I was first off the plane. Quite why I needed to be, I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting a queue at transit. In fact I was wondering whether the transit point would be staffed at all. But I do love being the first to get on or get off the plane. No one in front of you blocking your way for a start. There’s something emotionally satisfying about storming your way down an empty corridor trying to put as much distance as possible between you and the people behind you.
Kansai requires you to take a stupid little shuttle train to passport control, even though you could probably walk it just as fast if you factor in the time spent waiting for the train to arrive and then holding at the station. On the upside, it’s fun to watch the doors thud close on passengers who don’t move quickly enough.
Transit security wanted to see a boarding pass.
Security officer: “You are going to Hong Kong?”
Me: “Yes.”
Officer: “Where did you come from?”
Me: “Er... Hong Kong.”
I thought this could mean some difficult questions but all this response elicited was a stream of Japanese at the officer manning the x-ray. I assumed it was dialogue indicating to the officer that I was safe to be let through. Of course it could just as well have been dialogue telling him to make sure to pay particular attention to the x-ray monitor because I wasn’t exhibiting normal behaviour.
Nothing in my backpack seemed to raise any alarms and I was soon up on the departures level, where there was a shining example of how the Japanese tell it like it is.
There are two wings at KIX International. CX operate out of the North Wing. JAL operate out of the South Wing. Logically, therefore, CX’s contract lounge is in the North Wing and JAL’s Sakura Lounge is in the South Wing.
Seeing as I had four hours, and about as much fondness for the CX contract lounge as a rat for an environmental health inspector, I decided to visit the JAL lounge. I asked the girl at the information desk whether it was possible to walk from one end of the airport to the other. She gave me the same look as the ones I had been getting all day from Cathay crew.
“Well yes sir, but it really is better to take the train.”
I decided to leave the end-to-end terminal walk for later and hopped the South Wing train. I was warned on FT that the JAL lounge wasn’t much. But it couldn’t be worse than the small cramped room that was the CX lounge. It so traumatised me the first two times round that I didn’t even manage to poke my head in to take a photo for the report.
I was a bit worried that I might have to argue my way in as I expected it unlikely that any CX passenger would ever have been insane enough to go 15 minutes out of their way just to visit a slightly better lounge but there was only a brief hiccup when the agent asked to see my oneworld card, quickly solved when I pointed out I was holding a First boarding pass. She did however warn me to leave plenty of time to get to the gate. Apparently it was quite far away.
FT was right. The JAL lounge wasn’t much. But it had windows. Its own bathrooms. And two massage chairs. This was the instruction card.
I couldn’t really understand it. So I fell back on the old standby whenever I don’t understand technology. Push random buttons and wait for something to happen.
I’m not sure I got so much as a massage than an attempt by the chair to crack my spine, so I very quickly decamped to the safer confines of a windowside armchair.
As is usual with Japanese lounges, there wasn’t a lot of food but they made up for it by lots of drinks and some very amusing illustrations.
Those plums look scared.
I whiled away a couple of hours using the wireless and watching a China Southern 737 pull in and out of the gate right in front of the lounge, and then decided to leave to embark on my mission of walking the terminal end-to-end. It took about 40 minutes, though one could probably make it in 30 if you knew where you were going. The signs, as expected, pointed you back to take the train so it took some intuiting and educated guesses to make sure I wound up in the right place. Note that here “intuiting and educated guesses” meant to keep walking in a forward direction and making sure that the airport terminal windows stayed on your right.
I got to the gate lounge a little early so snapped some photos. Pity about the lamppost.
A call was made for First and Business Class passengers. The agent in the black uniform held up her two signs pointing F and J pax to the left hand channels (they couldn’t just clip it on top of a tensa barrier?) and soon I was walking back down the same airbridge I had traversed a few hours before, on to the same plane I had just left a few hours before. Time for sector 7.
