The flight from Manila to Narita left Manila early and arrived early in Japan. The rainy season has started in Japan and the rain is pouring down outside. It’ll rain for the next month straight. I won’t get anywhere near the outside on this brief stay in Japan. It’s 1:30 p.m. on Sunday 18 June here in Japan and my flight leaves in about 90 minutes. I’ll leave here in about 45 minutes to go down to the gate which is quite a ways from the lounge. The flight from Manila was full but the Business Class Lounge here is not particularly busy. Maybe the flight to Portland will not be so full in Business Class?? It probably doesn’t matter in any regard except when I get a seatmate who is constantly getting up and down. I’ve got a aisle seat meaning that person would have to climb over me each time.
The lounge in Narita now has free wireless. That is a huge improvement! Back in the ancient days — 1995 through 1998 — getting a dial-up connection here at the airport was pretty dicey. I had my AT&T calling card number ripped off once in this airport. When I arrived in Seattle on a Sunday morning, my card had been cancelled and I couldn’t make any phone calls. Now there’s free wifi in the lounge. It’s about 9:30 p.m. on Saturday evening in Pocatello, and I just finished making a Skype phone call to Nina sitting at her computer at home. We talked for about ten minutes, for free. A couple of years ago in a previous job when we were negotiating with AT&T for data and voice networks, I told the AT&T rep that we weren’t going to pay anymore for long distance voice calling; that those calls had to be free in the contract. We didn’t make it down to free, but pretty dang close. Today I’ suspect that larger companies are no longer paying anything for their voice long distance as it’s all going across their data networks as just another kind of data. I know it was certainly impressive to me to be in the lounge here at the Narita Airport talking over my computer to Nina at home a third of the way around the world. Technology is amazing.
Well, the first leg is over. The long one comes next followed by the very long layover. I wonder if there’s a place on the Portland Airport to rent a room for a few hours and get some sleep? That might be nice, particularly if we get there early, which is often the case.