Blog Editor

Editing Post: 2026-01-03 Cancel

Title

Text

It will take 2,261 miles to fly from Dulles to Seattle, and another 6,063 miles to fly to Taipei Taoyuan. On January 3rd, it is a 4:45 AM start.  We are to rendezvous with Mary and Deborah at the Taoyuan airport.  We are the last four of nine to get there, and it will be the evening of January 4th when we arrive.  Chau-Wen, Amy, Kathi, Bill and Lisa (in that order), have already arrived and spent time sampling Night market fare and walking the Old Dihua neighborhood.  We are to meet our tour guide Kent and bus driver Mr. Lin at 9 AM the following morning (January 5th) to start our tour.

We arrive in Seattle at 9:30 AM, and settle down to wait for the 3:30 PM flight.  Meanwhile, the WhatsApp group chat is chiming: Mary has a connection in Chicago before joining Deborah on their United Flight in San Francisco.  Her flight is late, but whew! she makes it.  People have shared arrivals, tips on driver pick-ups, hotel check-ins etc.  We board our flight.  We are in Premium Select, just below Business (this will become more important later). Two hours later, the plane still sits at the gate and due to some mechanical issue that could not be resolved, we all deplane.  Food and hotel vouchers come through the Delta App and the flight is now delayed to 10 PM. (Note, always download the Airline's App, it has put us first in line in so many instances). I chat with the gate supervisor and he says confidently that the flight will not be leaving tonight.  There is no way to bring in a crew for another flight.  He is certain that they will simply add a flight that will most likely take off in the morning.  We do some quick calculations.  This will mean that we will miss the first day of Taipei tours, but can join the second day.  It is now almost 7 PM.  We are tired and decide to go to the hotel across the terminal.  We let everyone know. On the way out, I asked to stop by the ticketing counter because the priority counter was nearly empty.  We meet Finn, a younger version of Bowen Yang's SNL character.

Finn says, no, no, your flight is delayed, not cancelled.  He is ready to send us back through security. We told him that the gate supervisor advised otherwise.  He cocks his head and says, really?  I need to talk to my manager. I look at Pete, he is leaning on the column, visibly tired.  Finn says Oh, I was born in Taiwan too! We chat about leaving the country as youngsters.  I mention the tour we are going to miss. I ask if there are other flight and he says, oh yes, China Airlines leaves at 12:10 AM.  Will it really fly?  Oh, yes, it's China Airlines (as if that meant anything to me).  He checks the flight and there are no premium economy seats.  We are disappointed. But Finn's eyes widen and he whispers, I wonder... He types quickly, and hits the enter-key with a flourish. Then he jumps back with an Oh-my-god, and smiles wide at me.  He has booked us on the last two business class seats.  We won't be seated together....no worries we assure him. The additional cost? $0.  He hands us flimsy slips of paper and says to go to the China Airlines Counter and present the vouchers. It appears that the Premium Select upgrade to Business on China Airlines was within Delta's upgrade parameters.

China Airlines's counter will not open for another 45 minutes, so we wait, not quite believing this will work.  But at 8:10, we get our boarding passes, we go through security again, Pete spends the rest of the food voucher on chocolates.  This time, our passes also allow us into the Delta Lounge where we take showers and relax until boarding at 11:30. The flight attendant escorts us to our first lie-back pods, and arranges the bedding. We will arrive in Taoyuan at 5:00 AM or so Monday, the 5th.  We update the Taiwan Arrival Card info, let Kent know of the change in plans.  He tells us he has arranged for another driver to pick us up.

Did I mention that today is my mother's birthday?  All day long I have been thinking about her and of going to Taiwan on her birthday.  At one point I actually thought, mom, now that you are on the other side, can you do something about this mechanical problem?  I had to laugh because five minutes after that, we de-planed.  But then, there is Finn, and China Airlines, and lie-back seats.  Who is to say that she wasn't watching out for us after all?

Mileage

Climbing (feet)

Latitude

Longitude

Visible