June 10 - Tokyo Narita

Tokyo Narita:. The flight from Boston to Washington took close to two hours. It was nothing special, almost like taking a bus, really.There was no video service, no food or drink service either. Compared to the good old days of air travels, I remember a short half hour trip from New York city to Providence on United Shuttle, back in year 2000. It was a short flight,but the crew managed to serve us a cold chicken salad plate, and drinks. When we landed in Providence, some passengers were still trying to finish their salads.
We landed in terminal C. The connecting ANA (All-Nippon Airlines) flight is in Terminal B. This means a quick run to pick up the shuttle bus for terminal B, and a long walk to the middle of the terminal for gate B41. I twisted my ankle while walking in terminal B. Not badly, but enough to feel it on while sitting on the plane.
The ANA plane is a Boeing 777-300. The economy cabin is arranged in a 3x3x3 seating arrangement. I have an aisle seat on the next to last row, row 36. One of the passengers asked if I can move, to exchange seats, so he can be with his friend. This puts me in row 39 aisle, which is the last row, but one of two seats. I say yes, of course, because I am a nice guy.
A while later, my seat mate show up. I long haired guy, wearing torn pyjama pants, t-shirt, and slippers. A hippie!We exchanged hellos, and he proceed to bury himself into a book.
Once underway, the video service started. I watched a couple of movies. Client Eastwood's "Gran Torino", and Client Eastwood's "Dirty Harry". There are a couple more Eastwood movies: "Bridges of Madison County", and a cowboy movie.I like Client Eastwood, but I am not going to watch "Bridges of Madison County". We all know it is a chick flick. I am also not fond of cowboy movies.
Lunch was great on this flight. The flight attendant asked me if I would like curry chicken and rice. I dream of curry chicken and rice all the time. Of course I would like it. The meal was very tasty, and went down extremely well with two (small) bottles of red wine.
After lunch, I decided to switch to watching TV shows. I made the mistake of starting with episode one of "24".This is a continued series about a CTU (Counter Terrorists Unit) agent, and a sub-plot of an assassination of a Presidential candidate. The agent's daughter and wife were kidnapped to force him to help in the assassination.So, episode one was just fantastic. I couldn't stop watching it, so naturally, I continued on to episode 2. Next thing you know, episode 11, and we reached Tokyo before I can even come close to finishing the series.
We arrive at Tokyo around 3:50PM local time. It is now 5PM, and we are scheduled to leave at 5:30PM. The attendants are urging the passengers to form a single line in front of the gate now. Since we are assigned seating already, I am not in a hurry.
Singapore:
One thing I can say about Singapore - HOT! More about that later. The ANA flight to Singapore was good, if not quite as great a the long trek to Tokyo. On the plane, I had a chance to catch up on the TV serial: 24 again. Still,I did not quite finish the season, although I did learn of Kim and Terry's rescue, so all was pretty well.
We landed near midnight, as advertised. In fact, we were 10 minutes early. The ANA planes all have this one thing that you don't see in other airlines: The TV monitors show you the pilot's eye view of the take off and landings.I was able to see us land in Changi airport.
The hotel shuttle was not too hard to find, once you find the hotel reservation desk. It was a 15 minute ride to the hotel in an air-conditioned bus. Once there, they quickly booked me into my room: room 350. Since I am still hungry, I decided to check out the kopitiam (local phrase for coffee shop.) I walked out the hotel, and was immediately hit by a heavy wave of hot air. It felt like walking into a warm oven, and so needless to say, it was very uncomfortable. Fortunately, the kopitiam is over a block away. By the time I got there, it was around 1 AM.Most of the food stalls were closed, but there were still a lot of people hanging a round. The coffee shop was still serving drink, and quite a few locals were drinking Stouts and Tiger beers.
I found a stall that sells seafood. The owner made me a plate of seafood fried rice for 4 dollars (SGD) (US$3), and the iced coffee for another 1 SGD,
Back to the room. It was a nice, clean room. The web review described it as minimalistic. It was not too bad.There were two queen sized beds, clean sheets, clean covers (duvets). A TV, nice big bath room, with tub and showers.There was in-room coffee maker as well, but I didn't have time to try that. I think, the only negative point about this hotel is that it is far from the city. You can take the free hotel shuttle to the airport, and pick up the local subway (MRT) to the city, but it is just too much trouble, and takes a good part of the hour to get there, so it would not be worth it. Becky and I always enjoyed the YMCA on Orchard Road, because it is right in the shopping area. We will go back there again, next time we visit Singapore, or at least try one of the hotels on Orchard Road.
Put in a request for a wake up call at 6 AM. I have about 4 hours to sleep.