I landed here in Charlottetown late Sunday night and luckily the trip was uneventful. I flew Taoyuan to Narita to Montreal and finally to Charlottetown.

Narita airport was a delight but suffers from a strange lack of snack buying options. There is a wonderful public lounge hidden away at the far end of the terminal that only compares unfavorably to the airline lounges in that you must bring your own refreshments. Montreal was a mess. The transfer to domestic process feels like a deliberate attempt at accessing your cognitive ability after a day of no sleep. It’s long, maze-like and involves picking up your luggage and lining up to put them back down on another conveyer belt. The terminal itself feels crowded, designed for another age I guess.

Charlottetown always feels timeless to me but my taxi driver insists that the past year has turned the Island upside down. Taxi drivers are a great source of information so I’ll take this for what it’s worth.

While I have been pretending that I am not suffering from a bad case of jet lag I have been enjoying the varied food options available here — primarily at a friends house but I’ve made a couple trips to a restaurant owned by a Chinese family in the Confederation Court Mall. Nice people and food that reminds me of what I might cook in Taiwan. I’ll keep returning I think.

Charlottetown would be better served if they gutted the malls interior and turned it into a green space or farmers market but I guess these kind of experiments are hard here. The place is depressing.