I was passing through Narita yesterday and noticed that some things had apparently changed for the worse. For starters the airport was surprisingly smelly in at least one spot and generally louder than before. I'm talking about T1 here, not that poorly maintained hallway known as T2. Is T1 in the middle of some plumbing problems and has the noise-canceling system been disabled?

NRT's T1 used to be among the best terminals in the business but now they seem to be slacking a bit. In fact the smell was so bad in one place (Kaizosha 3F) that I actually lost my appetite and blew off my usual stopover meal (gyoza followed by a slice of crepe cake). I was also dismayed that the duty-free shop refused to sell me my liquor selection. I'm not sure what the real problem was, but one lady implied that it was due to the TSA rules. Not only did the TSA relax that silly liquids rule some time ago but this particular intra-Asia flight had nothing to do with the US anyway. Luckily I managed to find another store that had the same selection and didn't have any problem selling it to me. All in all I'm seeing previously polished NRT in a new, lesser light at this point. Hopefully this is just a one-off situation and they'll get their act together again. With top-notch gateways in Asia becoming more common and new longer-haul planes available NRT might end up losing even more ground in near future, regardless of slot restrictions and the like.

At least NRT still has their well-maintained shower rooms. I seriously wish every airport had those. Nothing is worse than arriving at a US gateway after some long haul flight only to find out that they have no place to wash up.