FlyerTalk Forums - My first TR: LHR-PEK-NRT-LHR (BA in J) lots of photos, and a surprise!

Trip Summary
LHR-PEK (BA39 in J on 24th March)
PEK-NRT (DL634 in Y on 1st April)
NRT-LHR (BA6 in J on 5th APril)
Note- The first few photos were taken with my iPhone and are poor - the later ones were taken with a proper camera.

I'm not a frequent flyer, but I do love to travel. I've never written a trip report before, but decided to on this occasion as my trip was purely for pleasure rather than business. There's another special reason which will be revealed in this very report!

I'm based in London, and I travel a couple of times a year (usually to the USA) and when possible I'll fly British Airways. My employer treats me to business class travel, which has me hooked, and the good people of FlyerTalk have taught me the tricks to be able to enjoy business class travel for lesuire trips. Many thanks to the BA forum regulars for mileage earning techniques, how to apply miles for upgrades (MFUs), and the best seats on the various BA metal.

I have friends who currently live in Beijing who invited myself and my girlfriend to visit during slightly drunken bar crawl in Cambridge in the spring of 2009. We accepted, and decided to include a short stay in Tokyo in addition to the China leg. For this special trip I wanted us both to fly business class as my girlfriend never has before, and south east asia is a long way from London!

Booking process (21st August 2009)
Having checked for reward availability on BA.com I telephoned the BAEC number to book and upgrade for the open-jaw LHR-PEK and NRT-LHR. Currently open-jaw MFUs have to be done over the telephone, but waiting time was only a few minutes. Pretty straight forward, with the cost being 1100GBP per person for the World Traveller Plus tickets, and 40k BA Miles per person for the upgrades to ClubWorld.

Flying Business class was supposed to be a surprise for my girlfriend, and the telephone operator assured me that my partner wouldn't receive any emails relating to the flights. However, minutes after booking the flights a confirmation email was sent, and my girlfriend was informed! Pity, but it allowed us to get excited together about the comfort of the flights on the trip.

All of this booking process was completed before any mention of strike action by BA cabin crew! I had a few worrying moments as strike dates were announced around our planned holiday dates! Ultimately everything worked out alright (almost), but it did leave me checking the small print of my travel insurance to see where I stood!

At a slightly later date I booked flights with NWA for the PEK-NRT leg (soon to become Delta flights!). I had considered booking business seats on this flight, but at only 2.5hours I struggled to justify it, and when I saw ticket prices of 125GBP per person in economy I snapped them up.

Outbound Flight (24th March, LHR-PEK on BA39 in J, 4-class 777)

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His and Hers matching luggage!

We arrived at T5-LHR at 1pm for a 4pm'ish flight. I had booked valet parking, and their drop off point is located at the end of the departure level drop off area, immediately next to business check-in. We had checked-in online and PYOBP at home, so we merely dropped the bags off and headed onto 'fast track' security checks. As usual it was anything but fast, but still only took about 15 minutes to get us through.

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View out of Galleries South

Immediately off to Galleries South for some lunch - very nice curry on offer today, with the usual toasted sandwiches and pasta options. Having never set foot in an airline lounge before, my girlfriend had to be convinced it was perfectly ok to help yourself to anything, and that our plates would be cleared by staff when we were finished.

Having enjoyed a few glasses of wine we walked to Galleries North for the comparison. Personally I prefer South as I find it slightly more quiet and better seating options. My girlfriend agreed, and left me in North while she had a look in the T5 shops. More wine for me, and I made a few posts on flyertalk to comment on the occupancy of the lounge.

Having found out we were leaving from T5B, we caught the train and sampled the T5B lounge, had another glass of wine and some nibbles. It was approaching 4pm, so this particular lounge was very quiet as the majority of the US flights had long since left.

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Our outbound 777

As we prepared to board BA39 we were informed that due to the strike-action (which had ended), we were getting a modified on-board service - specifically a reduced bar service, and only cold food to be served. This was consistent throughout the plane, so I imagine FIRST customers would have been bitterly disappointed. However, seeing this was technically a 'night' flight, and I'd already stocked up on curry and wine in the lounge I wasn't particularly concerned!

We boarded (I think it was gate 42), and settled into 11E and F - that's a middle rear-facing pair for anyone who doesn't know the BA business 2-4-2 configuration. When the divider with the aisle seat is up this EF pair is an extremely private and relaxing cubicle. However, I wouldn't recommend it with someone you don't know, but with your partner it's excellent. Despite the ongoing strike issues this flight was absolutely full in business (although I can't comment on any other cabin as I didn't check).

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Legroom shot of 11E - I'm 6foot4 for working out the degree of space!

There were two bar runs prior to dinner - however giving drinks from small bottles rather than 'proper' wine from standard bottles. This wasn't a huge problem for me, and they did have small bottles of champagne for those who wanted. Hot towels were offered, and everyone got an amenity kit (I still miss the Molton Brown kit from a few years back). Dinner was a quiche starter, with a cold chicken salad and cheesecake for dessert - disappointly served at the same time, similar to what happens in economy.

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Disappointment aside, the salad was decent and following dinner I watched '2012' before converting my seat to a bed and settling down to sleep.

[As a side point, 2012 was a terrible movie, however it was apparently a huge hit in China given that the plot of this American movie sees China save the human race]

Breakfast was even more of a disappointment with a single sandwich and small strawberry tart on offer. Nevertheless I was on holiday, and wasn't going to let this stop me having fun!

We landed in PEK around 10.30am and quickly departed. First stop was the health check where we were all waved through as they collected our health check cards. Then onto immigration which only took a few minutes with a line of 3 infront of us. A quick train ride to the main terminal and we collected our bags (which were already waiting!) and through to arrivals. I've no idea if PEK has an arrivals lounge - we were being collected by our friends, so went straight to meet them.

A 20 minute cab ride took us into Beijing and to our friends appartment. We spent a week in Beijing and had a fantastic time - seeing all of the usual tourist attractions, and enjoyed an amazing 10k hike along a non-tourist part of the Great Wall. Food was amazing (and cheap!) everywhere we were taken, so I'd really recommend it as a holiday destination.

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Our Friend's dog, called Guiness (please no jokes about him being on the menu)

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Me on the Great Wall of China

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Photo inside the Forbidden City

Onward Flight (1st April, PEK-NRT on DL634 in Y, 2-class A330)
Another 20minute cab ride at 6am took us back to PEK. First stop was outbound customs, followed by kiosk check-in with DL, then onto security and outbound immigration. There was never a line at any of these stops, which amazed me given the size of the airport and the amount of traffic. Perhaps LHR is just doing something horribly wrong.

A coffee at StarBucks before heading to gate 12 (I think) for our flight. Airport was quiet, with very little to do before take-off. I'd selected 17A&B in the first economy cabin of a 2-4-2 configuration. Another rather busy flight, with this plane continuing to SFO after the stop in NRT. We had lunch onboard - a slightly unpleasant quiche offering, with a single soft drink run. The aircraft had AVOD, so I started watching 'Law Abiding Citizen' - rather grizzly thriller, which I didn't catch the end of before it was time to land.

Upon landing we left rather quickly given we were near the front of the economy cabin. Most people appeared to be connecting back onto the same plane, so we hoped the line at immigration would be short. However, having being promised highly efficient Japanese processing we were greeted to a snaking line which took about 30minutes to get through. Several plane loads appeared behind us, so their waiting time could easily have been a couple of hours. After getting through our bags were ready, and we headed to arrivals to catch the Nartia Express into Tokyo.

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The Narita express train

I'd never been to Tokyo before, so I took the safe option of travelling into Tokyo on the Express train, and booking a hotel near the Tokyo central JR station. It turned out to be a 5 minute walk, so there was no stress in finding the hotel. The hotel (Yaesu Fujiya) was perfectly adequate - I had booked it on Expedia after reading positive reviews on TripAdvisor - typically Japanese small room, but the bed was a reasonable size. The bathroom was of the prefabricated type made of that nasty plastic stuff. However, everything was clean, and we were paying ~100GBP per night to be in central Tokyo near subways stations to anywhere in the city, and minutes from the bright lights of the Ginza area.

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Bright lights of Ginza area

It was only a long weekend in Tokyo, but we had an amazing time. Again we took in the tourist sites, and managed to catch the cherry blossoms, along with about a million other people! Everything here was expensive (compared to China and the UK), and rather disturbingly 10GBP per pint in the bars is pretty normal!

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Cherry Blossoms (together with the million other people who went to view them)

On the last day of our holiday I took my partner to gardens of the Imperial Palace, found a quiet corner between the thousands of other people there and asked her if she's do the honour of becoming my wife. Gladly she accepted, and after almost 10 years of dating we'll hopefully be married some point later this year. (Expect a trip report from the honeymoon). I had hoped to surprise her, but she had it all figured out.

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The ring! (although no photo will ever do it's sparkle justice)