Cathay Pacific Flight Report : Osaka - Taipei - Hong Kong

Chinese New Year deals are hard to come by, but I found one for Osaka. Although I flew there on the red-eye, maximizing my day sightseeing, O returned home on a morning flight that stopped in Taipei. Nevertheless, I was happy with the package and headed to Namba to catch the airport train.

The rapid train looks ultra-modern and would "rapidly" take passengers to Kansai airport in comfort. Most of it was empty, and soon I knew why. Apparently, this is a premium service and an agent soon walked along the aisles checking tickets and selling that premium add-on. With no English ability, she carried a card that had various languages on it saying the extra fare is 500 yen. The English words were brief and had no explanation as to why I had to pay an additional fare on top of my ticket. Verbal exchange didn't help, and it wasn't until after I returned to HK when I was able to research this "premium" service.

Kansai airport had various engineering features that make it quite earthquake-proof. The design looked ultra-modern with ample natural lighting.

I needed to ride the people mover to the gate, which offered a panoramic view of the planes parked at the terminal. The airport didn't seem very busy today actually.

I was happy to be seated at the back of the plane, where the wing could not disrupt a few snaps of this Thai neighbour.

We departed at 10:50am, 10 minutes earlier than scheduled. With barely any traffic around, take-off was quick and wonderful aerials awaited outside my window.

A full meal was provided for the short shuttle to Taipei. It had all the necessary items - fruit appetizer, main course, and dessert.

Today's service was nowhere near full. There were plenty of empty seats to create your own lie-flat bed in Economy!

Taipei was grey, as expected during the winter months. The flight arrived a few minutes ahead of schedule at 1:07pm, where passengers that were continuing to Hong Kong could head into the terminal for a stretch. With only an hour before departure, I rushed past security and headed back to the departures area. The clock was ticking, because boarding would commence about 20 minutes before departure once again.

Terminal 1's gate area has been renovated into a modern and bright facility. The vegetation wall looked very nice. It looked nothing like the dingy building of before.

In no time, I had to get back to the gate to re-board and continue to Hong Kong, which would be a full flight.

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