How to survive the Taipei Airport

1. Ponder fact that bag containing toothpaste and clean clothes has been checked through to Denpasar and won't likely be seen until one's arrival in Bali, if at all.

2. Get a free token (or two or three) from the bookstore. Put said token in the massage chair located behind the trees in the indoor garden. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

3. Wander around the overpriced designer stores for a few hours. Try every cream at the makeup counter. Revel in the fact that the staff *must* be nice to you because they are currently competing for votes for the "most polite staff" something something. Ha ha ha.

4. Resist temptation to take photos of self pretending to wait at the Hello Kitty themed gate, complete with bright pink chairs and Hello Kitty statues dressed like pilots. Wish briefly that one's own gate was the Hello Kitty gate.

5. Decide that the transit hotel is far too expensive for self. Sleep instead with jacket over head to block out 24 hour lights, shivering in the air con that keeps the airport approximately half a degree over absolute zero when all matter ceases to exist.

6. Awake to discover self in middle of bustling airport, most likely snoring at a decibel just below jet engines. Find Starbuck's and wait until it opens. Rush like a mad woman past all the Americans who are squinting at crazy Taiwanese prices then trying to convert to greenbacks in their hands, whilst flourishing Taiwanese Dollars left over from last visit. Feel briefly mighty.

7. Purchase pretty hand cream for self as reward for spending night on vinyl couch in airport.

8. Get another massage.... then settle in to wait fro 2 more hours until plane departs for Paradise/Bali.