ANA 1768 ISG-OKA B737-500 seat 6F
My flight out was on a B737 very much like the one that brought me in, except that this Super Dolphin was still in ANK livery. The plane load was decent but not quite full, around 80%, and the window seat I'd requested turned out to offer only great views of the wall next to me. Oh well, for 50 minutes I didn't really mind, I snarfed down an apple juice and contemplated the award possibilities of ANA's route network. It's awfully thin down south, only covering the Big 3 of Ishigaki, Miyako and Naha, and not a single destination in the archipelago between Kagoshima and Naha. Up north, however, the story changes thanks to Hokkaido Air Commuter's services to places like Rishiri and Nemuro-Memanbetsu. And the Goto Islands off the north coast of Kyushu also sound suitably obscure for an award... but where's the fun in a single transfer at Fukuoka?
Okinawa Naha (OKA)
Landing was smooth and we yet again taxied out to the middle of nowhere for a bus transfer out. The bus stopped on its way to drop 2 passengers directly at their gate, then deposited the rest in the terminal. Okinawa's airport, or at least the little I saw of it, looks pretty good: big, airy, somewhat nondescript but clearly signposted with the ANA and JAL camps sequestered in their own wings as usual. I bounded up the stairs and quickly found the ANA Signet lounge, and when I enquired about Internet possibilities I was handed a cable and led to the Business Corner. But closer examination showed that the cable was a 4-pin RJ-11 (telephone), not 8-pin RJ-45 (Ethernet), and closer cross-examination of the poor lounge attendant confirmed my fears that indeed, this was only for dialup to your own ISP and the lounge had no wireless either! And the signal from the duty free shop next door was encrypted to boot. Oh, woe is me... the lounge looked so identical to the ones in Chubu and Narita that I had to triple-check to make sure the connection really was for telephones only. I drowned my sorrows in a glass of ginger ale and a packet of mixed nuts (cold), then with time up headed to the gate.
ANA 130 OKA-HND B747-400 seat 83K
Now there's a seat number you don't see every day! Fortunately, in Japan "row 83" does not mean in the cargo hold, but the 2nd floor of a Jumbo -- only my second time in recent memory to enter this hallowed space. The last time was also on ANA economy class, in the Pokemon Jet from HND to Sapporo (CTS), complete with stewardesses holding big yellow Pikachu toys as they welcomed you on board, and this time too the Pokemon Jet was waiting for me at Naha... but, alas, it was the next departure after mine, and my Jumbo was the non-Pokemon kind, now a "real" ANA plane instead of ANK in disguise.
Finding my gate was easy enough, as it was the one with 500+ Japanese milling around it. The two questions that instantly came to mind were a) how on earth can they fit that many people into a steel tube, and b) do it in less than 15 minutes? But it turned out that load was once again hovering around 80% (so perhaps a mere 400 were squished on board) and the plane pushed off from the gate on schedule. Thanks to the magic gold card I was among the first upstairs, the stewardess came up to welcome me in English with an exciting selection of Japan Today and Time, but I meanly squashed her hopes by asking for a Nikkei instead. (Actually, I prefer Yomiuri, but I'd already flipped through that on the earlier flight.) Her eyes widened beneath the makeup but, this being Japan, she quickly obliged with a burst of keigo politesse.
Soon enough with a hop, skip and jump the Jumbo shuddered to the skies, and a baleful announcement was made to the effect that turbulence was expected and the seatbelt sign would stay turned on. There is, as I type this, an unearthly silence here in the upper cabin, but only jitters of anxiety so far... but the turbulence failed to materialize, the seatbelt sign bonged off and the by now routine drink service started.
After an uneventful flight the plane started its descent and we were treated to a scenic view of the Tokyo Bay Aqualine, a mindboggling multitrillion-yen boondoggle that involves 5 km of bridge and 10 km of tunnel, connecting Chiba to the Kanagawa coast past Yokohama. One-way tolls start at Y3000 and unsurprisingly pretty much nobody uses the thing, but it looks pretty impressive from high up!