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Thanks!! There are just so many incredible places to visit in Japan! Shortlisting is very very hard!

I can’t say I’m a fan of old school herringbone but in the confines of a narrow body it might be the best and only economically viable way of providing lie-flat, aisle access to everyone. Surely QF won’t be sending cradle J seats on flights like MNL or CGK with overnight flights back to...

Thanks very much drron!! GohGan does conventional a la carte as well as the degustation so you could simply order that way. Prices are very very reasonable. The crab curry was the only dish with any real heat on the degustation menu - and even that was fairly mild - though I’m not sure if...

And the final, final post: I don’t need PJs for Christmas this year. Thanks!

So to some final reflections on this whacky round the world trip. I had a hoot! From the adrenaline rush on the couch plugging dates into the Qantas multi-city tool almost a year ago to see what might be possible … To the more stressful cortisol excretions from a dozen or so futile calls to QF...

Flight: BR315 TPE-BNE ETD: 9:10 ATD: 10:15 ETA: 20:00 ATA: 20:15 Cabin: Royal Laurel Business Seat: 5A AC: 787-10 (B-17802) A 9am departure meant a target arrival time at TPE of a bit after 7. It would have been touch and go with trains and connections at that early hour so I just booked a...

Taipei and Hotel Okura Prestige The train from the airport to Taipei Main Station was straightforward and passed through some lush, green valleys before hitting Taipei. It was also good to be able to tap on and off with a credit card. Unfortunately the rest of the MRT system still requires the...

Flight: BR105 cough-TPE ETD: 12:20 ATD: 12:55 ETA: 13:45 ATA: 14:00 Cabin: Royal Laurel Business Seat: 5A AC: 787-9 (B-17881) Whilst I’d used Lifemiles to book this cough-TPE leg on EVA, 1022+one was on CI, having booked with Qantas points. Thankfully the intervention of the awards escalation...

Dinner at GohGan As mentioned way back in the intro, the ultimate destination on this silly RTW trip was a restaurant called GohGan in Fukuoka. Back in January 2019 1022+one and I had a truly extraordinary lunch at Gaggan in Bangkok, the eponymous restaurant of chef Gaggan Anand. It’s a wild...

Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Dazaifu and Okura Hotel Once I collected my suitcase I went down to the basement of the terminal to get the subway a few stops into town and to the Okura Hotel where 1022+one was waiting, having arrived a few hours earlier from his overnight flight from Sydney via Singapore...

Flight: JL HND-cough ETD: 10:10 ATD: 10:30 ETA: 12:00 ATA: 12:00 Cabin: Class J Seat: 7K AC: A350-900 (JA-13XJ) After another slightly woozy, jet-lag interrupted sleep and early wake up, I got the train to Yokohama and then navigated the station tunnels to the YCAT bus station to catch the...

Fukuoka “chapter” to come in a couple of days. Accommodation was at the Okura which was fine but nothing to write home about. The Hyatt was about the same price and in hindsight may have been a better option, despite smaller rooms

Nostalgia in Yokohama and Enoshima As mentioned in the JAL flight post above, Japan was home for a number of years. During that time I lived in Kanagawa Prefecture, just to the west of Tokyo. At first I was living in the Shonan district which is the closest coastal/beach area to Tokyo and...

Flight: JL17 YVR-NRT ETD: 14:05 ATD: 14:00 ETA: 16:30 ATA: 16:10 Cabin: Business (Sky Suite II) Seat: 2K AC: 767-300 JA606J I had a fairly relaxing morning at the hotel and breakfast was a fair to middling pastry from a nearby chain bakery, a tub of yoghurt and a pod coffee in the room. After...

The Fairmont Downtown definitely looks old and stuffy. I quickly dismissed it when looking for a place to stay in Vancouver. The Waterfront property is also a bit old school in terms of design and service, but all the hardware is solid, high quality and well maintained. The rooms are...

Vancouver and Fairmont Waterfront While I wasn’t taken by Toronto, Vancouver managed to rope me in and I gladly submitted to its charms, natural beauty and distinct neighbourhoods full of very good looking citizens with a verve for life...at least a verve for life in summer when it’s not cold...

I've been using TripCase for my current RTW escapade and it's been good with alerts for delays etc across multiple PNRs, but I agree that the real value of the old CMT - especially for QF award bookings - was ticket status. Though RJ and MH websites are decent substitutes for that.

Flight: AC105 YYZ-YVR ETD: 8:30 ATD: 8:35 ETA: 10:26 ATA: 10:15 Cabin: Premium Economy Seat: 13K AC: 777-300 [C-FIUR] Air Canada domestic premium economy passengers are entitled to check in at the separate walled business class check in zone of Toronto Pearson Terminal 1 which was a very good...

Yeah I could see how some of the neighbourhoods I wandered around would be charming places to live for local residents. Diamonds in the rough maybe. A trip out to Toronto Islands was on the shortlist actually. It looks like a lovely repute from the grimness of the cbd. But the weather wasn’t...

Toronto, Pantages Hotel and Alt Hotel Toronto Airport After a bit of playing around with my 8 night itinerary in Canada, I eventually just settled on 4 nights each in Toronto and Vancouver. Originally I’d planned a slightly shorter stay in Toronto and to then fly to Victoria and explore...