London Heathrow, Frankfurt, and Vienna have airport supermarkets. Singapore Changi, a butterfly garden, swimming pool and jacuzzi, and yes, they, too have a supermarket. But Oita Airport in Japan? Try a foot bath. Oita Airport is the sole commercial airport in Oita prefecture, whose primary destinations include the eponymous capital, and a pair of hot […]
Asia (Non-Middle East)
Restaurant Review: Daily Social at the Sheraton Kagoshima, Japan
Disclaimer: I was invited to have lunch at Daily Social at the Sheraton Kagoshima. As many of you know, Japan is one of my food paradises. One good reason for that is substantial pride in locally- and regionally-grown ingredients. For instance, if nihonshu (what most of the world calls “sake”) is your thing, visit Nada in […]
Autumn JR Rail Pass
I’ve written a number of posts about Japanese train travel. Here’s another one, albeit with a more urgent tone: the autumn JR rail pass, or 秋の乗り放題パス (aki no norihoudai pasu). On sale until 18 October, this particular autumn JR rail pass was introduced to coincide with Japan’s “Railroad Day” which takes place on 14 October. […]
Airline Route Maps
Let’s stir up controversy with some airline route maps. JetBlue is in the news for having displayed Palestinian Territories on its in-flight map. I don’t care. What I do care about is a plane landing safely at its intended destination. But wait, maybe I do care … such stories make for great rabble-rousing here. To […]
JR West Kansai Area Rail Pass
I’ve written a lot about Japanese rail passes, but never about one in the Kansai region, which includes Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, and Nara. A short visit last month helped change that– let’s take a look at the JR West Kansai Area Rail Pass. I want to skip the JR backgrounder, and go right to the […]
The World’s Smallest Escalator
After all, the world’s smallest escalator still involves travel. As usual, there’s an unrelated backstory involved. While studying abroad in Hong Kong in 2005, I used to walk around Kowloon Walled City Park. The park was built on the foundation of the infamous Kowloon Walled City, which was entirely demolished in 1994. Then, after having […]
Hong Kong Chase Sapphire Lounge
The Hong Kong Chase Sapphire Lounge — formally, Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club HKG — is a decent addition to Hong Kong’s pack of lounges. Plus, it’s Priority Pass-accessible. Which is neat if you have that, but less neat if you also have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card (in other words, competing with more […]
What is a Positioning Flight?
If you have ever come across the term “positioning flight,” it doesn’t always have to do with human locomotion. To clarify the first definition, it simply refers to when an aircraft gets repositioned from one airport to another, generally for operational reasons. These positioning flights don’t take on passengers or cargo. Whisk me away to […]
