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After arriving in NRT, because of the ground delays at SFO my layover was cut down from 2 hours to about 45 minutes. I had arranged to meet my friend in front of the United lounge and this turned out to work very well and was easy to find and in a central location. We walked over to our gate at the end of the terminal for our next flight, and spent about 15-20 minutes in the ANA Suites lounge near gate 46. Overall the food selection there was just ok and on par with other business class lounges. I had been stuffing myself crazy on my ANA flight for the past 9 hours, but still managed to sneak in a few bites of sushi and a serving of Haagan Dazs to provide fuel for my 30 second walk to the gate.
Thai Airways Flight TG677
NRT-BKK
Seat: 3E
I had actually flown Thai Airways first class two previous times both between Bangkok and Hong Kong which is just a short 2+ hour flight, so this would be my first opportunity at a longer-haul flight. Boarding was very efficient and we were able to head to the jet bridge that led directly to the first class cabin. We settled in to our seats and were offered welcome drinks and asked for champagne. I actually like the design of the middle seats in the Thai A380 cabins and think it works well if you're traveling together with someone else since there is an entire partition that can be raised and lowered, as compared to the sliding hatch on the ANA cabin which only provides a small rectangle to look through between the middle seats.
Also waiting for me in the seat was the Rimowa amenity kit that I thought I'd be getting on the ANA flight. Now honestly, I'm definitely no die-hard Rimowa fan but was certainly excited to get my hands on one of these purely because of some of the hype around these that I had read about on Flyertalk. After playing around with it, while this might be considered blasphemy to some, I realized that while the kit certainly felt sturdy, it was almost too rigid and I had a hard time opening it wide enough to easily access the contents. In a lot of ways I actually preferred the Samsonite one I got on the ANA flight, but nonetheless was more than happy to be able to add another type of amenity kit to the collection.
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| view of our A380 from ANA lounge |
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| settling in to our seats with glasses of Dom |
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| Dom > Krug |
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| Rimowa amenity kit |
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| biggest bathroom I've ever seen on a plane |
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| bathroom sitting area |
After takeoff, the meal service began. The previous two times I flew Thai I hadn't really been all that impressed with the food, and I'd say that my impression for this flight was about the same. The amuse bouche and appetizer were just ok, but the carrot soup was delicious and probably the highlight for me. I had pre-booked the lobster thermidor and while I'm certainly not complaining about being served lobster on a flight, it wasn't nearly as good as the one I'd had on Singapore Air.
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| chicken yakitori and veggie puff |
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| lobster terrine |
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| bread basket |
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| carrot soup - highlight of the meal |
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| lobster thermidor |
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| apple tart |
After the meal service we had about 5 hours left before arriving in Bangkok, and I was able to squeeze in a few minutes of shuteye on and off. I didn't find the bed particularly comfortable, and also the cabin temperature was kept extremely warm. Or at least it felt that way to me, which could have been a function of the copious amounts of meat and booze consumed over the past 24 hours. Once we arrived in Bangkok, we were escorted via buggy to the fast-track immigration line and were out of the airport in a matter of minutes.
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