Flight updates

Here is a picture of the Admiral’s Club at San Jose airport (SJC). I must say, this is the only way to relax before an international flight.

Nice place. Airy, bright, lots of good seating, free trailmix-ish food and cookies.

Here is a picture of the plane that I took from SJC to NRT:

Here is the interior view from my seat (13J) in business class:

The legroom between the seats (measured by the “pitch”), is a nice treat. Unless your bag is under the seat in front of you, and then its a giant reach that only Yao Ming could achieve.

There’s actually a lot of empty seats - probably not a good sign for AA (but that’s what happens when you add a $500 cash fee on top of the 50,000 mileage requirement for upgrading on International flights!). There’s also a surprising number of kids - fortunately they’re all well behaved.

Here is a picture of my lunch:

There was a choice of a “western” lunch or a “Japanese” lunch. While I usually enjoy the filet mignon quite a bit, I decided to be adventurous and go for the Japanese lunch. There was a small appetizer of sushi that’s not pictured here. There were some funny shapes in my box lunch as you can see. And, as is traditional, I had no frickin’ clue as to what I was eating. I thought the white ball was a fish ball. Nope - it was something I can’t identify. I thought it was coleslaw on the right side. Nope - it was calamari. I suspect this “i have no clue what I’m eating and I don’t really want to know” will be a recurring theme for all trips to Asia…

Too bad I have braces, otherwise I probably would be enjoying the fine choices of free sake, champagne, and wine. Oh who am I kidding? The last time I had a full glass of champagne on a flight, I thought my head was going to asplode!

Did I go to the Snack Attack(R) too late? There’s a cart positioned at the galley that is supposed to be filled with snacks - but by the time I got there, there weren’t than many choices left. I ended up with a bag of M&M’s and some pepperidge farm cookies. In any case, I’m just glad I attacked the snacks, and not the other way around.

Anyway, here am in Tokyo. I’m making a phone call over Skype - woot!

And I got a free upgrade for my flight to Hong Kong! Double woot!