Typhoon Approaching Taiwan

Flights cancelled

When I wake, I notice that there is a typhoon warning on my phone…and it is raining outside.

John checks the status of our flight home tomorrow morning on United Airlines from Taipei to San Francisco to Toronto. The flight to SFO has been cancelled due to the incoming typhoon which is going to hit Taiwan tomorrow morning. Aaaargh!

We need to rebook and are on hold with Aeroplan for two hours before we get an agent who is able to find us a flight leaving at 11:30pm tonight on Eva Airlines to San Francisco.

National Palace Museum

Fortunately this leaves us time to tick off the last main thing that we want to do in Taipei.

It’s pouring out so we go for lunch at a nearby Hot Pot Restaurant before grabbing an Uber to the National Palace Museum.

The rain is really coming down.

The museum is really interesting. It has almost 700,000 pieces in their collection. Most of the pieces were moved to Taiwan from China (specifically from the palace museum in the Forbidden City) as well as some other mainland China locations during the Republic of China retreat to Taiwan in the civil war. This museum has the world’s largest collection of Chinese treasures.

There are so many wonderful pieces. My favourite being a cabbage that is carved out of jade. It looks so real. It is truly beautiful.

Supper in Ximending District

We leave the museum and take a cab and subway to Ximending district. I just have to try the bubble tea from the vender that makes their own tapioca balls. I stand in a long line in the rain. I have their signature Taipei Brown Sugar Bubble Tea. The wait is worth it. Yum.

I grab one last order of BBQ squid from a street stall.

Flying Home

We decide to take a taxi to the airport rather than using the subway & train as we did on our arrival.

When we get to the airport there are a number of flights cancelled due to the worsening weather… fortunately not ours.

The typhoon is named Kong-rey is set to hit Taiwan tomorrow. It has been labeled as a super typhoon (equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane) and is expected to be the worst to hit Taiwan in three decades. Wind gusts are forecast to be up to 300 kph. The government has called tomorrow a holiday to close things down because of the typhoon. All flights tomorrow have been cancelled. Over 135 people in the Philippines have been killed with this typhoon and over 20 are still missing. We feel fortunate to be able to rebook this earlier flight.

We are at our boarding gate in plenty of time.
John says that he has never seen so many wheelchairs waiting to board one airplane.

We board the plane. John and I have middle seats and no one is sitting beside me. Yeah.

I am surprised that the plane isn’t totally booked with the typhoon quickly approaching.

It is a bit turbulent at first but I’ve experienced worse. I immediately fall asleep after supper and sleep for most of the 11 hour flight.

We land in San Francisco in plenty of time for our final flight to Toronto.