Review of China Airlines flight from San Francisco to Taipei in Economy

SFO Airport

After a fun 1 month in the USA, we were finally heading back to Taiwan. SFO airport has a pretty nice looking International terminal. (@NGO85 also reported this route, but in business class. Its a nice report worth checking out. It's also a lot more detailed than mine.)

We arrived at 7:30, because we wanted to go planespotting, but we didn't know that the observation deck was post-security. CI opens their check in at 9:35 P.M., meaning we had a solid 2 hours to wait.

Since I didn't have dinner prior to arriving at the airport, we decided to go eat at a restaurant (Wendys) in the terminal. 

A short time after, we checked in and I got my Boarding pass.
My flight was CI3, with a 1:05 AM departure time and a 4:45 AM arrival time the next day.

We usually fly EVA, but my mom wanted to fly into ONT (I also covered that flight), which EVA doesn't fly to. So our only choice was CI, as JX only announced their ONT route after we booked.

Planespotting (Sort of)

Since security didn't really take too long, we still had quite a bit of time before boarding when we got to the other side. So I decided to go to the Outdoor Terrace, an outdoor observation deck at the very end of the G concourse. Unfortunately, we went through security via the A concourse, which meant a 30 minute walk to go to the observation deck.

A Frenchbee A35K heading to ORY and a Delta 757

After a walk just over 30 minutes, I reached the Outdoor Terrace. It was a nice little place with almost no one around, given the time. (Around 9:30 PM)

A UA 319 that just arrived from I forgot where.

N2136U was going to operate as UA877 to HKG, but that flight got cancelled, so instead they went to BCN.

9V-SGE headed to SIN.

After something like 1 hour, I headed to my gate, A5. 

A line of United planes I saw on my 30 minute walk to A5.

Flight

This is the best view I can get of B-18051, the 10 year old 77W taking us back to home. It is the oldest 777 of CI's fleet of 10 (sorry, I was wrong about B-18001 being the oldest) and it has 358 seats with 40 Business class seats in a 1-2-1 configuration, 62 premium economy seats in a 2-4-2 configuration, and 256 economy seats in a tight 3-4-3 configuration. Beside us is B-16735 operating as BR17 also going back to TPE.

Aeromexico going to MEX.

Boarding began at around 12:15, with the usual priority people going first, followed by Business class, before finally calling up the Economy people.

My seat is 48A, a window seat with a nice view of the flaps. (Sorry I didn't take pictures of the cabin, there were too many people and I didn't really feel comfortable taking pictures.)

The seat comes with a nice pillow, a blanket,  a large tray table, a safety card, and an in-flight magazine. They were selling models, but not the 777 :(

Pushback began at 1:04, 1 minute ahead of schedule.

Flight Control check.

Cabin lights were dimmed for takeoff

Holy dirty flaps.

At 1:25 AM, we V1 rotated off of runway 28L, headed back home to TPE.

Because I'm a weirdo, this was the only music I listened to during the flight.

After around 20 minutes, we reached our initial altitude of FL300. Just as I was about to fall asleep, China Airlines decided it was a good idea to turn the cabin lights on. That was part of the reason I basically didn't sleep on the flight.

For some reason, all the IFEs turned off for a few minutes, before turning back on again.

Around an hour after takeoff, we were served drinks, followed by a choice between some sort of rice and some sort of pasta with chicken. I chose the mysterious Pasta with chicken. Along with that also came some fruit, some shrimp thing that I was not ready to risk my appetite eating, and a piece of bread.

I'm not someone who likes meat, so I didn't eat some of the chicken. But the ones that I did eat were pretty good! The noodles also had an interesting shape, which for some reason made it better.

A bit later, I went to check out the bathroom. It was average, with all the stuff you would typically expect in a normal bathroom. 

Around 15 minutes after, they dimmed the cabin lights, but at this point, I've gained enough energy to be able to stay awake. However I still decided to try to sleep. 

So… Trying to sleep didn't exactly go very well… I spent the next 3 hours trying to sleep, only to feel uncomfortable whenever I find a position to sleep in. As I'm writing this report, I've gone well over a day without sleeping.

I also found this nice chatting feature on the IFE, but I didn't use it because 1: no one else was using it and 2: Because my extremely awkward self also didn't feel good about using it.

Around 2 hours before landing, they served us more food. This time, we had a choice between "Traditional" Taiwanese noodles and a western style breakfast with a side of a croissant, yogurt, and some fruit. I went with the noodles again.

The seat belt signs were turned on around 45 minutes prior to arrival due to turbulence.

During the descent, a video played, telling us what NOT to bring into Taiwan. (FYI: It's mostly just meat.)

Turn on final to runway 23R.

We touched down back at home at 4:09 AM, just over 35 minutes early. Early arrival times like these are extremely common for long hauls into Asia, especially TPE, due to the amount of people transferring. A lot of flights into other parts of Asia leave in the morning, so midnight arrivals like these are required. I probably won't be reporting another flight for a while (5 months if I'm lucky) because I have school and I'm not a frequent traveler. Anyway bye!