English: Due to the clouds, I got no farewell view of Hong Kong as I started my flight back to Seoul. But about an hour later, I could get some views of Taiwan. I entered Taiwan around Taichung, and now will head north along the spine of the island, getting some views of the heavily populated northwestern portions.

Since losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communists (People's Republic of China) in 1949, the Republic of China has been limited to Taiwan Province and a few islands off the Fujian Province coast. Nevertheless, Taiwan and mainland China have become key strategic and trading partners of each other in recent years; Shanghai has a large Taiwanese population, and Taiwanese airlines operate scheduled direct flights to major mainland cities. I noted this as a nice contrast to the again-increasing tensions of the two Koreas, as I head toward Seoul on a South Korean aircraft.

HL7417, Boeing 747-400M