UA 804 SIN NRT 0730 1455 777 9J

We got to the airport really early, way before 5, but the
desks were open! Perfecto. Got our seating squared away so
had plenty of time at the Silver Kris. The Raffles side of
the SKL doesn't have quite so interesting a food selection
as the F side but beats the SATS lounge by a good country
mile.

The hot buffet had cheese omelets, baked beans, e-fu
noodles, and curry guck with rice cakes. Didn't feel like
booze, but they were pouring standard middle-of-the-road
stuff like Canadian Club and Johnny Walker Black.

The e-fu noodles were bland, but the coconut sambal and
the saus prik both helped. The curry guck was okay and
vegetarian (if that makes a difference to anyone).

Did my e-mail on the incredibly slow computers and had the
honor of giving bseller and WW the good news that the Bears
had somehow managed to down the Seahawks in OT.

Took the tram back to T1 just after it started at 6:00. We
appeared at the gate ten minutes before it opened; this was
fine as as we were hanging around waiting, we encountered
FTer tealeaf99, who was also on the flight.

Security took a couple minutes tops, even with loonies with
liquids in front of us and your favorite "please turn on
your laptop" routine.

FT had 7 of the 10 seats in the minicabin - 8D, tealeaf99;
8F, newself; 9AB, WWBGD and bseller; 9D, restlessinRNO;
9HJ, Lori_Q and violist. The other three unfortunates, two
white guys and an Asian, looked bewildered at the level of
familiarity among the denizens of the cabin.

Also: kluau88 was discovered to be in row 12.

Deferential crew; good service.

Orange juice from a carton was pretty good, Pol Roger brut
was clean and lemony but actually a hair sweeter than I
remembered.

to begin
Your selected entree will be served with fresh fruits,
breakfast breads, butter and fruit preserves - the fruit
appetizer was less good than one would expect considering
that the catering must have been done in Singapore -
starfruit, watermelon, muskmelon, seedy red grapes, and
papaya, all rather hard and mediocre. Chocolate and
regular croissants were offered; the chocolate was
excellent, and Lori_Q indicated that the regular was
nice and flaky (not unlike us, I guess).

main course
Spanish omelette with Mornay sauce; grilled bacon, roasted
paprika potatoes and green asparagus

Singapore-style fried Hokkien noodles with shrimp; fish
cake and baby chye sim - the FA apologized because the
oven had been too hot, and the dish looked pretty awful,
but it turned out fairly tasty - gloopy overdone noodles,
gray-green vegetables, fish cake that had petrified edges,
and three nice shrimp on top. All these things actually
were palatable enough, and I wonder how they managed to
get shrimp that could stand up to that level of heating.
Champagne went pretty well.

Continental breakfast; breakfast pastries, fruit, yogurt
and cereal

prior to arrival
Smoked salmon, roasted chicken and pineapple-raisin
coleslaw; capers and Bel Paese cheese

or

International cheese selection with fresh fruit: Brie,
Kikorangi and Port Wine Cheddar cheese

dessert
Apple frangipane with vanilla sauce

I missed these services, being deep in slumberland.

The line at transit security was huge, and some of us didn't
have much time to enjoy the offerings of Narita, and Lori
can vouch for my getting slightly agitated, mostly (I claim)
for the benefit of those who had tight connections. There
was a very small person holding a sign not high enough for
anyone to see - it said first class and UGS, as it turns
out. Flyertalker investigators discovered that 1Ks could use
the line. So we did, and newself had plenty of time to get
to Starbucks and find out that they were out of Tokyo mugs.

The rest of us went on to the fabled ANA lounge where we
were sort of welcomed after an initial suggestion by the
rather polite gatekeeper that we use the RCC instead.

The ANA lounge is quite nice. The sushi is rather odd,
a California-ish thing and inarizushi wrapped in plastic:
I had two of the latter, the first being quite nice and
the second seeming as though the rice cooker had had a
short circuit in the middle of the cooking cycle - a very
un-Japanese thing.

An assortment of Western beverages, all normal, plus

Grace Rouge Kayagatake 05 - aroma of gamay; rather sour
but with a candied aftertaste; it did the job but not more

Grace Koshu 05 - good acid, somewhat SBish or Cheninish; a
little aroma of stone fruit, rather puckery. Not awful

Yamazaki 12-year-old single malt - coffee and malt aroma,
very clean and nice. Slight sweetness.

And there is the Sake bar - which is the very far end of
the lounge - go in, make a hard left, down past the rest
rooms to the end and another left, and there it is. As I
had limited time, I tried three drinks that I would not
have met otherwise, all sweet-potato spirits. I do not
know the manufacturers or any details, and have no clue
about these beverages, as I don't read Japanese, and my
taste buds went rapidly into overload, anyhow ...

Benikomachi - quite firewatery, with a flavor that reminds
me of home distillates of random unknown things despite its
being I believe made of 100% sweet potato

Kuriiko - this I believe is a mixture of sweet potato and
something else, maybe rice - it's smoother than the above

Beniiko - I tried this last; it's got more of an aroma
than Benikomachi, but it still has that back of the throat
burn. I think all three were in the 40-50 proof range.

I was having so good a time that I was tempted to miss my
flight and see if I could get onto the later one; but
reality called, and I hiked back to the United area, where
they were boarding seatings 3 and 4 by the time I got there.