Japan Airlines Wins

Patti, in the latest of her credit card coups got us from Denver to Hanoi and back from Ho Chi Minh City to Denver all on 'free' airline miles. That is, for spending money that we were going to anyway on credit cards that were offering miles awards.

We were the minority group once again on this flight to Asia, much like last year to China. My guess is that the flight was about 99% Japanese folk leaving us as the 1%ers...finally!

JAL has to be one of the finest airlines I have flown on. The flight had the standard hot towels, snacks, drinks, meals, Ben & Jerry's for dessert. However, the bathroom was almost as big as our walk-in closet. That made me feel decidedly un-1%er. Before the plane took off I experienced something new, when the flight attendants entered and exited our section of the cabin they went through a little ritual where they would bow to us and smile a lot.

The seat backs had about a 10 inch monitor with a wired remote controller for games etc. I touch-screened my way over to the flight information and GPS section so I could mark our progress and stick to my plan of reading as much as I could. I could not help but contemplate the obvious - what were those folks on the Malaysia Airlines flight thinking when they saw their on-screen plane icon veering dramatically off course. "Let's just keep this one on the green dashed line" I offered up in a prayer.

One curiosity on the monitor was the prominence placed on our little Lakewood, CO. Right up there with New York, Chicago, Dallas, Vegas, and L.A.

The girls settled right into the inflight entertainment and were quickly in the zone...

...and they crashed hard as well.

Patti, with her moderately severe food allergies, was alarmed when she read this warning label and decided to pass the rice crackers my way.

Have to include this bike, all $7200 worth of this belt driven super city cruiser.

I wrote this on the leg from L.A. To Japan but was unable to get my VPN running in the airport so this is now being posted from Hanoi. Oh yeah, we made it.

P.S. I think you already have this figured out, but this is mostly a travel log so Patti, the kids and I can look back and remember the big things and also a number of the little, but maybe not so exciting, things.