Day 1
I left straight from work the day before the trip started to meet a friend in Atlanta and spend the night (not included in this report). It better positioned me the next morning to get to either Minneapolis, Detroit or Seattle depending on what flights were open. Flights out to Asia Saturday were very full, so instead of setting our eyes on Seoul as we were the entire week prior, we were just determined to get to the correct continent and figure it out from there. Late Friday night, we decided it was best to head up to Detroit and try the five flights to Asia that day. The first one was to Nagoya, Japan which was our hopeful flight to work.

Lo and behold, we made the right decision. The only flight from the Detroit to Asia that left with available Delta One seats was Detroit to Nagoya, with the two of us on board!

Detroit, MI to Nagoya, Japan is operated by an Airbus A330-200, one of the longer routes in the world for the type clocking in at 6,552 miles and a flying time of roughly 13.5 hours.


They held us back until the last second before allowing us to board due to weight. I visited the cockpit once on-board and the captain said we were within 1,000 pounds of MTOW (max takeoff weight), so we counted our blessings. Below is my seat to Nagoya.


Some warm nuts and a drink to start off.


Airshow just after takeoff.


The appetizer consisted of some cold salmon, soup and salad.


I had the same exact meal from Atlanta to Johannesburg a few months ago, but this time the tuna was overcooked. Still filling however.


About six hours into the flight, they served the mid-flight snack. I chose the cold soba noodles which, in my experience, is always tasty. It's sourced from a local Japanese restaurant in Novi, MI so it's not true "airplane food".


The pre-arrival breakfast was served about an hour and a half out from Nagoya, meaning breakfast at noon. It wasn't very good...


At least we made it to the correct continent.



Day 2
I'll start day 2 here as we crossed the International Date Line on the way over to Nagoya. We landed in Nagoya, Japan at roughly 3PM local time, which gave us about two hours before our connecting flight to Taipei on Cathay Pacific.

To catch you up, we had a 4 day package booked out of Hanoi starting on Tuesday. Since today is Sunday, we figured we'd pick somewhere between Nagoya and Hanoi to spend the next few days. The flights to/from Taipei were open, so we went with that.

Immigrations in Japan is always a breeze, so we were through quickly. The Cathay Pacific flight was wide open so luckily they gave us seats at check in which gave us a few minutes in the lounge. They had beer on fountain right next to the soda.


Our flight to Taipei was operated by Cathay Pacific on a Boeing 777-200. This particular one was actually the prototype model and first one built.


Coach only when flying standby on other airlines but we had the row to ourselves. The good news is, Asian carriers love serving food on short sub 3 hour flights.



Welcome to Taipei, Taiwan!

I had visited Taipei several years ago but only for half a day, so I was excited to get to see more of the city. Since I had been here before, we took the same way into the city that I had previously. This consisted of taking a bus to the high speed rail station, then the train into Taipei and subway to the hotel. It ended up taking well over an hour. Little did we know, the subway had just recently (in April) opened an express line from the city to the airport, which only takes 35 minutes. Thankfully, we figured that out and used it on the way back to the airport Tuesday.

I booked our hotel last minute while in Nagoya, so we didn't really know what to expect. Although the hotel was super difficult to find, the room was quite modern. Universal power ports everywhere, HDMI plugs for the TVs (yes, two 42inch HDTVs in the room) and "mood" lighting in the bathroom. Perfectly acceptable for less than $50/night. The only odd thing was the large pillar between the beds.


We both had a craving for Din Tai Fung, which is a popular chain throughout major cities in Asia (something like 10 locations, not something like McDonald's) so we essentially ran to the nearest location as they were closing.


We made it with just minutes to spare. The soup dumplings are to die for!


It was pushing 10PM at this point, but since we were wide awake we decided to visit one of the night markets in Taipei. Tons of interesting food stalls minus the occasional smell emanating from the stinky tofu. We visited the Ningxia Market, which is smaller than the others but close to our hotel.


Clams.


Seafood.


Fish.


Intestines are popular things to eat in Taiwan. No, I didn't try them.


Skewers.


Savory duck head.


Some sugarcane juice.



Day 3
Today was our only full day in Taipei. Due to jetlag, we were up around 5:30AM and ready to go. The plan for the day was to visit some of the tourist sights around Taipei, then weather permitting, hike up Elephant Mountain for sunset. Google was predicting rain all day, but it ended up only raining for about an hour total.

Some motorbikes locked up early morning.


We picked up breakfast at a local place called Yonghe Dou Jiang. Everything was in Mandarin, so it was a task just to order. We end up with a helping of steamed port dumplings (similar to dinner last night), fried bread sticks and a green onion biscuit. Great value at under $2 per person.


The restaurant.


Walking down the street.


The next stop was the Longshan Temple. The temple was mostly destroyed by a US bombing raid in 1945 attacking what was Japanese Taiwan.


Inside Longshan Temple.


Candles.


Flowers.


The Great Gate, entrance to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial.


We spent some time walking around the very empty square which includes the above gate, the National Concert Hall, the National Theater and the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall.


Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. We had about a half hour to spare before the next changing of the guards inside.


The National Theater.


Looking back at the whole area from the memorial hall.


We watched the changing of the guards, which lasted about 10 minutes.


Statue of Chiang Kai Shek. He fought against communism in China and led the defacto nation until his death in the 70s.


The next stop was the National Palace Museum.


We spent a few hours roaming the museum. It's said that only 1% of the museum artifacts are on display at any given time. Most of the items came from the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City in Beijing.


Furniture is also on display.


The next stop was lunch. We opted for a super-local communal eating style place for a big bowl of Beef Noodle Soup. Delicious!


After lunch we spent some more time walking around. Eventually we'd make it to Taipei 101, the building pictured below.


Quiet side street.


Looking up at Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world.


We walked around the mall attached to the building for a bit just looking around. We decided to walk back to the hotel to rest for an hour as we decided we were going to hike the nearby mountain for sunset.

Taipei 101 is currently the 8th tallest building in the world and was once the tallest.


After a bit of relaxing at the hotel, we decided to try some shaved ice, another Taiwanese treat, before heading out for the hike. A little pricey this time at $5.


The "hike" isn't what you'd think of normally. It's really just 30 minutes of walking up uneven stairs.


The sunset looked like it was going to be great for a few minutes; we had broken clouds out in the distance. The storm clouds rolled in though and ruined any hope of a sunset. We stuck around until after sunset though.


A little bit later.


We ended up going back to Din Tai Fung for dinner since it was close to the hotel and reasonably priced. We were originally going to visit the larger night market but we were exhausted by the end of the day and we had an early flight the next morning.