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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...

Flight: BA99 LHR-YYZ ETD: 17:05 ATD: 17:25 ETA: 19:55 ATA: 19:43 Cabin: Club World (new suites) Seat: 4K AC: 777-200 [G-YMMJ] I took the Elizabeth Line from Whitechapel to Heathrow T5. It’s a great in-between option. Much cheaper than the Heathrow express, but also faster than the pauper’s...

Flight: BA8766 ZRH-LCY ETD: 14:55 ATD: 15:30 ETA: 15:30 ATA: 16:00 Cabin: Economy Seat: 4A AC: E190 There were plenty of full service and LCC options to choose from for this leg from Zurich to London. I wanted to fly into London City rather than LHR or LGW for comparative ease of getting into...

Switzerland Ch3 continued... I did two hikes from Stoos. On the first day I did a fairly modest walk of approximately 9km among the lower hills and forests as a warm up to the following day’s much more challenging Gratwanderweg (ridge top or 'tightrope") walk. Most sane people do the ridge...

Switzerland Chapter 3 - Stoos Ending up in the alpine village of Stoos was basically an accident. Not really knowing where to find good day hikes and easy accessibility I initially just plugged Interlarken into a hotels.com search, thinking that might be a good base seeing as I had wheels. The...

Switzerland Chapter 2 Emmental and Bern Part 2 of my Swiss stay was spent with a friend from Northern NSW who married a Swiss woman. They live in an open plan loft on the top floor of a converted farm house amongst rolling green hills, cowbells and corn rows. I pulled up in front of the house...

It was a tongue in cheek comment on the fact that people often complain that the serving sizes in J on QF are too small and not filling

I wonder if the parsimonious bean counters at QF have seen the size of these business class meals on Air Astana!

A week in Switzerland When I first booked EK83 to Geneva I was tossing up between heading straight back to LHR to spend a week or so pottering around Wales or to have a quick look at Switzerland, a country I’d not been to before. Switzerland won out and I’m extremely glad it did. I had a...