These long trips take a lot of planning, and since this is the longest one yet it took more planning, also involving packing earlier than I usually do.  I usually pack right before leaving for the airport to keep the cats less stressed but it wasn't going to work out this time.  So, two unhappy cats:
 

The JAL 747-400 had a new feature I hadn't seen previously, a nose camera.  On the big screens in the cabin, and on the personal video monitors once we were at altitude, you could see the flight from the perspective of the pilot.  Cool!


This was our projected flight path, along with what our actual was:
   
According to Flightaware, this particular flight took us to position (6910N/14100W), more northerly than most other instances of this flight.

And some stats from the flight:
 

  

Once we were up around Winnipeg, I took a picture of some of the lakes up there.  There sure are a lot of them.

Later our flight path took us up over northern Alaska.  Here are a few shots from the nose camera or my window.  The map wasn't running at the time so I'm not positive where we were, but it was around the midpoint of the flight.










One frequent question I get is: What did you eat?  So here's the menu from the flight.  Get on it.






I had the Japanese breakfast rather than the Western, so here's what that looked like.  There were green soba noodles and sweet soy sauce in the green bowl.  Mmm... raw fish for breakfast.


Our flight path also took us over what I believe was eastern Russia down to Japan.


I was surprised that the ocean was still frozen at this point, but these pictures (taken at the spot shown in the map above) show ice on the water.




Getting nearer, the flight took us over Hokkaido and on to Honshu.




 

The first real view of Japan, since it had been overcast or the sun in my eyes.




I liked this picture of the setting sun.  Do you like the darker or lighter one?
 

Abdellah from the local office picked me up at the airport (Thanks!) and so I didn't get to take the airport limo or the JR train.  We stopped off at a local sushi joint, where the chef makes the sushi and sends it around on a conveyor belt, and you just pick off what you want to eat.  Lots of food, quality, cheap.  A 2-piece of salmon sushi with twice as much fish as you would get at home for $3 was about $1.50 equivalent.  Cool.

Here's some pix of the hotel suite.
 



A picture from the veranda at


The next morning I went to the supermarket, that was quite an experience, more on that later.  I also went up to the roof barbecue area and took some shots of Tokyo, on this rainy morning.  More later.  See ya!
Tokyo Tower, right next door.














Not sure if this is a shrine, cemetary or something else.