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Lawrence  Chung

'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.
She tried three times to report on the arrival of about 100 tourists via Xiamen Airlines, which landed at Taipei Sungshan Airport.
'I was overwhelmed by the huge crowd of reporters. You guys are so passionate,' she said referring to the local journalists surrounding her to ask her what she thought of Taiwan. 'I will introduce myself to scenes in Taiwan and the hospitality of the Taiwanese people during my 10-day stay.'
Although the charter flights serve mainland and Taiwanese cities, anyone with valid travel documents may fly on these flights. A total of 753 visitors, including 31 mainland tourism officials and 60 journalists, are scheduled to visit tourist attractions in Taiwan for 10 days.
Many of the tour groups visited top attractions on Friday such as the National Palace Museum, the world's tallest building Taipei 101 and a memorial honouring Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of modern China.
Adding spice to yesterday's festival event was Taiwan's sniffer dog, Dalton, who accidentally caught one of his paws on the zipper of a bag on the baggage belt at Sungshan Airport while trying to detect illegal farm products. The dog yelped, with its foot bleeding, prompting airport officials to rush it to a veterinarian for treatment.



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