Day 1: Taipei the long way.

James eating a bagel at O'Hare, looking kind of like an Asian TinTin, only with a small white girlfriend instead of a small white dog for a companion. The woman in the background is not intentional.

I've left out a couple of important details.

What was the purpose of your visit?
James was born in Pingtung, Taiwan, and lived there and Taipei until he was about 8 before his parents moved to the United States. He makes designer toys, urban vinyl.

What's a designer toy? Urban vinyl? What?
According to myplasticheart.com, they are:

"limited edition collectible "art" toys from today's cutting edge artists and designers."

That works for me. We're here for the Taipei Toy Festival, a designer toy convention that runs from July 5-8. Established and emerging toy designers get to exhibit and sell their various vinyl creations, artists do signings, there are drawings for prizes, presentations....and much much more. For more concrete information:

http://www.taipeitoyfestival.com/

James' characters are produced by Crazy Label, a toy distributor...I'm going to talk more about it later. It'll get long. Back to the trip, backstory to come:

We get to O'Hare a few hours before our flight. Security check goes surprisingly and awesomely smoothly. We get bagels and wait.

I call my mom and look really serious while doing it. The plane comes. We get on it. Good-bye, United States! Hello, new lands!