Visiting and fressing in Pennsylvania
US1023 BOS PHL 0630 0756 734 4A
was 1811 0830 1001 E90 12F
The kiosk offered me the earlier flight at no cost. Hey,
why not. Give me 3 hours to enjoy the beauties of PHL and
do FT at the RCC.
Flight was fine and fast. Courteous though uninvolved
FA service.
Comparison of the RCC versus the USAC (F terminal,
comparable in size).
staff:
UA: courteous if a little gruff; helpful
US: courteous if a little diffident; helpful
Ever so slight edge to US
amenities:
UA: furniture semi-comfy; a bit outdated
US: furniture semi-comfy; a bit outdated
A wash
restrooms:
UA: fairly clean, small, inadequately ventilated
US: clean, small, nicely appointed, airy
Edge: US
coffee:
UA: Bunn-O-Matic regular and decaf, espresso machine,
good selection of teas and herbal teas
US: Flavia system, a couple teas
Edge: UA
breakfast snacks:
UA: pre-staled Sara Lee cake; yogurt, raisins, fruit
US: amazingly underbaked blueberry muffins; yogurt, fruit
A wash
lunch snacks:
UA: cheese, crackers, crudites, chips and salsa, potato
chips, raisins, Sun Chips
US: cheese, crackers, crunchy salty junk, potato chips
Edge: UA, slightly
bar:
UA: decent selection, amusing bartender who can make
fancy drinks
US: okay selection, bartender hardly forthcoming
entertainment:
UA: TV with unchangeable inane programming
US: TV with unchangeable inane programming
A wash
Internet:
UA: free wireless
US: costly wireless (apparently soon to change)
Edge: UA (apparently soon to equalize)
business amenities:
UA: telephones in TV room only; copier; spartan cubicles
with bad temperature control
US: telephones, some of which work; copier, shredder, fax;
spacious well lit cubicles
Edge: US
On the whole, all the fighting about the superiority of one
okay club over the other is kind of silly.
US4118 PHL IPT 1051 1144 DH8 2A was 4F
Unfortunately, this process changed my seat from the exit
shady side window to the noisiest sunny side window, and I
didn't notice. Ah, well, I carry earplugs and eyeshades with
me, and my legs aren't super super long. Which reminds me,
though. My buddies were watching Dancing with the Stars last
night, and I demonstrated my high kicking prowess ... which
would have been fine, except I forgot, in my eagerness to
impress a young lady, that I can't kick my left leg as high
any more. Threw the damned left butt out, and it was pretty
unpleasant sitting in the Dash 8 seat. More Benadryl made
it easy to snooze through the flight, though.
My friends were there to pick me up and drag me to Ichiban,
a sushi parlor run by an assortment of Chinese and
Indonesians. I went against sanity and went for raw fish,
which actually was pretty fresh and pretty well prepared.
The sashimi lunch consisted of three slices each of escolar,
sea bass of some kind, yellowfin tuna, and salmon. All were
good examples, and only the tuna had a whiff of less-than-
freshness. Rice was average, more American than Japanese.
For some reason the escolar didn't have the embarrassing
Olestra-like effects that it usually does. The lunch came
with an average miso soup with lots of seaweed and an
average iceberg salad with an average miso-based dressing.
Billy, being immunosuppressed, looked enviously at the raw
fish; he, Annie, and Merinda all had the shrimp tempura.
I tried this: the shrimp were fine, though the batter
was too thick; vegetables were mostly normal but had a
couple odd additions, including large taro, which someone
pawned off on me as eggplant.
I also ordered an agedashi dofu appetizer for the table,
but everyone else steered away from it; it was of a
decent standard.
Sapporo beer was a good accompaniment to all.