28 February 2006 (1) – Day 1

We tried not to get too smug about locating the business class lounge at Nagoya airport. In fact, after our Dubai experience, it was a bit of a let down. At first all I could see was a basket of mini boxes of Frosties and a coffee machine and I was making “so much for having lunch here” faces, when we spotted sandwiches, cakes and rice balls.

The flight helped us to get into holiday mode kicking off with a glass of champagne. Hard life. Everything was really excellent throughout the flight. My only gripe was my neighbour (we were in a row of 3 seats), a very large, 40-something guy from Connecticut. He bellowed his self-introduction thus: “Hi, I’m Dave. I always like to meet the folks that I’m going to be sleeping with”. He continued to be loud and annoying throughout the flight, but in a way it was quite entertaining. At one point when we are all watching “Pride and Prejudice” and were on the bit where Mr. Bennet contradicts his bossy wife and encourages Lizzie not to marry Mr. Collins. Dave yells to me “That guy’s got balls. You gotta hand it to him”. He must have driven the flight attendants mad as he pressed the call button frequently to ask things like “When is the film starting?”, “Can you go easy on the Japanese announcements?”, “How long does the flight take?”, “Can you bring me another carton of milk”, “Did you ever hear the joke about the straight male flight attendants…” Considering I learned so much about the guy, it was pretty funny when he legged it off the plane the second the doors opened without so much as a goodbye.