JAL 787 Dreamliner Flight JL001 SFO-HND, and a Run across the Golden Gate Bridge

[yflyer]

I much prefer these 2-2-2 layouts than the crammed staggered seatings. There is so much more sense of space than cubicle-like staggered seats. Tried the stagger-type on Jet and had bad impression. Felt like sleeping under my office desk.

Anyway, thanks for the extensive trip report. I know it's a lot of work. Looking forward to the rest.

Thanks, SQueeze! I actually find writing these TR's takes my mind off work!

If you like 2-2-2, then you will love the QF A380 J seats...they are 2-2-2 but are fully flat, unlike these which are slanted lie-flat.

[yflyer]

These seats also had footrests, quite similar to those you see on SQ planes in Y, except that these were easier to rest your feet on, because they were rectangular and not oval. On SQ, the oval design is visually attractive, but my feet tend to slip off them. I know that opinions about footrests are quite polarized, but I personally like them as they help support my feet when I try to sleep.

[yflyer]

There is AC power and USB charging available.





The novelty of electrically tinted window shades still hasn’t worn off.

[yflyer]

As you would expect on a new aircraft, the restrooms were spotless.

[yflyer]

The IFE was a wide format touchscreen, with controller in the armrest and full AVOD. The IFE software and menus were also updated from my previous JAL 787 experience, and now also had high quality widescreen video, and not mediocre 4:3 format movies, although the selection was not particularly broad.





The headphone jack on this plane was the two-pin type, unlike the newer 767 seat with the conventional headphone miniplug.

[yflyer]

Service started with hot towels and a bottle of water. As usual, the drink list was already in the seat pocket.



I ordered whisky and this came with a packet of rice crackers.



Catering on this flight was surprisingly minimalist…after drink service, you were given a tasty but small toasted sandwich wrapped in paper, and that was it until breakfast.



It tasted fine, but hey this is JAL's flagship route...come on...surely you can do better than a paper wrapped sandwich. That said, it did taste quite good, and came piping hot.

[yflyer]

Perhaps they saved the catering budget for a big breakfast, I thought to myself as I drifted to sleep...



As this flight flew into daylight, the shades were fully dimmed, but on a 787 the windows didn’t go fully opaque, just very dark blue, and you could still glimpse the sky outside. Not a major issue for most pax as far as I could tell. I had eye shades on, so it didn’t make much difference for me.

[yflyer]

Breakfast service began around two hours before landing.



After such a long flight, I was expecting JAL to pull out all the stops and offer a substantial breakfast. So perhaps I was just a little disappointed when the breakfast offered was fairly basic, consisting of fruit, yogurt, a bread roll and clam chowder.



I found it a little unusual to have a dish like clam chowder served for breakfast (Whose idea was that?).

The clam chowder was quite delicious, but not particularly filling.

As a side note, on all my flights with JAL on this trip, the cabin crew served food from front to rear. None of the alternating meal service cart directions (i.e. first meal from the front, second from the rear) that SQ and many other airlines practise.

After the food was served, they came round with hot beverages.



Coffee was served in paper cups.

[yflyer]

The remainder of the flight was smooth and uneventful.





We landed on schedule in San Francisco, landing from the south, with great views of the city on the left side as we descended.



Overall impressions? I still love flying the 787. Even compared to the newest 767 cabin refresh, I felt the 787 was superior.

With the 2-4-2 layout and comfortable seats, this was a very civilized way to fly long haul Y, even on a full aircraft.

JAL also continues to impress me as an airline.

Apart from the catering which I felt was of high quality, but just a little lacking in quantity and variety on these red-eye flights, everything else about their inflight and ground products showed a lot of attention to detail.

The other thing about JAL I noticed is that the pax, comprising both Japanese nationals and foreigners, have an almost supernatural ability to board and deplane very rapidly. Most other airlines take ages to complete the boarding / deplaning process.

On JAL, the pax flowed smoothly in and out of aircraft like sand filling an hourglass...whether it is discipline, courtesy or just the fact that they obeyed hand luggage rules, I don't know, but the fact is we seemed to board and deplane much faster than almost any other airline I have flown...

On landing in SFO however, time to get off the aircraft was not the bottleneck. We must have landed right after several other planes did, and immigration queues were long. It took me close to an hour to clear immigration (US citizens had a separate line and got through faster).

I eventually emerged from customs and immigration and exited the airport. By then, it was mid afternoon, cool and sunny. it was time to visit one of my favourite cities!

The next segment of this TR covers San Francisco and Golden Gate Bridge. If you would like to jump forward to my flight JL 001 from SFO-HND you can click here.

[yflyer]

San Francisco and the Bay Area

On this trip, my hotel in San Francisco was Le Meridien at the corner of Clay and Battery streets. This is close to Chinatown and Embarcadero, and about 10-15 minutes walk from Union Square.



What I really liked about the location was the fact that it was a short walk to the waterfront, and San Francisco Ferry Building.

The pedestrian walk along the waterfront goes north all the along way to Fisherman's wharf, and south to the Bay Bridge and beyond, and were perfect for the long runs I like to go on.

There was a Safeway supermarket 3 blocks away and quite a few eateries around the hotel as well.

The hotel lobby was not large or grand in any way -- in fact the hotel had a surprisingly intimate feel to it.

[yflyer]

My room was on a very high floor with very good views of the water, and Coit Tower.





The rooms are not particularly new, but have all the standard facilities, including flat screen TV, and a very nice Nakamichi sound system.



Other sights visible from my room included the Transamerica Pyramid...



Boats large and small...



Coit Tower by day...



And by night...



Other delightful views were also to be had if you looked closely enough...

[yflyer]

Later on this trip, I returned to San Francisco after several days elsewhere, and spent a night back at Le Meridien.

As is often the case, if you check into a hotel late in the day, just for a one night stay, and you are a premium member of their loyalty program, the odds of a room upgrade are high, and for this stay, I was upgraded to a junior suite.



This was decorated in a similar theme as the regular room I had previously, but the additional space did make a difference.







The same Nakamichi sound system was present in the regular rooms as well.



This hotel also had a wonderful scheme (in the name of being environmentally friendly) where if you decline housekeeping for a day, they give you either a USD 5 F&B voucher, or 500 SPG points.



For many readers on this forum, I suspect this scheme would be a no-brainer to participate in: I'll make the beds, I'll reuse the towels, just give me the points!

They have wisely built safeguards into this scheme, where you can only decline housekeeping for up to 3 consecutive days...probably to prevent public health issues!

[yflyer]

The United States is a land of cars...and you get to see a much larger variety of them than in Singapore.

Some are old...



Some large...



And some run on batteries...



But unlike a number of other US cities where the car is the only realistic way of getting around, San Francisco is a very compact and walkable city, and there are also many wonderful trails for running and biking both in the city and nearby.

The weather on this trip was perfect for long outdoor runs at any time of the day. I thought, why not run along the Golden Gate Bridge on foot, then continue on along the waterfront to the San Francisco Ferry Building or even the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Beyond?

I put this plan into action one weekend, and hopped into a taxi which took me from Le Meridien to the Golden Gate Bridge.

[yflyer]

Enroute to the Golden Gate Bridge, I got into a conversation with the driver of my taxi. He was originally from Vietnam, and came to the US as a refugee in the late 70's.

Before arriving in the US, he had spent time in Indonesia (more than a year, if I recall correctly), and a few days in Singapore in transit for his relocation to the US, and he had fond memories of the few days he spent in Singapore.



He was well settled into life in the US, and had mainly good things to say about life in San Francisco, how he had raised his kids, now grown-up, and how the Asian community was thriving and active there.

Not the usual earful you get from cabbies in Singapore, who are generally a good natured bunch, but who all tend to be armchair critics of anything and everything on our island...

[9V-SIA]

Thoroughly enjoyable read & great pictures as usual

I was in SF last October but flew SQ SIN-ICN-SFO-HKG-SIN.

Had a great time, especially our side trip in Napa

SF is my favourite US city