Phase One of Operation Birthday GlobeTrot Complete.....
One leg down, two to go.  Am writing this sitting in the United Airlines lounge here at Tokyo's Narita airport, drinking sake and listening to the Bee Gees, mildly curious how much its costing to update my Facebook status on my Blackberry.  Am having a bloody lovely time so far, enjoying every single minute and seemingly eating everything that comes into visual range.

After an early morning start (awake at 4.30am, courtesy of East Coast jetlag), it was FINALLY time to jump in a cab and head off to the airport.  And YEY for business class, not working, drinking champagne and watching back to back movies for 10hrs!!!  After having endured economy for the last 3yrs, its hard to believe i used to travel like this all the time when i worked for Pfizer!  So the United biz lounge at SFO was no great shakes, so I ambled round the concourse instead and succumbed to a new pair of Gucci sunnies.  Then it was time to swan onto the plane for my 10hr ride to Tokyo - with my swanky-pants biz class ticket, i finally made the elusive Boarding Group 1.  BOOOYAH!   I chose to sit on the upper deck and had a window seat so that I could see at least a little bit of Japan when coming in for landing.  Note to self, though - don't crack open the window shade mid-flight to have a look to see where you are.   You will get a retina full of sun for your troubles and thus be unable to see anything other than a window shade for the next 5 minutes.  *sigh*

So to make sure i got my full value for money, i think i ate pretty much everything on offer (i can only imagine the state my poor little IgE antibodies are in right now).  The food was OK (Mum - you'll be pleased to know that Turkish Airlines food is MUCH better) - shrimp hor d'oeuvres and salad thing, bread, then chicken and rice, cheese plate and cheesecake - all washed down with lots of champagne, wine, port and coffee.  Then time for a quick nap (flat bed!!  FLAT BED!!!) before a mid flight snack then breakfast of cereal, croissants and tea.  With that little lot of refined carbs on board, its no wonder i'm sitting here in a quiet corner of the lounge farting my head off.

Anyway, its a four and a half hour stopover here in Narita.  I had a quick wander round the shops and there's some lovely stuff in there that i'll have to do some damage on, on my return trip.  Sitting in the lounge, i'm starting to feel a little bit tired and spacey (though that could be from self-inflicted biogas poisoning) and i've exhausted the particular food and drink options in the lounge, so its obviously time to be on the move again soon.  My next flight is from Tokyo to Bangkok and this one is just under 6hrs.  I get into Bangkok just before midnight and my flight to Bhutan leaves at 6am the next morning.  I dont have a hotel room booked as it didnt really seem worth it for just a couple of hours but i'm wondering if it might not be a bad idea, so i can at least get a shower, if not any sleep.  A couple hundred bucks for a shower is quite steep, though, so i'll probably just suck it up and loiter by the Druk Air check-in desk for a few hours and see if i can talk them into giving me an upgrade cos its my 40th birthday....