Erk's 2014 Pacamerican Circle

[erkpod]

My hotel. Very small room by Australian standards but I'm in Japan. It's next door location to a Tokyo Metro station is the best thing for me in Shinjuku & the price was pretty good also. Plus I get VFF points!



Hey Erk, something's going on...





There's a train approaching, Erk!

Many of the Tokyo Metro & some JR East stations have platform screen doors.

 

[erkpod]

Some things don't translate well. Pocari Sweat?









Some things are similar the world over.

 

[erkpod]

As hvr mentioned earlier. the Japanese take delays & apologising for delays on the trains very seriously.












If your Japanese is somewhat lacking like mine is. fear not. There are English announcements & signage. And the lady who does the English announcements on JR East sounds cute.

 

[amaroo]

View attachment 24822

View attachment 24823

Japan - the land of Vending machines!

Keep up the good work erkpod triple A grade TR with big smilies

 

[erkpod]

I spent a lot of this morning riding the trains (surprise surprise).





For a while, I rode behind the driver on the JR East Yamanote line. It was awesome.



A fire engine



A bus.

 

[amaroo]

As hvr mentioned earlier. the Japanese take delays & apologising for delays on the trains very seriously.

View attachment 24829

If your Japanese is somewhat lacking like mine is. fear not. There are English announcements & signage. And the lady who does the English announcements on JR East sounds cute.

JR and Tokyo Metro are outstanding. When we were last there a typhoon was approaching Tokyo....they ran typhoon warnings on the screens with detailed radar, weather and news reports.

 

[erkpod]

I loved the "Wayne's World" picture spot you had at the burger place. In-N-Out is a very low cost ,very fresh and reasonable place with the planes doing low passes overhead. Thanks for doing the pictures and I hope many in AFF land get to see them.
The lounges at TBIT are ok but we ended up being there too long due to a plane running late. It is better to do something outside if you have enough spare hours. You do need SQ status or SQ J /First/Suites ticket to do their lounges.

I was in two minds about doing the In N Out thing but I'm glad I did it. I especially enjoyed the related plane stuff.

 

[Bofter]

Seeing your photos there of the Yamanote line, I would be interested in your thoughts on the speeds at which the trains enter and leave the platforms. For me it always felt very fast, and if tried in Australia it might lead to some painful lessons for those who don't wait behind the line.

 

[erkpod]

Seeing your photos there of the Yamanote line, I would be interested in your thoughts on the speeds at which the trains enter and leave the platforms. For me it always felt very fast, and if tried in Australia it might lead to some painful lessons for those who don't wait behind the line.

I have noticed that here in Tokyo, Chicago & New York that the drivers seem to hit the arrival end of the platform harder than I normally would in Sydney. That said, those platforms are longer than the platforms I stop at so they have a little more room to play with. I haven't done the maths in terms of power/weight ratios & platform lengths. I've also never driven any of the other trains but base it on the views like those on the photos from earlier.

Compared to those systems, my statiom approaches seem so slow. I'm aiming (depending on the set, load & location) to be doing 45 - 55kph at the arrival end of my platforms. In training on the newest train, I did hit a platform arriving at 80kph but the stop wasn't pretty & felt similar to the other system stops I mentioned.

Because of what I'm used to & passenger comfort, it seems to be way quicker on the other networks.

Either way, it's not going to be pretty should the worst happen.

I don't have a big a problem with the departure speeds.

That said, the way the Chicago system works is interesting because the operator does everything much like Melbourne does. But in Melbourne, the driver doesn't need to leave the seat to operate the doors.

In Chicago, the driver operates from the right hand side. But when the doors open on the left, they need to leave the seat to operate the doors.

 

[erkpod]

I decided to abort my afternoon walk after having a siesta - the paths are very slippery as I found out while going from the hotel to the 7/11 across the road. But now I have more Pepsi because I found a Pepsi machine across from the hotel, more Yen & an adaptor (borrowed from the front desk, 1000¥ deposit) for the powerpoint. I thought I had one that would work but I didn't.



More snow than this morning.





Map for emergency evacuation centre



An ambulance zooms by



One of the many buses

 

[trentusjuventus]

Some things don't translate well. Pocari Sweat?

I know it doesn't sound appealing at first, but that stuff is damn good. Not as sweet at Gatorade or Powerade and relatively cheap. Very helpful after a big night!

 

[erkpod]

I think I'll need more than X 's scarf (that she lent me for the evening in Vegas because she thought I would be cold) to keep warm. She needs it more than I do.





Found a Pepsi vending machine opposite the hotel. We so get ripped off in Australia. This 500ml can was 120¥ - following my general rule of thumb, that's $1.20. When I was last here in 2011, the same can was 100¥ - 120¥. I shudder to think how much the Aussie version has gone up in that time.

 

[erkpod]

I know it doesn't sound appealing at first, but that stuff is damn good. Not as sweet at Gatorade or Powerade and relatively cheap. Very helpful after a big night!

So it's a sports drink & not just water that it appears to be? Interesting...

 

[trentusjuventus]

So it's a sports drink & not just water that it appears to be? Interesting...

They say that it's an "electrolyte replacement drink" or something along those lines. Does also look somewhat like sweat with its slight grey tinge. I tend to drink a lot of it in the summer as an alternative to sodas and the like, very refreshing.

 

[markis10]

They say that it's an "electrolyte replacement drink" or something along those lines. Does also look somewhat like sweat with its slight grey tinge. I tend to drink a lot of it in the summer as an alternative to sodas and the like, very refreshing.

Its not meant to look like sweat, its name is a play on words indicating it will give you goodness while you sweat it out.

 

[erkpod]

Flight Report, SQ11
LAX - NRT
Wednesday 12 February

Plane: A big one! An A380. Never saw the tail number.

Check-in: Checked in with bags at SBP with UA despite having no *A status & two separate PNRs. Was assured that my bags would be sent to NRT & that I would not have to check in again at LAX.

As it turned out, I did have to check in at LAX (TBIT). The guy checking boarding passes pre-security said that I needed an SQ boarding pass, later confirmed by the SQ lady at check-in. Had my originally UA allocated seat changed to a window seat by SQ.

Security/TSA: My final time through TSA checkpoints & no free body massage. I got through reasonably quickly.

Lounge: As noted earlier, no lounge access as VFF SG using *A lounge in TBIT as confirmed by members here & VA on Twitter.

Boarding: Seemed very orderly. My part of the cabin boarded last. The usual fight for overhead bins & pax sitting in the wrong seats.

IFE: Lots of choice via the screen on the seatback in front of me. Didn't use much of it as I slept a lot. Couldn't find the A380 tail cam - do SQ do that?

Decided not to use the wifi after seeing the rather small data limits.

Crew: When I was awake, the crew were attentive. I can think of worse ways to be woken up than by a SQ girl. That said, I'm asleep. Let me sleep.

Deplaning: Reverse of the boarding process meant my section of Y deplaned before the back of the bus.

Delays: Nil.

Japan CBP: Straight through the immigration process. This was helped that there were very few non Japanese passing through when I was there. Also helped that I remembered the name of my hotel. One bag checked by Customs.

Around an hour from plane to train. Not bad especially considering the long walk from the plane to CBP.

 

[erkpod]

American airlines reflections (in no particular order)

Overall, my preference would be to fly VX over DL on the same route if times & price were suitable.

VX

Sectors:

LAS - SFO Y
SFO - PDX F

Check-in: Pretty good.

Status recognition: Varied.

Delays: Nil.

Crew: Good overall. Noticeably younger & less experienced than DL. Mostly pleasant.

Aircraft: A320. Clean. Nice seats even in Y. F seats better.

I wish VX had a bigger US network. Would love to fly transcon with them if the price was right.


DL:

Sectors:
LAX - LAS F
PDX - ATL Y
ATL - MIA Y
MIA - JFK Y
JFK - ATL Y
ATL - MIA Y
MIA - ATL Y
ATL - MDW F
MDW - MPS Y
MSP - SEA Y

Check-in: Variable

Status recognition: Varied wildly. Velo-WHAT?

Lounges: Mostly used for short periods. Access to some easier than others due to lack of knowledge of VA/VFF entry rights. Best lounges were LAX, JFK.

Onboard service: Mostly good. Many older crew members.

Aircraft: Ranged from MD88/90 to B757 & A319.

Delays:

JFK - ATL - 90 minutes due to late arrival, late pax & broken towbar on pushback. Missed connection in ATL & forced overnight there.

MIA - ATL - 2 hrs due to pilots being out of position.

Missed sectors: SEA - SLC & SLC - PHX due to AS cancellation at ALW.

Overall: Good service & communications with pax during delays. Could do with less tight connections at ATL.

Luggage:

Bags flown ahead without me ATL - MIA.

Unsure if DL or AS error at SEA which meant no bags at ALW.

AS

Sectors:


SEA - ALW
BSC - SEA
SEA - SFO

Delays:
ALW - SEA cancelled due to failure of deicing truck at ALW. Other AS sectors were formerly DL sectors. Unable to get me to final DL destination of PHX.

Crew: Smaller crews due to smaller airports & smaller planes. Staff were mostly good.

Aircraft:

DH Q400 & B737

Luggage: Bags did not arrive on SEA - ALW sector. Unsure if this was due to DL on previous sectors or AS. Delivered to ALW on next day's flight.

Overall: Would prefer to fly DL if
possible due to no VFF SC even with DL flight numbers. Only flew AS because they were the only airline to fly to/from ALW.

UA:

Sectors:
SFO - SBP
SBP - LAX

Only flew UA Express due to in/out SBP. Originally booked PHX - SBP on US bur no show due to AS cancellation & service recovery issues.

No real issues - regional service on EMB 120.

Interlining partly successful SBP - LAX - NRT on UA/SQ via *A.

I only fly UA because of SBP. Unfair to judge UA Express to VX & DL. UA Express & AS comparison better but a lot went wrong with AS compared to UA.

 

[erkpod]

0045 Saturday 15 February

Mr Plow-san needs to get busy.



0630 Saturday 15 February

Not a bad job, Mr Plow-san. Not much of the footpaths are clear. Notable exception is the cleared path from the intersection to McDonalds (near the blue truck) which is open 24/7.

 

[erkpod]

Saturday 15 February
Day 46
Shinjuku, Tokyo

The previous photo from above doesn't tell the full story at ground level. There was lots of ground water over the roads, ankle deep in places at the pictured intersection. The snow & ice near the kerb were slushy with ankle deep water, snow & ice.

I decided not to cross the intersection & decided to walk around the block instead. This was not being helped by rain & temperatures around 0°C.

Amongst a lot of people watching, I decided to return the way I came. It was very slippery & yucky to walk through.

I decided to head to the subway & head to Shinjuku's downtown & the rain had stopped. After finding KFC (purely by chance, I swear!), I walked around (carefully!) & watched 4 Japanese guys having a snowball fight. After watching for a while, somehow I got involved albeit severely outnumbered & experienced. One guy even knocked my phone out of my hand with a snowball. The Japanese Winter Olympic team needs that guy!

Phone still working & lots of high fiving going on, I leave the guys to their fun - the last time I saw them, one of them was trying to use a witches hat as a weapon but that failed.

I then decided to return to the hotel to dry out & recharge. Without knowing it, I'd managed to walk from the E2 subway station to the E27 subway station earlier completely underground. To get back via train, I needed a train from E27 to E28 then change platforms for a train back 2 stops to E2. Achievement unlocked.

Ar the original intersection, most of the ground water is gone & it is safe to walk across the road there.

 

[erkpod]

Lots of struggles with the snow, ice & slush.