Introduction

Ever since Chestnut first thought about taking a trip to Japan, nearly a full decade had passed before finally making it happen this time… and how many decades do we really get in life… The last time passing through Japan was back in 2010, when transiting at NRT on the way home. At the time, there was already that thought in mind: if there were a chance, get a visa and actually go into Japan for a visit.

Just as no one can step into the same river twice, thanks to a mix of circumstances and coincidences, this time Chestnut didn’t enter Japan via NRT at all, but chose HND instead.

Also, starting with this post, in order to improve posting efficiency, Chestnut will no longer use the old “4-grid, 6-grid, 8-grid” image layouts. Instead, all photos will be uniformly cropped to 1200 x 800 pixels, one image per row. So for those reading on a computer, please be prepared to roll that mouse wheel a few more times; for those on a phone or tablet, please swipe a bit more. That also lets Chestnut be a little lazy on this end, thank you.

In one sentence: being lazy is human nature! If people could get paid without working, absolutely nobody in this world would work! (Feels like Chestnut is giving off that thick-skinned, black-bellied vibe again, hehe.)

LAX Delta Club Lounge Review

Got up a little after 3 a.m. on August 1, and after washing up it was already past 4. Not long after that, Super Shuttle came to pick Chestnut up. As usual, the driver absolutely flew, and it took less than an hour to get to LAX.

An email had arrived the day before saying that because LAX was under maintenance, Chestnut needed to drop off checked baggage and complete check-in at Terminal 2, then take a shuttle bus to TBIT for boarding. Well, that really was a bit of a hassle.

Terminal 2 early in the morning was already a total zoo, packed with people. Thankfully, Delta One had its own dedicated check-in counter, with basically no line at all. After dropping off the bags and getting the boarding pass, it was off to security.

First stop was the Delta Sky Club in Terminal 2, which required taking the elevator up to the second floor.

Honestly, Chestnut didn’t have especially high hopes for a Delta lounge to begin with. After living in the U.S. for so many years, most U.S. airline lounges seem to be all-you-can-drink beverages, while the food is usually the sort of rabbit food that makes you turn into a bunny in seconds. This LAX Terminal 2 Delta Sky Club lounge seemed no exception.

There was only salad (rabbit food) and bread… speechless. Chestnut grabbed a croissant to fill the stomach a bit and poured some coffee for a caffeine boost.

After finishing the coffee, a sudden flash of inspiration hit—wasn’t there a Korean Air lounge over at LAX TBIT? The food had to be better than here. Even though PPS wasn’t allowed in during the morning, flashing a Delta international business-class boarding pass should get entry 100%!

With that plan in mind, Chestnut headed straight for the shuttle bus to TBIT with luggage in tow.

LAX TBIT KAL Lounge Review

Found the Terminal 2 shuttle stop for TBIT, hopped on, and slowly watched the busy flow of takeoffs and landings around LAX.

Honestly, it was pretty fun watching the bus make a stop to yield to aircraft!

Once at TBIT, it was easy to find the entrance to the Korean Air lounge (after all, Chestnut had been here last year, but got turned away because of the PPS time restriction).

Last year, because it was a morning flight, using PPS clearly didn’t work. This time, just showed the Delta One boarding pass and was waved right in!

And here’s one thing to say to everyone—the lounge access pecking order is obviously determined by how much money you’ve spent: PPS holders haven’t spent enough, so their priority is clearly the lowest; but if you’re flying international Business Class, or you’re an elite member whose status was earned through big spending, you can generally get in without a problem.

Since PPS members still couldn’t get in during this time slot, the lounge was very empty!

Found a good seat and settled in with a commanding view from above!

Now this is what having food looks like—I think I spotted chicken wraps and sushi…

As a guy, how can you skip the meat? From another angle, there was a frittata, roasted potatoes, and sausage.

And from a sneakier angle, drinks were over here…

And instant noodles over here.

Grabbed some chicken wraps, sushi, sausage, and instant noodles, then went off to eat and drink at leisure!

Delta Air Lines A350-900 Delta One Business Class Review

When it was about time, Chestnut dragged the suitcase over to the gate. Delta One passengers could board early, which was only to be expected.

Alright, Chestnut’s seat was 2D (for some reason, the window seats don’t have a 1 designation, which is a bit baffling). The slippers and amenity kit were already waiting there.That said, this amenity kit felt a little downsized… obviously not as big as before!

Once again, it proved Chestnut’s point—changes usually make things worse, not better.Looking at the menu, there was a moment of impulse and the Japanese Meal was selected. Only later did it become clear that this seemed to be a bad decision: the Japanese Meal ex-LAX was quite intense!After takeoff, snapped a shot of the A350’s flashy winglet and engine.For the pre-meal drink, orange juice was the pick.The appetizer for the Japanese Meal looked okay at first glance.

But comparison really is brutal. Compared with what JAL served later on, these side dishes were simply hard to accept.Main course.

Ice cream after the meal. I just have to say: is this spoon trying to be cute?

After the meal, I watched a movie for a bit and then went to sleep. When I woke up, I felt the need to leave my “palace” and make a trip to the restroom.

The restroom on the A350 was pretty much just like this.

And as usual, a toilet photo!

I got thirsty, so I asked for a Coke first and then a coffee. That combination somehow didn’t send Chestnut into caffeine-overload eyelid-twitch mode.The second meal before landing.

Day 1 in Tokyo

After flying for 11h, DL7 landed at HND right on time!

Tokyo International Airport—does everyone remember? This is the place from the opening of Tokyo Love Story where Akana Rika picks up Maruko!

After a long walk down the corridor, I arrived at Japanese immigration. I have to say, the efficiency here was really impressive—I cleared in less than five minutes!

Turn left after exiting and buy a bus ticket at this counter. Paying with CSR earns 3x points!

The fare was 1230円.

At the bus stop, I discovered that Tokyo was seriously hot, so I hurried into this “five-star restroom” to change outfits—long pants into shorts.

PS: Could this be the work of Makoto Shinkai’s new anime Weathering With You? Maybe heroine Amano Hina unleashed her powers and made the weather this scorching!

The sign inside the restroom said: please sit on the toilet seat when using it.

Honestly, I believe that if they didn’t write it, someone would absolutely use a Western toilet like a squat toilet.

PS: I posted this picture in a Japanese railfan group, and they said this was nothing. The most amazing thing, apparently, is a nine-panel chart of incorrect toilet usage!!!!!!

The bus arrived, and off I went to the hotel!

Made it to Hyatt Regency Tokyo—this is where Chestnut stayed.

Award pricing is all over the internet, so you can search it yourself. Since Chestnut is a no-spend, points-only basic member, I had to spend an extra 5,000 Pts to get Lounge Access.

PS: People always ask why I don’t mattress-run for Status. My answer is simple: chasing Status still costs money, which seriously violates the First Law of Being Cheap and Savvy (except for those spending corporate money). And Status isn’t lifetime anyway—you’ll just end up fighting to requalify later.

Remember this: the saddest thing in life is not never having something, but having once had it and knowing it’s about to slip away!

After dropping off my luggage and getting settled a bit, I went out for a walk. I checked Google Map and saw that Shinjuku Station was less than 20min away on foot, so I decided to head over there and check out the trains!

I’m here! Does everyone remember the scene in Your Name where Miyamizu Mitsuha sees Tokyo for the first time after switching bodies with Tachibana Taki? This is the exact spot (compare the top and bottom images—Makoto Shinkai’s anime really is incredibly realistic)!

I vaguely remember Mitsuha’s reaction: “Ah, it’s Tokyo!”

And I reacted exactly like her… instantly felt like a total country bumpkin arriving in the big city…

Let me show off a little here:

Chinese speakers don’t really have much of an advantage when learning Japanese. In fact, familiarity with kanji can actually get in the way of pronunciation. Shinjuku Station is 新宿駅（しんじゅくえき）, pronounced Shinjuku eki. Please don’t say the Chinese pronunciation of “Shinjuku” to Japanese people—they 100% won’t understand you. Honestly, you’d be better off saying Nanjing’s “Xinjiekou”; I think that might actually be more understandable to them!

The image below shows the South Gate at Shinjuku Station. “改札” basically means the ticket gate in Chinese—Gate in English...

This is the JR fare chart for Shinjuku Station. You can see that even riding just one stop on the Yamanote Line costs 140円. So for sightseeing, it’s best not to use single-ride tickets. A Day-Pass is a much better deal, since you can go in and out through the ticket gates as many times as you want that day.

One of the famous train-spotting locations: the south pedestrian bridge at Shinjuku Station. Thanks to my Japanese railfan friends for the tip.

Railfans never walk alone!

Alright, as a railfan, Chestnut is now going to explain the train lines at Shinjuku Station. Even though I hadn’t been to Japan before, these lines are so famous that I already knew them.

Starting from the far right of the image: the green line is Tokyo’s iconic Yamanote loop line, abbreviated as the Yamanote Line, pronounced Yamanote sen (don’t forget the “no”), code JY.

The second one, in light yellow, is the Chūō-Sōbu Local Line, pronounced Chūō-Sōbu Kankōsen, abbreviated as the Chūō-Sōbu Line, code JB. It runs between Chiba and Mitaka.

The third one, in orange, is the Chūō Line Rapid, pronounced Chūō Sen Kaisoku, code JC, running from Tokyo to Takao.

Let me add this—there’s a train from Takao to Nagano that’s classified as... a local. It stops at forty or fifty stations over the whole trip. Its nickname is the “numb-butt train,” so interested railfans can go try it for themselves!

The platform in the distance on the far right is Yoyogi Station（代々木駅）, pronounced Yoyogi eki. Those of you with sharp eyes may have already noticed that both the Yamanote Line and the Chūō-Sōbu Line stop at Yoyogi, but the Chūō Rapid Line does not.

A little yellow Chūō-Sōbu Line train is coming out of Yoyogi Station onto the overpass.

On the left side of the image, a Shōnan-Shinjuku Line train has just departed Shinjuku Station. The representative color for the Shōnan-Shinjuku Line is yellow-green, and its code is JS.

Those of you with a good eye may already have noticed something else—why is the track gauge so narrow? That’s because on JR, only the Shinkansen uses the same 1435mm gauge used back home, while the conventional commuter and local lines use narrow-gauge 1067mm track. With narrow gauge, speeds are naturally limited, so the trains can’t really go all that fast. During my few days riding JR trains in Japan, the highest speed I experienced was on the Shōnan-Shinjuku Line near Yokohama, where it reached 120 (according to local railfans, some sections can go up to 160...).

Given the built-in limitations of narrow gauge, reaching that kind of speed is already pretty impressive.

As a side note, the Chuo-Sobu Line also appears in the anime Your Name. The scene is from three years earlier, when Mitsuha Miyamizu comes to Tokyo looking for Taki Tachibana. Mitsuha is sitting on a bench on the JR Yoyogi platform when one of the yellow Chuo-Sobu Line trains pulls in.

Everyone knows what happens next—Mitsuha spots Taki Tachibana, who commutes to school on the Chuo-Sobu Line, and quickly squeezes onto the packed train to say hello to him. (Here, Chestnut really has to admire Mitsuha’s train-squeezing skills. I’ve personally seen how brutal the Chuo-Sobu Line can be during evening rush hour.) But since the two of them were not on the same timeline, Taki at that moment did not know Mitsuha at all, and even muttered to himself—what a strange girl...

Alright, Chestnut won’t spoil any more—if you’ve seen it, go rewatch that scene, and if you haven’t, I highly recommend it!

I was starting to get a little hungry, so I headed back to the hotel and went to the Lounge to find something to eat.

By the time I got back to the hotel, it was already dark, so I took a couple of photos of the bathroom as well.

I went to the bathroom... and as soon as I sat down, the seat felt warm... huh, a heated toilet seat?

Then I looked to the side and felt even more like a country bumpkin visiting the big city—it even had a bidet function built in!

After finishing up, I took the elevator upstairs to the Lounge.

The food selection was small, but nicely presented.

Japanese Coca-Cola!

After eating, it still felt a little early, so I decided to head back out for another walk.

Once again, I turned to Google Map and noticed that Kabukicho Ichibangai was very close by, so I decided to power-walk over and see the famous sign for myself.

Kabukicho is north of Shinjuku Station, and it takes about 15-20min to walk there from Hyatt Regency.

This photo was already taken in the Kabukicho area. The green train passing through the frame is, of course, the Yamanote Line, and the crayon-looking sign in the distance, LABI, is an electronics store.

I went through the underpass to cross the railway tracks.

Japan has plenty of at-grade railroad crossings, but this is definitely not a place where one could be used... Otherwise, with this level of train traffic, the crossing gates would be down more than 95% of the time!

Alright, does this place look familiar to everyone?

It was about time to head back, so on the way I also took a photo of the colorful nighttime lighting at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

And finally, I’ll end Part 1 with the big Hyatt Regency sign.

Summary

1. The Delta One Business cabin on this trip was booked through a lucky Virgin Atlantic redemption. My overall impression was that it was solid and perfectly fine—nothing especially flashy, but certainly not disappointing either. The only mildly annoying part was that due to construction at Los Angeles Airport, flight DL7 required check-in and baggage drop at Terminal 2 while boarding took place at TBIT, which was a bit inconvenient.

2. As for Hyatt Regency, everyone already knows the redemption pricing. After getting used to all kinds of wildly inflated hotel Cat pricing in the US, redeeming points for hotels in Japan felt amazingly satisfying, with tremendous value for points. As for Chestnut’s no-status situation, Lounge Access was solved by simply adding 5,000 points directly (I only stay there about once a year anyway, so it felt worth it).

3. Chestnut’s itinerary will continue to be built around railways + anime + GAL games... bringing everyone a different perspective and a different side of Tokyo! Stay tuned...

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