A Last Hurrah...

Alas, tomorrow evening we head back to California. We have spent a fabulous thirteen weeks in Asia and cannot believe how time has just flown by. We have had such an amazing experience. Reflecting on our time abroad, we felt it would be appropriate to hand out some awards to our favorite memories and places. Without further delay, the Oscar goes to…

“Favorite City Award”: Chiang Mai, Thailand. Can we come back? Please? Pretty, pretty, please? Honorable Mention: Singapore. Hard to imagine a more livable and modern city.

“Hawker Stall Award” (for favorite street meal): Gua Bao (near National Taiwan University). This consists of a Steamed Flour Bun (Manto) containing pork + fatty pork + pickled vegetables + peanuts + cilantro. Don’t ever visit Taipei without trying.

“Frequent Flier Award”: Air Asia. Of our 18 flights we used Air Asia 7 times. Gotta love discount airlines – even if you have to pay for anything extra (carry-on limit: 7 kg).
“Best Dessert”: Mango Sticky Rice, Thailand.



“Bummer Award” (travel frustrations): Yue Lai Restaurant, Shanghai. For overly aggressive tactics and conveniently lying to us several times about smoke in the establishment. Honorable Mention: Thailand Taxi Drivers. While your capitalist sensibilities are understandable, your comfort and willingness to rip off anyone at 500% markup is questionable.


“Tourism Award” (best tourist attraction): Patara Elephant Farm, Chiang Mai and Tobogganning down the Great Wall of China, MuTienYu.




“I Heart Taiwan Award” (for the most “Taiwanese” consumer purchase): Warren’s new wood frames and Melissa’s cute grey hat. Question is, will these pass in the States?



Total Countries Visited: 10

Stamps currently in Mel’s passport: 46

Total Spent on Visas: $820

Total Spent on Flights: $5500

Thanks to all of you who followed along in our travels. We feel so privileged to have had the chance to visit family members, learn about cultures and histories, and explore so many different cuisines.

Asia, we will miss you =)

Yeah for more Yeh's

We spent the 2nd week of our family vacation in Taiwan. I have to say it was a breath of fresh air to return back to familiar and polite Taiwan.

In Taipei, we hit a few of the hot tourist spots – Flora Expo (top right) and went to the top of Taipei 101 (bottom right). We also did a LOT of shopping, including picking up some new glasses for most of the fam (top left). Don’t worry, we didn’t actually purchase those glasses for Warren…they were to measure his prescription. One of the nights, Warrens’ family had us over for dinner and in typical Yeh fashion, my dad got the group singing around the piano (bottom left).

We also drove down to Taichung to visit more family. The top right pic is my grand-uncle. The last time I saw him (or rather the last time he saw me since I don’t remember much) was more than 25 years ago. It was great hearing about some old stories of my dad and his uncle. We also visited a Glass Museum while we were there, so you can see Megan a gazillion times (bottom right). To end our visit, my grand-uncle and grand-aunt treated us to a 10 course lunch, which crazily was our third 10-course meal in 3 days!! While we were in Central Taiwan, we also went to Sun Moon Lake for a boat ride around the area to catch the sunrise and scenery.

We are officially in the home stretch of our travels. =( But we are getting more excited about adventures ahead in SF.

Anhui & Shanghai - China Part II

During our trip to China, I (Mel) had the opportunity to visit the “great-grand” motherland in Anhui province and pay respects to my great-grandparents (bottom left). My dad’s side of the family is originally from this area, but moved to Taiwan before the Cultural Revolution. While I always knew education was important, it became clear that there is an even higher value for education from this province. We went to a performance that shares about the local history where they had a dance dedicated to education…awesome! Check out the abacus dance in the bottom right pic. The Anhui province is also known for the beautiful Yellow Mountains which inspires a lot of the mountain scenery in Chinese art. We spent a few days hiking this picturesque area (top pics).

We had an abrupt change from the serene Anhui to the city life in Shanghai. We took a night boat tour around the Bund to see all the buildings at night (bottom left & middle). There was a brief oasis from the sky scrapers in Yu Garden (top right pics). While I’ve only seen China post-Olympics and post-World Expo, it’s obvious that China is developing at a speed that is unparalleled in any other country. I should definitely continue practicing my Chinese.



We had the chance to try many new dishes in Anhui and Shanghai – deep fried dumplings (top left), whole frogs…I’ve had frog legs before (bottom left), soft stinky tofu (bottom middle), and ginormous soup dumplings (bottom right, top left). We are now back in Taiwan for family vaca, part 2 minus Michael.