Austin

JAL service: stickers for diet restrictions and sleep, crew who actually paid attention

Sharang had a company event in Austin. I decided to tag along and make it a personal trip, then extend it together through the west coast. This was also the first time I was flying Japan Airlines. The routing was Bangalore to Tokyo to Los Angeles to Austin, which on paper sounds like a lot. In practice it was even more.

That morning I had run a 5k organised by Adobe. By afternoon I had a fever. I packed medicines, bought more at the pharmacy, and boarded the flight anyway. Sharang was in the seat next to me. The flight was brutal in the way that only being sick in a confined space can be. I asked a cabin crew member for a painkiller tablet and she went and got me one without making it a problem. By the time we landed in Tokyo for the layover I was starting to feel better. Enough to eat: ramen, unagi for the first time, wagyu beef katsu for the first time. We were still in the food area when we thought we heard our names being called from the gate. We ran. Actually sprinted through the terminal. It was someone else they were calling. The run did nothing except bring the fever back. JAL's service throughout was remarkable: stickers on every seat to flag diet restrictions, a different sticker if you slept through a service so they would not disturb you, crew who actually paid attention. One of the better airlines I have been on.

We landed in Austin, checked in, and went to sleep. The next morning we went to the nearest IHOP. Two of us at a small two-seater table, four dishes ordered. The waitress asked if we were sure. We said yes. She moved us to a bigger table. We ate everything. She came back, looked at the cleared plates, and said Damn. We were laughing about it for the rest of the trip. Sharang had picked up a fever of his own by that evening and neither of us could face going out, so dinner was the castella cake and Tokyo Banana we had bought as souvenirs in the Tokyo transit.

The second day was the company event: a keynote, sessions, people to meet and goodies to collect. I felt better and moved through it properly, picked up two caps and two custom-printed tshirts. Sharang ran a session of his own. In the evening we went to Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken, which was exactly as straightforward and correct as the name suggests, then walked around the Texas State Capitol as the sun went down. At night we went to Topgolf for the first time and had a genuinely good evening.