Flight Review: ANA JFK – HND and HND – KUL and a Party in the Sky!

Note: I wrote this blog post sometime last Thursday, as I was on my second flight en route from New York to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I only had my iPhone with me and the WordPress app somehow kept erroring, so I wasn’t able to publish this post or any posts until I got home from Asia. 

I wasn’t initially planning on writing a flight report on this, but changed my mind. I get romantic about traveling, and like sharing my exuberance! So consider this post as a journal of sorts.

The day began, as a travel day always begins, with my dread of packing. I often say what I need more of is less, and this certainly holds true with travel. Thus, the battle is to take less not more, and so begins the arduous task of negotiations between me, myself and I.

I took the NYC subway (Q, F and E) and AirTrain to JFK, and all went smoothly. With all of the nice terminals at JFK, Terminal 7 is pretty much a dump. It is crowded, there is substantial construction going on and there are no Priority Pass lounges. My 6:15 flight was delayed an hour, and the one restaurant/bar was packed. I settled for a sample tiny taste of a tequila at the duty free shop!

I booked this flight last October – an open jaw mistake fare on All Nippon Airways for $276.  Say what you will, but for me the beauty of mistake fares is that sometimes I get to go to places I never dreamed of going to (or places I only dreamed of going to).

The first of two flights was nonstop from JFK to HND Tokyo. The first thing I noticed was the plane, a 777, seemed to have a plethora of business seating and only a rather small economy section. I was in the economy.

The economy section was pretty empty on this flight

The gods were in my favor! I had a row to myself! Before takeoff, I saw a pretty sunset from my window. This was the Wednesday evening sunset.

treated to sunset #1 while still on the ground at JFK

The onboard entertainment system was excellent – I saw I Tonya, Three Billboards and part of Coco! And I was even able to sleep a little!

Great entertainment system on the flight

The food wasn’t bad either. The initial snack was rice crackers. They were good, but there weren’t too many in the packet (interpretation: I could’ve eaten 10 packets of rice crackers).

airplane snack and beverage

There were two meals, I chose the Asian choice for each.

column a or column b?

The first meal, a shrimp tempura main course, was quite good.

dinner

The latter meal, described as a Chinese beef, was reminiscent of the heavy beef goulash frequently served on flights. I had a few bites but wasn’t in the mood, and figured there would be a meal service on my next flight.

meal #2

The flight attendants were as nice as can be. They spoke a little English and wore uniforms that looked like cherry blossoms. I decided that I’m overdue for another trip to Japan.

Smiles and sweets

At one point there was a little happy scurry of activity and a few sounds of laughter- I turned around to see what was happening. The flight attendants had brought out special platters for passengers celebrating various special occasions- one couple for their honeymoon and one for another traveler’s Birthday!

the only thing missing was a candle!

Wow, I was so impressed! I’ve never seen that before!

And then I was treated to a second sunset – about 12 hours after the prior sunset. For a moment I was unsure if it was sunrise or a sunset! My mind was playing tricks on me! But it certainly was a sunset – it was now Thursday night.

sunset #2

Surpringly, I never had that bored I’m going to jump out of my skin feeling during the entire 13 hour flight (and I didn’t even buy the WiFi!).

Hello Tokyo!

And then we landed at Haneda airport. I only had an hour or so before my next flight an 11:30 pm red-eye to Kuala Lumpur (which I am on now as I write this post).

I walked through the duty free shops and took photos of the KitKat bars, and sake bottles.

Who doesn’t love KitKats?

Interesting sumo sake bottle

Soon, it was time to board the second flight, from HND to KUL. The lines were pretty long.

The second flight wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as as the first one. It was pretty crowded, but luckily the middle seat was open in my row. The initial meal was only a snack – some rice crackers and cookies.

I was still hungry so had an extra pack or two of rice crackers. A  breakfast meal was served about an hour before landing. The choice was between a western meal, an omelette and muffin, or an Asian meal, whitefish teriyaki with rice and veggies. I chose the latter and it was okay. I also had some iced green tea (which I couldn’t stop drinking the entire trip).

breakfast

And then it was Friday morning and time to land in Malaysia (but not before they sprayed the plane with disinfectant [yuck])!

And so began my trip to Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok.

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