Snow outside, champagne inside and my belated trip to Tokyo
1.
I spoke too soon. It was all going beautifully last Saturday afternoon as Swiss flight LX160 to Tokyo Narita prepared to push back from the gate. If you caught last week’s column, I laid out the plan for mom’s first visit to Japan in more than a decade and, to safeguard against a dodgy in-flight satellite connection, I decided to hit send on this column before the doors closed. Soon afterward, the captain came out of the cockpit to introduce himself and run through the flight details. It was going to be about 13 hours to Narita, the conditions would be generally smooth and he was hoping to push back shortly. I pulled out the newspapers, clinked glasses with mom across the aisle and watched the snow blowing gently outside.
About 15 minutes later, the captain announced that there was a queue for de-icing and it was hard to determine when we’d get away. I watched as narrow and widebody aircraft rolled into position to be blasted with hot chemicals and reckoned that we’d be airborne in 30 minutes or so. It would be a tiny delay into Tokyo but wouldn’t impact lunch plans and all would run to schedule. How wrong I was. While snow continued to gently flutter around the fuselage, an hour became two, then three and after four hours of champagne we finally turned onto the take-off runway and headed east to Japan. Lunch at Shiseido Parlour had to be rescheduled to Wednesday but it did mean that we discovered an outstanding new burger joint in Hiroo. You’ll likely read more about Teddy Brown in our special Monocle 100 issue in March.
2.
On Tuesday, we checked into the newly renovated Park Hyatt and I am very, very happy to report that very little has changed. If you’ve been a loyal customer of a hotel across a number of decades, talk of an overhaul of a familiar lobby and regular suite can be a cause for serious concern. Thankfully, Hyatt and the owner (Tokyo Gas) were careful not to upset their loyal base and made only a few gentle adjustments. The beds are a bit higher, the bathrooms have been completely changed (mostly for the better), Alain Ducasse is running one of the kitchens and the New York Grill is as delicious as ever. It would have been a delight to extend the trip into the weekend but the LX161 beckoned on Thursday morning and it was nearly 15 hours for the return journey.
3.
At about the 12-hour mark of the flight, I peered outside and spotted the east coast of Greenland slipping away as we began crossing toward Norway. What was going on down there? With Nato nations rallying to send observers to the territory, I peered down and wondered what people in remote communities were thinking? Would a change in ownership matter much? Would life carry on as always? Would the US be as generous with subsidies as Denmark? Or was all of this going to blow over by the time I landed in Zürich? On Friday, things became even more absurd with Trump calling for fresh tariffs on nations who didn’t support his claim on Greenland. It was at that moment that I fired off an email to our editor in chief, Andrew Tuck, and suggested that it was time to deploy our own team to gauge the temperature in Nuuk. By the time you read this, Andrew Mueller, Alexis Self and team will be on their way for a week of radio shows and dispatches from Greenland’s capital. If you have any questions that you’d like answered, please send them my way and I will ensure that they’re passed on and hopefully answered on air. You’ll find me at tb@monocle.com.
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