China Trip II - Narita

On my return flight to Chicago, I had a 6 hour layover at Narita Airport, which is usually spent watching movies in the AA lounge on my laptop. This time, I was told by a colleague that there's a nice temple to visit in the small town of Narita just outside the airport. He was an American citizen and had no problems leaving the airport and coming back.

Being on an Indian passport makes travel a little bit more difficult than most other countries as we dont have any kind of tourist visa treaty with any country. That means, for every country I visit, I need a visa, which requires paperwork and a fee. My friends and family are pleasantly suprised at the number of countries that I've been to on my Indian passport.

I called up the Japanese Consulate in Chicago before the trip and asked about whether a short term visa could be acquired at the airport. He immediately said I wouldn't have enough time to visit Narita and it's not advisable but did say that it's possible. So, I was on a mission to get out of the airport, enter Japan, have a look around and make it back.

The Japan Airlines flight from Beijing landed at Terminal 2 and I wanted to leave my laptop bag at the AA lounge in Terminal 1, so that I wouldn't have to lug it around. I was told that immigration is only in T2, and I had just missed the hourly bus connecting T1 back to T2, so I passed the time watching some beautiful birds land and take-off. I later found out that immigration is also present in T1.

There's no proper channel to go back from the waiting lounge area of the airport through security to get to immigration. It's meant mainly for passengers coming directly from an arriving plane. I tried to explain to the security guard that I wanted to go to immigration to get out of the airport. He couldn't understand me, but took me to an immigrations officer anyways. I explained what I wanted to do and was then lead off to a side room and made to wait with other passengers who had immigration problems. I was all cheery about this. They said on US passport, no problem. Indian passport, no good. They also said I wouldnt have enough time to visit Naritasan Temple. But after convincing them that I worked for Motorola and was legally living in the US (showed my driver's license), they reluctantly agreed and gave me a 72 hour Shore Pass (short term visitors visa). Woo hoo, I had done it.


Welcome to Japan! My second visit.


Map showing Narita's location with regards to Tokyo.


I changed some of my Chinese Yuan to Japanese Yen and following directions from my colleague, got onboard a train to Narita station. It was only one station away and cost about $2.50 each way.


The train map was clearly marked in English and Japanese. The automated ticket machine was simple to use. You saw how much the fare to your destination cost, punched the amount in, put the money in and ticket and change came back. Simple.


Map of Narita town. The brown buildings on the left are the train station and I was heading to the green area on the right.


Immediately I noticed the charm of this lovely little town. I was heading down a one-way street to Naritasan Temple. Not figuratively speaking, as I was planning on coming back the same way, haha.


A colorful store front


Interesting little sculptures on the side of the road.


A lion?


Wabbit


Dwagon


Indian restaurant. Just like McDonald's, can be found anywhere in the world. Too bad they were closed for the afternoon.


Special discount for airline screw: $15 buffet


The narrow street leading to the temple in the background.


The crowded little buildings faded away and suddenly, the temple was there in all this open space. Quite a sight.


Couldn't figure out what this was for...


Huge building on the temple grounds




moi


Perspective shot




On the way back


I was noticing the various cars go by and was amazed to see that no two models were alike. I saw at least three different models of Toyota minivans go by. It also seems like every Japanese automaker has a little hatchback and a full size minivan, of which I saw every model go by. In the US, each company has one model for each category (full size sedan: Honda Accord, compact: Civic, etc). In Japan, the choices must be overwhelming. And then I noticed something familiar, a big honking black BMW 7 series. Looked out of place.


The venerable Japanese beer vending machine


Noticed on a side street next to a restaurant


Handwarmers on a two-wheeler. Similar to that seen in China.


My helmet company, Arai in its homeland. Note the biker zipping by.


A grocery store. You wont find this setup in Tokyo.


The Keisei Narita train station.


Back at the airport


The check-in area of Terminal 2. I was walking around the shops here and noticed a flood of school children. It was around 5 pm. The shops and restaurants are open to the public as they are located before you go through passport control and security, unlike the ones in the States. The young kids might just be thrilled to stop by the airport on the way home. I know I would if I was still a kid. Yeah yeah, some of you think I'm still a kid. Whateva...


The various Japanese tour operators. Japanese usually book vacations through tour operators.


The observation deck at T2, open to the public. Not as good as the one at T1. Narita is one of the few airports that still have an observation deck.


Checking back in for my flight and I made it back to the lounge in time for a drink and a little snack before boarding the flight on time.

I did it. I defied those immigration officers and those 6 hours passed pretty quickly. Onboard, after dinner, I felt a little nap would be good before getting up mid flight and watching some movies or reading my book. But when I awoke, there was only an hour left in the 13 hour flight. I hadn't knocked out, but went in and out of sleep.

What an excellent journey.

China Trip II - Inbound Travel

Return travel after two weeks in China.

My inbound travel itinerary was:
Japan Airlines 767, Beijing to Tokyo, then a 7 hour layover to catch the
American Airlines 777, Tokyo to Chicago (13 hour flight).

Due to flying across the International Date Line, my flight would depart Beijing at 8:30 am on Wednesday and arrive in Chicago at 3:30 pm the same day, 21 hours later, gaining 10 hours on the clock. For the outbound travel, I left Chicago at 11 am on a Wednesday morning and arrived at Beijing the next day at 9 pm, whilst only 20 hours had passed, losing 14 hours on the clock. Fun to think about.



Onboard: breakast on Japan Airlines to Tokyo. The breakfast sausage wasn't all that great.


Mt. Fuji on approach to Narita


Just landed on Runway 34R, going to Taxi way B7


A Korean Airlines Airbus A300-600B4


Spot the odd one out. The Japan Airlines 747's tail on the left is very similar to the Northwest livery. Not suprising, considering that NW actually helped start Japan Airlines after WWII, by loaning it some planes and crew. The surrender and agreement after WWII allowed US carriers (NW and United) to use Narita as a base for commercial operations, that exists till today.


A China Southern 777 marked with ETOPS signage.

A little aviation general knowledge:
ETOPS stands for Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards and is a global law for commerical aviation stating that two-engined aircraft like the 777 have to stay within a certain flying time from an airfield at all points of its flight to ensure the safe landing of the plane, in case one of its engines fail. On a twin-engined plane, if one engine fails, the plane has to land at the nearest available airport, since it can't risk having the other engine fail. If a plane is certified for ETOPS 180, that means it can fly on one engine for a maximum of 180 minutes to safety.

This rule doesnt apply to four engine aircraft like the 747 and Airbus A340 and thus gave Airbus an advantage in the early days of ETOPS when aircraft were only certified to 90 minutes flying from an airfield. On a 4-holer, if one engine fails, it can safely continue on 3 engines, albeit at a slower pace and reduced altitude, but if another engine fails, it will be forced to land. Just recently, a British Airways 747 blew an engine on take-off from Los Angeles, but continued on with 3 engines all the way to England. However, it is advised that the plane should have landed.

When crossing the Atlantic, airfields that are used for ETOPS are located in Nova Scotia, Greenland and Iceland. When crossing the North Pacific, airfields in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and the Midway Atoll are used. To help certify its planes, Boeing actually subsidised the construction of the airport at Midway Atoll to handle an emergency landing of its 777.

Two-engine aircraft are preferred as they are more fuel efficient than four-engined ones. But with ETOPS 180, 95% of the Earth's surface is accessible to twin-engined aircraft.


Dark blue represents areas that are off-limits to ETOPS flights

However, there are several commercial aviation routes that are still off-limits to ETOPS flights. This mainly applies to routes on the South Pacific, Southern Indian Ocean (Perth to Johannesburg) and Antartica (Auckland to Buenos Aires). These routes are currently flown with either A340 or 747 aircraft.

China Trip II - Highway Signs

Being a motorcycle rider, you tend to develope a strong bond with the "way of the road." This leads to my fascination of road signs in different countries and the way the roads are run, the way traffic behaves and the general attitude of drivers. I've already given my point of view on how horrible the general Chinese driver is and how hazardous it actually is to be driven around.

To show a side of China that wont usually be found in the guidebooks, following is a display of the various highway signage on China's modern highways.


Road sign in the city. Couldn't figure out its message. Maybe pedestrians should only be on the sidewalk, instead of in the path of moving vehicles? Or something about car pollution?


Must be a "dont drink and drive" warning.


This open four lane highway still had uncontrolled traffic crossing up ahead. Out of the city, I didnt notice this much, but the highway in the city was pretty scary.


Toll booth


Toll gate, looks just like the ones in the states. Note the camera on the left for violators. There's an automated toll system (like I-pass or EZ-pass) on certain tolls around Beijing, but the transponder costs about $80. For all other toll roads, a prepaid card as such could be purchased, which was cheaper than paying with cash.


Exit sign, clearly marked.


Warning sign about tail gating


This sign indicated that up ahead were signs allowing you to keep a proper distance to the vehicle in front (approximately 50 meters).


Three signs measuring out 0, 50 and 100 meters to aid in spacing yourself. I wish we had that here in the states.


Carriage way referring to cruising lane, I think.


Highway clean up crew. Note how small the shoulder is, not wide enough to park a car. A person is used to clean the side of the highway as a vehicular street cleaner would be blocking part of the right lane.


End of the Jinbin Expressway between Tianjin City and Tangu.




Sinopec gas station. Major sponsor of the F1 and Moto GP races in Shanghai.


The levels of petrol grade were 90, 93 and 97. Couldn't figure out why. Gas was about 4.36 Yuan for a liter, that's about $2 a gallon for 93. Not bad.


Shen's car, a VW Santana 2000, based on a Passat, made in China. This is the typical car for a private taxi.


Bicycle crossing traffic light.

The speed limits on the highways varied from 80 km/h to 120 km/h. It was 80 around exit ramps and 120 when there was nothing around. I didnt see a single police car on the highway, but we generally cruised around 120, which is about 75 mph. The scary thing was passing trucks and small minivans going about 50 km/h on the expressway. In town, the only thing followed was a red light, as some of these are camera monitored, so running a red light is a big no no. Thank god for that at least.

China Trip II - Tianjin City

The second weekend there, we went up to Tianjin City. It's the third biggest city in China and it's province has one of the biggest ports in the country, at Tangu. At one point, Tianjin was occupied by many foreign countries and aspects of the European rule can still be seen in the architecture.


The grand staircase at our hotel, the Renaissance Tianjin Hotel.


We went to a Hot Pot restaurant, but this was a communal type hot pot, with a big pot with boiling broth in the middle of the table. The menu items were written on a paper fan.


You ordered the raw ingredients that went into the Hot Pot. Note the "live" options.


Frozen raw shrimp


The Hot Pot with spicy on one side and bascially bland on the other side. It wasn't that spicy at all, just flavorfull.


The Group, from bottom: XiXi (Shen's girlfriend), Shen, Jenny (hidden), Brian, Pawel, Rich, Andy, Ted, (me), Mike (expat living in TEDA) and Grace.


Beef is always good


This guy freaked me out. He was just living a little while back and had not completely died. The meat from inside the fish is displayed on the plate. His head kept twitching and giving me the frights. I dont mind eating animals but I just dont want to see them moving around on the table, especially after they're dead. The other guys were dissappointed in me, after seeing the Indian Jones film with them eating live monkey brains. Not for me. The fish meat cooked did taste good though.


Chinglish. We started speaking like this so that the Chinese could understand us better. "You taking me to hotel?", instead of "Can you take me to the hotel?"


A riced-out Citroen outside a night club. I saw many cars with massive exhauts and fancy distasteful body work.


Cosy's, a relaxed little pub, which also had a Filipino band playing.


A shopping mall next to our hotel that actually sold "real" goods.


Our Motorola phones for sale in a Nokia showcase.


Three girls dancing outside a book store, promoting something. Strange to see this in daylight in front of everyone. Things are really progressive here compared to its image.


Hamsters and turtles for sale


Tianjin was more of a bicycle city than Beijing


Handwarmers for two wheelers. Here in the states and other countries, we have electrically heated grips or gloves to warm our hands in cold riding climate. A simple cost effective alternative is to wear massive gloves attached to the handle bars. Interesting.


The entrance to Culture Street. An ancient market for various goods. It was recently renovated


Me at Culture Street. The lanterns were put up for the recent Chinese New Year celebrations.


The old with the new...


A cabby who I managed to have an engaging conversation with about seat belt safety with neither of us understand the other's language. I was trying to tell him to wear his seat belt but he said, in America, you drive very fast and need seat belt, but in China, we drive very slowly (agreed) and no need for seat belt. Didnt agree with his logic and was amused that we could communicate without spoken language. Note the bad teeth. Most people in China have terrible teeth. I think it's from chewing tobacco.


A fancy street sign


Look, it's Chicago. The European influences in the local architecture.


Our hotel, looking very modern.


Dinner at a Thai restaurant. Picture taken with the inhouse Corona Girl. So, of course we were drinking Coronas.


Green Chicken Curry, which Pawel just drank like soup and faced the consequences later that night...


Lunch at a T.G.I. Friday's. Food was excellent and a change in cuisine was nice.


A very modern looking building on our way out of town.

China Trip II - TEDA

After the weekend in Beijing, we returned to work in TEDA (south of Tianjin city). We had some excellent food while we were there and it's all relatively cheap.


This popular dish is called Hot Pot. A small chaffing dish with soup/broth is placed on top of a small fire with some dumplings, quail eggs and other veggies boiling in there. You get to choose the meat you'd like: beef, mutton or seafood. You put the meat in the pot and after say 10 minutes, take it out and dip it in the sauce and have it with rice. I loved Hot Pot. We ordered the spicy Kimchee version.


Hot Pot. Excellent meal for only $6.


Another excellent Belgian beer, Duvel. 8.5% alcohol by volume.


Korean Barbeque. We're actually sitting on the floor with our legs hanging in a dug out. Meat will be cooked on the grey frying pan and it's to be had with all the various sauces and dips spread out on the table.


Our waitress starting with some mushrooms and beef.


Mmmm, tasty...


We usually ended up at our favorite pub, Datura. This is Helen, Shen (our taxi driver's) sister, a bartender.


Dancing bargirls. Not quite like Coyote Ugly, but getting there.


Shen, Wenny (one of the Filipino performers, good friend) and Brian


A1 Band on stage at Datura. Note that they're playing the next person's fret. They usually put on a good show.


Sweet Child O' Mine with Mike on the lead. Note that Kathy's got a little Axel going on.


Dinner at another Chinese restaurant, where you pick your food live and they cook it right then and there. Ted, not looking so happy.


Talk about fresh seafood. Thanx, but I'll pass.


"I'll take the third one from the left"


Brian, pointing to his second course.


Our cheerful waitress pouring us some Hapin Beer, from Harbin in northern China, where there's good skiing.


Intewesting...


Dumplings that Tianjin is famous for, filled with beef and veggies.


Tsingtao Beer (most common in China) and herbal tea


I noticed at the bars that patrons could buy a whole bottle of liqour for not that much more than store prices and name tag it, so that they could have the bottle over a few days or even weeks, instead of buying single shots.


The view from our breakfast lounge on the 12th floor.


A little fortune telling machine at one of our lunch tables. You put in a coin and according to your zodiac sign, a small ball appears with this piece of paper neatly folded up inside. We couldn't understand it, but we managed to find out it was good news. Phew.

China Trip II - The Great Wall

I was very intrigued to see The Great Wall of China after reading about it for so long in the history books and seeing documentaries on it. My first trip to China didnt provide me with the opportunity to visit it due to time constraints, as it is 1.5 hours by taxi from Beijing.

I saw a recent documentary on the Wall on The Discovery Channel just before my trip and it provided new insight about this structure. What I hadn't know before was that it's actually part of a sad piece of Chinese history, ironically. Not because of the grandeur of the structure, but because of the millions of Chinese peasants that died making the Wall.

The emperors decided to make the Wall to protect Beijing from various enemies in the north. The construction is that of brick/stone outside walls filled with packed mud in the middle. This was done by peasants forced into slavery packing the mud all day long in harsh conditions. It was said, the tired just died on the job and myth has it that the bodies were burried where they fell. But researchers haven't been able to find bones in the make up of the wall using some advanced technologies (sonar, IR, etc). To commemorate the fallen workers, there's a small shrine where the Wall meets the Pacific Ocean. I plan to visit it the next time I head there.

Depsite the sad news of the construction of the wall, it is still to be hailed for its excellent design in military application. The wall is about 4000 miles in length and has numerous watchtowers and barracks along the wall. During its peak, when an enemy was spotted approaching the wall, fire signals in the watchtowers were used to pass the message along down the wall.

The popular belief that the Wall can be seen from outer space had been refuted by astronauts including China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, (a big disappointment to Chinese leaders who wanted to use it to help boost morale in the communist party). The belief came about that we here on Earth could see deep canals on Mars, so people from space should be able to see the Great Wall. But astronauts have said they can only see it with the aid of binoculars, not with the unaided eye.

There are two locations that have been restored outside of Beijing for tourists to view the wall: Mutianyu and Badaling. I was told that Mutianyu offers a better section of the wall, but is further from Beijing. The road from Beijing to Mutianyu is notorious for traffic accidents. I personally saw 3 cars with damage on the side of the road that looked recent. I had confidence in my driver, whom we have befriended, but it was still a little scary.

The wall is located on the crest of a mountain and requires quite a hike to get up there or you can pay $10 and use a gondola/cable car or ski lift-type chair to get up to the Wall. The funny touristy thing is that they have a toboggan run down from the Wall back to the base. I was quite skeptical of this, but seeing that it was German-made, put a little reassurance in me. So, I bought the ticket for the cable car/lift chair up and toboggan ride down. I was told if I didnt want to take the toboggan down, I could get back on the lift chair. Good to know.


General map of the Mutianyu area. The dashed lines on the right are the lift-chair, where the toboggan run is and the dashed lines on the left are the cable car. There are steps to climb up to the Wall, which is free, but I didnt have time for that this trip. There's about 3 kms of open Wall area for the public.


It was a relatively cold day, about 45F/7C so I put on some layers and surely felt the chill on the lift ride up. The plan was to get up on the Wall by the cable car, walk down to the toboggan run and take that down the mountain. Somehow, I was shown to the lift chair instead of the cable car, oh well. Being winter, the surrounding area was very dry.


General overview of the Wall


It's not an easy stroll up on the Wall. Big steps leading from a watch tower to the outside.


A canon, facing north towards the invading nomads.


It was hardly ever flat. Steps constantly leading up or down. And the steps weren't even, so you had to keep looking down whilst walking.


Picture taken by street vendor. He was selling mainly water and some snacks. This was no easy hike, I was panting pretty heavily and was also sweating, while glupping lots of water.


I was invigorated by the little hike I was doing. I was loving it and was charging along at a good pace enjoying the work out. But the heavy clothes I had on made the sweat come about faster. Nevertheless, it was great to be out in the cold working up a sweat.


Inside one of the many watch towers


Snaking away into the distance








Random sight. A bunch of rams on the wall. Their herder wasnt far behind. There's easy access to the ground on the south side of the wall.








What fun this would be in the wet...


The toboggan slide under the chair lift


I was pretty apprehensive about the safety of this run, but after seeing that they had a brake and I would be able to control my speed, I was off.

The ride was pretty smooth other than going over the welds connecting the steel pieces. There were track marks pretty high up on the banks and looks like some experts were carrying some serious g forces through these corners. I wasn't doing bad and put my motorcycle lean into the turns. It was a blast. I'd do it again. What a fun way to come down a moutain.


Video of the toboggan ride. I was quickly told to put the camera away by the guards, hehe.


On the way back, out cabbi, Shen got into the dancing mood with 50 cent. Can you believe he's a safe driver?

China Trip II - Beijing

Pictures from the first weekend in Beijing:


A map of Beijing at a road side stop on the Jingjintang Highway (marked in yellow) from Tianjin. As you can see, there's six ring roads around Beijing (the 1st Ring Road is not shown). Our hotel, The Kerry Centre, is near the 3rd Ring Road. The airport is NE of the city.


A watermelon martini at the Aria bar in the China World Hotel. Yes, I love them martinis.


Lily, from Mongolia, who we met in a bar. And no, me holding my money clip doesnt mean what you're probably thinking. Not all beautiful girls in Beijing are working girls. Picture was taken at about 6 am at The Den, a 24 hr pizza place. Pizza always tastes good after a night out.


High flying kite over the city. Notice the "clear" blue skiies. The air is not bad at all. Some colleagues have complained about asthma attacks and what not due to the air pollution. It's just like any other big city.


Some sort of medical inocculation going on. Maybe for bird flu?


Pearl Market, another knock-off shopping mall which sits right above a fish market. Horrible experience. I prefer the Silk Street shopping mall.


Brian, looking at some pearls. We were gauranteed that the pearls were real, unlike everything else in the mall.


Pawel, bargaining with some store girls about a cashmere sweater.


Maredsous, some good Belgian beer at The Tree. Note the Hoegaarden (who garden) beer on the left.


A North Korean Tourism poster. Who knows what it's like...


Partying at Vic's, a totally hip night club, blasting the latest hip hop. It was next to an Outback Steakhouse.


Good ol' Mc D's - can be found anywhere in the world.


Our hotel, The Kerry Centre


Front facade. Note the crane and construction going on in the reflection.


Chicken satay at the Thai restaurant - Serve the people, near the embassies.


Yellow curry with veggies and a beef dish


Pad Thai


A Chang Jiang 750 motorcycle.



A little motorcycle history:
This is the Chinese version of a pre-WWII (1938) BMW R71. After WWI, Germany was banned from making any military vehicles, including large engine motorcycles and sidecars. So, to continue production BMW sold the license to a Russian company: Uralmoto Zavod, who continued to make the R71 with sidecar. After the WWII surrender, Russia took the blueprints for all of BMW's motorcycles, including the R75, which was used by Germany during the war. From these blueprints came the Ural and Dnepr models.

In the 50's, the Chinese People's Liberation Army was looking for a reliable motorcycle for the field. By this time, the R71 was obsolete in Russia, so they gave them the production line in form of state aid to a fellow communist country. The Chinese renamed the bike to Chang Jiang and because of the robust design and charm, it is the only vintage motorcycle with sidecar still in production today.

I believe it's really difficult to get a new foreign bike registered in China. But, it's very easy for Chinese made bikes. So, expats looking for some displacement are getting their hands on the Chang Jiang. I wouldn't mind one, but that sidecar would have to go. Charm aside, it would change the motorcycling experience. But glad to see that this ancient BMW still lives on.

And you wonder, why I'm a devout fan of the Bavarian company.

Click here for source.

China Trip II - Outbound Travel

I was traveling to China for the second time for another business trip. I would be heading to the port city of Tianjin, where we have one of our factories that mass produces cell phones. The purpose of this trip was similar to that of the first trip, making sure that everything correlates between the lead site and the proto type factory in Chicago. My product is getting closer to launch and with newer parts and software, another build at the lead site was called for. The next time I go might be in April when we launch the product.

My outbound travel itinerary was:
American Airlines 777, Chicago to Tokyo
Japan Airlines 747, Tokyo to Beijing

Then, I'd be staying the night in Beijing and driving in the morning to Tianjin for a day's worth of work, before driving back to Beijing for the weekend for fun with some colleagues who I was traveling with, then back to Tianjin for the week. The second weekend, we wanted to visit the city of Tianjin itself, as our factory is actually located about 30 minutes south of Tianjin, in a subdivision called Tangu.


Blue dot marks the spot of our factory in China, near Tangu (mind the old map). It's about 200 km to Beijing.

Outbound travel pictures:


American Airlines Terminal at Chicago O'hare Airport. Much better picture than the first trip. Looks like they changed the flags as well.


The Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo, that would be following us, half an hour behind. Too bad I had to take AA because of a corporate agreement instead of the better equipped and serviced JAL flight. There's nothing terribly wrong with the service on American carriers' international flights, it's just that you get so much more attentive service and better equiped seats and entertainment on Asian carriers and other international carriers. Plus, better looking flight attendants...


An Israeli El Al 747-400 departing to Tel Aviv. EL AL is considered the safest plane to travel on due to it stringent security measures. Each of their planes travels with their own security detail from the Mossad (Israeli Secret Service) to prevent attacks from the usual terrorists. And one of their 747s has just been outfitted with it's own missle defense system, something similiar to what's on Air Force One. The plane has the ability to shoot flares to deflect on-coming missiles. A bit extreme, you might say, but better safe than sorry.


Business Class on the American 777. There is so much space to the seat in front of you that you can get up and walk around the person in the next seat to get to the aisle, no hoping over them like in cattle class. But when the seats are reclined back, it gets a bit cramped, just a bit.


Pre-departure Champagne


Crossing the airport road (I-190) while taxiing to our departure runway


Onboard: Japanese Lunch. I dont really like all the boiled vegetables, but the tempura shrimp and salmon were great, along with my favorite - Miso soup.


A little cheesecake and port wine for dessert. Note the plastic cutlery. Most flights have returned to metal cutlery, but not AA.


Midnight snack for those that were awake with some Baileys. I stayed awake the entire journey this time as well and then slept like a baby upon arrival in Beijing. But then again, it's easier to fly west than it is to fly east.


The ancient Rockwell Collins tape system for the inflight movies. Most other international carriers have advanced systems where you can start, stop and even fast forward any movie you want (it's called AVOD, Audio Video On Demand). What to do...


Cold lunch: grilled chicken breast with a salad and a brownie


The big honking GE90 engine that powers the Boeing 777. It's the biggest engine next to the ones on the new Airbus A380.


Land Ahoy! The Japanese coast.


A protest sign saying "Down with Narita Airport." There's a small resistance movement in the town of Narita against the airport expanding. Isnt there always one? The farmers around the airport are not willing to give up their land to the airport and are against the noise pollution. There's a similar situation at the Hamburg airport in Germany, threatening the production of the A380.


6 United Airlines long haul aircraft (777 and 747) at Narita, with 1 more out of sight and 2 more that landed shortly thereafter. United has a huge hub in Narita (13 daily departures) for all it's Asian flights, flying to Singapore, Hongkong, Bangkok, Seoul and Taipei, accounting for 16% of its worldwide revenue. Besides Continental Airlines, United is my favorite carrier in the states, due to its history, image and other facets of the company. Plus, I flew extensively (20,000 miles) on United during my student conference trip to Asia in 2004.


Northwest Airlines is the other big US carrier hubbed in Narita. I've never really like them that much, but I've repsected their extensive Asia network. They have 63 weekly flights to the US from Tokyo, with United having about 56.


A Korean Airlines 777 taking off to Seoul over the wing of my AA777


A United Airlines 747 touching down


The Connections Board in Narita. Once again, why is this handwritten and not displayed on a flat plane TV screen or something...


Note all the places that Northwest flies to from Tokyo


The view from the Sakura Business Class Lounge. I spent quite a bit of time just staring out the window. The bun in the plastic bag is filled with red bean paste, which I love.


The AA flight from San Jose landing on Runway 34R (see below).


The blue dot indicates the AA Terminal at Narita. Click for zoomable map.

There are two runways at Narita: 16R/34L and 16L/34R. The runways are numbered according to the magnetic direction the runway points to. So Runway 34 means that if you are facing that runway you are pointing approximately towards 340 degrees on the compass (360 is straight North, 90 is East). The other number is if you were pointed the opposite direction, so it's 180 degrees off. Now, if you have two parallel runways, they are designated Left and Right. So the longer runway towards the bottom is 16R/34L.

Due to the resistance from the local community, the top runway, 34R (2 km long) could not be extended as planned to 4 km as 34L and cant be used for take offs by big heavy jumbo jets that require a lost distance to build up speed. So the shorter runway is used for flights that are landing, which are much lighter, due to very little fuel onboard after a long flight. But, as you can see in the above map, the AA terminal is really far from 34R and takes about 20 minutes of taxiing around after landing to get to the terminal. This is because of slot restriction.

Busy airports of the world: Narita, London Heathrow, New York JFK, etc are limited to the number of take offs and landings that can happen in an hour (around 20) due to the clearance that has to be provided between each plane. Each chance for a take off and landing is called a slot into that airport. Airlines buy slots from the airports (price determined by demand and supply) and can later trade them with other airlines if needed. United recently sold a few of its slots into Heathrow to American, part of United's bankruptcy exit plan. There are dozens of airlines waiting to fly to Narita but either cant afford to buy any slots or none are available for sale. Narita Airport's deal with AA is that if they agreed to land on 34R and taxi for about 20 minutes, they would give them more slots. AA would have preferred to land at 34L which is very close to their terminal, but slots mean more to them for their 6 daily lucrative flights to the states. The airport did this deal so that their long runway, 34L would not be held up by empty planes landing and instead could be used for heavy fuel-laden planes taking off. I got this info from the captain of my flight after I asked why we taxiied so long.

Can you tell I'm an aviation junkie :p


Business Class on the JAL 747 in the nose of the plane.

This was my first time sitting in the nose of a 747, the Queen of the Skies. Usually this is configured for First Class, but JAL configures their 747s on heavy business routes to have only Business and Economy class, with more than the usual number of Business seats. Usually these intra-Asia flights dont sell that many First Class seats, which sell better on long haul routes, such as Tokyo to Paris or London.

I've never sat on the upper deck of a 747 and this flight's upper deck was configured for Economy, what a bummer. The plane was noticeably quieter than my previous flights on a 747 as I was sitting so far away from the engines. I could hardly hear them spool up during take off. But on the downside, we were right above the nose landing gear housing and when the nose wheel retracted after take off, it sounded like a massive drill was cutting through the plane - very loud metallic sound. Besides that, sitting up front made for a very comfortable flight and didnt require any noise cancelling headphones. Unlike on the AA flight, where I was right next to the engine. AA provides Bose noise cancelling headphones in Business and what a god send they are.

If I could fly Cathay Pacific from Los Anglese to Hong Kong and onwards to Beijing, I'd get Business Class on their upper deck. But that ticket costs around $5000 and the AA/JAL flight to Beijing costs about $3000. Luckily, I'm not paying for this. If I was paying, I'd be in cattle class. But hopefully, on my next trip to India, I'll be able to upgrade to Business with all the miles I'm accruing.


My hotel room at The Kerry Centre (A Shangri-La Hotel) in Beijing. Very comfy bed.

I ordered a taxi from the hotel to pick me up from the airport so that I wouldn't have to deal with the local cabbies after a long flight and plus I was going to take a luxury car if it was included in the travel expenses. What I was expecting was a driver to be holding a placard with my name on it in the arrivals lounge. What I didnt expect was a private VIP escort from the door of my plane all the way to my limo. The 5-star hotels have a special VIP deal with the Beijing airport, where they send an airport employee to escort you through security, immigration and customs to ensure that you have no problems. She was also quite pretty and flirty. Another reason I was thankful for this was that I was hand-carrying a few parts for work, which are supposed to be declared at customs and duty paid. This also requires extensive paper work to be prepared back at home. This was last minute, so I was basically smuggling in a few parts of a phone. It's not as bad as it sounds, I would just need to show who I worked for and would be able to breeze through, but I didn't want to risk anything with the communist state. If anything did go wrong, I wouldn't have a chance to communicate properly with the customs officers and that's where my escort would have been a great help.

And for those knowledgable about cars, my taxi was an Audi A8L, top of the line. Excellent ride. I just wish I could have driven it instead of sitting in the back. And my taxi to the airport in Chicago was a Mercedes Benz S500. Oh, how I love this corporate travel thing...