Our 2008 US Visit: Taiwan, Via Detroit

Photos by MJ Klein

This is the last article in our 2008 US Trip series.  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this series as much as we’ve enjoying sharing it with you.

In Part Two we showed ^[1] you the famous Kansai airport in Osaka Japan ^[2].  Now, on the return flight we’re going to show you a little of what Detroit’s airport is like.

^[3]

This is of course, my lovely wife Hui-chen standing on one of the moving walkways.  Detroit is a large airport and it’s a good thing they have these moving walkways, otherwise we would have been completely wiped out getting from one terminal to the other to catch our connecting flight!  We took the same exact route back as we did getting to North Carolina ^[4] from Taiwan, just in reverse order of course.

^[5]

This airport is huge. Clicking on this photo will open the Flickr page where you may view the large size.  You’ll see from this photo that we were on the lower level and needed to go though a tunnel to get to the upper main terminal.  The graphic is a bit confusing because we had just arrived from a domestic flight but the sign says that terminal is for international flights.  The international flights leave from the larger terminal so the sign is not correct.  The only thing that matters is that you get to the gate shown on your ticket so this sign is good for directions in that case.

^[6]

We are making our way from our gate to the tunnel.

^[7]

Down an escalator and to the tunnel we go!

^[8]

The first time I saw this tunnel I was rather surprised.  The tunnel features changing colored lights and I’m sure that there are some passengers who find the lighting to be difficult to negotiate.  Nevertheless, the changing light scheme is all there is.  Take a look at the following photos to see the light cycle:

^[9]

^[10]

^[11]

^[12]

^[13]

Not only does the main lighting change….

^[14]

There are lights that “chase” down the walls too!  Take a look at this red “wave” as it runs the length of the tunnel:

^[15]

^[16]

^[17]

^[18]

^[19]

Whoa!  That was some light show!  Hui-chen and I were walking as fast as we could, and also using the moving walkways and it still took some time to get through this huge tunnel.

^[20]

Finally, we exit the tunnel at the other end and go up another escalator.

^[21]

This is the main terminal.  Notice the elevated red tram.

^[22]

This is our plane – we made it!  With not much time between flights and such a long distance to travel between gates, we thought we might not make it.  But it turns out that our gate was very close to the escalator and we didn’t have to take the tram at all.

^[23]

Of course, Detroit has many places to go shopping!

^[24]

This shot shows the basic layout of the big terminal.  It’s a single long building and the trams go back and forth.  The tram is the best way to get from the center area (shown here) to either end.

^[25]

We took a few minutes to get something to eat in a restaurant near our gate.  The tram goes back and forth every few minutes.

^[26]

This is our ending shot for this series.  In a few minutes from now, Hui-chen and I will board our plane to take us back to Taiwan!  We hope you enjoyed visiting the US with us, and all the things we did together with our family.  Thanks so much for reading, and be sure to give our articles a rating so we know how you like them!