'I am the first, I have waited for this moment for 18 years'

'I am the first! I am the first! I have waited for this moment for 18 years,' shouted Wang Chia-hua, dashing out of the China Southern Airlines plane soon after it taxied to a stop on the apron of Taoyuan International Airport outside Taipei.

Mr Wang, a Taiwanese businessman based in Guangzhou, was not supposed to be the first. That honour was meant to go to mainlander Chen Tingting, studying at a Hong Kong university.

She had been chosen through a computer lot to be 'No1 passenger' of the 106 people on the historic direct chartered flight from Guangzhou to Taiwan. 'It was a big surprise when they told me they would declare me as the No1 person to land here,' she said after receiving a plaque to mark the occasion. Despite missing out, she said she could not wait to look around Taiwan.

It was a day of firsts for many mainlander tourists, thanks to warming ties following talks between Taipei and Beijing last month.

Out of those talks came an agreement on cross-strait direct flights that will allow thousands of mainlanders, many of them for the first time, to visit Taiwan.

Jia Jijin, a journalist with Southeastern Satellite TV based in Fujian province, was among the beaming mainland tourists waving to the crowd of officials and reporters watching the historic event.