If this had been our first time flying we might have been a little nervous. On the other hand, we might have thought the assortment of mechanical problems on the plane were typical. Still, we’d much rather have them attended to on the ground in advance.
Our flight from San Francisco to Tokyo Narita left nearly an hour late after an odd variety of problems. First Class couldn’t board first because mechanics were working on an electrical problem in that cabin. Only one jetway was available for boarding due to another problem, so several hundred passengers had to troop in through the front door and find their way to the back. Finally, mechanics were also working to fix something in the vicinity of the left wing.
Still, we landed at NRT promptly enough to clear security at the front of the line, and we found our way with our FlyerTalk friend Brendan to the ANA Lounge, a Star Alliance lounge quite close to our gate. There we ran into two more FlyerTalkers, Bob and John, from New York and Seattle respectively, and after greetings we boarded the flight to Singapore. Those yellow FlyerTalk tags on the bags make spotting a lot easier. On the plane there were more FlyerTalk members on their way to the Do.
The Asia-based flight attendants were as terrific as always, and gave us a hint of what it must be like to fly on Singapore or Cathay Pacific. We enjoyed one of the spiciest – and most enjoyable – dinners we’ve had on a flight, Thai chicken in a coconut green curry.
We slept for several hours and landed in SIN only a half hour late. We checked in at the Transit Hotel and enjoyed several hours of sleep before clearing Singapore immigration (somewhat slow lines) around 8:00 a.m. We shared a cab to the Conrad, left our bags, and immediately headed off on our first group expedition to Malaysia.
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