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Saturday, February 15, 2014

Back From The Land of Godzilla: Mini-Review of United's Dreamliner and Other Stuff

Above, the Godzilla statue at Toho Studios. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Thanks to the nice ticket clerk of United Airlines at Narita International Airport, I made it home without having to be detoured to Guam and Honolulu first. I can rest up for a day before going back to work tomorrow.

The flight seemed unusually fast, maybe it was because I slept during part of it after having lunch and from watching the classic flick, Dr. Strangelove.

As we were heading out to the runway from the terminal in Narita, it began to rain.

Both of my flights on this trip were aboard the new Boeing 787, The Dreamliner, and there were no battery problems. Looks like Boeing got that problem licked.

One thing I was disappointed in, it was the food served by United. United Airlines used to serve very good to excellent meals (the last time I flew on United to Japan was in 2001), but the meals on this trip were mediocre at best. One was a mushy rice and chicken dinner, and another "stand-out" was allegedly an omelet for breakfast, but it neither tasted or looked like an omelet. Today's dinner was another chicken meal that the flight was in short supply of (the other choice was pork). Those and other meals were barely warm. Singapore Air and Korean Air have far better meals on board their flights. United will have to improve on their in-flight meals if they want this travel customer's business.

On the plus side, I have to say that United's Dreamliners have reasonably good leg room for Economy passengers. No complaints here!

Despite the problems in getting into Tokyo due to the snow (even that was fun, in a way), this was a good trip overall. Jonathan Bellés will be in Japan for another week or so doing interviews and making a trek down to Hiroshima.

I would have liked to have stayed longer, but this was all the time I had available. Part of a loaf is better than no loaf at all. I had a good time and got to see several friends including Yoshikazu Ishii, Masaharu Ina, Tom Logan and Ai and got to meet Jonathan Bellés, Eiichi Asada, Geoff Day and the guys from Japan Travel. And, I took over 300 photos!

It was interesting to see how Toho Studios changed since the first time I stepped foot inside in 2001.

It was worth it!

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