Well here I am, safe and sound in Taipei airport after a thankfully uneventful flight. We were almost an hour late leaving Brisbane, not sure why, perhaps the rainy weather, but this is a good thing as it means the stopover here should only be four hours now instead of five.

My request for a window seat was granted which I initially thought was the way to go as it means no-one is annoying you to get past when they need to go to the toilet, but, it means you have to annoy them when you want to go to the toilet, I'm not sure now which is worse.

I was seated next to a very nice Taiwanese boy who was going home to visit his Mum who he hasn't seen for eleven months, he is studying in Australia (and no I wasn't talking his ear off, he started the conversation with me). Now the reason I say he was very nice is because he helped me as I struggled to work out the remote control (which I would say I'm normally pretty good at) for the dvd/tv screen on the back on the seat in front of me. He kindly told me he had trouble the first time he tried to use it too...how polite.

Not sure how, but I've managed to access a wireless internet connection here so am feeling pretty pleased with myself, this means I can get this blog up tonight, provided the battery power on my new toy (eeePC) holds out. We arrived on dark so I can't tell you what Taipei looks like, just another airport...lots of duty free shops.

I've set my watch to Amsterdam time in the hope that if I try to sleep and wake to its times now, I might not be so jet lagged. It's around my usual bedtime as I write this but I need to wait at least another six hours before I close my eyes - we'll see how that goes I guess.

Well that's about it for my first day and first blog…Hayley and Amsterdam tomorrow, I'm so excited. If all goes well she'll collect me from the airport, we'll take my gear to the hostel then head "Off Exploring" (pun intended). I wonder what the chances are of coming across someone I know while I'm in Europe?