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| Japan 2017 - Day 0 |
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It was just at 26 hours from the time I closed my apartment door to the time I walked into my Air B&B in Kyoto. Overall it wasn't too bad, but I did loose a day. I left Austin on a Sunday morning and arrived at the end of the day on Monday by Japan time. But it is the opposite coming back. In fact I Left Tokyo at around 10am on Sunday and arrived in Austin at noon on Sunday. Flying on Japan Air (JAL) was excellent. I knew from the second I boarded the plane it was gong to be good. They had some nice mellow ambient music playing over the PA system over the whole plane. The economy seats are larger than other airlines on the same body plane because JAL has less seats across in each row. I would say that JAL is to date the best airline I've ever flown on. The stewardesses are all extremely nice, helpful, and accommodating. The seats were not only slightly wider, but there was plenty of foot room too. JAL International Economy class is more like business class on American based airlines. The windows are LED glass and adjust from clear to black, no sliding shades. And unlike American based companies, they don't charge you for movies or anything else on the entertainment system. And there were 2 movies available that were still in theaters. In fact I think the only extra fee you could incur was for internet access. That was something like $25 for the duration of the flight. Oh, well, and alcohol too, I think. When you get to your seat there is a blanket, an eye mask, headphones, and slippers all waiting for you. There was lots of food (pretty good food too) and drinks offered periodically throughout the flight. And they kept a basket of fruit and cookies out in the galley for you to help yourself if you wanted to snack between meals. I also like that when it was time to bring up the lights it happened very slowly. It took probably close to a minute to go from dark to fully lit up. My flights were from Austin to DFW on American Airlines, DFW to Tokyo on JAL (which takes just under 14 hours), Tokyo to Kyoto on JAL. I had an aisle seat on the long international hops and the plane was pretty much dark the entire time on the way there so you could adjust to Japan time. But on the 1 hour hop from Tokyo to Kyoto I had a window seat. The sunset photos below were taken on that hop. |
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