8 Sept 2025
Another afternoon flight! No getting up crazy early, plenty of time to pack after working the weekend (though to be honest, I’ve been packed for a few days now)… I’d like to say I’m learning, but reasonably priced flights were limited so I can’t take credit for this one.
Leaving in the evening, unfortunately, meant I was several hours behind the rest of the group so while our WhatsApp chat was filled with flight updates, I sent this sad picture:
Still waiting on my plane to start my trek. We kinda ran out of things to do at home to kill time, so I ended up at the airport 3.5 hours early. Sooner than I planned, but with an international flight and a bag to check, I’d rather be early. There were only like 6 people in the bag drop line in front of me, but they all had issues and it took FOREVER to finally get to the counter. From there though, things moved smoothly:
Security was completely empty- I’ve never seen it with no lines before and even though I didn’t get my PreCheck, I walked right up to the counter and joked with the agents (she said they opened just for me). When my little bag flagged, the guy looked at the image, said he had no idea why they tagged it, and just let me go.
It was a bit of a long wait at the gate, so I grabbed some dinner and settled in. My plane showed up right on time and I started my journey west, to Seattle.
Farewell, MSP!
During drink service, the guy in front of me asked for water and they gave him the entire carton!
Underground tunnel between terminals in Seattle:
I spotted some onigiri in a vending machine at my new gate. It was way overpriced ($8!) and I wasn’t going to get it, but then they called me to the desk for a document check and I lost my seat, so I figured I should probably get the wee triangle:
That was a mistake. This is not the onigiri I’m used to- the rice was dry and borderline crunchy, I got pickled plum, which was my favorite flavor from Japan, but this was chunky and overpowering. So not worth the almost $9 (including tax).
9 Sept 2025
My flight to Taipei leaves just after midnight and will fly in the dark the entire way- it’ll be around 4am when I land, so my plan is eat, sleep as much as possible, and eat again right before we land. Hopefully I’ll be able to get enough rest that I can power through the day and reset my internal clock.
Dinner #1 was one of the more filling meals I’ve gotten on a plane:
I mean, the ham ?salad? in the upper left was weird, but the chicken was juicy and the sides were decent.
To get myself on Indonesia time, I took a nap after dinner.
and woke up in time for breakfast:
Why, oh why, do airlines insist on serving weird egg dishes!?
10 Sept 2025
Taipei airport is pretty empty at 0400:
Each of the gates here is themed:
On the way to fish gate:
I rode the moving sidewalk with my phone on pano to get those shots 🙂
You can kind of see them from that picture, but fish gate (C9) had these island-like couches where I curled up and took a nap until more people started arriving.
Found my next diving adventure:
I want to send mail to the fishes!!!
My six hour layover felt quite long- even after napping for about an hour, I still had so much time to kill, so I found breakfast:
The cheese? filling was unexpected:
and since I still had many hours to kill, I walked the entirety of the terminal. Several stores were offering samples, like this taro boba mochi:
which I expected to be small, like bobas, but nope! one giant moch:
Finally, my plane arrived:
I got the Hello Kitty plane!
The interior was Hello Kitty themed as well:
Farewell, Taipei!
Hello, Bali:
The airport is somewhere through that tall, angry cloud… We had to several circles to get down to landing altitude:
Rain:
Getting through immigration was much quicker than I expected- the electronic passport gates were acting up so there was no line there. It took a few minutes, but I was able to get my passport to read and avoided the long wait at the normal stations.
However, it took FOREVER to get my bag- about 45 mins! The carousel kept jamming, mainly due to car seat covers with cords that got caught in the gears- I could see my bag, but had to wait for them to clear the jam:
I did appreciate this speaker making the rounds:
It was basically just the announcements they would make overhead, played on a roving speaker.
Once I finally got my bag, I, unfortunately, chose the slow customs line. Indonesia’s forms are all online now- you need to fill out their questionnaire online and show the QR code it gives you to the officer. Most of my line did not have theirs completed and the poor guy at the desk had to explain the process to each one of them (despite there being numerous signs posted before you get to the lines). Frustrating. But finally I was able to show my code and be on my way.
I had arranged for a driver from our hotel to pick me up- our resort is about 36 miles from the airport.
It’s been raining on and off all day here in Bali and there’s been some flooding- it took one of the earlier groups about 3 hours to get to the hotel, but my driver is on on mission! Driving here reminds me a lot of driving in South America- lanes are suggestions, lots of honking, motorbikes/scooters everywhere (though they were all wearing helmets! and flipflops…).
We made the trip in a little over an hour 🙂
The view from my room:
I’ll save the actual room tour for tomorrow- tonight, I’m meeting up for a late dinner with the group. I know one of them- Dan- from my previous trips to Indonesia, but the rest of the group is new to me.
We took our hotel’s shuttle down to a restaurant in town, where I ordered mie gorang (decent, but not the best I’ve had) and we talked the night away! Time seemed to fly- this is a pretty awesome group of people- welcoming and easy to talk to. Can’t wait to spend the next couple weeks with them!
and because we’ll be diving early tomorrow morning, I stayed up a bit longer after dinner to unpack and set up all my dive gear, finally crashing around 10p. Later than I wanted, but I still should be able to get some good sleep before the early morning wake-up.