PeterRS

I'm sorry to disagree again but I rarely pay more than ¥1,200 - ¥1,500 for a meal and that usually includes a beer. Sure, western-style restaurants like the one that became my favourite and was near my apartment, the long-established Chianti's in Nishi-Azabu, were very much for expense account clients (I heard that it might have been a victim of covid - very sad!). But in Japan if I am on my own and not being entertained by clients I usually eat Japanese style in inexpensive to modest eateries. There you can get a wonderful variety of dishes. Another ploy for those who really are on a tight budget is to go to the basement supermarkets in the main department stores. So many individual counters will have ladies offering you samples of their specialities. In my younger years I would often sample as many as I could (while being as unobtrusive as I could) and enjoy a rather pleasant evening meal! Now I feel slightly more guilty to try that again!

I'm not certain. I know that in the USA I did need the vouchers. In some countries no. I just liked to have them with my travel papers - in case there was anything that went wrong.

I shouldn't either. Some years ago I was starting from DMK on a round-the-world trip starting with stops in Hong Kong and Tokyo. These were the last days of physical tickets. At the CX check in for its mid-morning flight, I was told the plane was full and I'd be upgraded to first class. Deciding to board the plane early, I was sitting there with a glass of champagne when I thought I'd use the time by changing currencies and getting the HKG hotel voucher from my travel wallet. I looked in my backpack. Not there. I got my trolley bag down from the locker and went through it. Not there. Must have missed it. So I went through them again. Then panic. Definitely not there. And that wallet had some of the various currencies I'd need, all the hotel vouchers and other paraphernalia. It was obvious I had left it at home! With no one else yet in the cabin, I had to tell the purser that I'd have to get off the aircraft. She could not have been nicer. She had one of the ground crew take me back through Immigration, they re-booked me on the late afternoon flight (but not first class) and kept my suitcase at check-in. On the way home I just could not think where the wallet could be. Once back, there it was sitting on my desk! How I missed it, I still have no idea. Returning to DMK I called a good Thai friend and told him the saga. "I'm really stupid," I told him. "No you're not," he replied. You're just getting old!"

5-year delay? That's nothing new for Thailand. No doubt politicians, civil servants, army generals and other top brass were busy buying up all the land as soon the project was mooted internally. Now no doubt there's haggling going on about the massive profits each should be making. Plus ça change! 🥳

As often happens that Wikipedia quote is a little out of date. Just last month the Japanese government authorized a big increase in the number of take offs and landings at Narita. The problem is basically that Haneda is already beyond its latest design capacity. Certainly the number of international flights at Narita gradually dropped after the decision was taken to drastically expand Haneda. In 2002 Haneda for example had 2,121 international flight movements. By 2019 that number had exploded to 44,429. Added to that has to be the number of domestic movements which in 2019 was 184,755. The domestic movements only increased by little more than 30% during that time. At Narita, the number of international movements in 2019 was vastly larger at 104,611 but with just 28,015 domestic movements. With it being so much easier to get to Haneda from central Tokyo, once it expanded and opened up to many international carriers, inevitably it became more popular. Although, as @a-447 pointed out above, anyone thinking of arriving or departing for a stay in Japan during the 3-hour morning and evening domestic peaks could be in for long waits. For connections, there should be virtually no problems. The big problem for Narita has always been the nearby farmers who have an extremely active lobby that not only delayed the airport's construction decades ago, but also significantly delayed the opening of the second runway. Because of that lobby, there is a curfew on night flights. Presently Narita has a daily cap of 300,000 movements but this fiscal year only 250,000 are expected. With the rapid increase in travel demand, that is expected to reach the daily cap by next year. With Haneda no longer capable of further expansion, hence the increase in the cap at Narita to 340,000. The majority of the increase is bound to be international flights. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15581638 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/narita-airport-farm-takao-shito-farmer-vows-protect-ancestral-land-japan/ https://japanaviationhub.com/traffic-data/tokyo-haneda-airport/ https://japanaviationhub.com/traffic-data/tokyo-narita-airport/

It remains one of aviation's most extraordinary mysteries, one that vast amounts of cash and years of searching yielded nothing but a few bits of debris off the coast of Africa. No one could or can explain exactly how or why it happened. Given that there are still people searching for the plane in which Amelia Earhart is assumed to have met her death all the way back in 1937, I suppose it was inevitable that a search for the remains of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 which totally disappeared of the face of earth and sea almost exactly 11 years ago would at some future time be restarted. And that is what is now happening. A vessel from maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity was spotted in the South Indian ocean on 23 February. It has now been confirmed that it has resumed the hunt for the missing plane and the remains of its passengers. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/26/mh370-search-resumes-malaysia-airlines-ocean-infinity

Is he perhaps the youngest of all gay icons? Even today we don't really know if the moody, rebellious actor with whom so many disaffected, misunderstood, sexually confused teenagers around the world of the 1950s identified so closely was really gay. He could have been bisexual, or even - horror of horrors! - straight. Yet James Dean is now regarded as one of the great gay icons of all time. In his first two films, "East of Eden" and "Rebel Without A Cause", the angst-ridden, complex, outcast misfits he played sprang out from the screen and gripped audiences in a way no other young actor had achieved. During his short career, Dean's name was linked to a number of actresses, notably Pier Angeli who would write lovingly of her "affair" with "Jimmie" before she committed suicide at the age of 39. For a while they dated in California. Yet when he was on a visit to New York after completing “East of Eden”, she surprised him by announcing her engagement to the singer Vic Damone. At the time, few had reason not to believe her story. Yet William Bast who had been Dean’s roommate in Los Angeles and New York for five years and was Dean’s first biographer, believes the relationship with Angeli was a mere PR stunt. Doubts only began to appear some decades later when it was realized how strictly the Hollywood studio system controlled the public images of their stars. If it could keep the openly gay life of matinee idol Rock Hudson secret for decades, partly through sham affairs and partly by insisting he was working too hard, it's surely easy to believe it would have little difficulty shaping a wholesome image for its rebellious younger star. Was he gay? Bast, who later came out of the closet, claims that he and Dean experimented sexually. In an article in Britain’s The Guardian he reminded readers that homosexuality then was so far off the suburban radar that someone like Dean could give off all kinds of gay visual clues without anyone realizing. When you look at the scenes in "Rebel Without A Cause" where he and the younger mid-teen, cherubic-faced Sal Mineo (who was 15 at the time) are together, many in the gay community now consider these could definitely be two gay young lovers, the more so as Mineo eventually came out as bisexual (in those days as good as saying he was homosexual). In their book Live Fast, Die Young; The Wild Ride Of Making Rebel Without A Cause, film critics Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel note that an earlier version of the movie’s script even featured a scene in which Jim (Dean) and Plato (Mineo) shared a kiss. It was cut only because the Hollywood self-censors of that time would never have approved the scene. Mineo was nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscars for “Rebel Without A Cause” and later “Exodus”. He was murdered outside his home at age 37, almost certainly a burglary gone wrong and nothing to do with his sexuality. Elia Kazan, the director of "East of Eden", noted in his autobiography that Dean could not possibly have had successful relationships with girls. After spending several months in close proximity to Dean, surely he would be more likely to know than some of the early hagiographers who were paid to tow the studio line? Nicholas Ray, the director of “Rebel Without A Cause” is also on record as saying Dean was almost certainly gay. A dozen or so years ago the latest of a whole series of books that has placed ever more lurid so-called facts into the public domain was published. Elizabeth Taylor, his “Giant” co-star, stated to the press that Dean had told her he had been sexually abused by a priest after the death of his mother. In James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes the author alleges lurid sexual relationships with a host of well-known names, including Elizabeth Taylor and even the closet gay director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover! Inevitably, Dean's sexual escapades have been embellished as the years have passed and the growing worldwide gay community yearns for more gay icons. Who better than the fiery rebel James Dean whose good looks smoulder so passionately on the screen? Obviously much of what has been written is probably drivel; but as they say, can there be smoke without fire? Dean only starred in three feature films. On the basis of these alone, he deserves his place in the pantheon of great movie stars. Yet it was his untimely death at the age of just 24 that has resulted in his memory living on as more of a cult hero and icon. Five weeks before "East of Eden" opened and just after "Giant" had wrapped, he was driving his Porsche 550 Spyder in California when it skidded into another car. He was dead within seconds. That untimely death certainly added to his legendary status, especially amongst millions of grieving teenagers - of whom a good proportion were no doubt themselves gay and, these being the 1950s, still in the closet. Of his sexuality, Dean himself went as far as to say, "No, I am not a homosexual," adding almost conspiratorially, "But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back." In the early 1950s and with studio executives breathing down his neck, that was I suspect as much as he could possibly say. Some have suggested that like many hot-blooded young men he enjoyed experimenting with sex. Not so the feminist author Germaine Greer who wrote in 2005, "Looking back over half a century . . . the one thing that now seems obvious is that the boy was as queer as a coot." Whatever the truth, Gay Times' Readers' Awards had no hesitation citing him as "the male gay icon of all time."

Signage at airports can often be baffling, even for regular flyers. I regularly take China Airlines to Taipei from BKK. For whatever reason, it always seems to arrive at Terminal 2 but you have to go to Terminal 1 Immigration. There is usually a signboard in English, but sometimes it is blocked by a staff member or two directing passengers to another flight. I made a mistake once which was a real pain! But I guess that's the way to learn! Also at Doha's new terminal a year ago I first could not find the lounge access escalator. Then my gate was something like C12. There were large overhead signs directing passengers to all manner of gates including C1-11. Although I am quite used to navigating myself around airports, I simply could not find C12 (or whatever the number was). In the end I had to ask and the first two staff members could not tell me!

Great for those flying at the front of the plane. I'll bet economy passengers got a "sorry", long queue for rebooking, no hotel, no use of pool, perhaps a cheap meal voucher - and little more! Such is life at the back of the plane!

I loved Hanoi and for whatever reasons I prefer it to Ho Chi Minh City. Why would you be scared? Just be a little careful where you put your head when you visit the Museum!!

I think you need an assistant to organise your travel bookings LOL

Agreed. In the cirium data it came 9th. The only point to add here is that Cathay Pacific suffered most in Asia from covid19. With Hong Kong having virtually the most stringent lock down in the region, most of its planes were parked in deserts and many of it staff laid off. It was barely able to cope with a huge surge in traffic at the end of 2024. It is only now back to full pre-covid operation levels and based on pre-covid performance I'd expect it to move up the on-time performance chart this year, the more so as HK airport now has its new 3rd runway in operation. Just my guess! Japan Airlines All Nippon Airways Singapore Airlines Air New Zealand Thai AirAsia Vietnam Airlines Philippine Airlines Garuda Indonesia Cathay Pacific Qantas Airways

The location has always been lousy, but the train into Tokyo station takes little more than 50 minutes. Many trains continue on to Shinkjuku Station. It's interesting how we all gain perceptions and how often they can be incorrect. I know I'm as bad as anyone. But I'm sorry to say you are totally wrong in suggesting Narita has become mostly a low cost carrier airport. I have used it well over 100 times and most major airlines still operate from there. Want a list? How about the scheduled services by Air France, American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, all the major Chinese airlines (more than a dozen), Delta, Emirates, Etihad, EVA, Finnair, KLM, Korean, Lufthansa, Malaysian, Qantas, Qatar, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, THAI, Turkish, United and others including JAL and ANA. Many like Cathay Pacific use both. It is still by far the more major of the two airports for scheduled international services in the Tokyo region. Haneda just isn't big enough to handle nearly as much international traffic since it also has to handle 90% of Japan's domestic flights - presently over 500 daily from Haneda - which account for around 40 million domestic passengers annually. https://tokyo-haneda.com/en/flight/flightInfo_dms.html

It used to be a lot more expensive. Sure it's more expensive than Thailand. But it has become a lot cheaper for international travellers. It is not that many years ago when the ¥ was below 100 to US$1. Now it is a fraction less than 150. And when you add in the safety factor, it's now much more attractive to a great many tourists.

Narita has been a hub for American, Japanese and some other airlines for many decades. I can remember when it was quite usual to see around 16 Northwest 747-400s at the airport. 8 would have flown in from US gateways and 8 from Asian destinations. Lots of passengers connected from one route to another. Last time I connected from the US was on JAL, but it was at Haneda.

A good friend has just returned from three months in Tokyo. He confirms that the nunbers of Chinese tourists has mushroomed recently, partly a result of the cheaper ¥ and partly because it is perceived as more safe than Thailand!

Not yet, but it's on my list. I actually preferred Hoi An. Just fell in love with the place.

Minimum connecting times are surely dependent on the airline, the airport and whether you are on the same or different carriers. Having been based in Hong Kong for decades, I was used to CX having short interline connections of around 40 minutes. In all my years of flying, I don't ever recall one missed connection. But . . . this year having failed to use miles to get me to Europe on my favoured Qatar, I had to get a ticket on CX via HKG. Not really a problem as it allows me a free stopover in HKG on my return. The issue which arose is that for my flight on Saturday, even 5 months ago the only seats available were on the last flight out of BKK at 19:15 connecting to the last flight from HKG to London at 00:15. In theory that alllows for 65 minutes connecting time, although at this time of year with the winter monsoon arrivals into HKG should be straight in towards the north thereby allowing an extra 5-10 minutes or so. But . . . then I heard that on January 17, the last flight ex-BKK departed 4 hours late! Had that been my flight, I would have missed my connetion, had to spend at least 5 hours at the airport and be connected on to the first London flight in the morning. That in turn would have cancelled my cheap onward flight from London as I would have been a no show. A new ticket would cost around £300. So using FlightRadar I checked that last flight ex-BKK and its departure times. I was shocked to discover that throughout January it was on average 1 hr and 8 mins late in departing. How many had missed their connections during that month I have zero idea. So . . . I phoned CX to get me on an earlier departure ex BKK. Sorry, sir, the only mileage ticket available is on a flight departing at 06:30 am!! And that would have meant around 14 hours stuck at HKG. Finally I got on to a manager, a pleasant young man who understood my situation, but told me that there were no mileage tickets on earlier flights. I then played what I hoped would be my ace card. What airline, I asked, schedules a flight that over a 31 day month has departed on average 68 minutes late? Every single day! By this time it was perfectly clear to me that the 777 operating that flight must always have arrived late into HKG prior to being prepared for departure for BKK. And it had probably come in from somewhere in Europe where flight times are longer due to being unable to use Russian air space. Since I rarely accept 'no' for an answer, I eventually beat this poor guy down. He finally agreed to put me on a flight departing BKK two hours earlier at no extra cost and I had the new ticket within minutes. Now of course my concern is the connection in London for which I have allowed almost 3 hours. But worrying about that will achieve nothing, so I will just wait and see what happens. In general, though, I totally agree with @unicorn. It's far better to plan for 3 or so hours between flights than accept a tight connection.

Another moved post from another forum. You will love Danang and the area. I started a 10 day trip 5 years ago just as the airlines were stopping flights due to covid. Hoi An just 30 minutes away is a glorious little town, with lanterns lit up everywhere in the evenings. Hoi An There is also at the west end a 15th century Japanese bridge In the centre of this area is the large city of Danang with its fabulously long beaches A little further north there is the old Imperial capital of Hue. The French destroyed much of it, espeically the imperial palace, but it is slowly being restored. This was the scene of a lot of fighting during the Vietnam War.

This refers to a post in another forum referencing Phu Quoc in whicih a member suggested the post could be moved to the Vietnam forum. TO save @TotallyOz time, I was there just before covid and used my last Marriott points to spend 5 nights at that beautiful hotel. Loved the trip.

I never - ever - use google for hotel rates. @reader is 100% correct. The rate for 2 nights on agoda is vastly cheaper. Checking 2 nights from March 5 on the agoda site (almost always the cheapest site for Thailand hotels and less than half the rate you quoted), you get a deluxe room for 2 with breakfast at Bt 3,798.92. Surely anyone looking for rooms in Thailand already knows about agoda! The only thing you have to be careful about with agoda - and some other sites - is that their initially quoted prices usually do not include tax and service charge. The charge above is the price you are quoted just before you make the booking and so tax and service charges are included. But I have noted that you want 2 rooms, so basically double the price. On the Trip.com site, they quoted you for 2 rooms. The rate for one room for 2 people with breakfast for 2 nights starting March 5 is - Bt. 4,155. So your google search actually was pretty close if you really want 2 rooms rather than 1.

Just an extra quickie. When I complained to CX about getting nothing for all the money i had spent on the carrier to try to reach 2 million miles, I got the usual guff about no guarantees etc. But then someone told me it was all to do with joining One World. With CX having only one hub, all its 2 million milers would be entitled to reciprocal benefits on the 6 other original carriers - and most of them had objected. WIll your 2 million Platinum miles benefits entitle you to benefits across all One World carriers?

In my long very personal essay, I added that I would resurrect one other series of posts, this time of Gay Icons. As I leave for Europe on Saturday and will not post during the nearly 3 weeks I will be away. I shall merely post this first one and one other before I depart. Today the gay community in much of the world has gained a freedom and acceptance unthought of little more than half a century ago. Along with this liberation has come an understanding that gay icons are important, especially for younger gay boys and girls. Chatting with friends over dinner some years ago, the conversation drifted into two rather interesting directions. Who were the first gay icons, and why are there none in Asia? For obvious reasons many of those we consider gay icons today are dead, although new more liberated generations are discovering their own. As for the first gay icon, was it perhaps Alexander the Great? Deeply in love with his childhood friend Hephaestion, the Greek philosopher Aristotle described them as “one soul abiding in two bodies.” But the best known of the ancient figures to attract iconic status is surely St. Sebastian, the young, beautiful, naked youth, his body tied to a tree and pierced by arrows. Throughout history, hosts of artists have painted their ideals of his martyrdom. Gay film-maker Derek Jarman’s 1976 “Sebastiene” used him to examine the overlap between sexual and spiritual ecstasy. In “Confessions of a Mark” by the gay right-wing Japanese Yukio Mishima who committed ritual seppuku in 1970, one character has his first ejaculation over a reproduction of St. Sebastian. Screenshot from Derek Jarman's movie Sebastiane As far as Asia is concerned, those in the west tend to forget there was a near thriving gay culture in many Asia countries before the advent of Arab traders and the missionaries which followed in the wake of western colonists desperate to convert souls for Christ. Going back in time, Chinese emperors not infrequently had concubines of both sexes. In the fourth century BC a courtier named Long Yang-jun was offering such special services that Long Yang became a literary term for homosexuality. Even today, he is commemorated in international Long Yang Clubs. A tale often told concerns the tenth Han Dynasty Emperor Ai Ti (6 – 1 BC) who had numerous male lovers. Sharing his couch with his favourite Dong Xian, the young man fell asleep across the Emperor’s sleeve. Rather than wake him, the Emperor took his sword and simply cut off the royal sleeve. From then on, “cut sleeve” (断袖) became just one of many terms that appear throughout China’s literary history as a euphemism for homosexual love and devotion. Ai Ti's Lover Dong Xian Close by, homosexual activity was far from uncommon at court during the three main Korean Dynasties. During the first Silla Dynasty, King Hyegong was known for his adventures with other men. He was even described as “a man by appearance but a woman by nature.” One group of his elite warriors were the Hwarang or ‘Flower Boys’, so called because of their homoeroticism and femininity. During the later Koryŏ Dynasty, King Mokjong and King Gongmin are both on record as having several male lovers. When his wife died, Gongmin even went so far as to create a Ministry whose sole purpose was to seek out and recruit young men from all over the country to serve at his Court. His sexual partners were called “little brother attendants”! But as Asian countries developed their own independent identities in the 20th century, a new more public gay culture slowly emerged. As mentioned earlier, the novelist, playwright, essayist, actor and model Mishima became a Japanese gay icon, albeit a controversial one due to his extreme right-wing views. Although married, he frequented gay bars and had several affairs with men. Mishima giving the speech outside parliament before he died by committing retual seppuku Another more recent is the adored Hong Kong singer and actor, Leslie Cheung. Handsome in the extreme (as I can attest!) – even aged 44 he was described by TIME magazine as “so damned gorgeous” , he was discovered in a singing competition. Thereafter he became hugely successful as a silky-voiced singer, actor and songwriter. Unlike other movie stars, Leslie played several gay characters in Hong Kong movies, mirroring his secret life as a closet homosexual. He came to world attention in Chen Kaige’s 1993 movie Farewell My Concubine with a superb portrayal of a gay Chinese opera singer involved in a love triangle set against the violent political turmoils in 20th century China who ends up committing suicide. This gorgeous film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category. By this time, Leslie was known as one of the Canto-pop “kings”, four Hong Kong singers who dominated record sales around Asia for over a decade. In 1997 he starred in another major movie, Happy Together. This is a dark tale of two 30ish gay Hong Kong lovers who decide to travel to Argentina’s Iguazu Falls on a tiny budget in an attempt to reignite their relationship. It does not work. Both end up seeking other sexual encounters. Throughout, the entire movie themes of loneliness and emotional pain are intertwined in a recurring cycle of mutual abuse and dependence. Happy Together gained worldwide acclaim, including another Palme d’Or for its director and a third Best Actor nomination for Leslie. Trailer for Wong Kar Wai's tense drama Happy Together. Two young Hong Kong lovers travel to see the Iguazu Falls in Argentina hoping this will rekindle their faiiing relationship but with disastrous results As a singer, in 1989 Leslie filled 10,000 seats in the Hong Kong Coliseum for an astonishing 33 consecutive nights. Eight years later at another series of concerts for which Jean-Paul Gaultier designed some of his costumes, he announced that he was gay and had had a lover for many years. It did nothing to upset his adoring female fans, although some of the guys were disappointed! What was not known then was that despite his legendary fame in Asia and his growing fame around the world, Leslie suffered from depression. By the turn of the century this had developed into severe clinical depression. On April 1st 2003 his manager was waiting for a meeting in the mezzanine lounge in Hong Kong’s Mandarin-Oriental Hotel. Unknown to her, Leslie was already in the hotel having a coffee on the 24th floor. Phoning to check why he was so late, she later claimed his last words were “I’ll be down in a moment!” He then jumped to his death. He was just 46 years old. Screen shot from one of Leslie Cheung's early movies showing Danny Chan, Leslie Cheung and Paul Chung Can you imagine three cuter young Hong Kong guys than those in the photo above? Actors Danny Chan, Leslie Cheung and Paul Chung in the 1981 Hong Kong movie On Trial. Danny and Leslie were closet gays at the time. All died tragically young. Danny, who always had a coterie of cute young western guys around him, was into drugs and died of a drug overdose aged 35. Paul like Leslie committed suicide aged just 30. Leslie had left a short note thanking his family, his lover and his psychiatrist. He added, “I can’t stand it anymore . . . In my life I have done nothing bad. Why does it have to be like this?” His funeral was the largest Hong Kong had seen since the death of another movie icon, Bruce Lee, with many thousands flying in from all over Asia as well as North America. In a 2010 CNN poll Leslie was voted the Third Most Iconic Musician of all Time after Michael Jackson and The Beatles. Had he lived, he would be 69 on September 12.

Yes the officer did.

Since posts tend not to get noticed after page 1, permit me to report one from 2021 about my favourite Phuket restaurant. The text says it all. Medium priced, it is a great place to take friends and even boy special, as I did not several occasions. They loved it. The photos are from the restaurant's own site.