Sorry about the interruption. Boarding was called. The load must have been extremely light as by the time I made the short distance from lounge to gate (we had the 2nd closest gate) there was no passenger to be seen. The terminal itself was almost deserted for the next flight is not for several more hours. Security at the gate was quick. No request to pay the departure tax. Hop onboard to find business class has all of 7 passengers, including me. Wow - unless they had lots of cargo these 2 flights could easily have been cancelled with loads this low.

Again no pre-departure drink. The amenities that were in a basket the previous flight are now in a small kit bag. I also get a survey to fill out (as do about half the business class passengers), which is a bit odd as there are no spaces for comments. This doesn't stop me scrawling my thoughts though

Food is a light snack just after takeoff and breakfast about 80 minutes before landing.

I manage to get a few hours sleep on the red-eye, waking up just as they're serving breakfast.

The flight was fairly smooth with just some very minor bumps coming out of the jetstream and again when passing through a small layer of broken cloud on final descent. For the first time in ages the sky is clear enough to see Mount Fuji - albeit from a distance much further than my regular viewing of The Last Samurai movie stand-in Mount Taranaki.

Again a long taxi on arrival, but we still arrive ahead of schedule.