Move the Family from Taipei To Stuttgart, Part 1 - Flight to Taipei "We Have Great High Tech Solutions - But No One Else Knows About Them"

Finally another entry. The last couple of weeks were crazy because I finally brought my wife and son to Germany. Sounds easy, but it was quite a project.

First the flight back to Taipei which was not the worst part, apart from the fact that I just had gotten back from a business trip to the Czech Republic (two day trip to a factory, 1600 km driving, mostly with the boss driving going between 160 and 220 km/h, yelling at the other drivers while waving his hands), and that i was still replying to emails while checking it.

The only other issue from this flight worth mentioning were the problems caused by high tech solutions by one party which the other parties don't know about or don't accept.

1) If you have a permit to live in Taiwan, Taiwan issues that on your ARC, but it doesn't show on your passport. Apparently a lot of other countries/airports don't know about it, and the people there are wondering, while your passport doesn't show a valid visa. So when I went to the passport check at the Frankfurt Airport the officer asked why i don't have a valid visa if, and i had to explain him the ARC thing. Fortunately nowadays you don't have to have a visa for a visit to Taiwan anymore, so he probably thought "What the heck" and let me go after a few minutes. Once in Amsterdam they held me up 30 minutes to discuss this issue.

2) Nowadays you can check in online and often even print out your boarding pass. I even got a reminder from Lufthansa and Cathay Pacific (my flight was operated by these two airlines) to check in and print out the boarding pass. Great way to save time - unless you get to the HK airport and want to pass through the transfer check with your printed boarding pass. "No - you need the old traditional boarding pass, printed out at the desks. Please go to the Cathay Pacific desk and get a boarding pass there." And that after I asked in Frankfurt at the desk, if my printed Boarding Pass is good also for HK. The lady there had replied full of enthusiasm: "Yes, you can go straight to your gate, you don't have to go the the Cathay Pacific desk to get another boarding pass" So much for a well working cooperation.

But otherwise I made the flight without problems and then the week of stress and almost no sleep began. See the next entry.