I had a plan which involved us taking Narita Express train to the the Nozomi Shinkansen (bullet train) to Shin-Osaka from where we would take JR train and a lot train to our hotel: Kobe Bay Sheraton Hotel & Towers. You can see bullet train here going so fast I couldn't get a very good photo of it!

After endless taxiing after landing we almost missed our train.  We didn't but unfortunately we didn't have time to get any cash.  Japan is one of those funny places where you're expected to pay cash most places.

We were able to buy our train tickets with credit cards, but that only got us as far as Sumiyoshi station in Kobe which was a short ride on the Rokko Liner away from our hotel - there was only one problem - we couldn't buy a ticket for Rokko liner without cash and we were having trouble finding an ATM that took US debit/ATM cards.  We ended up spending $20~ on a cab which turned out to be a good thing because otherwise we would never have spotted this little place I snapped a picture of on the way to the hotel (Trains travel on elevated tracks so you don't get the same "up close" view of the local "culture".

A beautiful welcome gift that was waiting for me in the room.

Asiana may not have the best hard product, but their service is fantastic.  You can see that the cabin was not very crowded - we were the only two there!

I posted the pictures of our multi-course lunch in the food section of the blog.   It was excellent.

After we landed we taxied for literally 25 minutes - I was seriously worried that we would miss the NEX train I was planning on taking which was scheduled to leave well over an hour after our supposedly on-time arrival.  

While taxiing around we passed by a fence - if you zoom in on this photo you can see - it says "Down with Narita Airport". 
 I have no idea what that was all about!

This was not my first time at ICN airport (I think it was my seventh) but this time I noticed that they had banners all over proclaiming that they won "Best Airport in the World" (or some such) for the 8th straight year and I decided to look around and see if I could tell why.   And I could.

Other than being clean, having loads of shopping, free relaxation lounges, internet, showers, etc. it was also a very easy airport to navigate due to lots of signage in many languages and extensive guides and maps available - again in your language of choice.

We arrived at Incheon early, partly because we woke up crazy early and partly because there was not much to do at the hotel.  And of course, there was Asiana F lounge waiting for us, as we were flying ICN-NRT at 9am and since we got to ICN before 7am, we would have plenty of time for breakfast in the lounge.

The lounge was absolutely gorgeous.  The food was excellent, the space was uncrowded and there were lots of amenities - including amazing massage chairs that I can easily see causing someone to miss their flight!

This was the sight that greeted us outside of gate G95 on Saturday as we prepared for a very long flight.  This is a two week vacation, brought to you by that little snafu last July during which I booked two round trip tickets SFO-NRT for myself and Ben in F going there and in C coming back, because we're flying A380 on the way back and the A380 Suites are not technically coded as business or first class - they are in a class of their own!  But this was a nice 777-300W with huge F seats and all the Dom and Krug champagne you can drink and all the caviar you can eat.   We were flying this bird to ICN (Seoul) where we would overnight at the Incheon Hyatt (courtesy of 8,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points) and then continue in F on Asiana Airlines to Narita.   From there we will take the bullet train to Kobe, Japan where we are spending the rest of this week.

This was the gorgeous site that greeted us.  Seats 1C and 1D - our home for the next 13 hours or so.  I don't even remember how many miles this trip cost but it was worth every single dollar.  The seats were huge and ridiculously comfortable.   Because this was a day flight we didn't sleep, but if we had they flip the seat and put a mattress pad on them so it becomes a really comfortable, real bed.  And did I mention it's huge?  The seatbelt is attached somewhere almost in the middle of the seat so that it won't be too far to get buckled to the other side of it!

This is a view of the same seat from the other angle.  You can just see Ben standing in his seat area probably getting his bearings - it is somewhat unusual space in that there were no overhead bins in the cabin.  The nice thing was that you didn't have to lift your roll-aboard in there, and since it was close you could easily get to all your stuff during the flight. There is so much extra room there that my maximum dimension suitcase you can see in this picture fit with lots of room to spare and it really wasn't in my "usable" space - I couldn't reach the suitcase even when I stretched my legs forward when sitting in my seat!

That's a lot of storage room.  I'm stretching my feet forward and you can just barely see the tip of my shoe!

They brought us a lot of "stuff" - we got "pajamas" to wear - more like a nice sweatsuit - I kept the top, though Ben left his behind(!) there were nice slippers, socks, an amenity kit, eye shades, ear plugs, etc.  Of course each seat had Bose noise canceling head phones for the awesome entertainment system - 23 inch screens - quite impressive for an airplane!

And anything we didn't have in an amenity kit was available in the bathrooms - toothbrushes, razors, combs, brushes, you name it!

It's amazing how fast 13 hours goes by when you're entertained.  I watched a couple of movies, worked on some puzzles, caught up on some reading and music and partook in several meals which have their own entry over on the "food blog" tab of this site.

We arrived in ICN right on time, got off the plane, waited in immigration line for no more than 10 minutes and caught a shuttle over to Hyatt Incheon which took all of three minutes, tops.

We checked into our room where there was a lovely "amenity" waiting for us.  Sadly, earlier this month I dropped down from Diamond (highest Hyatt GP status) to Platinum (second highest) which I'm sad about (and working my way back as fast as I possibly can) but it looks like Platinum guests still get very nice treatment (as well as free internet, though no Regency Club access and no suite upgrades).

I decided to upload all the phones and write up the first leg of our trip while it is still fresh in my mind. 

I leave you with this picture of the lovely tea set in the hotel minibar and a link to the SQ15 First Class meal pictures.

It's almost here!  In three days, Ben and I will fly off to Japan for two weeks.  I'm frantically trying to figure out everything I have to do before we leave and trying to remember if any reservations need to be made in advance, lest we miss out on some cool experience...

There will be many pictures - I will try to upload them as we go along...

This morning I took the train from London's Kings Cross station to Peterborough UK.  It's about 0 degrees here - just about freezing!

It started snowing around noon and it flurried on and off all afternoon.   When we got to the train station, I tried to take a picture of the snow...