This is part two of my trip report for my ANA flights from Mexico City to Hong Kong – read the first part here.
My connecting flight to Hong Kong boarded promptly at 9:35am, and we even managed to push back a few minutes early.
Narita to Hong Kong
My onward connection to Hong Kong was on a 767-300 operated by Air Japan (an ANA subsidiary). This plane has a somewhat unusual 2-1-2 configuration in business, so I chose the middle seat in row 2 (someone warned me that people often use the row 1 bulkhead to move between the two aisles). The center seat has more storage than the others: a side console with a large storage compartment, as well as two smaller compartments for glasses and a water bottle. All the seats have a seatback pocket and a literature slot next to the footwell, plus generously sized tray tables, but there’s a lot more storage room and elbow room in the middle seat.
The business class seats on this plane have a significant recline and feature fold-out footrests – much nicer than US domestic First Class but definitely not anything approaching flat. They come with the same pillow I used on the 787, but a much heavier blanket – which was unfortunate since the plane was quite warm, and the 767 does not have passenger air vents. My blanket spent the flight on the floor, since I was plenty warm without it.
Shortly after takeoff, the flight attendants took drink orders, then brought around baskets of rice crackers. Meal service followed shortly thereafter; my vegetarian meal included a cold vegetable and pickle plate (it looks like noodles, but I think it was actually bean sprouts?); some kind of large green wrap with a mochi-like texture filled with something yellow and vaguely cornmeal-ish, with a side of steamed vegetables, topped with red and white sauces; a fruit cup; and two pieces of bread. Since I ate plenty in the lounge, I just ate the vegetables.
(Side note: although this flight has significantly fewer food options than the 13-hour longhaul, the menu is even more confusing: there are flight-number-specific June, July, and August menus for each direction, so a total of 10 different menus in a single book.)
This flight did feature ANA’s WiFi service, which I purchased but quickly found to be completely unusable – it was too slow to check email, and even sending or receiving iMessages was hit or miss. I paid $21 for 100MB of internet during the flight, but wasn’t able to accomplish anything useful.
Arrival at HKG
We landed at Hong Kong International Airport on time, and immigration was pretty quick. I took the opportunity to pop into the Hong Kong eChannel registration office and sign up for their automated kiosks (I’ll write another blog post about that later!) before picking up my bags. Normally, I would hop on the Airport Express after grabbing a 4G WiFi hotspot (my free T-Mobile 2G just doesn’t cut it sometimes), but this time there was a car waiting for me; fortunately there was little traffic, so I made it to the Holiday Inn Express Hong Kong Soho in good time. Stay tuned for the next part of my trip report.
All the way to HKG in J to stay at a Holliday Inn express. Love it.
To be fair, it’s a pretty slick HIX, and I wasn’t actually spending much time in the hotel room. I’m not usually one for fancy hotels, especially when I’m traveling alone.
I spent three nights there and then two nights at Hotel Jen (booked by the company that flew me out there)