Following The Great Circle, again

Tuesday November 7 2017

10:40 am

At SeaTac awaiting at the gate for a flight to Tokyo and then on to Bangkok. A sleep and a half and then on too Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma). In the past I have flown into Bangkok and spent a coule days dealing with the visa to Myanmar process. This time I sent my passport off to the consulate and got a visa before leaving home. I hate doing that. My passport into the hands of a foreign government and worse into the care of FedEx. Nervous all the time until I have my passport back in my hands.

As usual I caught the airport bus from home to here and spent he night at a hotel. Not a bad hotel this time. Certainly so much better than the one I took the night before going to as Vegas last month. It didn’t used to be but if you loo up Ramada in the dictionary you will see a picture of a dump.

A light dinner at Denny’s and then TV in the room until time for lights out. I had planned something a little fancier for dinner, but friends took me out to a nice last American Burger lunch before leaving home.

I am not flying my normal airline, Delta. Instead I am trying ANA (All Nippon Airlines). The check in counter wasn’t open when I got to the airport. So instead of going to sit and kill time I decided just to stand there and kill the same amount of time. The said it would open at 9:20. At 9:19 all the desk agents stood before the counters and formed a line. The at 9:21 the lead agent said “Welcome to ANA, thank you for flying with us.” This was repeated in Japanese and then in unison the agents all bowed towards the waiting passengers and the counters were officially open.

A quick stroll through TSA and a last American Starbucks (though I don’t suppose there is an American Starbucks now that they are world wide). Now sitting at the gate killing more time. I did pass a little time with a man who lives 40 miles from me. Learned he is married to a Japanese woman and they are going home to visit. He is a former froward air controller in Vietnam and was contaminated with Agent Orange and now has cancer. He is a 1005 disabled vet and …… well you get the idea. I know more about him than I do most of my close personal friends now.

I have an hour before they even start boarding so maybe it is a good time to recycle that Starbucks. – See you n Bangkok