ANA 008 NRT to SFO

Alcoholic beverages are not taboo in Japan the way they are in the States.


This guy seems to be having a pretty good time (billboard in the Ebisu section of Tokyo) thanks to Sapporo beer. But it seems like things quickly took a turn for the worse.


This is definitely the strongest advertisement against drinking beer that I’ve ever seen.

I’ve already raved about ANA, and keeping with the high-quality of most Asian airlines they’ve got a great lounge at Tokyo Narita complete with a cooked-to-order noodle bar.


In an earlier post I wrote about their sake brand, but this is ridiculous. I did indeed eat that thing with the ANA logo on it – I think it’s some kind of fish cake slice but I hope that those of you that know better will let me know exactly what it is. This is a bowl of “Kitsune Soba”, which is a very typical Japanese dish – buckwheat noodles in a savory soup with some seaweed and a slice of fried tofu thrown in. Tasty, filling and cheap. Even though Japan has a reputation for being very expensive, I had an amazing Sushi lunch today in the Shibuya section of Tokyo, at a “conveyor belt” sushi restaurant. Better than anything you’ll get in the States, and the check came out to $12 for 14 pieces of sushi and 2 beers. Try getting amazing sushi for that price outside of Japan.

But despite all that, it looks like Ronald is resorting to pimping out lockers in the Ebisu subway station.


Sorry state of affairs…

Nihon-go Dekimasen, Gomen-Nasai

Always a good idea to learn how to say “I’m sorry, I don’t speak your language” wherever you go. I had to use that phrase to remind the flight attendants on ANA a couple times . . .

Culture shock is setting in already. One of my colleagues here in Tokyo recommended I take the “Airport Limousine” from Narita to my hotel, and he did warn me that “it is not a limousine.”


At least it’s the friendly kind.

“Airport Limousines” aside, the first thing you notice when you arrive in Japan are the ubiquitous vending machines.


With little street crime to speak of, these things just don’t get broken in to, so they’re everywhere. The drinks with the blue line beneath them are cold, and the red ones are hot. You can buy all kinds of stuff from vending machines in Japan, but the ones with these kinds of beverages are the most common.

Then you go to visit the restroom and it’s the most confusing experience of your life.


Toilets have control panels here, you have to get used to that. Good thing this one came with instructions on how to use the “Equipment to cleansing the buttocks with warm water.”


Despite what they’re telling you, it’s not the buttocks that gets cleansed, it’s what’s between them. I’ll spare you the details, but man, are these things accurate with their aim. At least in this particular restroom, at Narita Airport, there’s an emergency switch just in case the apparatus goes haywire.


That’s just what you need when the buttocks cleaning mechanism has you by the balls -- a guard rushing in. I wonder how often people need to use that switch.

I’ve been to Japan quite a few times and this kind of stuff still never fails to amaze me. I really, really like this place.

NH 7 SFO to NRT

NH stands for ANA which stands for All Nippon Airways (so why the heck is it NH? Well, in the Japanese language Japan is either “Nippon” or “Nihon” depending on context, so I’m guessing stands for Nihon).

When you fly to Asia, always fly with an Asian carrier if you can. The concept of customer service is completely different than it is in the U.S. – they actually really want you to have a nice experience and work hard to make it happen. This becomes apparent the minute you step up to check in at the ANA counter at SFO -- there are people bowing at you like crazy and the check-in person is unbelievably friendly and efficient. Starts to get you ready for check-in at the hotel in Tokyo which is also a bowing-fest with the staff taking care of your every need and not accepting tips! I tried to tip a bellman in Japan once and he went running for his life. Takes a bit of getting used to coming from the States where so many people just don’t give a sh*t.

The crew on this flight is amazing, they come around every hour or so with different goodies to eat and drink, and the individual video screen at my seat has a Video-On-Demand system with a whole bunch of movies & TV shows. This kind of stuff really makes the 11-hour flight fly by (har-har-har, I almost injured myself there). This is all happening in coach too – I’m starting to wonder what could be going on up there in business class . . .

I think there are 5 more hours to go in this 11 hour flight. Right now I’m watching a Japanese movie about a small mining town in Hokkaido where all the women learn to hula-dance. Earlier I watched “The Hustler” with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason shooting pool with Japanese Subtitles.


I’m one of the only non-Japanese people on this big old 777, and the flight attendants have taken to addressing me in Japanese. Feels like I’m already in Tokyo. And, hey, you gotta love an airline that has it’s own Sake brand.


The best part was when the flight attendants all lined up in the aisles after the safety announcement and bowed in unison. I wish I had gotten a picture of that.

Cap’n announced we’re landing almost an hour early, so maybe I’ll have time for a nice dinner in Tokyo tonight.


They’re not dimming the cabin lights since the reading lights are busted, but I’m not getting any sleep anyway. Enjoy the Super Bowl, everyone, I’ll be oblivious to it along with the rest of Nihon.

AA 1818 MIA to SFO

The thing about South Florida is if you don’t clean things they get dirty real fast.


That’s the view from my room at the FAAAAHHHBULOUS Deauville Beach Resort in North Miami Beach (which is a long ways away –both literally and figuratively -- from the stylish art-deco scene down in South Beach). The last event of significance at this resort was the Beatles performance there in 1964. I think there may have been some gristle under my bed that Ringo spat out after the show.

Maybe if they cleaned the roof on this place they’d be doing better business?

Look -- if your idea of a good time is hanging by the pool with a bunch of 90-year-olds and a few confused people from South America with really bad travel agents, and waking up every morning to Hassidic families pushing screaming babies in strollers down the hallway outside your room, then by all means book yourself a vacation at this place.

I had to be there for a conference so I had no choice. You can go off and make your own mistakes, but please don’t let this place be one of them.

We did manage to get over to Joe’s Stone Crab for dinner. If you’ve never had the Stone Crab then you gotta go to this place next time you’re in Miami. It’s a crab that only grows in the Gulf of Mexico, and they only harvest one claw then throw the crab back in the water. It grows a new claw just to start the torturous process anew, but man is it ever the sweetest crab meat on the planet. And I used to be a vegetarian.

Stone Crabs don’t freeze well, so you need to get them fresh, in season, and Joe’s is the place to go (they’re only open when it’s Stone Crab season so if you go there in the summertime you’re outta luck). If you’re not spending big at this place the waiters can be downright rude, but try and get yourself seated in the waiter named Michael’s section (it’s near the front) and he’s gonna take care of you.

The flight back home was the old-school American Airlines experience that I’ve come to know and loathe. MIA is a cluster f*** of an airport if there ever was one, and I try to avoid it at all costs, but it’s the only option if you want to go non-stop from SFO to South Florida without taking a red-eye. The place felt like a zoo as we tried to check in while thousands of folks just off of budget cruise tried to make heads-or-tails out of the most confusing major airport in North America. Everywhere I looked there were sunburnt couples wearing matching Hawaiian shirts, and preteen girls with bad cornrows that they were really going to regret on their first day back at school. Not pretty, folks. AA’s check in kiosks were all broken (typical) and the line at First Class check in basically didn’t move at all.

American’s crews seem to be getting really friendly these days, what happened there? Not what I’ve come to expect in recent days, and since their overall product is such a piece of crap it’s nice to get some of that thing that doesn’t cost the airlines anything to provide – POLITENESS!!! Keep it up AA flight attendants, it really DOES make a difference!

That whole Super Bowl thing is going on in Miami right now (let’s see if the NFL sues me for writing “Super Bowl” without licensing the name).

AA 967 SFO to MIA

Just when I'm completely fed up with United, I get stuck in an old-school American Airlines coach cabin flying coast-to-coast and realize that United isn't so bad after all.


Thank goodness I have a wonderful wife who enjoys traveling with me (and more importantly she's not as jaded as I am when it comes to air travel).

The thing that kills me the most on the big US carriers is the "letter from the CEO" page in the inflight magazine. What freaking world are these guys living in? It's as if they've never flied on their own airline.

But that's really no surprise given the steep pay cuts the rank-and-file employees get forced upon them while creepy dudes like AA's CEO Gerald Arpey get 7-figure compensation packages. Listen, folks, I'm all for capitalism but come on . . .

Even thought I bitch often about the major airlines in this country, it's hard to blame a rude flight attendant for being in a pissy mood as he watches his salary and pension melt away while douchebags like Arpey make $13 million a year. Just not right. Run a perpetually money-losing company and get a comp package like that? Try that in any other industry.

Even though this flight was on a relatively new B-757 (evident by the winglets) the cabin was the usual American piece-of-crap. Dirty, not much legroom, but at least AA still doles out the complimentary blankets that somebody probably farted on during the flight before yours.

Thank goodness Jet Blue is starting service from SFO this spring.

UA 1157 SEA to SFO

My research now concluded, I can confidently report based on observation (as well as the resigned shoulder shrugging of my colleagues in Seattle) it is indeed grey there the entire winter. Nevertheless, people have found ways to add color to the otherwise muted landscape.


The trip home was ho-hum smooth sailing. Had dinner at Anthony's at Sea-Tac, within the massive central shopping-mall-atrium-wall-audiologists-nightmare that is the Seattle Tacoma Airport's main terminal dining and shopping zone. This restaurant used to offer one of the best airport meals in the country (if you like fresh seafood), but it looks like they're slipping off a bit. You can sit at a counter that's practically in the open kitchen, which usually puts you face-to-face with the guy making the salads or frying chips. That's where I sit, and the guys didn't have their usual smart-ass spunk and hustle this time -- maybe that's why the food wasn't so good. Even the waitress was scowly.

The flight was a by-the-numbers short haul United late evening flight, with the flight attendants making it clear they just didn't care (was the end of a long day for everyone). The only thing that raised the hairs on my arms was a few times the pilot repeated the ATC instructions back wrong -- including the RUNWAY we were supposed to land on as we were on final approach into SFO. This airport has parallel runwys, and landings are always on 26 Left and 26 Right. Normally there are airplanes landing on both runways simultaneously, so if the pilot gets them mixed up, well . . .

You don't hear stuff like that too often on United's inflight audio channel 9, but it does happen. Luckily the ATC corrected the pilot and we landed safely.

Freezattle

All it takes is a couple of years living on the west coast, and the whole tolerance to cold thing goes out the window. I grew up in The Bronx, along with the attendant rough NY weather. I never really minded the hot summers, but man, the cold and the snow . . .

It snowed here yesterday morning, before I arrived, and all indications point to the entire city having grinded to a halt. My company's office here is beautifully situated on a river, and some of my colleagues kayak to work. Seems like a great way to commute, unless you capsize. Try explaining that one to your boss.

The rumors about Seattle are true, it is indeed in a nearly constant state of overcast skies. This morning it seemed like the sun didn't come up until 10am. But this is more than cancelled out by the people -- some of the coolest, friendliest, laid-back people you'll meet in this country.

And the seafood . . . it took me around 2 hours to tear apart and eat a local Dungeness Crab last night at a nondescript place in the Public Market. I was kinda bummed that my favorite restaurant here, Matt's In The Market, is closed for renovations, but there's no lack of great food in this town.