Hello! This is Lauly, saying hi from the warm weather in Taipei.

I can’t believe it’s already been weeks since I returned from Barcelona covering the annual Mobile World Congress, one of the biggest tech exhibitions in a year. As my colleague Annie Cheng Ting-Fang mentioned in her newsletter, we had to take cold showers for three nights at our hotel due to a plumbing issue, walked more than 10,000 steps at the expo and then had to endure subway disruptions for two straight days.

And that was not all. I remember I was on my way back from the exhibition to the hotel when I was alerted that CC Wei, chair and CEO of TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, was going to announce a major investment at the White House. My jaw dropped and I texted Annie, and hers dropped as well. I jumped out of the train when it arrived at the station, quickly bought two baguettes (important, as that would be our only food for the night), and ran back to the hotel to start writing. Meanwhile, Annie left a media gathering for a Chinese smartphone maker and hurried back to join me. It had already been such a long day, but thanks to the help of our US colleagues, we were able to cover TSMC’s $100bn investment announcement.