Prologue
And once again it's time for my once-yearly award travel extravaganza. (Other travel extravaganzas I sponsor myself, and the non-extravaganza sort of airborne commuting is paid by the company.) This time my destination is none other than supposed site of the
Lost Continent of Mu, the Asian contemporary of the mythical kingdom of Atlantis.
The ruins of Mu, or rather the inexplicable massive stone structures some call as such, lie off the coast of the tiny little island of
Yonaguni, itself at the extreme western tip of the Yaeyama Islands, closer to Taiwan than to even Okinawa Island and over 3 hours from Tokyo by plane. Not that you can even get there straight: Yonaguni Airport (that's
OGN on the off chance that some newbie out there doesn't encounter this on a daily basis) is served by 1-2 flights per day from Ishigaki and 0-1 from Naha, the capital of Okinawa.
Alas, Star Alliance can't get me all the way there as the monopoly is held by Japan Airlines' evil minions Japan Transocean Air and Ryukyu Air Commuter; the best I could to do to bankrupt SAS with my extravagant award was to fly to
Ishigaki, which passes for a travel hub in these remote parts, still half an hour by turboprop away. And to make the best use of my transfers, I scheduled in a 23:55 'transit' at Nagoya's squeaky-new Chubu Airport (NGO) on the way in -- just enough to pop over to
Expo 2005 -- and my old hometown
Tokyo on the way back.
And, of course, I'm doing it in business class, although the beancounters at ANA have nefariously decided that "Super Seats" are not the same as "business class" and I'll thus be stuck in the back for the domestic Japan legs. Oh, woe is me... but SQ Raffles Class on the way in and NH Club Asia on the way out should smooth the pain, and at 45000 EB points for the whole itinerary can I really complain?
That's was a rhetorical question, because I can't.
Enough prologue, on with the story!
Map on OpenFlights:
http://openflights.org/trip/332