Travel Rant: Laundry

If you spend more than 5 days from home, chances are you’re going to need to do laundry.  Or you’re one of those people who will pack 10 day’s worth of clothes for a 10 day trip.   Myself, I don’t like dragging luggages across South East Asia.  Or China.  So I try to pack lightly; well as lightly as a dialysis victim can pack.

Most hotels have laundry service at outrageous prices.  S$5 to wash boxers, for example.  Some hotels actually have laundry machines.  Here’s one at one of my regular hotels.

Note the helpful labeling.  Since they’re both front loaders and the hotel has a lot of American guests, signage is a must.  Otherwise you’ll get people putting coins into the wrong machine and demanding refunds from management.  Take a close look at how many coins you have to put into the slot.

Yes, that’s S$20 to do a load of laundry!  These are stickers; I wonder how much it used to be!  At that price, it’s worth it to jump on the MRT with laundry to the nearest laundrette.  Sheesh.

How to behave in Gion

These are the rules for behaviour in Gion (Kyoto).
I’m not sure who these rules are targeting.  Begpackers?  Mainlanders?

No touching the geiko/maiko, no loitering.
No smoking, eating, littering or selfie sticks.

Moxy Tokyo

Moxy Tokyo Kinshicho is a new (opened November 2017), cheap and cheerful hotel in Sumida, Tokyo.  It’s reasonably priced (for Tokyo), stylish and in a very local neighborhood.  It’s not in a usual tourist spot, so the room rate is about half of what you’d expect to pay for a western chain hotel.  It’s 10 minutes away from Tokyo Station via JR Sobu Line Rapid (Kinshicho Station).

The theme of the rooms is “wood”.  Wood floor and walls.  It’s good the rooms are decorated nicely because they are small. If you are familiar with business hotels in Japan, the Moxy’s rooms will feel like an old friend with new clothes.  The rooms are comfortable for one; tight for two.  Nice firm beds and comfortably warm duvet.  The hotel was built from a former office building so the rooms were designed specifically for the Moxy.  Despite being part of the Marriott empire, this is not a full service hotel.  They do have a nice lounge area and check in/out is handled at the bar.  Also, if you’re feeling peckish, there’s a Mini Stop across the street and local izakayas and eateries up the block.

Unlike a typical business hotel, it has a real bathroom, not one of those injected plastic things.

All the furniture in the room and the TV are hung on one long wall.  As are your clothes.  There’s no closet.  You either have the choice of setting up the table or opening up your luggage.  There’s not enough room to do both unless you put the luggage on the table.  Despite the lack of room in the room, I like this place.  And with SPG merging with Marriott Rewards next year, the Moxy will probably be my go to hotel in future visits to Tokyo.  Or at least until the Muji Hotel opens…

U is for upgrades

Nothing makes a transpacific flight better than confirmed upgrades after you click “purchase”.  Usually, my upgrades clear from within a few days of the flight to an hour before.  Suffice to say, it’s usually pretty stressful right before the flight.

I have to fly US based airlines, so the experience is usually south of awful, if your upgrades don’t clear.  If they do, the business class experience is tolerable but doesn’t come close to matching the onboard service experience of world class airlines.

This last trip was upgraded immediately after purchase so it was one of the less stressful flights I’ve taken.  Since I’m an Executive Platinum, I receive a number of Systemwide Upgrades each year to be applied on overseas flights.  Which so far has been pretty good.   What’s even better is access to the first class lounge at LAX.  Best lounge in the USA.

R is for returned

Today I have returned home via the magic of time travel. I boarded a plane at PVG around 1530 and disembarked at LAX at 1230 THE SAME DAY! Time travel! ooooooooooooooooooo

Seriously, it was on AA and the flight itself was OK. However, it will never be up to SQ standards. Like EVAR, And to top it off, like my last flight that landed here, we parked at Terminal 4, marched all the way to the TBIT for passport control and baggage recheck then had to march BACK to Terminal 4. To top it off, once you claim your bags, you leave the secure area which means no returning to the TBIT unless you’re willing to queue 45 minutes to clear security. The QF lounge is nice (probably the best lounge in the state) but not worth that.

LAX is probably the crappiest airport in the state.

Q is for Queue Jumpers

Nothing says “Welcome to China” more than the hand to hand combat in the daily queue or on the Shanghai Metro.  I rode up the lift with a couple of mainlanders.  It literally became a fast walking race to the desk, with the mainlanders trying to slide in front of me and hailing the clerk first.  Yeah, that’s gonna happen!  Move your ass back.  The worst thing is that they had Singapore passports.

The Shanghai Metro default is crowded.  Doesn’t matter what day or what time, you will be standing and will have to fight your way to the door to get off the train.  This is what happens when people don’t have cars.  This is the exact situation that the liberals in San Francisco want.  No one gets to drive cars (except them) and everyone must ride transit. They also complain that they don’t want BART or MUNI to be “like” Hong Kong or Shanghai.  Because liberals all deserve a comfortable seat?   HA.

Of course, people on the platform don’t wait for passengers to get off the train before they attempt to board.  It’s a lot of shoving and pushing and it’s perfectly normal.

Welcome to China!

H is for hurried 

I’m currently in the process of getting myself to HKG and a bed that doesn’t move. It’s a multi flight process from SFO on AA. First is the change in terminals at LAX, from Terminal 4 to the Tom Bradley international terminal. They recently opened a connector between the two terminals that is after security. Nice. And since there’s a fair amount of walking, it’s clean and quiet. Definitely not hurried. Compare this to landing at Shanghai Pudong after 14 hours in a composite tube with wings. Everyone wants off at once and it seems like a long footrace to passport control.  Thankfully 80% of the plane were PRC nationals so I went to the shorter foreigner line. Of course, the time I saved there was negated at baggage claim. Priority tags mean “last” here.

G is for gate

Last time I flew to Asia via LAX, all American Airlines flights were stuck in the claustrophobic Terminal 4.  That created a problem on the return leg. Since LAX is the port of entry, what AA had to do was park the plane at Terminal 4 and force the passengers to trudge to the (very nice and very new) Tom Bradley International Terminal, clearing passport control and collecting baggage. Then, if you had an onward connection, you had to trudge BACK to Terminal 4. A lot of walking after being stuck in a metal tube for 12+ hours.

Now, NO MORE! My AA flight to PVG now leaves and arrives at the TBIT. And as befitting an international terminal, there are awesome lounges. For AA you have the Oneworld Business Lounge and the Qantas First Lounge, where they whip up a good breakfast.


If you’re still one of those UA diehards, there’s a Star Alliance lounge here too.