roadwarrier

Is it my browser, or did some photos not load? Enjoying the TR by the way.

antebellum

Now arrived at Tokyo station. Before heading to Conrad to drop our bags, first order of business:



Welcome aboard this Shinkansen to Shimbashi. LOL .



ANA A380 to Honolulu, anyone? I don't think that'll fit my schedule.



Here we go. Our hotel for the next two nights.



Its takes time to figure out what's this sculpture means. We dropped bags off at the ground lobby, and Conrad staff said housekeeping team will deliver bags to our room once its checked in. So far, so good. However, we checked in later (around 5PM) and bags were nowhere to be seen, searched every corner and absolutely nothing. Then what? When I took the "do not disturb" sign off, our bags came in about a minute. My bad.





Quite a nice driveway, but we didn't have the chance to use them, since we took trains to/from hotels and used pedestrian entry instead.





We then walked to Ichiran for some ramen, and tons of shopping in Ginza later, mostly Japanese crafts and sweets.



Here is my lunch. Big bowl of ramen. It was quite good, although a bit salty for me.



My friend told me his associates wanted some Casio watch, we headed to their store first. The price isn't too right, we decided to give it a pass.





Beautifully crafted tree sculpture. I asked the staff how much is that. She replied "5 million yen" Seriously???. Oh well, this might be too fragile to take it home.



What a concept. Cook your rice on a Dutch oven.



Remember that large tree sculpture? There was smaller ones, but still costs 1 million yen (about A$13K)



We ended up buying few of those clothes home. My wife loved it, actually.






Found Laduree at a department store, and we stoped for a couple of macarons. They've closed their only store in Melbourne (more accurately Chadstone, one of the shopping centres close to my home) in last September. No gold macarons here (like Dubai or Chadstone)!



To be continued. Next: fine kaiseki dinner.

antebellum

Beautiful view of Tokyo Bay from Conrad lobby, however, due to a large Chinese conference group, the hotel was nearly sold out, no upgrades for our city view room, but 500 Hilton Honors points as compensation. Totally fine, if nothing else.



Impressive lobby, it doesn't resembles anything that existed back in 2005 (and no renovations in between). Oh, the one-per-trip evil eye strikes again.



The Chinese conference group that I'm referring to. Honda's division in China.



Some hot towel and cranberry juice as welcome drink. Classy presentation. The check-in agent was nice enough to inform me the pool was closed during our stay and compensated me another 500 points. I don't really use the pool at all, but free points? Yes please.



Now checked in to our room on the 35th floor. Another mistake made, I accidentally chose premium Wi-Fi over normal complimentary one, and that was 2,000 yen per day. A trip down to lobby trying to dispute the charges, agent said she'll happy to forgo the charge for the first day though. Thanks. Premium Wi-Fi was probably the fastest I've ever seen, 145Mbps download and 100Mbps upload.
Just turned on the TV, seriously?



One nap later and it was already dark outside (5PM)



Probably this bathroom is only a bit smaller, or might be on par, than most Japanese hotel rooms.



I requested some extra Refinery amenity through Conrad Concierge in the Hilton app, with a bonus kids' toothbrush.







Fireplace at the lobby bar. Best paired with a little live music and a glass of Hibiki 21. Not tonight, but tomorrow.





chongl, Conrad must replaced their trees in the lift lobby since your last trip report.





On the way to our restaurant, a friend of mine, who lived in Japan for 10 years now, said he actually highly recommends it because "the boss of his company always invite their clients to have dinner here". LOL. Since this place only opens for dinner, and there's only 8 private suites, most of the time this place requires booking up to one month in advance.





Our menu for tonight, handwritten. Took them home for souvenirs. I was initially scared off by pufferfish sashimi course, more on that later.



A shot of sake to start this three hours of wonderful kaiseki culinary journey.



Fish stock with a fried fish fin. First for me, but quite delicious, and rich in flavour.



Seven small dishes, didn't liked several of them, although the prawn with radish julienne and cream cheese cube was delicious.



Next comes the soup course, presented with a lid.



White miso soup with tofu, broccolini and shiitake mushroom. It was excellent.



New Year's special, Fugu (pufferfish) sashimi, a strange and non-acquired taste, but much better than I thought. Apparently the way to eat it was, wrap spring onion and roe with pufferfish, and dip with the soy sauce.



Here comes another course, again presented with a lid:



Steamed fish cake with daikon radish. Probably the weakest point (personal preference maybe?), but still very good.



Tempura of chicken, pepper and okra, was melt-in-your-mouth delicious.



Finally, the main course, steamed fish with tofu. the fish was presented beautifully, and also melts in your mouth.



Paired with pot cooked rice (with chicken and mixed vegetables).



Served with a side of miso.



Citrus jelly presented in an orange. In my honest opinion, A+++ for both presentation and taste. Probably one of the best desserts ever had.



Some matcha to finish. I can definitely say every single course here was work of art in both presentation and taste. Service was flawless as well. Don't know the restaurant was called though.
Since my friend invited us, he paid for it. I asked him about the credit card he used, and he said "this card are necessary to keep his oneworld Emerald (JAL) active. Very interesting, new things learned. @:-)



Very cute bonsai plant in our dining suite. Apparently the suite doors can be closed, just like a good first class in the air.



Pufferfish paint. Really loved this one, if there's someone who sells it, I'm happy to buy one and put it in my living room.





Are this Persian or Japanese rug? Very unclear on this one.



On the way back to Conrad, a free concert or sorts. Stopped for a few minutes here.



Just before we reached our hotel, what's this? Aladdin light show?



A boutique shop inside Conrad. Gotta love those overpriced desk globes.





What an amazing experience. We crashed out and slept for 10 hours before the last full day of touring.

antebellum

Off to our last day adventure at Tokyo.



I woke up in the morning to check out the gym, steam, sauna and jacuzzi spa.



This must be very busy, considering its size.



This was the only photo I can get for the pool, which was supposed to be photo worthy, with zero water. Definitely will check it out next time.



The breakfast was fairly impressive. No, not the most elaborate selections like in Singapore or Bangkok, but very good nonetheless, in both quantity and quality.



That smoked salmon was probably the best I've ever tasted.



Very good amount of pastry selections...



What's this for??? Very confused on this one.







Starts with salad. Am I eating healthy today?



Some Japanese selections from the buffet.



They allowed you to order one dish off the menu. I got an omelette with some capsicum, ham and cheese. Meh.



After this delicious breakfast, we headed off to Asakusa. Getting there was no problem at all, just take the Asakusa line to Asakusa and you'll be there in 15 minutes.





This was supposed to bring good luck for touching it. I tried, nothing magical happened.





The market street before the actual buddhist temple. I'd this was busier than usual, for being in the first two weeks of New Years.



Unfortunately we didn't see anything interesting in particular.



Amazing.





The pagoda on the side. Unfortunately it was closed today.







Another touch and good luck?



After touring of Asakusa, we headed off to Skytree, which was supposed to be the tallest TV tower. Although the observation deck was located at 350m only.



View from the deck. no Mt. Fuji view today, and I passed on the extra fees to go the taller deck.



One special thing about Tokyo was that although the city was huge, there weren't too many skyscrapers at all.



I guess someone might be scared. The glass floor, directly looking at the ground.



I'd probably say while Skytree was cool enough, no return for me next time. Now off to Shibuya for final shopping. I made a time-lapse of this junction, don't know why an YouTuber made a cameo appearance interviewing someone.





Back to our hotel. Tokyo Bay and Odaiba at night.



We chose some Hibiki 21 on rocks for out post-dinner drink, not cheap, but hey, it was a great whisky.



Look at this selection, one only can be dreamed of.







Some live music was played in the lobby bar, tonight was piano. Loved it very much.



I used Conrad app to request turndown service, this service was seriously good, when we entered the room, some ambient music was playing on the background and the Conrad branded bear was put on the side.



Hilton Aspire credit card with 150K sign-up bonus and complimentary diamond? Not for Australians.



This toilet must proved that this hotel actually opened in 2005 with no renovations in between. LOL. Older type of Toto bidet.



Next: flights to Guangzhou, and the long way home, via Far North QLD.

somemale

Awesome TR so far!

Where can those expensive "trees" can be found? Any information on what they are called?

antebellum

Since our flights departs quite early, we have to leave by 5:30 in order to catch 5:50 train. They insisted to book me on airport limousine bus and pick up at the front, but we decided to give a pass and take the train to airport. The breakfast only opens at 6:30, which means we have to order room service instead. We ordered "healthy" breakfast (the only hot option can be ordered), with no cheese omelette, veggies for side, yoghurt, cereals and coffees. It's might be fairly bland, buy actually not bad.




We headed up to JAL first lounge, it was quite busy and fully filled up, I refrained from taking any photos.



An avid Japanese whisky collector should aim for this. Jeez.



Boarding was quite efficient. Starts at T-25, and by T-10, everyone was boarded.



Tokyo HND to Guangzhou CAN
JAL JL 87
787-8
Sked: 8:50am-1:05pm
Actual: 8:50am-1:40pm
January 9, 2019
Economy 55E

They made a plane swap at the gate. Pleasant surprise. Upgraded from regional 2-2-2 to the new Apex suite. I'd say that 10K extra miles for business might be worth it, if I knew this earlier. As usual in JAL, literally most of the plane were elites. Since the plane was 88/88 in Y, I was at middle seat of last row economy, and interestingly, entire row of passengers holds oneworld Emerald.



I guess this premium economy isn't too bad, if you have to fly to Dallas or Melbourne from Tokyo.



Unlike the piece of crap on the outbound, this IFE was much better. Not so much on the entertainment though.



The route might seemed direct, but due to Chinese airspace restrictions that forced us to fly inland from near Shanghai, we've delayed 30 minutes.



"Brunch", again, only one choice was offered. Mixed grill with burger steak, chicken thigh and sausages. Again, pretty good for Y. Again with cup of iced green tea, which I quite enjoyed.



Nothing beats this in Y though. LOL.



Our actual path:



I had multi-entry Chinese visa obtained few years ago, and the officers allowed me to use "Chinese" lane for having a biometric passport and fingerprint collected. Not surprisingly on JAL, our bags came last again. Some recycled pic of CAN baggage claim:



What a great trip to Japan. Our schedule was quite short, yet we still managed to pack as much as possible. Definitely full of memories!
Now, back to my "home" and a nap through afternoon. My friend was unlucky though, he had to go back to work straight away until 8PM.

antebellum

I just returned from Japan the previous day, and now? Work mode. My associates told me a business partner scheduled a meeting with us at Westin in Shenzhen. I had another thing wanted to checkout, Bitcoin mining equipments at Huaqiang North electronics market. Perfect.
Starbucks in the train station still used cups from Christmas, I thought they must made too much and needs time to use it all and restock.









"5D Holographic projections." LOL on this one though.



This was indeed the bitcoin mining device. Apparently they said most were sold to Russia and Kazakhstan.



Mining device in a cluster. They even have mining device hosting services, with a purpose-built facility on the Big Diomede Island near the Russia-Alaska border. Uh oh, I don't think I can trust them on this one.



Telescopes. Apparently they also have knock-off Steiner binoculars (same brand used in new Emirates first suite) for $20 each.



Some less interesting PC accessories.





We ordered a quick lunch at a basement food court as we're sort of running late, meh.



Westin Shenzhen lobby. Arguably nicer than most other Westin in the world. This hotel wasn't Bonvoy'd yet, at my time of visit.






After the talk, we then headed to nearby shopping centre, well, its actually connected, to have a look. Wow, they even have an Apple Store. Didn't they worried about the competition from Hong Kong, which is only less than 20 miles away?







Then an afternoon tea somewhere in the centre. Not cheap at all (by China standards), but nowadays things in China was getting expensive though.



My cheesecake was terrible. Tough to cut and flavourless.



The matcha latte was good, although the red beans on the bottom was annoying.



One more evil eye. Jeez, stop it.



The train back to Guangzhou. Surprisingly, it was empty on an afternoon.

antebellum

Since the June 2018 system upgrade and "enhancement" of Asia Miles, CX awards to Australia suddenly became zero, not even in Y, for months. Luckily I secured one HKG-CNS in business with 30K Alaska miles. The problem? This flight only ends in CNS, which means another ticket home to MEL are required. Since I had two bags and I have Platinum with QF, it's obvious who I flown with. A$280 one-way in Y.
Now I'm off on my own, taking the high speed train to the new West Kowloon station. Gate lice were widespread in China's train stations, waiting to board even the boarding wasn't called yet.



This new train is actually pretty good if you want to get to Guangzhou from Hong Kong, although the station in Guangzhou are quite far from the city. TAs (train attendants) walking the aisle at least 10 times trying to sell Haagen-Dazs cups in a 45 minute trip. Very hard working on this one.



After 45 minutes, the train pulled into Hong Kong.



Duty free in a train station? Seen quite a lot in Europe, but definitely not in this part of the world.



This is positively impressive structure. Probably more expensive than building HKG.



Despite tons of exit guides indicating "Elements", where the Kowloon station is located, it took me 20 minutes to get out of this maze-like structure.





Another giant ice skating rink in shopping centre. Most of Asia is constantly over the top when it comes to building things.





The real cost of something you can drink for free in Emirates first. LOL.



Some Chinese New Year-themed decorations. (probably fake) Cherry Blossoms.



Finally. Dropping the bags off at Kowloon Station. I tried to ask agent that can I check my bags to MEL on a separate Qantas ticket, apparently CX still use the old oneworld through check policy. The answer is a big NO "due to Border Force regulations", but she promised me that Qantas will glad to honour the limit for oneworld international to domestic. I bought the airport express ticket online from Klook for $8, and just scan the QR code they gave you and everything is fine.



I found out one of my work mates from Raleigh in North Carolina, who worked with me in Melbourne for three months, was checking in the counter next to me. She told me this: "I was in Cambodia for a holiday, and found out CX was selling $800 F ticket from DAD to JFK, and that's why I'm here". My bad for not buying that ticket. Anyway, we decided to have a lunch in the shopping centre, some Vietnamese and Thai food, which was good. Some sugar cane prawns to start:



Fried soft-shell crab. Yum. I like soft shell crabs, and this was one of the better ones.



Our main of lamb racks in green curry. Not something I've seen before, but still very good with some rice and Chang beer.



After lunch, goodbye time (she had a 6PM flight to JFK and wanted to relax in Pier F). with no bags on hand now, I walked to Tsim Sha Tsui and back.





Nice harbour view. Although the cruise ship was annoying enough to block a lot of views.



Nah, I'll pass this beef for now. Next time in Japan maybe?



Entire fridge of canned iced coffee. Maybe it's time to grab the last fix of Suntory Rainbow Mountain.







On the airport express train. It was clean, comfortable and convenient to drop the bag off at the station.







20 minutes and one stop later, the train arrived at Airport. Now plenty of time for lounge tour.

antebellum

Although busy, but in terms of efficiency, not many can beat HKG and airport express. 8 minutes after stepping off the train, I'm in Qantas lounge. Apparently time isn't an issue since I had 4 hours to kill.



This lounge was probably the earliest Qantas lounge designed by David Caon. I liked the open air design.



Nothing says "Welcome home" better than seeing Canberra pollies on Sky News. LOL on this one, another government minister resigned.



Enough said. Politics dominated the newspapers too.





The bartender here, despite "trained by Sofitel and Rockpool", was quite bored, disinterested and not nice. Alan Joyce, this is not good enough, even Platinums or P1s will be mad at you.



Come on, even CX Pier J have more selection than this.



I wanted to test out how bad the bar and the service could be. They were offering BBQ pork rice out of the bar, it was terrible. One bite and I'm over.



Later I tried some Sri Lankan chicken curry and dulce de leche cheesecake from the buffet, they were quite good, on the other hand.



Typical A$10 wine on offer. I'll give a pass tonight.



Is this lounge half empty even before wave of QF evening departures? I finally figured out why later.





I guess those glasses were left behind hours ago, and staffs must be bunch of slobs and too lazy to clean that.



Shower rooms. They were not bad (if you can only get in this lounge courtesy of your Qantas Club membership or one time pass), even though I've seen better.



I stayed for 20 minutes, and headed to The Bridge and The Pier, which luckily, was the lounge closest to my gate.



This lounge, although beautiful designed, everything else was terrible enough for me to avoid it. Yes, I know Qantas lounges can be this bad at their hubs of SYD/MEL and they can get away with it, but come on, this is HKG, CX runs 4 business lounges here, in this case, they can't really get away with it now.

antebellum

I headed to The Bridge after the miserable Qantas lounge, which was conveniently located at the "Y" junction of the terminal, straight off the train. Compared my last visit two years ago, they changed logo.



Two bizarre sculpture at the entrance of each side. Must be the Norman Foster style.





No view from this window tonight. Look closely, saw any irregularities here?



Still a great lounge consider it was built six years ago.



The long bar. Unlike Qantas, bartender was attentive and friendly.



Serve yourself options was good for a business lounge, I guess every CX lounge in HKG have similar food options. The only big minus was the lack of noodle bar.





A hand from kitchen was unexpected. LOL.



Even the wines were much better than crappy QF. This one stocks Mumm champagne rather than Australian sparkling, pretty good, considering this is a business lounge.



The other hall, you can tell this lounge is busy.



I guess those iMacs would be unnecessary soon.



Nice lamp.





Continuing the theme of confusing sculptures.



Then the last stop of my lounge hopping (didn't pay a visit to The Pier F today, since I don't want to miss my flight by resting in daybed.), The Pier J, the best of the lot.

antebellum

A short walk from Bridge to Pier. Since my flight isn't bound for US, no backtracking to the start. In fact, The Pier was closest to my gate.







I should flying on this, CX135 nonstop home to MEL rather than the CNS detour. But AS (or even QF and Asia Miles) never released any award seat for this flight.



I love Cathay's new design, for a business lounge, wow.



Definitely one of the better Business lounge out there. No, it's not Qatar's Al Mourjan or Emirates lounge in DXB, but nice and cozy.





Stark contrast to The Bridge. This time, Ilse Crawford style.





No more serve yourself here. Tell the kitchen staff what you want, and they'll scoop it for you. Didn't like tonight's selection very much, meh at best.







Can anyone explain what happened to Chinese pork? LOL.



For a business lounge, this one was attractive. Due to the location, this one isn't very busy as well. Boarding announcement was a big minus though.





This display is significantly nicer than Qantas lounge. Respectable mid-shelf offering for a business lounge.





Oh yeah. The noodle bar.



Don't forget there's tea served too. In the Tea House stocked with JING tea, in a relaxing environment.





It sits mostly empty for my visit. I waited for shower here.



The new shower room was nice although a bit small in size. Boarding announcement blazed through ears in this room too. Can CX choose to turn it down a bit?



Aesop amenities were very nice, in fact, I use them at home.





Any visit to CX lounge, a visit to noodle bar is a must. Based on CX forum's recommendation, I ordered some dan dan noodle with wonton.



It was delicious.



Even more delicious with some chilli sauce.



I then headed to the bar and ordered some drinks. The bartender guy was awesome, some chats, even jokes.



Two glasses of mocktail, I don't want any alcohol tonight. Both of them were very good.





Now that's great tarmac view. A 777 parked outside.



Daybeds were a nice addition to this lounge, again, boarding announcements still blazed through ears. I heard they opened a yoga section, but no trace were seen.



Before I go and board the plane, I wanted to test out the Tea House.



Wow. That many kinds of teas available? Go ask an attendant and they'll happy to prepare it for you in a pot.



My jasmine tea, with some sweets and a copy of The Times. It was very good, considering JING teas isn't cheap after all.





The lounge got even quieter by the time I was leaving.





CX have completely revolutionised the design of their lounge, despite it was opened in 2016, still remained impressive. A job well done, that can be easily in my "top 5" business lounge ranking. Now T-35, short walk to gate 69 and flight to CNS.

kevincrumbs

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chongl

Lovely and very detailed report! Your pictures reminded me of so many good memories and makes me want to return to Tokyo. I am particularly jealous of the fluffy bear you got with turn down service. I received the very small ones that they sell in the gift shop...maybe it's just another excuse to go back

antebellum

Well, that bear is actually mine. Childhood memories. I received little ones from Conrad as well, but forgot to took a pic.

antebellum

Seems like CX is having delays on their lounge boarding announcements. Even though it showed "boarding soon" in the lounge TV, I arrived at the gate and found out Y pax already started boarding.




Hong Kong HKG to Cairns CNS
Cathay Pacific CX 147
A330-300
Sked: 9:35pm-7:00am
Actual: 9:50am-6:40am
January 20, 2019
Business 19A

After several Y flights, finally happy to go this lane tonight.





My seat tonight. CX remained one of the best way between Asia and Australia. It's a light load tonight in J (ExpertFlyer showed 25/39 just before departure), and they still don't release award seats. Whats going on?



Perhaps the IFE remote showed the age of this seat. No Wi-Fi onboard, but I'd be sleeping anyway.



The onboard headphones. Meh. I sticked to my own Bose.



I picked 19A, which is the first seat in the mini-cabin. Although little annoying with all the Premium and Y pax passing this cabin, but once the curtains off, really good and intimate. Another evil eye, which apparently appears every single trip.



Premium Economy. I guess isn't a bad way to spend 7 hours.



The blankets were nice and thick, just like my numerous flights before with them.



Open bar PDB of water, champagne or special drink called Oriental Breeze, which I got. Sort of sweet and sour, with some hint of rose water. Hey, it's in real glass.



Amenity kit and menu being distributed. The bag were nice on the outside...



Inside the bag, full of meh.



I obviously know AA doesn't block galley actions with curtains, SFO777. Apparently on this flight, CX didn't block galley too.



The captain announced a short 6:50 flight tonight, despite 15 minute late pushback. A350 parked beside us.





Taking off. Sorry for the blurry pic.





StudioCX, while it's not the level of Emirates or Singapore, but still excellent.







Shortly after takeoff, the crew distributed arrival and fast track card. Since CNS had no fast track counter, it was useless anyway.



I expected supper and a cold breakfast for this short flight, but pleasantly surprised it was dinner and full hot breakfast, which is much more substantial. Menu tonight (it was taken after landing):





Showtime ("borrowed" from SFO777). CX J style. Our FA for the flight, Nurul, was wonderful and sometimes quite hilarious. Starts with some warmed nuts and diet coke.





Starter of Smoked halibut, roasted pumpkin, capsicum, pesto and tomato paste was nice. Salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar was nothing special.



Garlic bread was okay, mainly because of relatively little garlic butter it had compared to SQ.



As usual on CX J, Nurul rolled out four options for main on a trolley. I decided to give beef a try.



My main, grilled Australian beef tenderloin, French beans, capsicum, new potatoes and red wine sauce. It was delicious, although the "new potatoes" looked and tasted more like your average supermarket-bought frozen potato wedges.



Perfectly medium rare.



I was quite full at this point, and tried to control myself, just some fruits and one slice of cheese.




Cheesecake for dessert. It was pretty good, for what it's worth.



Nurul came to me with this praline box, and generously enough to let me pick two. Now F hands out a fancy box with two random flavours, in J, two flavours of your choice, minus the box. What a concept.



I ordered a cup of jasmine tea to wrap up the dinner, along with hazelnut and sea salt caramel praline. Not surprisingly, both were excellent.



I slept right after the dinner service, for three hours.



My seat. Was little messy with all the cords scattered around.





I just woke up for a while, and breakfast were served. You don't get this kind of service on any QF flights, for that matter. Fruit was good, croissants hot and flaky, but the oatmeal with chia seeds was disgusting.



Beautiful sunrise off the coast of Far North Queensland.



Choice of breakfast, again presented on a trolley. I decided to go with dim sum since tomato concasse on the omelette scared me off from ordering it.



Yum. Yum. Even better with chilli sauce.



Nearly there.



A bottle of water after the breakfast. At this time, Nurul came to me and said she had a spare box of praline that she wanted me to take it home. ^ Nah, it's too hot outside, I'll leave for next time.



I decided to (re-)watch a bit of Pitch Perfect 3. Having seen both 1 and 2 before, 3 wasn't as good as the previous ones.



Our descent into CNS. 28C outside with periodic rain and humidity of 89%. Nothing says welcome to Cairns more than that.





First impression: this airport is ugly, but with only 6 international flights per day, what do you expect?



Like ZQN, CNS decided it's a good idea to force arrival passengers to go through duty free shops too.



SmartGate today was quick, 5 minutes and I'm off to claiming bags, which took another 10 minutes just for the machine to start working.



Now, 6 hours in CNS, and back to Y for another 4 hours on QF 738 to MEL. Summed up, CX has constantly delivered a solid experience, but tonight was better ones. Especially our FA, Nurul, was amazing. Will I do this routing next time? No. Next time its either nonstop to MEL or I'll be back on SQ with KrisFlyer or even cheap cash fares on CZ (now earning tons of redeemable AAdvantage miles)