Transit in Chengdu Tianfu
About an hour before landing in Chengdu Tianfu airport, the crew served sweet milk coffee or tea. It was a nice way to wake up from my doze of under 3h. It’s quite an achievement for a 6h30 flight, less take-off, meal and descent time.
We landed on time at 0900 into foggy weather. The transfer to my next flight was easy with no queue. Somehow, the immigration officer had my old/expired passport number submitted at ticket purchase rather than my new one submitted at check-in. [Edit: perhaps facial recognition retrieved my old passport details which was used during an earlier entry into China].
I was in the departure area by 0930 where it was quite deserted. With 4h30 between flights, I explored in between sitting down. It is a very high-tech facility with smart toilets for all! Coffee at the 7-11 was half the price of that from the café next to it.
Flying to Taipei
We boarded my next flight from a bus gate at 1245. The A330 left on time at 1330.
A cold box of snacks, without the hot meal was given for this flight of 3h15. That was quite a surprise as I’ve had hot meals on shorter domestic flights in China.
The crew was observant to the fact that I had changed seat and asked me to return to my original seat for landing into Taipei Songshan Airport. We flew past the iconic Grand Hotel just before touching down 15 mins early at 1630.
Evening in Taipei
Instead of the metro, I tried getting to the Water Meworld Hotel near the Main Station by bus. With the swift immigration, I was on the bus at 1650, just 20 mins after arrival.
With some traffic I got to the hotel at 1730 and went out for dinner in an eatery that I had frequented earlier in the year. The pork wontons in beefy soup flavoured with pickled vegetables sounded strange but was an absolute hit!
It wasn’t quite enough so I got a takeaway portion of pot stickers from elsewhere, only to find that it was too much. I ate part of it and gave the remainder to a beggar.
Back in my windowless room, I retired at 2030. Unfortunately, I was wide awake and I took half a pill to help me adjust to get a local night’s sleep.