To the Lost Kingdom of Mu and Beyond: SIN-NGO-ISG-OGN-ISG-OKA-HND-NRT-SIN in SQ/NH C
Apr 16, 2005, 6:15 pm
#16
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: IAD UA1K, Hilton Gold, Hyatt Diamond
Programs: Random acts of kindness and senseless beauty
Posts: 1,235
Originally Posted by Swanhunter
Absolutely fascinating. Thanks for taking us off the beaten track. ^
Apr 16, 2005, 7:08 pm
#17
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Terra Australis Cognita
Posts: 5,350
Originally Posted by Calcifer
Okinawan tourism was hurting pretty badly at the time as many Japanese nationals wanted to avoid being anywhere near a US base immediately post-9/11.
Unfortunately, last I heard someone was putting up a big resort hotel on Iriomote right behind the pension where I stayed. Guess you can't stop "progress".
Apr 17, 2005, 6:37 am
#18
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: NYC
Programs: UA/HH/Marriott Gold
Posts: 2,467
Originally Posted by jpatokal
Oh well, for 50 minutes I didn't really mind, I snarfed down an apple juice and contemplated the award possibilities of ANA's route network. It's awfully thin down south, only covering the Big 3 of Ishigaki, Miyako and Naha, and not a single destination in the archipelago between Kagoshima and Naha. Up north, however, the story changes thanks to Hokkaido Air Commuter's services to places like Rishiri and Nemuro-Memanbetsu. And the Goto Islands off the north coast of Kyushu also sound suitably obscure for an award... but where's the fun in a single transfer at Fukuoka?
Have you ever been to the Kerama Islands? Off the ANA award network, I think, but the diving is supposed to be incredible.
Apr 17, 2005, 7:46 pm
#19
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Terra Australis Cognita
Posts: 5,350
Tokyo (HND)
Yay -- time for another new airport! Or at least almost new: I've been to Haneda before, but not to ANA's Terminal 2, just opened in December 2004. For the first time since I left SIN, we finally taxied up to a gate and the Jumbo proceeded to disgorge its passengers 10 minutes ahead of time, not that this stopped one couple from running down the 2nd floor stairs before the plane had even stopped. And I spotted another Pokemon Jumbo lounging about at HND, don't tell me the things are multiplying?
The sheen of newness aside, it's a little hard to get all that excited about T2, as it's built in the now-standard glass & steel & blue signs style and could pretty easily masquerade as (for example) KUL, ICN, HKG or for that matter NGO if you just changed the language on the signs. One interesting feature of T2 was that there's a separate exit door for passengers without checked bags, a nice touch, but one which didn't help me much this time since I had a suitcaseful of scuba gear coming my way. Once again the little Japanese elves worked their magic and all priority-tagged bags were in the front of the queue, including mine. Then again a repetition of a little ritual which also took place for every previous flight and which I've somehow neglected to mention earlier: to take your bag out of the hall, you have to show your luggage receipt to the attendant, who will then match it to your bag and tear it off. Japan of all countries would seem to be the one country that doesn't need this extra security step, but I can think of a few other places where I'd like to see it adopted.
My destination was Check In Shinbashi, chosen primarily because I figured it'd make a decent stopover point along the Keikyu-Toei Asakusa-Keisei chain that connects Haneda and Narita together. And indeed I was in luck, the fastest possible ''kaisokutokkyu'' (again that silly name! it's contagious!) would be heading straight to Shinbashi just a few minutes after I arrived at the terminal. The train itself was scarily familiar -- on closer inspection it turned out to be a Keisei line train, foreshadowing the next day's butt-numbing journey out to Narita -- but on the 28-minute journey I stared out the window and falling dusk with glee: a hypnotic blare of neon signs advertising pachinko parlours, restaurants, love hotels, bars, massage salons, anything and everything danced before my eyes and I knew I was in the one and only Tokyo, for all its manifest flaws still my one true metropolis love.
After dragging my suitcase up a few too many staircases in the corridors of Shinbashi Station I homed in on Check In Shinbashi and prepaid my Y8000. This, on average thrice what I paid for any of my stays in the Yaeyamas, got me a cubicle-sized hotel room with a bed, a bath/shower unit and a connection point for a LAN cable, which was pretty much on par with my expectations and in fact a rather good deal by Tokyo standards. With a quick shower, a change of clothes and a phonecall I headed out into Tokyo on a Saturday night to meet my date... and at this point, my dear readers, I shall draw the curtains.
Tokyo (NRT)
The next morning, the sun glinted off the cherry blossoms on misty slopes of Mount Fuji, but unfortunately I didn't see any of it since I was still deep in the concrete bowels of Tokyo. I checked out by 11 AM and proceeded for a belated breakfast of tempura at Tenya, my all-time favorite fast food chain in Japan. Preparing decent tempura is an art that few restaurants even in Japan have mastered, and the Y2000 tempura set meals at your average restaurant are, despite the price tag, usually execrable. Not so at Tenya, which specializes in nothing but the stuff, and where the basic tempura bowl costs just Y500! Now, the one thing that separates Tenya from its Y10,000-plus-drinks competitors in the Ginza is that, being a McD's style operation, you have no personal chef cooking your morsels one at a time: instead, the freshness depends on how long the tempura bits have been sitting in the out box. And what's the best way to ensure that everything is as fresh as it gets? That's right, show up one minute after opening time at 11 AM. Yum yum, and you'd be surprised how many other customers seemed to have figured out the same thing.
I now had a rather inconvenient 3 hours or so to do something(tm) before heading off the airport, and having already checked out all my usual Tokyo haunts (Shibuya's record shops and bookstores, Ebisu's photography museum, Shinjuku's camera stores, etc) just two months ago I decided to take a peek at the new Shiodome district that has sprouted up in the last few years, conveniently right next to Shinbashi. Among other things, the new Conrad Tokyo will be opening here this July. Sadly Dentsu's Advertising Museum is closed on Sundays, but I pottered around the vast new skyscrapers, shopping malls, museums, theaters and corporate showcases of the area, gawping at the architecture and sampling, among other things, my first taste of hojicha (roasted tea) soft ice cream. Verdict: much better than you'd think.
And then onto my least favorite train in Japan, the interminable but cheap Keisei line to NRT. The fickle gods of scheduling were mildly in my favor today and tossed me a kaisoku limited express to Narita, not the fastest but neither the slowest option... but this was to the town of Narita, not NRT itself a few stops ahead, so I had a transfer to look forward to. Once out of the tunnel past Oshiage I searched in vain for any remaining cherry blossoms outside, but only a few shreds remained from last week's full bloom in NGO, and I contemplated the evanescence of material things, particularly the battery life of my laptop. One last "only in Japan" moment when changing trains at Sakura station: a little speaker on the platform periodically emitted prerecorded bird chirps.
Try as I might I find it hard to rouse any emotion, positive or negative, towards NRT. I've seen worse, I've seen better, but usually the only thing that grates me is the location. Check-in was not quite the exercise in obsequiousness of ANA at NGO, although the multitude of Singapore employment/re-entry/residence stamps in my passport provided some entertainment. "Is this a visa?", she asked quizzically, but my answer of "Yes" was deemed sufficient. The lady initially gave me a lounge coupon for Club ANA, then spotted my SK*G card, tore up the coupon and tried to pass me off to the Signet lounge instead -- I foiled her devious plot and headed to the 4F Club ANA lounge instead, after more than a little hunting (not too well signposted). The next counter lady was somewhat befuddled when I wanted to use it instead of the lounge in the satellite building, but somewhat un-Japanesely bent the rules and obliged. Not that I really need have bothered: it's all but identical and also has the same needlessly complex Yahoo BB wireless internet system complete with scratch-and-sniff coupons and manually entered WEP keys. No food other than crackers, I once again ignored the beer machine and choked down a glass of nuclear-orange carrot-vegetable-fruit mystery juice.
Yay -- time for another new airport! Or at least almost new: I've been to Haneda before, but not to ANA's Terminal 2, just opened in December 2004. For the first time since I left SIN, we finally taxied up to a gate and the Jumbo proceeded to disgorge its passengers 10 minutes ahead of time, not that this stopped one couple from running down the 2nd floor stairs before the plane had even stopped. And I spotted another Pokemon Jumbo lounging about at HND, don't tell me the things are multiplying?
The sheen of newness aside, it's a little hard to get all that excited about T2, as it's built in the now-standard glass & steel & blue signs style and could pretty easily masquerade as (for example) KUL, ICN, HKG or for that matter NGO if you just changed the language on the signs. One interesting feature of T2 was that there's a separate exit door for passengers without checked bags, a nice touch, but one which didn't help me much this time since I had a suitcaseful of scuba gear coming my way. Once again the little Japanese elves worked their magic and all priority-tagged bags were in the front of the queue, including mine. Then again a repetition of a little ritual which also took place for every previous flight and which I've somehow neglected to mention earlier: to take your bag out of the hall, you have to show your luggage receipt to the attendant, who will then match it to your bag and tear it off. Japan of all countries would seem to be the one country that doesn't need this extra security step, but I can think of a few other places where I'd like to see it adopted.
My destination was Check In Shinbashi, chosen primarily because I figured it'd make a decent stopover point along the Keikyu-Toei Asakusa-Keisei chain that connects Haneda and Narita together. And indeed I was in luck, the fastest possible ''kaisokutokkyu'' (again that silly name! it's contagious!) would be heading straight to Shinbashi just a few minutes after I arrived at the terminal. The train itself was scarily familiar -- on closer inspection it turned out to be a Keisei line train, foreshadowing the next day's butt-numbing journey out to Narita -- but on the 28-minute journey I stared out the window and falling dusk with glee: a hypnotic blare of neon signs advertising pachinko parlours, restaurants, love hotels, bars, massage salons, anything and everything danced before my eyes and I knew I was in the one and only Tokyo, for all its manifest flaws still my one true metropolis love.
After dragging my suitcase up a few too many staircases in the corridors of Shinbashi Station I homed in on Check In Shinbashi and prepaid my Y8000. This, on average thrice what I paid for any of my stays in the Yaeyamas, got me a cubicle-sized hotel room with a bed, a bath/shower unit and a connection point for a LAN cable, which was pretty much on par with my expectations and in fact a rather good deal by Tokyo standards. With a quick shower, a change of clothes and a phonecall I headed out into Tokyo on a Saturday night to meet my date... and at this point, my dear readers, I shall draw the curtains.
Tokyo (NRT)
The next morning, the sun glinted off the cherry blossoms on misty slopes of Mount Fuji, but unfortunately I didn't see any of it since I was still deep in the concrete bowels of Tokyo. I checked out by 11 AM and proceeded for a belated breakfast of tempura at Tenya, my all-time favorite fast food chain in Japan. Preparing decent tempura is an art that few restaurants even in Japan have mastered, and the Y2000 tempura set meals at your average restaurant are, despite the price tag, usually execrable. Not so at Tenya, which specializes in nothing but the stuff, and where the basic tempura bowl costs just Y500! Now, the one thing that separates Tenya from its Y10,000-plus-drinks competitors in the Ginza is that, being a McD's style operation, you have no personal chef cooking your morsels one at a time: instead, the freshness depends on how long the tempura bits have been sitting in the out box. And what's the best way to ensure that everything is as fresh as it gets? That's right, show up one minute after opening time at 11 AM. Yum yum, and you'd be surprised how many other customers seemed to have figured out the same thing.
I now had a rather inconvenient 3 hours or so to do something(tm) before heading off the airport, and having already checked out all my usual Tokyo haunts (Shibuya's record shops and bookstores, Ebisu's photography museum, Shinjuku's camera stores, etc) just two months ago I decided to take a peek at the new Shiodome district that has sprouted up in the last few years, conveniently right next to Shinbashi. Among other things, the new Conrad Tokyo will be opening here this July. Sadly Dentsu's Advertising Museum is closed on Sundays, but I pottered around the vast new skyscrapers, shopping malls, museums, theaters and corporate showcases of the area, gawping at the architecture and sampling, among other things, my first taste of hojicha (roasted tea) soft ice cream. Verdict: much better than you'd think.
And then onto my least favorite train in Japan, the interminable but cheap Keisei line to NRT. The fickle gods of scheduling were mildly in my favor today and tossed me a kaisoku limited express to Narita, not the fastest but neither the slowest option... but this was to the town of Narita, not NRT itself a few stops ahead, so I had a transfer to look forward to. Once out of the tunnel past Oshiage I searched in vain for any remaining cherry blossoms outside, but only a few shreds remained from last week's full bloom in NGO, and I contemplated the evanescence of material things, particularly the battery life of my laptop. One last "only in Japan" moment when changing trains at Sakura station: a little speaker on the platform periodically emitted prerecorded bird chirps.
Try as I might I find it hard to rouse any emotion, positive or negative, towards NRT. I've seen worse, I've seen better, but usually the only thing that grates me is the location. Check-in was not quite the exercise in obsequiousness of ANA at NGO, although the multitude of Singapore employment/re-entry/residence stamps in my passport provided some entertainment. "Is this a visa?", she asked quizzically, but my answer of "Yes" was deemed sufficient. The lady initially gave me a lounge coupon for Club ANA, then spotted my SK*G card, tore up the coupon and tried to pass me off to the Signet lounge instead -- I foiled her devious plot and headed to the 4F Club ANA lounge instead, after more than a little hunting (not too well signposted). The next counter lady was somewhat befuddled when I wanted to use it instead of the lounge in the satellite building, but somewhat un-Japanesely bent the rules and obliged. Not that I really need have bothered: it's all but identical and also has the same needlessly complex Yahoo BB wireless internet system complete with scratch-and-sniff coupons and manually entered WEP keys. No food other than crackers, I once again ignored the beer machine and choked down a glass of nuclear-orange carrot-vegetable-fruit mystery juice.
Apr 17, 2005, 9:18 pm
#20
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Asia/Europe
Programs: CX, OZ, MU (+AY, DL), Shangri-La, Hilton
Posts: 7,236
Very well written trip report that almost makes you feel you were there with the author. ^ Sadly, diving spots will remain out of reach for myself some time to come, but the lowdown on NGO and the Aichi Expo was very welcome as heading there next week.
It's nice to see HND is developed and modernized as it has substantial potential to handle more flights to destinations like Seoul, Busan, Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei. The luggage receipt check is standard in neighbouring countries as well, but enforced with a less pedantic approach compared to Japan. And jpatokal, you are not a member of the curry rice posse? 
It's nice to see HND is developed and modernized as it has substantial potential to handle more flights to destinations like Seoul, Busan, Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei. The luggage receipt check is standard in neighbouring countries as well, but enforced with a less pedantic approach compared to Japan.
And jpatokal, you are not a member of the curry rice posse?
Apr 18, 2005, 12:10 am
#21
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Terra Australis Cognita
Posts: 5,350
Originally Posted by mosburger
And jpatokal, you are not a member of the curry rice posse?
Apr 18, 2005, 6:16 am
#22
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Asia/Europe
Programs: CX, OZ, MU (+AY, DL), Shangri-La, Hilton
Posts: 7,236
Ikka yasai karee raisu addict reporting here. ^ If this short OT excursion is permitted: There is a certain sweetness and softness in the Japanese curry flavour that I have not encountered elsewhere. Korean curry tends to be bland in taste, Indian or SE Asian is totally different and the Chinese probably wouldn't touch such a primitive dish with a pole.
Btw, special thanks for the NGO baths information. Can't imagine a better way to freshen up at an Airport.
Btw, special thanks for the NGO baths information. Can't imagine a better way to freshen up at an Airport.
Apr 20, 2005, 12:39 pm
#23
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: London
Posts: 18,402
Great trip report! Thoroughly enjoyed every word!
Only tip for you is to go for post-office (yubinkyoku) ATMS as a default option if you need to get cash out. I've only managed to get a Citibank to cough out money for me on just one occasion - which I still regard as a bewildering and genuine Xmas/New Year miracle (it happened when the yubinkyoku machines were closed and has never been repeated).
But the Post Office machines, I'm happy to say, have worked every single time. And as you know, these green machines aren't always inside Post Offices.
Only tip for you is to go for post-office (yubinkyoku) ATMS as a default option if you need to get cash out. I've only managed to get a Citibank to cough out money for me on just one occasion - which I still regard as a bewildering and genuine Xmas/New Year miracle (it happened when the yubinkyoku machines were closed and has never been repeated).
But the Post Office machines, I'm happy to say, have worked every single time. And as you know, these green machines aren't always inside Post Offices.
Last edited by LapLap; Apr 22, 2005 at 6:32 am Reason: wasn't clear on what I meant
Apr 20, 2005, 11:49 pm
#26
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Terra Australis Cognita
Posts: 5,350
NH 901 NRT-SIN B777-200 seat 12A
Up next, my first ANA international flight in biz. Once again I was stuck in the 'second section' of J and initial impressions of the aircraft were unsurprisingly quite similar to SQ's earlier 777-300: old-school non-flat biz seats, no on-demand AVOD, no in-seat laptop power, aircraft slightly fraying at the edges. Why, oh why, do they discriminate against us SIN-Japan frequent flyers so? But thanks to Flyertalk this was pretty much in line with my expectations and I settled down for a seven-hour flight, which started with a 30-minute wait on the tarmac just for a slot to take off.
The introductory glass of champagne only made its appearance after we were in the air. The question formulation "Green tea champagne?" and that fact that both drinks were served from miniature champagne glasses on a black tray (making them indistinguishable when viewed from the side) meant that I originally thought this was some bizarre ANA-only mixed cocktail... until actually receiving a glass of the bubbly popped my illusions.
Dinner, while not exactly my greatest meal in the air (that honor still belongs to SQ's ICN-SIN), was at least equivalent or slightly better than the average Y500 7-Eleven microwave-heatable bento box and thus beat SQ's earlier attempt hands down. Unfortunately I've misplaced the menu, but in proper Japanese gourmet style it consisted of a gazillion tiny dishes, none of them particularly remarkable, with some grilled fish as the main and of course the obligatory rice, miso soup, pickles etc. The rice, I'll note, was slightly mushy but still definitely Japanese rice, in no small part thanks to careful packaging with a separate moisture seal. Incidentally,according to the menu the Japanese breakfast on the way would be rice porridge, another neat way of sidestepping the storage problem.
Dessert was served from a cart, I took a slice of decent real cheese cake (not the tasteless spongy Japanese-Chinese kind) and topped it off with a single delectable petit four.
After my laptop's batteries died (no power points on these planes...), I delved into the entertainment system whcih was, alas, somewhat limited. The games selection consisted of antique Nintendo games, allowing me a chance to remind me how badly I suck at Super Mario 3, and that was about the only thing that could be called on-demand. I amused myself by watching a part of Shark Tale dubbed into Japanese, which was actually quite well done as the sharks spoke in appropriately yakuza-gangstery gruff Osaka-ben accents. Favorite part of the dialogue was when they call to blackmail our hero Oscar after his girl has been kidnapped:
- Oraa ga omae no onna mottenya zo. So show up at the meeting, or she's sashimi! Dead sashimi!
About an hour before arrival I started to get peckish again, the menu promised sushi but the stewardess apologetically informed me that it's served only on the leg from Singapore. Faced with a choice between instant ramen (gack) and the honorific-enabled o-udon (Japanese thick wheat noodles) I chose the udon, and I was somewhat surprised to find out that it was actually pretty decent, presumably fresh and vacuum-packed instead of merely dried and reconstituted. And I even managed to avoid dumping a liter of boiling soup stock in my lap despite the best efforts of a jolt of turbulence.
That final moment of excitement out of the way, it was time for descent and landing, some 15 minutes late due to the takeoff queues at NRT. Singapore was the same as ever, I zipped through immigration with my Access Card but waited an uncharacteristically long time (what, almost 5 minutes?) until my bags showed up, once again at the front of the queue (congrats ANA, that's 3 out of 3!). T1 is usually packed to the gills past 11 PM, but despite the delay we just managed to beat the Jumbo onslaught from HK and the US and I got a taxi without an queueing at all.
* * *
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the story. One final installment of photos will follow as soon as I get them processed, which may take a while though as I've got somewhere around 1000 to plow through...! But the Expo 2005 pictures are now ready, so here's a preview for your viewing pleasure.
Up next, my first ANA international flight in biz. Once again I was stuck in the 'second section' of J and initial impressions of the aircraft were unsurprisingly quite similar to SQ's earlier 777-300: old-school non-flat biz seats, no on-demand AVOD, no in-seat laptop power, aircraft slightly fraying at the edges. Why, oh why, do they discriminate against us SIN-Japan frequent flyers so? But thanks to Flyertalk this was pretty much in line with my expectations and I settled down for a seven-hour flight, which started with a 30-minute wait on the tarmac just for a slot to take off.
The introductory glass of champagne only made its appearance after we were in the air. The question formulation "Green tea champagne?" and that fact that both drinks were served from miniature champagne glasses on a black tray (making them indistinguishable when viewed from the side) meant that I originally thought this was some bizarre ANA-only mixed cocktail... until actually receiving a glass of the bubbly popped my illusions.
Dinner, while not exactly my greatest meal in the air (that honor still belongs to SQ's ICN-SIN), was at least equivalent or slightly better than the average Y500 7-Eleven microwave-heatable bento box and thus beat SQ's earlier attempt hands down. Unfortunately I've misplaced the menu, but in proper Japanese gourmet style it consisted of a gazillion tiny dishes, none of them particularly remarkable, with some grilled fish as the main and of course the obligatory rice, miso soup, pickles etc. The rice, I'll note, was slightly mushy but still definitely Japanese rice, in no small part thanks to careful packaging with a separate moisture seal. Incidentally,according to the menu the Japanese breakfast on the way would be rice porridge, another neat way of sidestepping the storage problem.
Dessert was served from a cart, I took a slice of decent real cheese cake (not the tasteless spongy Japanese-Chinese kind) and topped it off with a single delectable petit four.
After my laptop's batteries died (no power points on these planes...), I delved into the entertainment system whcih was, alas, somewhat limited. The games selection consisted of antique Nintendo games, allowing me a chance to remind me how badly I suck at Super Mario 3, and that was about the only thing that could be called on-demand. I amused myself by watching a part of Shark Tale dubbed into Japanese, which was actually quite well done as the sharks spoke in appropriately yakuza-gangstery gruff Osaka-ben accents. Favorite part of the dialogue was when they call to blackmail our hero Oscar after his girl has been kidnapped:
- Oraa ga omae no onna mottenya zo. So show up at the meeting, or she's sashimi! Dead sashimi!
About an hour before arrival I started to get peckish again, the menu promised sushi but the stewardess apologetically informed me that it's served only on the leg from Singapore. Faced with a choice between instant ramen (gack) and the honorific-enabled o-udon (Japanese thick wheat noodles) I chose the udon, and I was somewhat surprised to find out that it was actually pretty decent, presumably fresh and vacuum-packed instead of merely dried and reconstituted. And I even managed to avoid dumping a liter of boiling soup stock in my lap despite the best efforts of a jolt of turbulence.
That final moment of excitement out of the way, it was time for descent and landing, some 15 minutes late due to the takeoff queues at NRT. Singapore was the same as ever, I zipped through immigration with my Access Card but waited an uncharacteristically long time (what, almost 5 minutes?) until my bags showed up, once again at the front of the queue (congrats ANA, that's 3 out of 3!). T1 is usually packed to the gills past 11 PM, but despite the delay we just managed to beat the Jumbo onslaught from HK and the US and I got a taxi without an queueing at all.
* * *
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the story. One final installment of photos will follow as soon as I get them processed, which may take a while though as I've got somewhere around 1000 to plow through...! But the Expo 2005 pictures are now ready, so here's a preview for your viewing pleasure.
May 5, 2005, 11:10 am
#27
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Terra Australis Cognita
Posts: 5,350
After a bit of a delay here are the pictures & travel guides to the places I visited:
Iriomote: photos / guide
Ishigaki: photos / guide
Taketomi: photos / guide
Yonaguni: photos / guide
Shiodome (Tokyo): photos / guide
Underwater pictures of the ruins, mantas & more are still on their way though, I've managed to lose my SmartMedia card reader. And I also managed to find the ANA menu for the flight back, will type it up when I have time.
Iriomote: photos / guide
Ishigaki: photos / guide
Taketomi: photos / guide
Yonaguni: photos / guide
Shiodome (Tokyo): photos / guide
Underwater pictures of the ruins, mantas & more are still on their way though, I've managed to lose my SmartMedia card reader. And I also managed to find the ANA menu for the flight back, will type it up when I have time.
Jan 14, 2017, 12:39 am
#28
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: JRF
Programs: AA Gold, Marriott Platinum, Hilton Diamond, National Executive Elite
Posts: 1,784
Any suggestions for an itinerary through some of these islands? Would like to go in from HNL -> TPE -> ISG/OKA, and out from OKA -> TYO -> HNL but not sure how to plan for outer islands if the hotel for the majority of the trip is on Okinawa Island...