Cycled the Shimanami Kaido, and Yamaguchi, Saga, Nagasaki etc.

[rbjhan]

Ah yes, even though I caught some really nice Sakura, the main purpose of this trip is cycling!
Shimanami Kaido has been on my bucket list for some time, finally got to tick it off

Bought CX cash tickets back in May 25 when I was able to stack two promos together. Yeah that price was not coming back anytime soon...

So the flights were MEL - HKG - cough return.

In Japan I went Fukuoka - Onomichi - Kurashiki - Iwakuni - Kawatana onsen - Kokura - Ureshino onsen - Takeo onsen - Nagasaki - Fukuoka.
Don't worry if you haven't heard of half those places hopefully by the end of this TR I can convince people to see some of the least visited places in Japan...

 

[rbjhan]

So, one year ago Cathay was consistently asking about 4k return to Japan.
Then there's the stopover promo for 10% off, I also had a $300 cash back offer on my AMEX. The ticket ended up costing about $3300.

I picked the flights based on time.
Then they switched CX178 to be the B777 with Aria suites, lucky

Not so lucky was the lounge situation in MEL...was advised to use QF lounge
Okay I suppose Plaza Preminum would do...nothing to see here.

Let's fast forward to boarding!

Now this is really nice.





In case you need some help with the new seat...


And the bathroom indicator
Must say I find it very useful!



What are we looking at?
The alleged wireless charging....who design this thing and do they have a 10 year old phone or something??
Thankfully there's a usb-c port down below!

 

[rbjhan]

This was a supper service.
I had the cuttlefish ball with egg noodles.


Dessert


When doors were closed...the seat number lights were very handy.


Time to sleep!