Getting to the airport from the Radisson Narita (thanks for the free stay, Orbitz Orbucks!) was easy although it took a bit longer than expected. Nothing too outrageous, we just needed to plan for a bit more time than the 16 mins that Google Maps driving directions quoted. The Radisson only runs shuttles every 45-60 mins, so you might find yourself spending a lot more time at the airport than you wanted OR cutting it too close. Once we arrived at the airport, airport security boarded the shuttle bus to confirm that we had our passports and to do a general security check I suppose, then it was another few minutes inside the airport until we arrived at our terminal. Once at Terminal 1, we walked to the south gates (essentially another terminal) to check in for our flight.

CHECK-IN

We approached an ANA representative and I was glad that I was able to pick up WiFi signal in the airport because we had forgotten to print off the flight booking confirmations and they needed a ticket number to check us in. When we asked about seats and switching to a row with 3 seats over the wing, they basically told us we’d prefer our current bulkhead seating and, when I tried to politely request that we switch, the language barrier was too great to overcome and bulkhead it was for us.

They confirmed that we were traveling to Yangon, Myanmar today and asked us to present our visas for checking. They seemed concerned that we did not have 2 passport photos each and gave us some instruction on where to have these made at the Narita aiport. This somewhat rang a bell but I was not convinced that we needed this. Our next visa-necessary country on this trip would be Vietnam, so maybe I was getting those requirements confused. Either way, I put some stock in the fact that these same women check visas and documentation for this exact same flight with 200+ passengers to Yangon everyday so they’re probably correct.

We wandered up to the next level and found the passport photo-booth and had our photos made. While this proved to be unnecessary for Myanmar (as I had suspected), I’m glad we went because it was right next to the runway observation deck where we were able to take some great pictures.

Delta jet taxiing down runway

Vietnam Airlines

Korean Air taking off

Enough photos outside, time to head into the terminal!

See you in a few weeks, Tokyo! (and for a much longer visit)

Once we were past security, I checked my Priority Pass app to see which of the Tokyo lounges participated and found that, of the 6 lounges available in the program, 4 were land-side and the 5th was a United Club and thus ineligible, leaving the KAL Business Class Lounge as the only viable option.

We killed a bit of time in here before heading to our gate.

KAL Lounge at Narita Terminal 1

More about our visit to the KAL Lounge can be found here: KAL Lounge Review – Tokyo Nartia-NRT Terminal 1.

We ended up at the same to-go sushi counter that we ate at on our Tokyo-Newark flight in December 2013 and the sushi was just as fresh and delicious the second time around. However, I suspect that sushi in Tokyo proper is (obviously) much better than airport food, so we are counting the days to return to Tokyo and taste “real” Japanese food – and explore the beautiful Japanese culture. But, if there’s one place to break the no-airport sushi rule, it’s in Tokyo (well, that and One Flew South restaurant at Atlanta’s Jackson-Hartsfield International Airport where the sushi is phenomenal for an airport).

On the whole, we love Tokyo’s airport as it is very well-done: very streamlined, well decorated and just a bit more upscale than most US airports.

Our route as captured by my GPS, interesting that we seem to completely avoid Chinese airspace

BOARDING

In typical sensory overload from being in a new country, city and airport fashion, we were borderline late to the gate after rushing to try out the KAL Lounge, get the aforementioned sushi and then rush over to the gate.

They called out the boarding order and, being in no rush, we took our time getting on the plane. While some might consider Americans and other Westerners forward and a bit pushy, for me I always have trouble adjusting to the amount of personal space that seems to be the norm in Asia. I often take this as pushiness but I’m sure this feeling is misguided as the amount of space they leave is normal for them. But, I digress. So, after taking our sweet, unstressed time boarding the plane, we made our way through Business Class.

Forgot to take a picture on the way in so this one will have to do

As this was an intra-Asia trip and likely not a super high revenue route, the Boeing 767-300 aircraft was configured with 2 cabins. Business was broken into 2-1-2 seating configuration which seemed a bit weird to me as the seat in the middle of the fuselage was off by itself with double aisle access leaving the other 4 seats in the row with one aisle and one window per pair. It seems like it might have been more versatile to configure as 2-2-1 and maximize the aisle access?

We trudged on to the back of the plane with the other budget/non-expense account travelers and found our bulkhead seats right behind the exit doors, gallery and lavatories.

SEAT

This aircraft seemed to have less legroom in Economy than our last ANA flight which was on a 777-300ER, so were glad to have the additional exit row legroom.

Better start practicing the new national past time of all of Asia: the selfie

Shot from the back of the cheap seats

Before long we were taxiing to the runway:

Row of NCA: Nippon Cargo Airlines jets

Thai Airways and ANA lined up

MEAL SERVICE

Around 12:35pm, just a few minutes after reaching a safe altitude from our on-time departure, flight attendants came by with rice crackers as a pre-meal snack and offered a beverage service.

Our flight attendants circulated the cabin with a menu of the two options of the day: Simmered yellowtail over steam rice or Herb-flavored sautéed chicken with red wine sauce. 

They were really talking up the simmered yellowtail, and I mean a lot, tons of bragging by the crew and the cabin literature about it being award winning. Guess I don’t really have a choice in the matter! Turns out, they didn’t oversell it at all: it ended up being a delicious dish. The fish was well cooked and tasty. The sauce was what really made it and included carrots and sliced hard boiled egg on top and also what appeared to be tofu and a scallop? Not completely sure. It also included Japanese noodles with sauce, Miso soup and a sweet bun for dessert.

McCown took a stab at the much less acclaimed herb-flavored sautéed chicken with red wine sauce. It was basically dark meat chicken soaked in a red wine sauce– lots of good flavor and the chicken was good and tender. The saffron rice was flavorful, too, and especially good for airplane food. It was the Western dish, so it also came with a side salad (but had smoked salmon and capers on the side, so a nice extra touch), a roll with butter and cheese and a pineapple cream cake for dessert. I did prefer the Häagen-Dazs single serve ice cream passed out for dessert on our last ANA flight, but this pineapple cake was a good second.

Once again, the flight attendants offered hot green tea, coffee and hot English tea as after lunch drinks.

Nice bright blue skies above the clouds on our journey

IFE-Inflight Entertainment

Our LCD screens were a bit smaller than normal due to the bulkhead seating but, apart from that, the entertainment system was virtually identical to our 773ER flight from Chicago-ORD to Tokyo-NRT the previous day:

The fantastic selection of movies included many new releases that were Oscar-nominated in 2015 (The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Birdman). The monitor featured a good-sized screen + a USB port to keep all the other gadgets charged up. There’s also a regular power outlet under every seat, too. Control was by either a touch screen or remote.

Bulkhead screens, a bit small but better than nothing

SERVICE

Just as our trans-Pacific flight the day before with ANA, the service was well above average. The crew was very attentive and polite, really a top notch experience that I would recommend that others try.

The 7 hour flight passed quickly with the stellar movie choices and, before long, we were making our descent to Yangon-RGN.

Looks a little muggy out there, the forecast of 103 °F confirmed this

On time touch down and taxi to the gate:

Cranes rule the skyline in Yangon; it’s a quickly growing city

Yangon International Airport

The newer, less snazzy terminal at Yangon International Airport

Yangon arrivals area, immigration is just beyond this point

“Warmly Welcome to Myanmar”…I really hope the pun was intended here, this place is HOT

BOTTOM LINE: Another great long-haul flight on ANA in economy. From the service to the catering and in-flight entertainment, ANA proves to be a desirable airline to fly.

The post ANA Flight NH 913 – Tokyo-NRT to Yangon-RGN – B767-300 first appeared on Weekend Blitz.

For our 1 night layover in Japan following our flight from Chicago to Tokyo on ANA, we stayed at the Radisson Narita that I booked using Orbucks that I earned from booking other flights and hotels over the past few months. The hotel was fine, but the shuttle service ran every 60-70 mins. For us, this meant we’d need to err on the side of caution and take the earlier shuttle the morning of our flight to Yangon, which resulted in a decent chunk of time at Narita.

I checked my Priority Pass app to see which of the Tokyo lounges participate and found that, of the 6 lounges available in the program, 4 were land-side and the 5th was a United Club and thus ineligible, leaving the KAL Business Class Lounge the only viable option.

This lounge appears to serve all SkyTeam airlines for Terminal 1 and Priority Pass and Airport Angel so that us non-alliance elites and non-premium cabin travelers can get in.

Fortunately, entering with a guest (usually a $25 charge) was free at this particular lounge.

KAL Lounge Tokyo-Nartia

Plenty of seating

KAL Lounge Tokyo-Nartia

The best part of the lounge was probably the location with a great view of a main runway and plenty of seats right up at the window:

Vietnam Airlines taxiing to runway

ANA taking off

Garuda Indonesia pushing from the gate

The food options when we arrived–a little too late for breakfast and a little too early for lunch–left a bit to be desired, so don’t count on full meal when stopping by.

Food choices: a little sparse, maybe a virtue of the time of day?

There were a few ramen noodle choices, a sticky rice ball with sauce in the middle, a sticky rice triangle wrapped in seaweed paper and a few choices like croissants and crackers.

Sticky rice balls! Not necessarily my idea of a hearty snack but it’ll have to do….

As far as alcohol, Kirin Ichiban and another beer were on draft in addition to wine and liquor. They, of course, had a soda fountain with Coke, Coke Zero, green tea etc… and canned fruit juices.

The best part was the espresso machine, which turned out a perfect cappuccino.

BOTTOM LINE: Stop by if it’s free for you (i.e. Priority Pass holders or SkyTeam premium passengers) but don’t count on much in the way of food; you’ll want to grab something heartier elsewhere.

The post KAL Lounge Review – Tokyo Nartia-NRT Terminal 1 first appeared on Weekend Blitz.

As we headed to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, we were musing that this was actually both of our first west-bound trip across the Pacific Ocean. We have flown Hong Kong to Chicago and Tokyo to Newark before, but never the opposite direction. The best part about flying economy on a long haul west-bound flight is that you’re almost always better off not going to sleep at all, a plus when it would be uncomfortable if you felt like you needed to get at least a few hours.

Would it stay light the entire flight? We were scheduled to depart Chicago about an hour before sunset, so could we reasonably be able to keep up with the setting sun, chasing it all the way to Japan? Spoiler alert: this didn’t happen. It stayed light outside for the majority of our flight, but somewhere over the Pacific, we witnessed the sunset for the final time and continued on in the dark.

CHECK-IN

ANA departs from Terminal 1 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. They share a rather small area with Lufthansa and I could imagine how it could get quite cramped on busy days with full flights. Fortunately for us, our flight was probably at about 50% capacity and we arrived somewhat late–about 1 hour before boarding. The check-in agent was very helpful and even offered to change our seats so that we had a better chance to spread out a bit on the flight. Once he saw that our final destination was Yangon, Myanmar-RGN, he asked to see our visas and actually studied them quite closely to make sure that we wouldn’t have an issue later. I’m thankful for this since I’m sure many people have been burned in the past due to not closely following the rules.

Chicago O’Hare: United country

BOARDING

Boarding time was scheduled for 4:45pm, about 30 minutes before scheduled takeoff, and it began promptly.

After boarding the aircraft, what we had already guessed from looking at the seating chart earlier in the day was confirmed: the plane was rather empty. There were plenty of open seats in the back and plenty of room to spread out. Actually, this was the emptiest international flight I’ve been on in recent years (ever?).

Boarding was extremely fast and smooth, likely a result of the passenger-light flight.

JA-731A, built in 2004

After settling into our seat, the overhead monitors displayed the horrible news: time to destination was a dreaded 13 hr 18 mins.

Our departure was delayed appx 15 mins due to runway congestion but we were off shortly and the time was easily made up en route.

A KLM Boeing 747 right behind us waiting to takeoff

Takeoff over cold and snow covered Chicago

And finally, blue skies:

THE SEAT

The Boeing 777-300ER that we were on had 4 cabins, First, Business, Premium Economy and Economy:

One of 52 flat bed business seats:

The premium economy seats looked significantly wider and more cushioned than where we were headed.

Premium Economy Seats

Economy was a slightly unusual 3x4x2 configuration, which actually isn’t bad because it gives you a good option of securing a window and aisle if traveling in pairs; I probably like it more than the 3x3x3 that they could have done. Either way, we could have easily spread out and jumped on a full 4 seats each to ourselves,  but I strategically didn’t want to get any sleep, so we settled on a 3 seater to get a little extra room to spread out without having to compromise a window seat.

Economy exit row

While this picture was taken while still boarding, it didn’t look much fuller upon take off

The best news of this plane: the fixed-recline seats. I think that most people are opposed to these because they limit your overall recline compared to a traditional seat and the amount that you’re able to recline is taken away from your legroom. But I’m a huge fan of these. These seats allow you to recline without infringing on your neighbor’s space and–most importantly–without anyone jerking back a seat in your personal space either. I’d rather have to suffer the consequences of my own recline than have the guy in front of me abruptly decide it’s time for a snooze and knock out my knees, drink and laptop in the process.

Overall, I have no complaints about the seats — they didn’t seem as cramped as other Asian carriers. But, maybe that’s because the flight was essentially empty.

MEAL SERVICE-DINNER

A few minutes after reaching 10k feet, the flight attendants came around with hot towels for us to freshen up.

Next up: beverage and snack service.

Rice crackers and a drink

For the dinner service, we had 2 types of choices:

– Vegetable curry and steamed rice
– Creamy seafood with saffron rice

McCown had the vegetable curry; it was served with a side of soba noodles (with a packet of sauce) and fruit (pineapple, cantaloupe). I thought the vegetable curry entrée with mushrooms, onions and butternut squash was great. It was actually somewhat on the sweet side.

Vegetable curry

I went with the creamy seafood route which came with a few pieces of roasted chicken breast, bell peppers and onions, and sides of charcuterie, mozzarella and tomato salad and a crab salad. This seems to have been the Western meal choice. The mozzarella was great and quite flavorful. The crab salad was ok — slightly intimidating to begin with since it’s seafood on an airplane. As far as the creamy seafood entrée goes, I was pleasantly surprised. The shrimp, calamari and scallops were pretty decent and while the creamy sauce was a little disconcerting at first, it all came together quite well in the end. In all, the seafood was rather non-seafoody.

Creamy seafood with saffron rice

Washing it down with an Asahi topped it all off quite well

For dessert, about 1.5 hours after departure and while expecting some sort of stale pastry, the flight attendants whisked around passing out single-serving-sized Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream containers. Again, a nice surprise.

Shortly after dinner, the flight attendants came around asking everyone to completely lower their window shades. I guess no one else has the same strategy to stay up for the entire flight as me? I’m not really sure why not, it’s about 8pm Chicago time and when we land in Tokyo it will be time for bed– doesn’t seem like a great idea to sleep for 10 hours before landing.

ENTERTAINMENT-IFE

The fantastic selection of movies included many new releases that were Oscar-nominated in 2015 (The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Birdman). The monitor featured a good-sized screen + a USB port to keep all the other gadgets charged up. There’s also a regular power outlet under every seat, too. Control was by either a touch screen or remote.

About 3 hours after departure, they flipped the last switched and totally dimmed the cabin, now it’s really a challenge to fight the urge to sleep.

We spent the whole flight chasing the sunset

I knocked out no fewer than 5 movies before the lights were back on about 7.5 hours after dimming them.

MEAL SERVICE-“BREAKFAST”/REFRESHMENT

With the lights back on in the cabin, the flight attendants briskly made their way distributing hot towels as everyone work up for the “breakfast” service.

I’m more confused as ever to as what meal they’re serving us here, while it’s about 4am Chicago time, it’s also about 6pm Tokyo time so not really sure why “breakfast” is the appropriate meal—eh, oh well, I’m fully prepared to eat it. The second most confusing part about this meal were the choices:

-“chicken mustard cream stew”
-“steamed cod with red bell pepper sauce”

I found it increasingly odd that neither seemed to be a direct “Western” or “Japanese” choice.

While both choices were edible but slightly sketchy, the one redeeming factor was that they were served with yogurt, sliced fruit and coffee. Guess it was “breakfast” after all?

Mmmm…breakfast

SERVICE

The service was, as you might expect from an Asian carrier with a trans-Pacific route, fantastic. Everyone was polite, courteous and very attentive. This was why we actively sought to avoid United for the same route; the Asian carriers seem to provide a much more enjoyable experience.

The post ANA Flight NH1011 – Chicago-ORD to Tokyo-NRT – B777-300ER first appeared on Weekend Blitz.