Airline Food, Round 1

The airline food was... not as bad as I expected. There is a handy site where users can post pictures and reviews of airline meals called www.airlinemeals.net and although it was useful, it was also scary. Some of the meals featured on this site were swordfish and eel. Needless to say, we bought a sandwich, bagel and muffin from Tim's before boarding the plane for 20 hours of travel.

Without further ado, here are the meals!

B's Vegetarian dinner consisted of many salads including a fruit salad, a garden salad, a spring salad and a traditional ice berg and carrot salad. It also came with rice and some sort vegetable chutney (whatever that is) and green beans. B's rating out of 5 is 3.5.

Here is my sundried tomato chicken and roasted potatoes - the potatoes were delicious but the chicken was awfully greeaaazy. The bun was good. As for the green noodles and the offwhite goop with prawn, I couldn't tell ya. Also, Japan Airlines own official drink, Sky Time, is gross.

And here is the most delicious vanilla ice cream I've ever had. It was only this de

licious because B didn't get one, being a "vegetarian" and all.

She settled for cookies that Lil Wayne would be proud to consume:

B's lunch was a cucumber and tomato sandwich which she happily gave to her neighbor who seemed to be really enjoying his.

My lunch was this: I would tell you what it was if I knew. I took it out of the wrapper solely to take this photo which I had to do whilst holding my breath. We then ate our bagels.

This is how the Japanese do goldfish crackers. They aren't satisfied with one fish, they give you the whole aquarium.

As for the second leg of the flight, we slept the entire time. At one point the lady did show me the meals but I was too out of it to really register what they were. I was so out of it that I even turned down a mini haagen daz. You know it's serious when that happens.

Oh, and this is what I ate at the Tokyo airport:

Yum yum yum!

S.

Planning Polly

Well it is 6am in not-so-sunny Bangkok. Turns out the sun doesn’t come for another 40 minutes but we feel like we’ve stepped into a time loop. We got to our hostel at about 1am last night and went to bed at about 2am. That means we have had four hours of sleep but legitimately had to check three sources for time because it feels like we’ve been asleep for several days. Neither of us would be surprised if we had been sleeping until 6pm.

Now, where to start... Oh, I know – Just as we were leaving home, I got a call from my lovely cat-sitting pal informing me that I forgot my passport on her table. Yup. As B likes to say, over and over, “Planning Polly forgot her passport!” She sure did. But not just once folks, I also forgot it in the bathroom at the Vancouver airport. At that moment, B decided she had to hold onto our most important items and I was deemed barely fit for travel. This is why we make such a great team. B is utterly useless in the planning of anything and apparently I am utterly useless at putting anything into action.

We passed through customs just fine but B insisted, quite loudly, that she would like one of those famed body scans. By the grace of the gods, she was randomly selected. I wanted to take a picture but sadly those aren’t allowed when they’re violating your rights.

Onto Japan Airlines – I love this airline and I love Japanese people! We had two legs of the flight and the planes were different (one was older) but the first plane was SUPER AWESOME FUN TIME! It had a sweet remote that popped out and turned into a video game controller. There were tons of new movies to watch including Footloose (my movie of choice,) What’s Your Number, and Dolphin Tale (B’s choice.) Yes, they were terrible.

The airline though, is extremely accommodating and apparently has free booze the whole flight. We took to hoarding bottles of water instead because the air was so dry. There was literally nothing to eat in the Tokyo Narita airport though. This airport was also pretty disappointing, it was very grey and deserted and the surrounding seemed like farmland. Not what we expected flying into Tokyo. There is more than one airport in Japan though so maybe the others are a little more exciting. As for the food on the actual plane, I will do a post with that shortly!

Oh, I can’t forget to show you the first of the “Japanese Style Toilets” we saw. They give you so many options in the bathrooms in Japan... western, western with bidet, and this hole in the ground:

When we finally arrived in Bangkok, I was surprised to see how busy the airport was at 11pm. Tokyo was dead at 5pm but Bangkok was all lights and bustle. We are staying at Hua Lumphong hostel which is directly across from the train station. We thought we could get a jump on things and book our train tickets when we arrived, so we got out cabbie to drop us off there – no dice as it was closed. You wouldn’t know it though because there were several hundred people sleeping on bare tile. This meant we had to get back across the street to our hostel. Oh don’t worry, only 8 lanes of traffic to get through but there is a cross walk painted on the road! No flashing hand or walk symbol meant playing Frogger and hoping not to get squished while carrying 22 lbs on my back (yup, we weighed them at the airport!)

I also saw my first stray cat! She was pregnant and had a heart shaped marking on the side of her belly. I probably would have taken a picture of her if it didn’t smell like animal feces everywhere... and if it wasn’t 1am... and if people weren’t lying on the streets randomly massaging each other’s feet.

Our hostel is over all pretty good. We got the A/C going and I’m a little frightened about stepping out into that hot humid air. It was 26C when we arrived but bear in mind that was only in the middle of the night. B’s hair is telling us the humidity index with the rate it is growing. We have two little beds, a tiny shower and toilet but I feel this is pretty high class compared to what some more budget travelers are dealing with. And free wi-fi!

We are off to explore now, after eating our last of the Tim Horton’s we loaded up on for the flight. And now my white rice diet begins...

S.