Aging Disgracefully

Hong Kong's new airport is awfully nice, though I have been caught in a few extremely long passport control lines there. Shanghai Pudong is pretty nice. The only trouble with that one is that every time I am leaving China via Pudong it seems like I have to fill out a really excessive amount of stuff on various departure forms (by the standards of most other Asian airports or Beijing, for that matter). During the whole SARS epidemic it began to become absurd.

Let me end off by giving you a tip: never try to be the first to board at Narita. I always fly business class in and out of Narita and, almost always, there is someone who elbows his way to the front of the check-in line and then defends the first spot in line at all costs on the theory that he is a man on the move, after all, and if he just stays 30 seconds ahead of the rest of in the game of boarding planes out of Narita, he will do so as well in the game of life. And here's the catch: Narita still does random spot searches of passengers and their carry-on lugggage just before boarding. And there is nothing random about it to the degree that they always stop the first person.

*One interesting thing about Narita's security gateways is that they are largely staffed by girls with a distinctive uniform. The wear a grey or sometimes black skirt. They usually have on white button down shirts and possibly a red jacket. The big thing I remember about them is that they have ridiculous red beret-like hats. Where am I going with this? Even I can't answer that-oh yeah, I remember: the really amazing thing is that in the last 7 or 8 experiences I have had transiting Narita, I have run into the same girl staffing one of the security checkpoints I often pass through (the one you go through immediately after terminal 2 arrivals aboard JAL or Thai air out of Bangkok). She is very nice and enthusiastic about her job. Her face has actually grown familiar to me. Is this a sign that Narita has too few people or that I am travelling too much? I fear that the truth lies somewhere in between.

**I have seen at some websites where people have marvelled at the range of food and shopping opportunities at Narita. I will admit that, if you check in at Narita, there are allot of options. But once you are into terminals 1 and 2, or if you are transiting,...what the hell? Are we talking about the same Narita airport?

***If you ever have a mechanical problem with your flight at Narita, and it cannot be resolved in 30 minutes, you will eventually be de-boarded. At that point try to get on a flight the next day. Then go into Tokyo and have some fun. You will wait so long for your new plane that you end up losing only a few hours extra by going into town and leaving on a later scheduled flight. The reason you should head into town highlights another problem with Narita: it really isn't a 24 hour airport. Late at night, you are allot better off in, say, Hong Kong, or even Bangkok, airport.