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San Francisco to Scandinavia and Hokkaido

San Francisco to Scandinavia and Hokkaido

Old Aug 13, 2010, 12:53 am
  #1  
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San Francisco to Scandinavia and Hokkaido



Planning
Last year we had a blast going to Krakow and Beijing in the summer, using the North America to North Asia via the Atlantic award on UA, which at the time cost 105,000 miles. As soon as the trip was over, we began planning for the summer vacation for this year. We would like to do another North America to Asia via the Atlantic award, and had our eyes on Helsinki being the stopover point, and Sapporo our destination.


Award Booking
We made the first booking in December last year for the trip in July this year. We know booking this far ahead would usually allow us to get around the Starnet blocking by UA and seats are more readily available, especially for the trans Atlantic segments. This would give us enough time to keep improving on the routing, and thanks to the 1K award fee waiver, we could make as many changes as possible for free. As usual, the actual booking process is like pulling teeth, different agents would be telling us different things, that this type of award is either no longer available or never legal. The hanging up and calling back approach once again worked magic. Once we were able to make the booking, funny thing is that we encountered almost no resistance to numerous changes afterwards. Apparently if the rate desk approves of issuing of the ticket, agents would no longer make up their own rules. The problem really has to do with the fact that UA award chart does not explicitly list what it would cost if we start from the US, and go to Asia via Europe. We redeemed 135,000 miles for this award on business class, the same amount it would cost if we are to start in Asia, and wanted to go to Europe via the US, and that is listed in the award chart. (120K for direct travel between regions, 135K for travel involving a third region)


Obstacles
We spent the early part of the year fine tuning the itinerary, adding a couple of less than 24 hour transit points so we could visit a few more cities, and also adjusted the routing when schedule changes messed up the connections. We thought we had a pretty decent itinerary by March, and would be able to relax and start working on the hotels and planning what to do in each location. But in April the volcano in Iceland erupted and caused enormous flight disruptions in Europe, it's less clear if we could really go on a trip that's planned this far ahead, especially it involves many stops in Scandinavia, one of the most affected region.

Just when the volcano problem seemed to die down, another disaster struck. One day in early May my back was in great pain, and once I lied down in the bed, I could not get up for the next day. Something was wrong, very wrong, when I finally was able to get up and saw the doctor, I was diagnosed with a disc injury, which could take months to recover, assuming there's not deeper problem which requires surgery. Taking the heavy dosage of pain killers and muscle relaxant the doctor prescribed did not really seem to help, and I could hardly walk a few steps. There's no hope taking a vacation in two months anymore. Delaying the trip was also not an option, by this time, it's impossible to find availability of the same routing by pushing the trip out by a month, or two. Not really wanting to see all the hard work in securing the tickets go down the drain, I began some intensive physical therapy, and was able to improve the mobility quite a bit. By early June, I was able to survive a short flight from San Francisco to Phoenix, and was also able to hop on a bike, and while the pain was still intense, I no longer needed to rely on the drugs. I became cautiously optimistic that I could make the trip after all, and resumed the planning and booking of the hotels, but we still booked mostly the higher refundable rates just in case.


Final itinerary
7/2 Fri UA 328 SFO 11:55pm ORD 6:02am (+1)
7/3 Sat SK 946 ORD 4:25pm ARN 7:45am (+1)
7/5 Mon SK 1417 ARN 7:10am CPH 8:25am
7/6 Tue KF 638 CPH 8:10am HEL 10:45am
7/8 Thu LH 3107 HEL 9:25am FRA 10:55am
7/8 Thu LH 736 FRA 2:30pm NGO 8:50am (+1)
7/9 Fri NH 705 NGO 10:15am CTS 11:55am
7/12 Mon NH 2152 CTS 7:50am NRT 9:25am
7/12 Mon NH 207 NRT 11:50am MUC 5:00pm
7/13 Tue LH 458 MUC 4:15pm SFO 7:10pm

The itinerary starts from San Francisco, and the destination is Sapporo, Japan with a stopover in Helsinki. And using the less than 24 hour rule, we would be able to spend a day in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Munich as well. Initially we were to start on Saturday morning on a United flight to Chicago and transit to an SAS flight to Stockholm, and the United flight is on the new 767 3-class international configuration plane. Subsequent schedule changes caused the flight to become a 757, so we switched to the early morning 6am flight on the 747, thinking it would not be so bad if we could get to sit upstairs on the lie flat seats. Then UA brought back the old 747, and there was no incentive for us to make an effort to get up so early in the morning to catch that flight anymore. So we finally switched to the red eye flight the night before, and this would give us about half a day in Chicago, which we decided to join a bike tour to get warm up for the European trip.

The itinerary allows us to sample five different Star Alliance airlines, with one UA flight, one Blue 1 flight, two SAS flights, three ANA flights and three Lufthansa flights. The total distance is 26571miles, more than 55 hours on plane, but given that's on business class for the majority, it's actually an itinerary we look forward to very much.

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 3:19 am Reason: Update
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:05 am
  #2  
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San Francisco to Chicago

SQ Lounge
Our first stop after checking in is the SQ lounge in the International terminal. Last time we had some trouble getting into the lounge, as the attendent said the Singapore flight was fully booked and expected lots of people to come into the lounge, and they would need to reject the UA passengers, even though the lounge was still pretty empty when we tried to get in. But this time we had no trouble to get into the lounge at all. The food offering in this lounge is far better than that of the RCC next door, and we expected to have nothing but a cold fruit plate for our red eye flight, so we got some hot noodle and egg rolls as dinner.


SQ lounge


Instant noodle and egg rolls


Bump
When we checked seatcounter earlier in the day, our flight was completely zero'ed out and we thought we might have a chance to pick up some bump vouchers. As we would still have plenty of time to make the connecting flight to Stockholm in the afternoon in Chicago, we would not have any problem taking the 6:00am flight next morning instead. In fact, we at one point were booked on the flight until United switched the flight to the old 747 aircraft. We asked the gate agent to place us on the volunteer list, and got the volunteer confirmation cards.


Getting on the bump list

However, once boarding started, they announced that no volunteers would be needed and that we should proceed to board. That's quite all right, as we also had a good plan to spend half a day in Chicago


Flight
UA 328 San Francisco (SFO) 11:55pm Chicago (ORD) 6:02am (+1)
Aircraft: 767-300 2-class domestic configuration
Distance: 1846 miles
Duration : 4 hour 7 min
Class: First


Our flight was on a 767 2-class domestic configuration aircraft with leather seats in the first class. The seats were quite comfortable, but we did not get the new style blankets. In fact, even the Hemisphere magazine was from last month.


2-2-2 seats on 767 domestic configurations


Old blue blankets and Hemisphere magazine

There are, however, several new UA enhancements. The wine glass was new with a longer stem, and the meal was definitely a much improved one. We had a hot turkey sandwich, with also a salad and a cookie. Towards the end of the flight, they were also passing pre-arrival snacks and bananas.


New wine glasses


Hot turkey sandwich, salad and cookies

Had we known that there would be a hot sandwich served for the flight, we probably would not have eaten as much in the SQ lounge. Oh well, it's good that we had plans to hop on a bike tour to burn off some excess calories once we arrived in Chicago. We landed around 6am, and saw the beautiful sunrise from the plane.


Chicago Sunrise

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 3:11 am
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:08 am
  #3  
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Chicago

Hilton Health Club
Naturally we wanted to take a shower after the red eye flight before heading to downtown for the bike tour. There's no shower facilities in the RCC, but luckily there's a health club in the airport Hilton hotel. The day pass costs $15 per person, but we only needed to pay $10 when we showed the Hilton HHonors card. There's also a small swimming pool, and plenty of exercise equipment in the gym, and seems like lots of pilots use the facility.

There's no luggage storage in the airport, and even though our luggage was checked through to Stockholm, we did not want to bring all the carry on (two backpacks) to the bike tour. The nice club attendant made an exception and held a locker for us when we told him we would be back in couple hours.


Hilton Health Club


CTA to downtown
We then got a $5 ticket and took the subway to downtown. A day pass at $6 would have been a better choice if we were to go to more places, but we only needed to take the train ride ($2.5)and back, and one bus transfer ($0.25), so we still had $0.25 left for our next visit to Chicago !


CTA


Chicago Bike Tour
We got off at the Grand station, and quickly found the connecting bus 65 to the bike tour office, just one block from the Navy Pier. The tour started at 9:30am, and we were told it should end before 1:00pm, and the timing should work out just fine for us to catch our 4:30pm plane to Stockholm. This was an excellent tour, and our guide Eddie was extremely funny, and took us to a lot of landmarks that we otherwise would have missed if we tried to navigate Chicago ourselves.


Bike Tours Sign


Bike Tour Orientation


Biking in downtown Chicago


St Michael's Church


The Original Playboy Mansion


Chicago

About two hours into the bike ride, we stopped by a little cafe for a break, and then biked past the beach and back to the office. It was exactly 1pm, and we would be cutting it too close if we waited for the 65 bus. Instead, we took a cab to the nearest Metro station to catch the train back to Ohare.


Northstar


Cab to Metro


Blue train back to Ohare

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 3:13 am Reason: Update
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:08 am
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Chicago to Stockholm

O'Hare
We were back to the airport by 2pm, and took another quick shower in the Hilton gym, and then hopped onto the terminal train to get to Terminal 5.


Train to Terminal 5

Though we already had our boarding passes issued by United the previous evening, we went to the check-in counter, which there was no line for business class, and requested to change our seats. We found out on Seatguru that our flight was a 2-2-2 configuration in business class, and were given 2 seats in the middle section. We would have preferred a window and aisle combination, and fortunately, the bulkhead seats on the right side were still available.


Check-in


SAS Lounge in Chicago
Passing through security was a breeze, and we then visited the SAS lounge. The lounge has an open layout, and the furniture definitely has a Scandinavia feel. Since we had not eaten after the bike tour, we were hoping to have lunch in the lounge, but were disappointed to find that there's no hot food at all. There were several choices of bread, and some cold cut meat, and that's about it. Well, no worries, we are sure we will have good appetite on the plane then.


SAS lounge in Chicago


Drinks and bread


Meat and Cheese


Flight
SK 946 Chicago (ORD) 4:25pm Stockholm (ARN) 7:45am (+1)
Aircraft: Airbus A330-300
Distance: 4272 miles
Duration : 8 hour 20 min
Class: Business


We boarded the plane, and was glad that we made the switch to the bulkhead window and aisle seats. It definitely has more privacy than the middle section. The shades were closed to keep the interior cool, but when we tried to look for the blankets, we were told that they won't be available till after take off. Maybe it's easier for the flight attendents to see that every has their seatbelts fastened that way.

After take off, the attendants distributed a big white package that says "Comfort" on it, it took us a while to realize that's the amenity kit. The inside has a black bag made of recyclable paper, while it does not look as nice as what we use to get from other airlines, the kit is definitely as environmentally friendly as it claims. What we were most impressed with the aircraft is, hmm, the toilet. We had not been on a plane with a window in the toilet, and now there are TWO windows inside ! You never truly experience what peeing in the sky is like till you use one of these toilets


Seats


Amenity Kits


Toilets with view


Magazines

Being the good passengers we are, we were also given a Scandianvian white bear and brown squirrel as sovenirs. For the first meal, we had some smoked trout for appetizer, and then had the seared halibut with caper sauce and beef fillet with Danish blue cheese sauce for the main course. The food tasted more delicious than it looks, probably because we were hungry after the bike tour. And we had chocolates for desserts. For mid flight snack, a "Buffet" area was set up where we can have some small sandwiches, fruits and, more chocolates.


Menu


Seared halibut


Fillet of beef


Buffet area

Prior to arrival, we were served breakfast. There's not a choice for hot breakfast, except for the hot roll, and the breakfast was quite simple and consisted of several slices of ham and cheese, and some fruits. There was also a take-out option, for people who would rather sleep more in the plane and pick up breakfast upon leaving the plane, which we have not seen on other airlines.


Breakfast

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 3:14 am Reason: Update
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:09 am
  #5  
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Stockholm

Arrival
After we cleared immigration and picked up our luggage, we asked about getting into a lounge for a quick shower. Technically business class passengers arriving from an intercontinental flight can use the lounge, but we made the mistake of clearing the immigration first, which would make it much trickier to get to the lounge. So we gave up on that idea, exited customs and went to the tourist center to ask about getting a Stockholm card. American Express was running some promotion that if you showed an SAS itinerary, then you could get a Stockholm card for free. The card itself costs SEK395 (US$55), and is good for a day of public transit and admission to many museums, attractions and some tour discounts. Unfortunately, the tour office claimed that it was an offer that had expired, and they were not aware of the new promotion even though we showed them the printout from the website. Oh well, the rules indicated it should be an SAS ticket, since ours is an UA ticket, we might not have qualified anyways. So we did not argue and paid for the card. It's still a good deal, as we had in mind to join, hmm, another bike tour in Stockholm. The bike tour would have cost SEK290 alone.


Stockholm card

The bike tour started at 11:00am, since we still had about two hours before it started, we made use of the Stockholm card to take the local bus 583 to Marsta, and transferred to the train to the city. The whole trip took about an hour. The other faster options of the airport express train or bus would not be covered by the Stockholm card, and would cost at least SEK99 (US$14).


Bus 583 to Marsta


Stockholm Central station

Hotel Sheraton
We had picked the Sheraton because of the proximity to the central train station. It's only 5 minute walk, and also not far away from Gamla Stan, the old town where the bike tour starts. While the charge for wifi access was expensive, there were couple computer terminals in the lobby for guest use for free. As the room was not ready when we checked in, we dropped off the luggage and walked to the bike tour office.


Sheraton lobby


Room

Stockholm Activities
Though the bike tour is covered by the Stockholm card, there is a limit of 15 people for the tour and it's on a first come first serve basis. We did not have to worry about that, as there were only 5 or 6 people waiting outside the office that day. However, when the guide came and distributed the bike, we found that they only have one bike size. Though we could adjust the height somewhat, it's still too high for Mrs UAFlyer. The guide said normally we could get other bikes from the bike shop next door, but being a Sunday, the shop was closed. So we had to reluctantly give up on the bike tour. But with the Stockholm card in hand, there are still plenty of interesting places to visit.


Checking out the bikes

We then walked to the Gamla Stan subway station, and went to our next destination, the Skyview off the Globen station. While it was easy to ride the subway, there were some announcement in Swedish that we did not pay attention to. A nice Swedish guy figured out we were in trouble before we knew it, and came and told us there were some service interruptions, and we could not take the subway to Globen. But he explained to us we could travel on the other line he was taking and get off the Liljeholmen station, and transfer to the street car to get to Globen. So we followed him to the other train and had a nice chat along the way, and thanked him for helping us get to our destination. The Skyview ride was next to a shopping mall, and though there were not a lot of people on this Sunday, we still had to wait about half an hour for the ride, which worked out great as we could grab a quick bite in the mall. The ride was on a glass sphere gondola along the exterior of the Global Arenas, and it's like a funicular where one car goes up while the other comes down. We had a nice 360 degree view of the city when we got to the top, and waved hello to the people in the other sphere as we crossed in the middle.


Sky View


Sky View

Our next stop was the famous Vasa museum. It was fun to see a real ship in a museum, but we were quite exhausted already after two consecutive red eye flights. So it's time to take a break and tried some authentic Swedish meatballs in the cafe. They look exactly like the ones in IKEA, but the Lingonberry sauce tastes much better !


Vasa Museum


Warship


Swedish Meatballs

After the Vasa museum visit, we took a ride on the Hop on Hop off boat tour, which's also covered by the Stockholm card, and got off at the old town, and walked back to the hotel and took a much needed shower.


Hop on Hop off Boat Tour

We then walked towards the old town again to take more pictures. It was great to be able to squeeze in all these sight seeing because of the bonus daylight in the summer. Sunset at 10:00pm !


Towards the old town


Stockholm


Sergel's Square

For dinner, we went to MAX, the Swedish version of McDonald's. But they served healthier food, such as Falafel burger. There's also free wifi.


Max

Then we visited the Ice Bar next door, and while it's a tourist trap, it's quite an experience for us first timers. It feels cold even with the heavy duty overcoat we put on. Everything is made of ice, even the glass. So we drank up to stay warm !


Stockholm Icebar


Cold


Drink menu


Captain and Archipalego

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 6:42 pm Reason: Update; Spelling
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:10 am
  #6  
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Stockholm to Copenhagen

Arlanda Express
We only had couple hours of sleep, and had to catch the early flight to our next city, Copenhagen. Fortunately, we did not have to navigate our way in the dark as the sun rises before 4:00am. This time we decided to take the fast path to the airport, by hopping on the Arlanda Express. They were running some summer special where 2 passengers could ride for the price of 1. It's still expensive at SEK280 (US$40), but it was the only logical option that early in the morning.


Ticket


Arlanda Express


Arlanda Airport
Check in was easy, as there's hardly any line for business class. And at the airport, we saw the first Starbucks in Sweden !


Check In


Starbucks only @ airport


SAS Lounge in Stockholm
Then we went to the SAS lounge, hoping to get some breakfast, but the food selection was quite disappointing. There were only couple different kinds of bread and fruits, but no hot option or even slices of cold cut meat.


Bread


SAS Lounge


Flight
SK 1417 Stockholm (ARN) 7:10am Copenhagen (ARN) 8:25am
Aircraft: MD-80
Distance: 342 miles
Duration : 1 hour 15 min
Class: Economy Extra


Our flight has a 2-3 configuration, and all the seats are the same. We were in the Economy Extra section, which was quite empty. But it's the same seats back in the Economy section, in fact, only a piece of plastic separates the two classes. We had not anticipated breakfast served for this short segment, but were glad to find that passengers in the Economy Extra section got a breakfast with some bread, ham and cheese, yogurt, OJ and coffee. On the other hand, passengers would have to pay for their own sodas in the Economy section, something that even US Scare has stopped doing.


Seats


Full Economy section


Breakfast

After we landed, there's an announcement of some luggage system failure, and our luggage might not come out for 20 minutes or so. Fortunately, by the time we got to the baggage claim area, the delay was only showing 10 minutes. We were going to catch another bike tour that would start in an hour and a half !


Luggage delay

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 1:48 am
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:10 am
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Copenhagen

Arrival
After we picked up our luggage, we stopped by the tourist center to try our luck with getting the Copenhagen Card. It's the same promotion as the Stockholm Card. While they were also not sure of the promotion, the nice lady there called up some office, and confirmed that we could indeed get the Copenhagen Card for free. We were only asked to show the AE card. Then we walked to the airport Metro station, and boarded the driver-less train to town and got off at the Norreport station, and it took only about 15 mintues.


Metro


Norreport station


Hotel Fox
Though we were staying in Copenhagen for only one night, we did quite a bit of research for hotel. There were couple of good choices, including pricelining to try to get the Marriott, or using the Friends and Family rate for the Crowne Plaza. Both hotels have good reviews on TripAdvisor. But in the end we decided on Hotel Fox, a designer hotel that's not any cheaper than the more centrally located hotels near Tivoli, nor did it have good reviews on TripAdvisor. Why ? The hotel was strategically located near the Metro station and the bike tour start point ! We would be able to get off Metro, walk to the hotel, drop off the luggage and walk to the bike tour office in very short time. We left the airport around 9:00am and were already at the bike tour office around 10:15am. And the designer aspect of the hotel is indeed interesting, as an added bonus, when we checked out, we were told that our stay would qualify for 500 UA miles (and has since been posted).


Hotel Fox


Lobby


Room


Hotel amenity


Copenhagen Activities

The Copenhagen bike tour is pretty much a one person operation as far as we can tell. Mike did everything ! He's the guide and the owner, and what's amazing is that he sometimes does two to three tours a day, each tour is like 3 hours long. And if you check his website, you will find out he's a cancer survivor too. Mike not only explained the sites to us, but also talked a lot about the current politics and trends in Denmark. It was a lot more than just a bike tour ! Mike also gave us a 20% discount for having the Copenhagen Card. Here are some of the sites we visited :


Adjusting bike


Tour orientation


Stroget - oldest Pedestrian street


Safest Cafe ?


Christiania


Cozy


Palace

After the bike tour, we went back to the hotel and took a shower and a quick afternoon nap. Yes, we were exhausted again. But there's still a lot more to see in Copenhagen, and we soon took off and went to see other sites by the city tourist bus, which circles around the city every 7 minutes. This is also covered by the Copenhagen card. We spent some time in Nyhavn, enjoying the canal view and ice cream, before heading back to the Tivoli near the main station.


City Cirkel Bus


Nyhavn


Canal


Ice Cream

We walked more to explore the sites near Tivoli in the evening, and went back to the Stroget pedestrian street area, and finally tired ourselves out in front of the Lurblaseren restaurant and had some steaks and burger for dinner.


Tivoli


Pedestrian street


Dinner

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 1:55 am Reason: Update
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:11 am
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Copenhagen to Helsinki

Bus and Subway to airport
Though it's only a 10 minute walk from the hotel Fox to the closest Metro Norreport, we found a bus stop right next to the hotel and took advantage of the Copenhagen Card and boarded the bus 5A to the Metro bright and early in the morning. The Metro was quite packed as it seems lots of people had early flights to catch.


Metro to airport


Check-in and Bump
Soon we arrived at the airport and checked in for our 8 o'clock flight to Helsinki. Then something unexpected occurred. The agent asked if we would be interested in taking a flight an hour and a half later, and got 300 Euros as compensation. We never thought we would have a bump opportunity in this trip after we missed out on the San Francisco to Chicago leg. We told the agent sure, and she was estatic and wrote VDB on our boarding passes, and put a volunteer tag on our luggage. We were quite surprised at her excitement, we thought normally only gate agents would be happy to solicit for the volunteers in the rush to get the flight take off on time, nonetheless, we had not planned a lot of activities in Helsinki (not another bike tour ! ) and wouldn't mind to get there a little later.


Copenhagen Airport


VDB


SAS Lounge in Copenhagen
Then we went through security, and headed to the SAS lounge. We did not have high expectation after the seeing the Stockholm SAS lounge just the previous day, but the Copenhagen lounge was actually not bad. While there's still not any hot food served, the selection of bread, fruits and cold cut meat was quite decent. The lounge was also very spacious, and had several computer terminals, and wifi is also free.


Copenhagen SAS lounge


SAS Lounge


Plenty of Macs


Breakfast


Bread


Our breakfast


Flight
We then headed to the gate, and saw our Blue1 flight, an Avro RJ85 aircraft, pulling in. The gate area was quite crowded, it's a good bet our seats would be needed. Sure enough, just before they started boarding, our names were called and we were told to wait for our vouchers and new boarding passes for the next flight.

KF 638 Copenhagen (ARN) 8:10am Helsinki (HEL) 10:45am
Aircraft: Avro RJ85 Avroliner
Distance: 558 miles
Duration : 1 hour 35 min
Class: Economy Extra



Blue1


Crowded gate

Since we would have another hour and a half to kill, we went back to the SAS lounge. This time we found the treasure, cup noodles ! Finally some hot food for breakfast !


Hot Noodles

So we each got 150 Euro if we are to use it as a voucher, or we could just cash out at half the amount, i.e. 75 Euros each. We still quite have not figured out what to do with the voucher yet, since SAS does not fly to San Francisco, we need to have a trip to a SAS city first to use the voucher to buy a ticket. So maybe we will take the cash option. For this amount of money, we gave up our Economy extra seats on the original flight, and got the absolute worst seat on the new flight. Our flight is on an MD80, but not only did we not get the Economy extra seat and therefore no breakfast on board, we were stuck in the last row, with zero recline and close to the toilet ! Also, we would need to pay for our own drinks, that is, even for sodas ! OK, it's only a short flight, so we can tolerate that, and will probably do that again for another 150 Euro voucher/75 Euro cash. And after we landed, we had to wait for our luggage anyways, so we did not really lose any time by exiting the plane last.

SK 1712 Copenhagen (ARN) 9:35am Helsinki (HEL) 12:10pm
Aircraft: MD80
Distance: 558 miles
Duration : 1 hour 35 min
Class: Economy



View from back of plane


Helsinki baggage claim

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 3:17 am Reason: Update
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:12 am
  #9  
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Helsinki

Arrival
Unlike Stockholm or Copenhagen, there's no train option to go from the Helsinki airport to town. But the public bus 615 option at 4 Euros per person is very reasonable, and there are plenty of luggage space on board. Soon we arrived at the main rail station by bus.


Bus 615


Bus 615


Train station


Train station

Our hotel Radisson Blu is about 15 minutes walk from the main railroad station, but it's right across from the Kampi metro station, just a stop from the main station. It began to rain pretty badly, so we hopped into the subway stop across from the railroad station, and navigated our way to the hotel. The station names are shown in Swedish and Finnish, but neither is easy for us to pronounce !




Hotel Radisson Blu
We got a very good Friends and Family rate for the Radisson Blu, and while it's far from the airport bus drop off, it's very easy to find when getting off the Kampi station. We were given codes to access the wifi, and were told we could use the saunas and the breakfast room also. On the other hand, our schedule was so tight that we had to leave the hotel before breakfast started on both days of our stay.


Kamppi station


Hotel


Room


Radisson Blu


Helsinki Activities
We then went to the main station again to start our Helsinki exploration. First stop is a coffee shop inside a department store, and then we simply got onto the 'tourist' tram 3T/3B that circles most of the famous sites in Helsinki. There's no bike tour that we know of, but after the biking in Chicago and Copenhagen, it's time for a break.


Snack


3B/3T bus


3T outside of the Senate Square


Lutheran Cathedral


Pub on the move


Helsinki


Esplanadi park

After seeing many sites, we got back to the main rail station and started to look for a Finnish restaurant for dinner and ended up in the Restaurant Lasipalatsi. We found that Finland had just reduced the VAT of food from 22% to 13% since early July, and the menu shows both the old and new price. It still does not seem too much bargain, as we spent about 80 Euros for our fish and beef entree, wine and desserts. The food was very good though.


Restaurant Lasipalatsi


Pan-fried fillet of pike perch


Grilled marbled sirloin of beef


Desserts

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 2:06 am
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:12 am
  #10  
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Tallinn

Ferry to Tallinn
The next morning we took the early morning subway for one stop, and caught the bus 15 to the West Terminal. We booked our ferry tickets from the Tallink's website, but had to call them to authorize the credit card. Apparently they have some trouble with processing international credit cards over the web. Once the transaction was complete, they emailed us a confirmation code, which we entered into the check-in machine in the ferry terminal and got the actual tickets. The ferry was huge, with restaurants, booze lounge, supermarket and video arcade. Most impressive was free wifi on the ferry. We took the first ferry in the morning at 7:30am, and arrived Tallinn in just under two hours.


Bus to the West Terminal


Ferry checkin


Booze lounge


Restaurant


Tallinn Activities
Once we arrived Tallinn, we walked for about 15 minutes to the Old Town. And we were looking for, what else, the bike tour office ! We did not have to look hard, as we ran into their 5 people bike on our way, and they were also heading to the office.


5 people bike


Bike tour office

It turns out we were the only two on the tour that day, and were given brand new helmets to wear ! Our guide Terris, is a high school kid working his summer job in the bike office. He speaks perfect English though. We went to see many sites in Tallinn, had we not joined the tour, we would probably be limited to just walking in the Old Town vicinity. Compared to the Chicago and Copenhagen bike tour, we seemed to be riding at a much faster pace - there was much less traffic to fight against, and we had to catch up with the young kid !


Private Tallinn Bike Tour


Remembering the ferry disaster on Sep 28, 1994


Art Museum


President's residency


Cultural Museum





After we finished the tour, we were quite exhausted and needed a big lunch to recover. We walked to the old town center, and picked a restaurant where we could sit outside and watched the crowd. We had an Estonian pork and a sausages entree, and of course beer to cool down. We lucked out with the weather during the bike tour, though the rain did come down a bit for a brief moment in the afternoon.


Old town square


Lunch


Rain


Miss Tallinn card


Estonian fashion ?

We took the 5:30pm ferry back to Helsinki, and found lots of people carrying back cases of beers, and quite obviously the price was much lower in Estonia.


Beer back to Helsinki

When we got back to the hotel, we used the saunas facility to wind down, but most people in the hotel were sitting in the bar watching the Spain vs Germany world cup semifinal.


Spain vs Germany world cup match

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 2:12 am
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:13 am
  #11  
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Helsinki to Frankfurt

Check-in
After spending a day in a different country everyday, it's time now to stop that craziness and spend couple days in Japan. We took the subway to the main railroad station early in the morning, and transferred to the airport bus 615 again to go to the airport. Check-in for the business class was fast and efficient. Our routing is Helsinki to Frankfurt to Nagoya on Lufthansa, and then to Sapporo on ANA. However, we were told that we could only check our luggage through Nagoya, and this certainly worried us a lot since we only had an hour and 25 minutes to transit in Nagoya.


Helsinki airport check-in


Helsinki airport


SAS Lounge in Helsinki
We then went to the SAS lounge, and similar to Stockholm and Copenhagen lounge, there were plenty of Macs, but not much variety in the food offerings. And there's also free wifi, something we know we are going to miss once we arrive in Frankfurt.


SAS lounge


Bananas


Breakfast


Macs


Flight
After taking couple of intra Scandinavia flights on SAS, we were glad to be on a Lufthansa flight. While the seats are the same as Economy class, the middle seat is blocked in Business class, and the food was also much better. Hot breakfast was served, and we had a choice of eggs and ham, or the apple crepe.

LH 3107 Helsinki (HEL) 9:25am Frankfurt (FRA) 10:55am
Aircraft: Airbus A320
Distance: 960 miles
Duration : 2 hour 30 min
Class: Business



A320


Apple crepe


Eggs

The weather was perfect in Frankfurt, and upon landing, one couple in the first class asked about transferring service to another Lufthansa First class flight to the US. The flight attendant looked out of the plane, and saw a Porsche waiting for them already. But for the rest of us, we had to board the bus to the terminal.


Frankfurt


Porsche


Bus to terminal


Frankfurt Senator Lounge
We spent a lot of time in the Senator lounge, as our layover was over 3 hours. The food offering is far superior than that of the SAS lounges, we had asparagus soup, pasta, salad, sausages and potatoes, strawberry, ... It's a wonder how we managed to keep stuffing ourselves. We will need another bike tour to burn off the calories ! We also took advantage of the shower facility before hopping onto the long flight to Nagoya.


Bar


Pasta bar


Too much food !


Shower

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 2:18 am
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:14 am
  #12  
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Frankfurt to Sapporo

Flight to Nagoya
There was no gate available at the terminal, so once again we had to board a bus to get onto the plane. The amenity kit was in a brown pouch, which includes a pair of large size slippers. We were quite surprised by this, as normally the slippers given on the plane are too small for most passengers. For meals, we could choose either the western or the Japanese option. It's quite funny to watch the flight attendents serve the Japanese meal, as it comes in many small dishes and are supposed to be served in some particular order and layout, and the attendants often look puzzled as they could not quite tell what's what from the Japanese menu - Hassun, Suimono, Konomono... We had the Mozart chocolate last time we flew Lufthansa, but it looks like they have now switched to the Drei Meister chocolate, which is more delicious !

LH 736 Frankfurt (FRA) 2:30pm Nagoya (NGO) 8:50am
Aircraft: Airbus A340-300
Distance: 5770 miles
Duration : 11 hour 20 min
Class: Business



A340


Boarding


Seats


Slippers


Amenity Kit


Meal


Appetizer


Japanese appetizers


Japanese main course - pork with rice


Western main course - Fried Halibut


Desserts


Drei Meister chocolate


Western breakfast


Japanese breakfast


Lost luggage in Nagoya
Once we landed in Nagoya, we were prepared to be in a rush due to the short layover and luggage was not checked through. However, after we got past immigration, we spotted someone holding a big sign looking for us. I thought maybe they realized the tight connection and would arrange someone to escort us to the next flight, but it turns out they informed us our luggage did not make the flight and asked us to fill out the delay luggage report. What ! That's quite unbelievable, as we had a long layover in Frankfurt, and that's the segment we least expect our luggage would be lost. Coud our luggage be still in Helsinki ? Or could it board a different flight to Tokyo or Osaka ? Too bad they did not have any other information, and only asked us to let them know where to deliver the luggage when it's found. After we finished the report, we were running a bit late, but still managed to get past customs and check in for our domestic segment to Sapporo. Obviously without check-in luggage helped speed things up, and we made it to the gate 5 minutes before boarding started !


Gate at Nagoya


Flight to Sapporo
Our flight is an Economy class only flight on a 737. And it does not seem like there are preferred seatings for elites either. But what's more disappointing is that ANA is charging for drinks just like SAS. Water would be free, but not sodas or juices, though most passengers did not bother to ask for water either. The flight attendants were obviously not very busy, and they probably should be worried if the number of attendants on the flights will be cut down soon.

NH 705 Nagoya (NGO) 10:15am Sapporo (CTS) 11:55am
Aircraft: Boeing 737-500
Distance: 579 miles
Duration : 1 hour 40 min
Class: Economy



All economy class


Drinks menu


View from back of plane

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 2:24 am
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:14 am
  #13  
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First day in Sapporo

Arrival
Once we arrived in Sapporo, we went to the Japan Railway (JR) office to get our train pass to Otaru. This is a good deal at 1500 yen if you are going to Otaru, a small town 40 minutes from Sapporo, as the pass includes the train fare to Otaru, and also a day of Subway rides in Sapporo. These can be used on different days too. And the pass is only available to foreigners. Then we took the airport bus to Susukino, the entertainment district of Sapporo and where our hotel is located. There are also airport train to the Sapporo station, but then we would have needed to transfer to subway, whereas the bus will take us directly across from the hotel.


Airport Bus


Hotel Mecure
We picked the Hotel Mercure because of its convenient location in the middle of Susukino, and also it's new and is just celebrating the first year anniversary. The hotel is extremely clean and modern looking, with shops, bars, subway and all kinds of restaurants close by. There is no wifi, but the cabled connection is fast and free.


Hotel Mercure


TV


Bathroom


Sapporo Activities
As soon as we checked into the hotel, we went to the famous ramen alley next to the hotel, and had some delicious scallop ramen to get enough energy to do some serious shopping, that is, to shop for replacement clothes for at least the next day. With past lost luggage experience, we know the airlines will compensate for some of the expenses. On the other hand, since our luggage was delayed in Nagoya, and we were now in Sapporo, we were not quite sure whether we will have to deal with Lufthansa, or ANA, or even UA since UA is the ticketing carrier. Or maybe we will get the run around. So we only went for bargain hunting, and got a shirt, a pant, a dress, some underwear and toiletries for less than 15000 yen, which must be considered quite cheap in Japan. We also stopped by MOS burger, a popular fast food chain in Japan, to have some green tea cake with green tea latte, which was excellent. And finally for dinner, we had some delicious sushi.


Ramen alley


Scallop ramen


MOS burger


Green tea latte and cake


Sushi restaurant


Sushi and grilled Octopus


Egg tofu

When we went back to the hotel, we found they set up a self serve table for coffee, pastries and blueberries. It's interesting to see they have free breakfast food in the evening. When we went back to our room, there was a message to ask us to pick up a fax in the lobby, and it turns out to be a fax from Lufthansa explaining the reimbursement policy, which is 100% toiletries and replacement clothing and 50% for other items. At least we know we have to deal with Lufthansa, and not ANA or UA.


Coffee and pastries

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 2:29 am
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:15 am
  #14  
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Sapporo and Otaru

Sapporo Sightseeing
The next morning we were contacted by the Nagoya airport, and was told our luggage was found and it's on its way to the hotel in the afternoon. Apparently it was left in Frankfurt for a day. So we went out in the morning to do some sightseeing, and a lot of eating of course. We went to the Sapporo station to check out the department stores and had lunch in a small curry shop. Afterwards, we went to the famous Snow Brand ice cream parlor and saw a group of young kids sharing the super size ice cream sundae. Then we found out we left the other camera in the curry shop ! Though being in Japan, we were quite confident that we would be able to retrieve it, and sure enough, the shop owner had turned in the camera to the lost and found, and gave us very detailed directions to the information counter to get our camera back.


TV Tower


Odori park


Clock tower


Curry Omlette rice


Tomato and Egg curry rice


Strawberry cake


Snow Brand ice cream parlor


Super-size sundae

We went back to the hotel early afternoon, and was told that our luggage had arrived. We were fortunate that the delay had not derailed our vacation plan too much. (And we just got the check from Lufthansa 2 weeks after sending our claim.)


Otaru
In the early evening, we took the train to Otaru. We thought it's a place crowded with tourists, but to our surprise, it's actually a nice quiet town and some stores were closing early too. We walked towards the canal, took some photos when it's still bright, and checked out couple stores and stopped for a big Takkoyaki - grilled octopus dumpling, and returned to the canal when it's dark to take couple night shots.


Otaru station


Otaru


Canal daytime view


Takkoyaki


Nighttime canal view


Sapporo Crab Dinner
Satisfied with our Otaru outing, we returned to Sapporo for dinner. There are so many must have food in Sapporo that we could spend a whole week there and still won't get to try everything we want to. But the Hokkaido crab is not to be missed. We looked up our guidebook and found one all you can eat crab restaurant near the easy to spot ferris wheel landmark. The entire building is full of restaurants, and the one we were heading is called Shrimp Crab Battle in literal translation. While it's all you can eat, you must first finish a set dinner with crab, shrimp, sushi, steamed egg custard before you can order additional items. Obviously that's to discourage people from only eating the more expensive items, but that won't stop us from eating everything and then going for the extra round of crab ! After dinner, we walked back to our hotel, and enjoyed some night scenery of Susukino.


Sapporo eye


Restaurant building


Crab


Susukino after dark

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 2:34 am
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Old Aug 13, 2010, 1:15 am
  #15  
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Furano

One of the main goal of our Hokkaido trip is to see the lavender in Furano. JR sells a pass called the Lavender Free Pass that includes travel from Sapporo to Furano, and also unlimited local trains in Furano. In addition, there are numerous tourist bus options that go to different attractions, but it took a lot of efforts to put together the right combinations to match the schedule of each option we chose.

Here's the itinerary we came up with :

Lavender express #1 7:55am Sapporo station 9:53am Furano
Furano mini bus 10:10am Furano 10:30am Farm Tomita
Furano-Biei Norroko train 12:14pm Lavendar field station 12:54pm Biei
Twinkle bus Biei #1 1:30pm Biei 3:50pm Furano
Lavendar epress #4 4:29pm Furano 6:29pm Sapporo

In the morning, we took a taxi to the Sapporo station. It's interesting that the driver controls the opening and the closing of the door, which is quite convenient for the passengers. With the Lavender Free Pass, we were issued half a dozen of tickets, some are for train reservations to show to the conductor, some are for the actual pass to be used for going through the gate. And we had several failed attempts to enter the gate when we inserted the wrong tickets. Thankfully, the station also had plenty of JR employees helping the confused tourists like us.


Taxi


Sapporo station


Stack of tickets


Lavender Express Train


Furano Mini Tour Bus

Finally we arrived at Farm Tomita, here are couple lavender shots we took. We also had some lavender ice cream, bought lavender soap, calendar, air freshener, etc for sovenirs. Our eyes were seeing only purple when we left. We then walked for 10 minutes to head to the special train station only opened in the summer to catch our train to Biei. The Norokko train was definitely a fun and relaxing way to travel around Furano.


Farm Tomita


Lavender


Lavender


Lavender harvest


Train station sign


Norokko train to Biei


Norokko train

Once we were in Biei, we only had half an hour for lunch. We dashed to the restaurant across the station, had some cood noodles and oyako-don (chicken egg rice) and then boarded the Twinkle bus, which is a 3 hour bus tour.


Cold Noodle


Oyako-don

The Twinke bus took us through a roller coaster like road, the new Farm Tomita extension and finally the Furano winery before dropping us off at the Furano station. We had a very nice lady tourist guide on the bus, but most passengers were not paying attention to her, because only 4 out of the 20 or so passengers are Japanese ! Most of the tourists on the bus are from Taiwan. The Farm Tomita extension is called the Lavender East, and is actually much bigger than the Farm Tomita itself. Since we already tried the lavender ice cream earlier, we had the lavender sodas in the Lavender East this time. The winery visit was brief, enough time for some wine tasting and shopping. At the end of the bus tour, we were given a bottle of Furano grape juice, or could it be lavender juice ?


Twinkle bus tour


Lavendar East


Lavender sodas


Furano winery


Furano wine


Furano grape juice

Last edited by UAFlyer; Aug 13, 2010 at 2:41 am
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