Maple sugar toast + juice box on the go

After checking in and clearing customs at Terminal 1, we headed over to one of the two Plaza Premium lounges in the terminal. Overall the lounge itself is your standard PPL, though the lounge is one of the smaller ones in the network and has a smaller food selection. I had a good bowl of udon noodles before heading out to the gate to board my flight to Tokyo.

From the honeycombs


Udon + mint tea


A6, our gate for the flight, featuring aboriginal art in the gate area

JW104
TPE-NRT
Airbus A320
28A

Vanilla Air is a Japanese LCC that is owned by ANA with a fleet entirely composed of A320s. Currently the airline only flies within Japan and to Taiwan and do not participate in any frequent flier program. The passengers were primarily Japanese with a sizable group of Taiwanese passengers and a few other foreign passengers. The flight was generally pretty full, though the last few rows had empty middle seats.

Wing


Normal pitch


Cabin


Rear bulkhead

Boarding was quickly completed and we were soon on our way. All announcements, including the safety demonstration, were made in japanese, mandarin, and english.

Departing TPE


Off the coast

Soon after takeoff announcements were made regarding the buy on board and duty free service. In addition to the usual food, drink, and duty-free items, they were also selling things such as train tickets and entrance tickets to attractions. I was feeling really hungry so I was almost tempted to order something, but in the end I held out on the food. Instead we used the remainder of our Taiwanese cash to buy Keisei Skyliner tickets from NRT into Tokyo.

BOB menu




Random drink from the lounge


Cruising


Descending into NRT

We arrived at NRT after a relatively uneventful flight and taxied halfway to Tokyo to a remote stand, where we boarded the bus and drove basically the rest of the way to Tokyo before arriving at immigration and customs. After taking the Keisei Skyliner into town and the JR Yamanote line to Shinjuku station, we walked over to our AirBnB apartment a couple of hours after leaving the airport. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos, but it's a typical small Japanese apartment, consisting of a small living room/bedroom, a tiny kitchen counter, and a small all-purpose bathroom. The original reason we had considered booking an AirBnB was because we wanted to pack light and do laundry during the trip. Unfortunately we had some issues with that particular washer so only a few items were laundered.

Actually just kidding-a picture of our messy living/bed room

After getting settled in, we wandered around the residential area around our AirBnB before settling in for dinner at the local branch of Ikinari Steak for dinner. The chain, which has migrated to the US, primarily serves good beef cuts served with sides on a sizzling platter at stand-up tables. I ordered a sirloin steak done medium rare and it was actually pretty good. The soup and rice side I ordered made it a bit of a strange combo, but overall it was a pretty good meal.

Interior


Sirloin steak

On the way back to the AirBnB we stopped by the local Family Mart, one of the major convenience store chains, and picked up a random dessert, which consisted of ice cream drops in a chocolate shell. After enjoying the dessert, we called it a day anticipating the next day's food adventure.

Dessert