Japan - Day 8 🇯🇵

We checked out of Nine Hours Narita Airport and headed to the terminal for our flight to Mumbai. We were able to use the priority check-in counters thanks to my Star Alliance Gold Status on United MileagePlus. We had missed seeing Mt. Fuji during this trip and also hadn’t been able to see it from the Shinkansen the previous day. Looking at which runways were used for take-off for the last few days for this flight I took a calculated guess and asked for seats on the right side of the plane hoping to catch a glimpse of Mt. Fuji from the air. We got assign a middle and window seat on the right side.

This was our second time on ANA and I was really looking forward to experience to it again. We visited the United Club at Tokyo Narita Airport. It was way better than any other United Club I had visited, maybe with the exception to the one at London Heathrow Airport. But leaps and bounds ahead of any of the United Club locations in the USA.

It was open, airy and had many seating areas spread out.

There was large variety of food selections with Western and Japanese options.

We relaxed there for a while and had a nice breakfast.

The had Automated Beer Dispenser, the first of its kind I had ever seen, known for pouring a perfect beer by tilting the chilled glasses automatically. This self-service, high-tech machine is a highlight of the lounge’s beverage selection, providing a consistent, foamy pour without manual effort.

We also visited the ANA Lounge Tokyo Narita before our flight. There was an ample spread of food and drink options.

Right after the entrance was a large model of ANA’s “Star Wars R2-D2” Boeing 787-8. It was autographed by all the cast members from the Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie.

There was a also dining room located adjacent to a live noodle station with made-to-order dishes. So we also had an early lunch here.

We spent the last of the JP¥ we had at one of the stores at the airport. Walking around the terminal it was great to see the actual ANA “Star Wars R2-D2” Boeing 787-8 jet parked at one of the gates, having just seen the model in the ANA Lounge. Little did I know that this same aircraft would be our ride back to Mumbai in some time and make this journey evening more memorable.

On boarding the flight attendants had a small Yoda doll as they greeted passengers on entry which was a nice touch. The seats in the economy cabin also had R2-D2 headrest covers. The flight attendants also handed out small card as memorabilia for this flight. There was also a Star Wars touch at the end of each of the inflight announcements.

We got a good view of Tokyo Narita Airport after took-off as the plane climbed and turned. A few minutes later the captain made and announcement that we were passing by Mt. Fuji and passengers on the left of the aircraft would be able to see it from their windows. We were, of course, stuck in the middle and window seat on the right side of the plane. We requested the passenger in the aisle seat that we wanted to get out and she was nice enough to oblige quickly. We scrambled to get to the middle galley from where we could finally get a nice view of Mt. Fuji from the windows. In all likelihood, it was a better view than what we would have got from the Shinkansen. This was the one thing which we had really missed out on seeing and now we were able to complete our Japan trip without any regrets.