20th Anniversary

As some of you know we lived in Taiwan for 10 years.  It was a great place,a lot of wonderful friends and some interesting events. Galen traveled to China fairly often and at that time you could not fly direct from Taiwan to China.  We would fly to Hong Kong then on to China. On this occasion he had been in China for several weeks and had to stay in Hong Kong over the weekend as he had meetings on Monday. Then he would fly back to Taiwan.  Our ladies group was going to be going to Hong Kong for their annual Christmas shopping trip that Monday.  Great, I'll fly over early, spend the weekend with my husband then stay and shop with the "girls"!

Great plan.  My plane left Taiwan as scheduled (minor typhoon). If you have seen movies where they show flying into Hong Kong-going between the apartment buildings and the one and only runway goes out into the harbor-then you know what I am talking about.  We got to Kai-Tak Airport, made our approach in between  the apartment buildings(looking in the windows!)  and went to land in the wind and rain.  We touched down about half way down the runway, hydro planed a little, made the first turn of the U to  head back to the terminal.  We could not make the second leg of the U and slid into the harbor!

Got to go down the slide into the life raft. Unfortunately we were starting to drift out into the harbor. A tug pushed us back in closer to the rocks. Another problem, since we were over the wing, they couldn't then get the boat in then to get us. It is possible to get back up the slide, walk across the plane and down the other slide then into the rescue boat. I had many flight attendants tell me that is impossible.  It isn't but then I had bruises on my arms from the guys helping me back up!  

 A very wet me on the boat!

 Since the plane was hindering other plane traffic they blew off the tail.  This is a picture of the plane early December back on land and being gutted.  It was an expensive accident-6 month old 747-400 wasted!

The following January friends of ours were flying off island for their Chinese new Year Trip on the same airline. The daughter was going through a pack of post cards they were given when they boarded the plane. She realized this card had s picture of me and three friends (one her mother) that had been taken in the old section of Taipei.  It was the area that had all the New Year decorations, herbal shops etc. Great place and we would spend many hours there browsing-oh yes, the fabric market was there as well!

Oh yes, I did not stay and shop with the gals.  Had to do some shopping to get some clothes to wear that weekend and flew back to Taiwan on Monday with Galen! Had lost my interest in Christmas shopping that weekend! Instead when we took my parents over early December-I shopped then!!!!

Post script-Galen gets to the hotel that evening. Says, I didn't know if you would be here, for some reason the airport is closed! About that time the news came on with a picture of my plane in the harbor. He then understood why I was sitting there in a bath robe and my pant suit was hanging from the shower rod!