{"id":5097,"date":"2026-03-03T18:21:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/?p=5097"},"modified":"2026-03-09T08:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T12:10:12","slug":"on-the-way-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/on-the-way-2\/","title":{"rendered":"On the way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"5099\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/on-the-way-2\/pxl_20260302_02530118923793362785923836889\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1536,1920\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"pxl_20260302_025301189~23793362785923836889.\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889-240x300.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889-819x1024.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-5099 alignnone size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889.jpg\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1920\" data-temp-aztec-id=\"0d672b62-1640-4544-90ea-5753f9fcc3c0\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889-819x1024.jpg 819w, https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889-768x960.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889-1229x1536.jpg 1229w, https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/rickpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/pxl_20260302_0253011897E23793362785923836889-1200x1500.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Until I was enroute to my game convention, I hadn&#8217;t considered that attending a game convention 2 days before my flight might not have been the best way to avoid getting sick before my trip. However I appear to have dodged that bullet. I wore a mask for parts of the con. I&#8217;m wearing a mask for the flight(s) to Taiwan. Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n<p>Purchasing my airplane ticket only 4 weeks out&#8211;at least a month later than usual&#8211;left me with fewer economic options for the flight. I typically want at least a 3-hour layover to cover for flight delays as well as increasing the likelihood my bicycle makes any transfer. My flight left Raleigh-Durham at 7:30 a.m., with a 4-hour layover in Seattle. Linda dropped me off at 4:30 a.m. and headed back home to bed.<\/p>\n<p>I will land in Taipei at 9:00 p.m., far later than I prefer; it&#8217;s harder to solve any problems that late at night. Fortunately I have a friend in Taipei! The plan is to take a taxi to his place (hopefully finding a taxi that can carry the bicycle!).<\/p>\n<p>That also means a place to store my bicycle box, removing one stress point from the return trip.<\/p>\n<p>I now find myself in Seattle for the first time, ironically after a good friend in Seattle expatriated herself to France! I&#8217;ve purchased an eSim, so should immediately have Internet access when I land in Taipei.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve rummaged about through my usual accommodations apps&#8211;booking.com, hostelworld, warm showers, hotels.com&#8211;with good results for finding places to stay. I&#8217;ve added Klook and Agoda, both recommended specifically for Asian destinations. I&#8217;ll likely default to one in particular after a while &#8212; checking a half-dozen places takes ages!<\/p>\n<p>Time to board for Taipei.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until I was enroute to my game convention, I hadn&#8217;t considered that attending a game convention 2 days before my flight might not have been the best way to avoid getting sick before my trip. However I appear to have dodged that bullet. I wore a mask for parts of the con. I&#8217;m wearing a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/on-the-way-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;On the way&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-touring"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5097"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5103,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5097\/revisions\/5103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}