Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I went home this holiday season, and though not doing actual city exploring, I did spend quite a bit of time at airports and in airplanes, which is still blog adjacent for anyone that is interested in New Chitose or Haneda airport! I took a bit of a break from my usual Monday posting (but I was actively posting on the boba blog!), but I’m back in Japan! This post is recounting my trip from New Chitose Airport to Los Angeles Airport. Part two will obviously be the return trip.
On December 23rd, I left my home a bit earlier than usual to catch the bus at 7 instead of at 7:40. It’s the bus just before, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to get everywhere earlier, and account for bus traffic. My flight at New Chitose was at 2, but it takes a bit to get there, with a bus and train and all.
The bus ride was pretty typical (aside from having to transfer busses at Otaru), and I arrived just a bit before 10, which was perfect…because the Gong Cha at Akarenga Terrace opens at 10! Yes, I have to get my boba fix in while I’m at Sapporo, and it’ll be a great way to start off the long day. I got the current very limited seasonal at the time, the Merry Strawberry Matcha Milk Tea. Read about it here!
Besides boba, I took the train from Sapporo straight to the airport, and I inhaled that on the train…
Arriving at the airport around 11, I was pretty confident I’d have a ton of time to do some shopping and eat at one of the restaurants. I went to drop off my bag at the Japan Airlines counter…only to encounter a super long line. Turns out, because I was taking a connecting flight at Haneda, I needed to enter this super long line, which was for the special ticket counter. It ended up taking an hour…so much for Japanese efficiency.
My next priority was getting some New Chitose airport souvenirs for my mom, and it was around 12:30 by the time I actually started thinking about lunch. This was probably a bad idea, but all the restaurants were full and required a wait time. I know Japanese airports are fast, but I didn’t want to risk waiting for a spot, and then waiting for the food, so reluctantly I headed to security, which took no time at all, and went to browse the options pre-boarding. The thing is, I was feeling pretty sweaty, so I didn’t particularly want anything soupy or too hot. In the end, I settled on the seafood bowl place in the mini food court, Shima no Hito. I chose to get the Take bowl, which comes with konbu dashi ikura, aburi salmon, scallops, crab flakes, and uni. All the bowls come with vegetable sides, soup, soy sauce, and a salmon konbu roll. I chose this one because it had the most stuff that appealed to me without being super overly pricey. That, and all the items had ikura in them…I’m not that much of an ikura person, but it was actually unavoidable.
As expected, I was not a huge fan of the ikura, which was just balls of salty seafood juice, but I appreciated thbig slices of salmon and many scallop pieces. the crab flakes were the typical crab pieces: good, but nothing too stand out about them. I was most dissapointed by the uni as it was really crumbly, and had no flavor to it. The soup was a clear, light broth, and actually, my favorite thing was the seaweed calsmoon roll. That was the best and very yummy.
Oh, and I saw a Demon Slayer plane! Not my plane, but it was cool.
The flight had a bit of delay, but other than that, nothing too notable. Japan Airlines tip: get the Sky Time juice. It’s so good.
I landed around 4, and I was on a mission, namely to get to Haneda Airport Garden and go explore and eat. It might feel like I just ate, but it had been 4 hours since my seafood bowl lunch, and I was actually pretty hungry. Perfect for eating…
Hopping off the free inter-terminal bus at Terminal 3, I made my way to the Arrivals floor to get to Haneda Airport Garden. I had been deciding between the Nagoya-style miso katsu or the eel place, but courtesy of my parents (thank you!) they encouraged me to get the eel, so I had to try it out for my mom’s sake, you know?
Yondaime Kikukawa is actually a pretty big eel chain, and when I went in, the waiter explained to me that all their eels are delivered freshly caught in the morning, and their eels are crispy on the outside but still fluffy on the inside. I went for their specialty, the Ipponjuu or one eel over rice, with extra rice, and comes with a liver soup, pickles, and side salad, and a bowl for you to scoop your eel and rice into. The table came with extra eel sauce, and spices, but I personally didn’t end up needing them. The skin and outer layer were indeed crispy, and the inside was tender. Personally, I am a crispy girl through and through, but I also do like my eel with a lot of fluffy meat on the inside. This one could have used a little more of that, but I’m not mad at all. The quality was great, and the soup was light and refreshing. Pickles were normal pickles, and the mayo salad was fine. I cleaned out all the bowls, very yum.
I wanted dessert, so I headed to go try out one of the matcha shops. Yes, for some reason, at Haneda Airport Garden, theres’s something like 3 different shops offering different varities of matcha products. I went to Kyoto Saryo Suisen, which I think had the biggest variety on the menu. I was very tempted by the parfait, but it seemed a bit much, so I just went with the deep matcha soft serve. There was an option for it covered in gold leaf, but it doesn’t add anything flavor wise, and seemed like a bit of a waste of money. It was good! Very creamy and matcha-y, and came with a cinnamon flavored biscuit.
My last stop in the airport before security would be Onigiri Kongo, a somewhat newly opened onigiri shop at the airport, which is actually a sister shop of the super famous Bongo in Tokyo! I already ate a lot, but really wanted to get one, and figured it’d make a good snack on the plane when I got hungry. I did save it for a while, but when I ate it, it was pretty good. Rice was good quality, plenty of seaweed, and the salmon filling wasn’t too salty and plentiful. I’m sure it’d taste even better fresh.
With no other plans pre-security, I decided to get it over with and just kill time before boarding. I had a little under 2 hours to kill, so the first order of business was get the Cha no Ka matcha cookies that my mom is obsessed with. Can confirm, they are indeed very good.
I took the American Airlines flight around 8:30, and the immediate difference I noticed was that the overhead cabins were so much smaller than the Japan Airlines ones. The bathroom had festive stickers though, which I though was very cute. There was no one n my middle seat, so huzzah!
A little after we took off, I received an American Airlines branded otsumami (Japanese snack) packet, which I thought was funny. “Dinner” was served about an hour after we took off, which unfortunately for me, I was still pretty full because I had just eaten a real dinner at a reasonable time. I went with the pork rice over the shrimp pasta, and it also came with a water bottle, a seasweed salad with a single meatball, a lemon cake, a small bread roll, Hokkaido butter, a salad, and caesar dressing. I ate the salads just fine, and attempted to eat the entree, but the rice was mushy and not great, and the pork was fine. The problem was it came with a somewhat spicy sauce, which I could not handle, along with a ful stomach. I ate the carrots and the kale though, and took a few bites of the lemon cake. I’m not a huge citrus person, but the cake was pretty good. It was fluffy, with many different layers like a jelly, cream, and cookie layer, and not overly sweet. I wish I ate more, but didn’t realy feel like eating much, even after sitting with it a bit. The bread roll was, well, a bread roll.
Fast forward a bit, an hour before landing, they served food again, this time the question: french toast, or udon noodles? Judging by the question, I’d rather go with the udon, but turns out, there was much more to it. I smelled ham in the air, but realized to late that the ham came with the french toast. Instead, the udon came with a bit of vegtables, and a couple shumai, and to top it off, a ton of red ginger (ew), along with a fruit box. The shumai was fine, the noodles were fine, but I didn’t touch anything that touched the pungent ginger. Fruit was also, fine.
Here’s a funny story. Either I’ve become too unaccustomed to being American or I live under a rock, because I asked for an iced tea, and the cabin attendant asks, “How do you want your tea?”. I was very confused, until he clarified if I wanted milk or sugar. Aside from milk tea, I just thought iced tea is just tea, but I guess this makes sense for Americans. I declined, but just thought, I’ve been to my fair share of coffee shops, and I’ve never been asked this.
That’s Part 1! Part 2 is here..
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