In the remote gate area, there's the usual seating area and boarding pass scanners, but you board a bus to the plane. The gate area was crowded, but there were agents checking the BPs of the first/business class line. Although I was initially bummed about the remote gate, I was excited about the great tarmac views.

Some shots from the bus:
CX 777 with Dragonair A330




LH A340 and B747


Finally our bus pulled up to our 747. You don't really appreciate how large it is until you're standing on the ground looking up.





After walking up the jet bridge into the plane, I showed the purser my boarding pass. She looked up at me, smiled, and said the magic words: "You're the only one in first class today!" I went a little overboard with shots of the cabin, but will spare you all the bandwidth since it has been extensively covered in other TRs. Needless to say, I received VERY personalized attention during the flight.

The flight was originally a 2-class 777 when I booked the ticket. Being OCD and checking my itinerary daily (I mean being a normal flyertalker ), I noticed about a month prior to the flight that the plane had been changed to a 747. Since I was on an F award, I called into AA and had myself moved from business to first. Guess no one else booked at that time did, or they were on paid J.

I was promptly offered some champagne, to which I enthusiastically accepted.



The flight attendant offered to take some photos of me in the cabin which was very nice. Soon we pushed back and were on our short flight to TPE. Menus were distributed.



Wine list




With such a short flight, the FAs were quick to spring into action and take my order. Although I was quite full, for the sake of my future TR fans, I went with a full meal of the fruit, prawns, and dessert.

The table setting was immaculate and precise as always.

Fresh Seasonal Fruit and HK Milk Tea


Bread

As on my previous flight, I loved the garlic and pretzel bread and left the other two.

Main course

I was pretty stuffed by this point and only remember that everything tasted just okay.

Dessert

Delicious! I'm a big dessert guy (probably literally by this point), and love chocolate mousse.

Before I knew it, my tray was cleared and we began our descent into TPE. Immigration wasn't as fast as I would have liked as a flight from ICN arrived just before me, but I was able to clear about 45 minutes after landing.