and I went to work out. The fitness facilities were really impressive with a cardio room, a weight room and a studio for classes.  There were also very nice locker room/spa facilities which I enjoyed later that night.

After I was finished with my workout and Lizzy was up and dressed we all headed up to the lounge for breakfast.  It was a great lounge with a lot of space and an impressive breakfast spread. They had pretty much anything you could want - breads, pastries, yogurt, cereals, fresh fruit and hot items like potatoes, sausage, bacon and eggs made to order.  There were also Asian selections like dim sum, sashimi and congee.  I try to eat a healthy breakfast every morning but sometimes the temptation of the breakfast buffet is just too much.  I think I ate more croissants on this trip than I have in my entire life.  We loaded the girls up with giant plates of fruit every morning since a watermelon in Japan costs over $30 US (more like $100 if you want it with a cute little hair bow on the stem).

Lizzy made friends with the lounge attendants

Lots of yummy food throughout the day

Carbo-loading time

Love a good hotel lounge breakfast!

The Grand Hyatt is located right across the street from Taipei 101, which was the tallest building in the world until 2004 when the Burj Khalifa in Dubai was built.  I got an "insider" tip from a student of mine that there was a "secret" Starbucks midway up the tower.  Since it wasn't a clear day we figured paying to go to the top of Taipei 101 woudln't be worth it.  We used our detective skills (aka Google) to find out how to access the Starbucks, which wasn't exactly easy!  We had to go in the business entrance of the tower, where we clearly didn't belong in our shorts, and then use an ATM-looking machine to call up to Starbucks and then have visitor cards printed out for us.  Then we used the cards to pass through a guarded turnstile to access the elevators which took us to Starbucks.  Once we were up there I really did feel like we had accomplished something since it was pretty empty and the few other customers looked like they worked in the building.  We grabbed a window seat and enjoyed some drinks and the view.

Secret Starbucks!

Daddy and Annie in front of Taipei 101

Cool sign showing the different heights of the world's tallest buildings (or so we guessed)

Lots and lots of people wanted pictures with the girls. Annie wasn't into it this time

After walking around the building for a while, the girls decided they wanted to go swimming so we headed back to the hotel.  It was overcast and looked like it was about to start raining at any moment but that did not deter Annie and Lizzy.  There were two pools, one of which was the size of a kiddy pool but was still deep enough that neither could stand.

Annie went in by herself and Lizzy wore her floaties so we did not have to get in with them.  Annie swims just well enough that you feel like you need to jump in to save her about every twelve seconds, but at the last moment she either grabs the wall or is able to roll on her back.  Lizzy is very confident but is still a ways away from being able to go in by herself.

The pool attendant brought over a box of kid toys for the girls to play with and after the lone lap swimmer headed inside, the girls were the only ones at the pool.  It was a very nice setting for an urban pool and I sat on the couches and read for a bit while Joe stood at the edge of the pool watching the girls. 

Sisters out for a swim in Taipei

After finishing up swimming, we headed back out to see the area around Taipei 101 and try to find something the girls would like to do.  One thing we always feel a little bad about in our travels is that we don't do many cultural, area-specific, experiences.  The girls just don't like walking through temples and heading to loud, smelly, crazy night markets.  But we still enjoy seeing new places, even if we don't do all the things you are supposed to do.

We ultimately ended up at a department store that had a children's shopping area on the fifth floor. Ironically, it was a Mitsukoshi, a very famous department store in Japan.  Much to the girls delight, they had a play place on the children's floor, and play places are at the top of their list of favorite things to do, right after Disneyland.  Cheap-o Joe thought it was too expensive so we originally passed by it and just wandered around the shopping area, but after another pass we decided to go ahead and let the girls go in and let off some steam.

Didn't really need to fly 4 hours to come here, but the girls really wanted to

Just about the most fun she has ever had

They had an amazing time and it never got too crowded, which is nice since Joe can't stand being in crowded, uncontrolled places, especially with the girls.  We ended up staying for well over an hour and definitely felt that we got our money's worth.  Annie and Lizzy had such a good time that they repeatedly asked to go back throughout the rest of the trip.

It was getting late so we headed back to the hotel and took a bit of a break in the room.  Annie was about to fall asleep, so Joe got her up and took her to the mall for dinner while I took Lizzy up to the lounge to see how the evening offerings were. There was a great spread of food easily supplying a full meal and then some.  

The girls took a shower and went to bed very easily after their busy day.  I went to gym for a bit and walked on the treadmill while watching a new episode of Real Housewives of Orange County - I made Joe buy me a season pass before he left for his most recent business trip. Then I went to the locker room to enjoy the showers, steam room and hot tub.  Side note, you are not allowed to wear swimsuits at any of the wet spa facilities I've been to in Asia. The rules say it's to avoid making other people uncomfortable. I don't understand that logic, but ok. After my spa time I went into the meditation room and sat in a recliner to do some deep thinking aka read my US Weekly.  The meditation room had a wall made out of salt rocks that supposed to "produce heathy negative ions to clean the air, improve focus and enhance meditation and healing."  I felt great afterward and slept like a baby that night so I guess the salt wall did its job! ;)

Trip Planning: Taipei and Hong Kong

Joe has been traveling for work much more than he anticipated so far this year, so we thought trying to fit in a week trip would be a good way to ensure some family time!  Since we are still new to the Asia travel experience, it is pretty easy to find availability with our dwindling points balances to go somewhere we haven’t been yet.  We have been wanting to take the girls to Hong Kong Disneyland (which would leave just the two parks in Paris on the list, until Shanghai opens) and focused our efforts primarily around trying to find something in that part of Asia.

Like most things with Joe, travel planning can be really, really annoying, but this time he actually wasn’t too bad.  After our New Year’s trip to 6 cities requiring 7 flights, we agreed that next time we would take a much more simple vacation with one destination.  After some discussion, we thought we would try two places over eight days and see if that would be more reasonable.  Next was figuring out how to do as much as we could using our miles and hotel points.

As usual, our millions of Delta miles, while actually pretty useful for one traveler, are incredibly difficult/impossible to use when you need them for a family of four.  Joe has stopped flying Delta in large part due to how difficult it is to use the miles, but we still earn about 300,000 a year through various credit card related activities, but we may need to rethink putting any spend toward Delta miles.  Since we were considering Hong Kong, we turned to our Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which are a transfer partner of British Airways, which partners with Cathay Pacific.  We checked availability on the British Airways website, and to our surprise, found pretty good availability from Tokyo to Hong Kong despite being “Golden Week” at both locations.  After tinkering around further, we decided to add Taipei as the second destination since it is only a two hour flight from Hong Kong.

Our new philosophy with miles and points amid all the massive devaluations is to use them any chance we have, and occasionally splurge to try out some of the premium cabins we couldn’t otherwise afford.  We ended up booking the following itinerary using Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred to British Airways Avios:

Tuesday, April 29            Tokyo Narita (NRT) to Taipei (TPE)

Friday, May 2                  TPE to Hong Kong (HKG)

Wednesday, May 7          HKG to NRT

For the first flight, I will fly with Annie in first class, while Joe and Lizzy will try business class on the upper deck of the Cathay 747-400, which won’t be around much longer as they start to retire those gas guzzlers.  Annie is already excited and Lizzy doesn’t know or care, so it seems like a fair way to distribute the seats.  The two tickets in First Class cost 60,000 Avios plus $97.14 in taxes and fees while the two Business Class tickets cost 40,000 Avios plus $97.14.  To be clear, this is by no means cheap or a great (even good) redemption for such a short flight, but we wanted to the chance to try out these cabins.

We will fly economy from TPE to HKG for the 1h 50min flight, and then all take business class back to Tokyo from HKG.  Ideally, we would have liked to have taken First Class from HKG in order to try out the lounge in Hong Kong, but availability wasn’t there on the days that made sense.  The four tickets in economy cost 18,000 Avios plus $148 in taxes and fees while the four Business Class tickets from HKG back to NRT cost 80,000 Avios plus $139.34.  Again, this was not a great deal by any stretch, but it isn't always possible to maximize miles!

Next up was the hotel planning.  As we have said before, with the hotel status we have at Starwood and Hyatt, we do try to book there because we feel we get good value from the perks offered.  We ended up picking the Grand Hyatt Taipei over the W Taiepi for our three nights there.  The first night was booked using our annual free night from having the Chase Hyatt credit card, which comes with a $75 annual fee.  We booked the second and third nights using free night certificates earned from the recent Hyatt promotion, where if you stayed five nights, you received one free night at any Hyatt category 1-4.  The all-in refundable cash rate for the days we were staying was $897 for the base room, so it was a solid use of the free nights.

We then looked to Hong Kong.  Without getting into the details of the loyalty programs, we usually look to Starwood for the longer stays at one location since we qualify for Starwood Platinum status by staying 50 nights a year whereas we qualify for Hyatt Diamond by making 25 stays (regardless of nights stayed).  We received a certificate (that expires July 31^st) from Starwood for requalifying for Platinum last year that gives you 35% off a points stay up to five nights.  Another great thing about the Starwood program is that when you stay five nights on points, the fifth night is free.  Since we were staying for five nights, we tried to make this work, and lucky for us, things lined up perfectly.  We booked five nights at the W Hong Kong.  With the fifth night free and 35% off, it was only 10,400 points per night.  The all-in refundable cash rate was $410/night, so while this wasn’t an amazing deal, it was good enough under the new philosophy of using the points whenever possible.

Next up is trying to figure out what would be fun to do in Taipei and Hong Kong, but that should be a lot easier than this portion!