violist

UA1148 BOS ORD 0901 1059 739 4A

I got dropped off at the airport at 7 so had a good long
visit with my friends at the UC before going to the gate.
This was the first time I'd used the autogates in Boston.
Of course, there were many glitches, not caused by the
equipment as far as I could see but by the passengers not
being able to see the big 3 or 4 on their boarding passes,
whereupon of course they complained and held up the line,
and, guess what, the automated system doesn't look like
such a great idea any more, does it.

A quick pleasant flight with relatively fresh flight
attendants; we ended up early enough so I had an hour's
layover at the B club for a banana and the e-mail.

UA 881 ORD NRT 1210 1510 744 14B was 15B

The end gates in the concourse are the only ones that can
accommodate the big planes, but the seating area, despite
the extra square bit over to the side, is constricted by the
curve of the building. Translation: more people milling
about even than normal. As the crowd and I milled about, my
sharp ears picked out my name from the din, and I hied to
the desk thinking, ooh, upgrade time, but in fact it was
just a courtesy call to inform me that a party of 4 had
wanted my beloved row 15, and I was being moved forward a
row, not a whole cabin. Pooh. So grumpily upstairs I went
(this is a nice and comfortable place in any position,
truth be told).

I was settling in, when a rather superb woman about a
decade younger than me excused herself and slid into the
window seat next to me, so this was an upgrade of sorts
after all. We got to talking, and though any scanty charm
I may ever have possessed has abandoned me, we got on
reasonably well. Paula is an artist turned social work
professor, going on to Osaka to see her son; and though we
knew nobody in common, we did share a lot of attitudes, past
haunts, and interests. It was a very nice, chatty flight,
and I got less sleep than I had planned on.

violist

UA 04/15
DEN/EWR/IAD/IAH/LAX/ORD-NRT, SFO-HND/KIX/NRT
(LD81-R87-B87) 260C001-4

TO BEGIN

Chilled seafood appetizer - California sushi roll

This was a slice of a very thick rice roll with
bits of okay if slightly rubbery avocado, crab-
shaped surimi, and some extraneous vegetables.
Edible but somewhat chintzy.

Fresh seasonal greens - Tomatoes, cucumber, Kalamata olives
and croutons with your choice of honey peppercorn dressing
or GF balsamic vinaigrette

MAIN COURSE

Short rib of beef - Red wine sauce, aji amarillo mashed
potatoes, fine green beans and carrots

Okay. Nothing to write home about. Oh, yes, there
was a decent line of fat in the salted and
somewhat mushy meat. I think the characterization
of the beans must have been an artifact of the
translation process, because there was nothing
fine about them. No aji amarillo in the potatoes,
either.

Tamale-filled breast of chicken - Creamy corn sauce, grilled
yuca and tomatoes

My seatmate got this and was reasonably pleased
but surprised to find this to really be a breast
of chicken-filled tamale. She had expected a piece
of chicken with a cornbread-like stuffing.

Fillet of salmon with lump crabmeat - Beurre blanc sauce,
barley with vegetables, collard greens and tomatoes

Japanese selection
Appetizers of green tea shrimp sushi, fish cake skewer,
nori-crusted chicken, squid, broad beans and asparagus

A main course of deep-fried fish fillet with soba noodles,
shiitake mushroom and carrot in gin-an sauce, clear soup
with bamboo shoots and seaweed, squid with plum dressing,
vinegared fish salad, simmered vegetables, steamed rice and
Japanese-style pickles

TO FINISH

International cheese selection - Grapes and crackers served
with Port

Dessert - Ice cream with your choice of toppings

I asked for and got one small scoop of vanilla. My
seatmate got the Buddhist sundae - one with everything.

MID-FLIGHT SNACK

Assorted sandwiches - Turkey with cranberry cream cheese
Spinach tortilla wrap with cheese and vegetables

Red bean rice cake

Yay for red bean mochi.

PRIOR TO ARRIVAL

Swiss cheese omelette - broccoli-potato gratin and turkey
sausage

Chicken katsu - curry sauce, steamed rice and vegetables

I don't know why I expected a katsu to keep its crunch
through 10 hours of sitting under foil before being
reheated; anyhow, it didn't. The curry sauce was like
S&B but less tasty. Still, I think, better than a
cheese omelet.

Cereal and banana served with milk

Fresh fruit appetizer, yogurt or savory salad, and
breakfast breads

violist

JL3057 NRT FUK 1930 2135 738 1K

AA/US had not sent me a new Sapphire card (still haven't
2 months later), and I wondered if my make-your-own would
work for lounge access. It transpired, though, that lili
was on this flight (not totally coincidentally), and the
easiest way to get seated together was to upgrade. Mine
was eight bucks, hers ten (different original fare classes
I guess, or it might have been that she paid in dollars on
credit and I in yen in cash). And of course now the Sakura
lounge came with, so ambiguity avoided.

I was raring to go, but Paula was having issues with her
ticket, so I stayed in the neighborhood until she was
squared away. For some reason United had issued both of
our tickets as interlines with JAL rather than booking us
on the partner airline, not that that would be any better
except that her flight was full, and she was in danger of
being bumped, which would have mightily messed up her plans.
Luckily a seat was found.

JY1024 was already at the Sakura lounge, and we had a good
chat about manufactured spending, about which I know next
to nothing, and the history of air travel bargain hunting,
which I have lived pretty much through all of so actually
could carry on a conversation about.

Other than two iterations of the Amazing Beer Machine,
serving two different kinds of beer, Asahi and Kirin I
think, the lounge is quite ordinary, with seats and food
that easily qualify for that description. Newbie Runner had
warned me beforehand, so expectations were not deflated.

After sufficient snacking and chatting we went down to
the gate and loaded up - people looked with awe and wonder
and I believe no resentment as the silly Americans filled
up far more overhead binnage than we were entitled to.

The flight itself was apparently fine - I slept through it.

As there were three of us, and it was kind of wet out, a
taxi to the rather beautiful Grand Hyatt was a no-brainer.

I wasn't going to the Pre Drinks event but was convinced by
my travel companions to accompany them to Good Beer Faucets,
where we encountered a load of hearties in the midst of
their sampling of the nation's best. Having spent most of
the last 24 hours partaking of free alcohol and/or in a
slumbrous state related thereto, I decided to pass this one
time; instead lili and I accompanieded Newbie Runner and
beckoa to a yatai conveniently located in a knot of stalls
along the river halfway between the bar and the hotel, where
I got a respectable tonkotsu ramen that I ruined or enhanced
by adding more ground red pepper than normal people do.

For the table, a yakitori assortment of gizzards, thigh
meat, and skin found universal favor; there was also a hot
dog arrangement that Newbie appropriated, whether out of
polite self-sacrifice or because she likes hot dogs I don't
know. Her main meal was an assortment of oden that got
shared around - pretty good.

The hotel room, though closer to the elevator than I would
have preferred, was pretty nice, with pluses and minuses:
bed comfort was good, bathroom was average in a Japanese
way, which means excellent; the light and heat controls
were very wonky.

violist

The day dawned wet and crappy, and I put a toe out, and it
came back soaked, so even though I'd planned on joining the
crew on its field trip to Dazaifu, I decided to stay closer
to home and visit the city's most relevant (to me) landmark,
Raumen Stadium, one of whose attractions is that one can get
to it all under cover from the hotel; it's on the top floor
of the Canal City shopping center, so once one tumbles to
the fact that it's upstairs, it's easy enough to find.

It was hard to choose among the eight restaurants; we
decided on Menya Houten, which is said to have a Chinese
accent, because it offered stuff that lili would enjoy. As
I am both sight and insight impaired, I spent way too much
time puzzling over the meal ticket machine, during which I
managed to buy 3 beers and no food. Luckily, a young
employee with excellent English came up to help me buy a
bowl of Hakata black ramen; of course he recommended the
special with chashu, pork fat, kamaboko, a braised egg,
scallions, bamboo shoots, and nori, which turned out to be
a large, complex, satisfying bowl despite there being only
the standard 3 oz serving of meat. I'd expected from the
Hakata appellation that this would be a tonkotsu broth
varied with dark soy and burnt garlic oil; in fact, the
broth was a thinnish one though well endowed with the
expected blackeners. Very firm noodles, which I went through
in a jiffy and got our helpful friend to teach me how to buy
a second serving (used to be that seconds on noodles were
free, but no more) for Y150. The seconds were even more al
dente than the first. The chashu, excellent. Pork fat, Y50
extra if not on the special, is merely a ladleful of bits
that float on top of the broth: I like this a lot, many
people go eww. The braised egg was very like a Chinese soy
sauce egg, but the Japanese do these so that the whites are
set and broth-colored while the yolk is still a bit runny.
Very tender braised bamboo shoots. I could have done without
the seaweed.

For lili, fried chicken, crunchy, well flavored, excellent.

We had been given the option of having one of the beer
tickets refunded, as I was clearly an addled tourist who
didn't know any better, and the young man was a little
shocked when I said, no, we'll just drink more. The offering
is called Suntory Premium Malt's, a pleasant nondescript
lager of the sort that is taking over the world. The glasses
are I guess 10 or 11 ounces, and three for two pax is by no
means a stretch, even though I drank more than half. Okay,
more than three-fourths.

We resolved to come back later to try another stand. My next
choice was going to be the beef tongue place, or maybe the
kurobuta black pig place. But as it turns out, other
deliciousnesses obtruded and we didn't get to do so.

The sky had begun to lighten, so we figured on an afternoon
lull and started westward to the Fukuoka Castle ruins, I
forget what the area is called. lili had rain gear, and I
had a Ted jacket that looked waterproof but really wasn't,
but what the heck, nothing ventured, nothing gained. As soon
as we got to the point of no return, around the Tenjin
station, the heavens of course opened up, and it ended up a
bit of a slog with frequent ducks under awnings and pauses
for me to wipe my glasses; but we got there, and, yes, the
rain hadn't taken away all the cherry blossoms, and the park
was gorgeous. Note: for the less stubborn, there are plenty
of buses that one could take for a buck (most of our
adventure was within the Y100 zone).

There was more to see at the site, but it was getting lowery
again, and my wet jacket was beginning to get irritating,
and dinner was coming up, so back to the Hyatt.

violist

Friday - Main Do Dinner at the quite a mouthful Yanagimachi
Ikkokudo Haruyoshi-ten, a wet half mile from the hotel.

It's lucky the turnoff had been pointed out to us the
previous evening, because it is somewhat obscure in the
dark, and others had a hard time finding it.

The Do took up the back building of the restaurant; I made
my way to the back back, where the bar is, to which somebody
made a perhaps good-naturedly snide remark.

Our first course was a beautifully plated series of four
morsels - sugar snap pea, pickled sardine on shiso leaf,
tamago, and marinated baby squid, in order of presentation
and my preference both. I thought on initial inspection
that the egg and the fish might be profitably switched,
but after eating I agreed that two fish tastes together
was properly avoided.

Then a sashimi course, with octopus, the usual; two white
fishes, ?some kind of yellowtail and ?some kind of snapper,
both mild whitefishy but one with a stringyish texture; nice
though mild slabs of tuna; and uni that I'm pretty sure came
from west coast USA, as it was bitterer and less sweet than
what I'm accustomed to (which comes from east coast USA,
flown to Tokyo, and then boxed up in nice cedar boxes and
flown right back to New York or Washington.

The next course, in order of presentation as well as my
preference: mountain yam in all its gelatinous glory,
broccoli rabe with bonito flakes, quite nice, and inarizushi
with shiitake, a taste that reminded me of childhood, though
my mother, being Chinese, used pork instead of mushrooms. A
progression of tastes and textures from gentle (and weird)
to robust, mild sweetness to mild bitter and salt to rich
sweetness, gooey to crunchy to firm.

Eggplant with ground pork and miso, a pretty simple dish
pretty similar to what I do, was perhaps my favorite part
of the meal - comfort food of a high order. The eggplant
was softer and wetter than I make it, and I'm rethinking
my approach because of this.

Fried chicken thigh, medium rare when it came, on a
sizzling platter with American-style mixed green salad
(also on the sizzling platter); the meat was a bit chewy
when it first arrived, but the texture became more normal as
the heat of the platter did its thing. Unfortunately, the
same physics applied to the salad, which wilted quite a
bit in a short time.

I had high hopes for the whelk, escargot style, which cried
out for white wine (I had sake instead). It turned out to
be very resilient bits of shellfish in a heavily garlicked
buttered breadcrumb stuffing, sort of like Rhode Island
stuffies but not as good. Additional cuts of baguette came
for soaking up the excess garlic butter; I didn't bother, as
fullness was approaching.

Bamboo rice wrapped in bamboo tip outside and steamed in a
bamboo steamer was a cute conceit but I thought a bit
underflavored and rather late in the meal, when we'd
already eaten enough. This was probably deliberate - you
relax in a state of satiation and take some rice and ponder
the quality of the grains and note how artichokelike the
bamboo bits are inside the package, and if you still want
more food, you eat the whole dish (which guarantees you will
not be hungry for many hours).

At this point we were served a disconcerting bowl of kelp in
tepid water, whose flavor was fugitive if anything. I am
still uncertain what the point of it was.

There was dessert - a white custardy coffee-flavored
concoction, I believe nondairy, likely made of almond milk
or soy milk (though I took a precautionary lactase pill),
very like a strange-taste Chinese hsin ren dou fu - some of
us were very enthusiastic about it.

The staff did a good job of keeping us watered without being
overserved or overdemanding. I did mostly the draft beer,
but someone offered me a cup of Michikasari daiginjo junmai
sake, dry, aromatic with almost citrus notes, nice.

Afterward, people went to an afterparty someplace. I didn't.

violist

While the others went on their trip to Nagasaki, We deviated
firmly and finally from the plan and decided to do our own
day tour of the city, focusing on the Hakata district, which
is of some historical importance and also is conveniently
located within easy walking distance of the hotel.

The atmosphere was a little misty to begin with, but without
the aggressive rain of the day before. And it did clear up
and warmed considerably as time went by.

We started out walking north to look for a yakiniku place
that I'd heard good things about but was detoured by lili's
news that some famous shopping area, Kawabatadori, was
nearby. It's a covered arcade a quarter mile long. When we
found it, many of the stalls and shops were not yet open
(I guess we were there around 10), but I imagine that it
might get hopping at mealtime or in the evening.

At the end of the street to the left is the Kushida Shinto
shrine (founded in 757), a complex of buildings old and
new, sculpture, and a place where you can cleanse your soul
by drinking stagnant water out of a wooden dipper, I'm not
sure what that ritual is called.

The shrine precinct is dotted with numerous sculptures, some
devotional or mythological, some, as in Fukuoka's own
Mannekin Pis, just whimsical.

Right nearby are the Hakata Traditional Craft and Design
Museum and the Hakata Machiya Folk Museum. We decided that
the former was too commercial and went down the street to
the other, which turned out to be even more so, so back
we went and are glad we did - though the downstairs is a
salesroom with the token artisan working on a project,
the upstairs is a nice little room that showcases the
local crafts, from blown glass to fine fabrics to dolls
and more specialized things, such as tops (the first in
Japan to have a metal axle) and ... scissors made by
swordsmiths. You are asked not to photograph the exhibits,
something I got around by taking shots from a couple of
the quite interesting videos on offer.

To get to the temples we wanted to see we had to walk
past the Folk Museum, so we poked our noses in and decided
that we'd seen more interesting elsewhere.

The Tocho-ji temple with its gigantic wooden Buddha was our
next stop. Founded in 806, it is the headquarters of Shingon
Buddhism and boasts one of the largest wooden Buddha statues
in Japan (perhaps THE, but sources are confusing on this).
The grounds, behind an unpromising driveway gate, are
lovely, with ancient cherry trees that just happened to be
in bloom and a striking red five-story pagoda. To find the
big Buddha, follow the sign that says "The big Buddha is
upstairs." It's big but otherwise not remarkable. Turns out
(this is not emphasized) it was built between 1988 and 1992.
You are requested not to photograph it, so I didn't.

Down the way and past a busy intersection is the Joten-ji
temple, founded by the famed Enni Ben'En, revered for having
brought the art of noodlemaking to Japan as well, they say,
as yokan and manju and Hakata-ori, the textiles that we had
seen at the museum. Busy guy. The current complex is said to
date from 1242. For some reason, though important in
culinary and cultural history, it isn't the tourist magnet
that Tocho-ji is, and we had a good visit with few others
around. The worship places were closed, but the grounds and
monuments are the draw here anyway.

violist

We were getting peckish, and the choice was to find the
yakiniku place way up north there, find something in that
arcade, also retracing our steps, or there was this other
yakiniku restaurant at Hakata station that was said to
offer excellent wagyu.

Yakiniku Champion is known for being hard to find (how
can something be hard to find in a shopping mall attached
to the biggest train station in town?) and for offering
certified A5 Mishima beef at a reasonable price. As
Bourdain would say, I'm all over that.

It's on the top floor of the complex, off on the far end
from the elevators, with a smallish door next to a big door
that goes to some other very popular restaurant. Quiet, no
sign that I could recognize.

We were seated side by side at a booth with a charcoal
brazier set in the table.

Service was friendly but slow; first by a woman who had no
English, then by a young man who had a little, then relieved
by the woman again.

English menu with pictures.

Our selections: choice grade short rib, sankaku (sometimes
represented as tri-tip, which is part of the round, but
apparently actually a triangular muscle from the short rib),
and harami (skirt). By gesture we were asked how we wanted
our meat, sauced or salted, but apparently the English-
speaking contingent was off, it being lunchtime and late
at that; eventually I remembered the right word, which is
"shio." Ah, the order-taker said, shio, and grinned. So
we got our meat gently salted rather than coated with a
sticky sweet sauce (which we got on the side anyway).

The "choice grade" referred to the fact that our cut was
mostly fat, which was fine with us but slowed the pace of
our eating. I did these cuts medium, which brought out the
savoriness of the fat. Really good, but hard to make a meal
of. Sankaku is reputed to have the most delicious balance
of lean and fat - ours was in fact perfectly marbled, the
fat in a beautiful net around pink meat. It cooked up a bit
chewy, but the flavor was extraordinary. The harami was the
most like American beef, with an intense beefy flavor,
though tenderer than anything I've ever had stateside. I
did these last two rare.

On the side - a lettuce salad with red and yellow pepper
strips and the usual dressing; a couple of banchan - napa
kimchi and beansprouts; seaweed soup; and rice. Condiments
- sauce and lemon.

Beer for me, a seriously mediocre red wine for lili.

I've had beef of this richness only a few times in my
sixty some years, and we left fat and happy.

Past the train station, eastward, and back we were at Canal
City and home. Freshened up and had a brief nap, and for
some reason we didn't want to go out for supper.

The club at the hotel provided plenty of snacks and Vichon
Cabernet for her, Remy Martin for me.

violist

JL3052 FUK NRT 0720 0905 738 3C

We upgraded again for the Y1000 or $8. It was as expected
and hoped for a nothing flight. We took off and landed if
anything a tad early. So what to do for 8 hours? Visit
Narita Town, which some say is a huge waste of time, but
others find it wonderful, which we did, even though it was
drizzling and cool the whole day.

From the airport station it's a 10-minute train ride for
two or three bucks (day pass is something like $4); coin-
operated lockers in the airport so we didn't have to lug our
luggage on our adventure.

The local train is appointed more like what we would think
of as the subway, with hard bench seats and straps for
rush hour.

Overlooking town is the temple complex built atop Narita-San
mountain: you walk up the main road past shops, restaurants,
and the Jet Lag bar, and in ten minutes you're there, if
you take the right road, which I initially did not (a
helpful policeman helped us get on the right track). When
you get there it's really quite extensive and busy as
anything, with hordes of tourists from the city and actually
not too many foreign gawkers such as we. We spent maybe four
hours in the soaking mist-rain, my shoes squishing as I
walked, but I didn't notice, the architecture was so
wonderful. At one point we walked in on a wedding in one
of the temples, augmented by tourists crowding in to get out
of the rain, which was kind of interesting, though I saw
little or nothing of it. When our stomachs started rumbling
we decided to head back down, and as we went past all the
little restaurants, numerous smiling touts came out to greet
us, but we figured we'd get a better deal down by the train
station.

Oh-Sho is a slightly ratty little place, but when we passed
it something told me this was the real deal. Little did I
know that it is an outlet of a chain - didn't look chainlike
to me, and in fact each of the restaurants has considerable
leeway in presenting itself, both in appearance and menu.

Speaking of which, there's an English (sort of) menu with
pictures, very helpful. It's a Chinese restaurant.

After we were greeted, it was quite a long time before our
order was taken, and quite a long time before we were
served. I think my comical lack of Japanese might have had
something to do with it - some big Dutch-looking guy and
his party were served in half the time, but then he was
speaking what sounded like fluent Japanese. Anyhow, our
food was eventually ordered and delivered and was very good.

For a special treat I ordered hormone with miso. This is
pig intestines and uterus chopped into bits, cleaned,
boiled, and then stir-fried in brown sauce with, in this
version, onions both white and green. The meat was tender
- too tender for my preference - and totally clean-tasting
- perhaps too much so for my preference, as part of the
appeal is the, er, gaminess that almost inevitably escapes,
though not apparently in the Japanese version. Nonetheless,
I ate most of it happily enough.

lili's treat was fried chicken, six boneless nuggets three
or four times the size of fast-food nuggets, served with a
sort of slaw dressed with pink stuff and corn kernels. The
chicken was fresh and tender and didn't have a lot of
distracting flavors to put her off.

And of course gyoza, which were excellent - thin wrappers
pan-fried just so, the filling fairly plain, pork, soy,
and chopped scallions, just the way my mother used to
make it. A wonderful goodbye to us from this town, which
is lovelier than its reputation.

Three minutes through the drizzle from the restaurant to
the train, which took us to the airport a little before 3.

As she was flying American and I was flying United, there
was no chance to have parting drinks together, so we went to
our separate clubs. I thought of the more glamorous options,
but there wasn't all that much time, so I just went to the
United Club, which was not hugely crowded, so I had a shower
with no wait and then settled in for an hour with a glass of
mediocre Kirin brandy and some quite pleasant cream-filled
sponge cake things in various colors.

Boarding was fairly orderly, that's to say not the usual
rest of the world scrum but then not the normal Japanese
straight queueing up either.

UA 882 NRT ORD 1730 1510 744 15A

I was fairly late to board, so my bag wasn't all the way
back in the closet.

Some mechanical weirdness, and we were delayed half an
hour taking off.

My seatmate was a young Japanese fellow whose taciturnity
was agreeable to all.

violist

UA 04/15
NRT-DEN/EWR/IAD/IAH/LAX/ORD/SFO
(LD81-R89-B87) 261C001-4

TO BEGIN

Chilled appetizer - battera sushi roll and smoked salmon
with wasabi mayonnaise

Fresh seasonal greens - pumpkin, tomato and croutons with
your choice of creamy coriander dressing or sesame
vinaigrette

The sushi tasted like kind of nothing; the salmon was
pretty good.

MAIN COURSE

Tenderloin of beef - Red wine sauce, Asiago potato pie,
green beans and bell pepper

Breast of chicken - Rosemary sauce, pistachio risotto,
broccoli and carrots

Fillet of salmon with shrimp - Teriyaki sauce, steamed
rice and bok choy with vegetable julienne

I said I'd take anything. I got the fish, which was
of course way overcooked but reasonably fresh and
decent to the palate. The teriyaki sauce had a curious
empty taste, so I didn't eat all my rice.

Japanese selection
Appetizers of salmon roll, bamboo shoot with pepper,
grilled chicken, bracken and scallop with spicy cod roe

A main course of sauteed pork with potato and bell pepper,
simmered cabbage-wrapped chicken and bamboo shoot with
seaweed, marinated radish and corn, vinegared crab meat
with mustard, miso paste and Chinese matrimony vine, miso
soup with seaweed, simmered vegetables, steamed rice and
Japanese-style pickles

TO FINISH

International cheese selection - Grapes and crackers served
with Port

Dessert - Ice cream with your choice of toppings

I had a glass, no, two, of Port, followed by a
Courvoisier nightcap.

MID-FLIGHT SNACK

Fruit and light snacks are available at any time following
the meal service. Please help yourself or ask a flight
attendant for today's selection

Not sure what there was. I did check, but there was
no red bean mochi left, so I lost interest.

PRIOR TO ARRIVAL

Cheese omelette - Chunky tomato sauce, potatoes, mushrooms
and pork sausage

Udon noodles with pork - Sliced pork and vegetables

Cereal and banana served with milk

Fresh fruit appetizer, yogurt or savory salad, and
breakfast breads

The udon were salty and peculiarly dehydrated from
their long travels but tasted pretty good. The pork
was excellent.

A fair amount of sleep; I dreamed of the good olden days
when I spent so much time in this seat's ancestor, which
my memories tell me was even more comfy and conducive to
rest, and why the heck change to these coffins? Oh, well,
the new digs are not unpleasant if a little cramped.

I woke for meals, plus something kind of disagreed with me,
so also for several trips toward the flight deck.

We landed a bit late, having made up some time en route.

GE didn't work for me, as usual, so I had to go to the
regular line, where there's an automated system installed
that works to all intents and purposes the same. I was
quickly shooed back into the US.