Taiwan - Trip Home

Before we had kids, Wifey and I had the time and the money to do more traveling. And so, we decided to pony up the money to join the Admiral's Club since we mostly fly American Airlines. That lasted about 3 years and then budgetary reality set in and we let that membership expire. Although for the first year and a half we had the Girl, it was really convenient to duck into a Club at the airport so she didn't get trampled by other folks.

And so, I haven't stepped inside a Admiral's Club in many years. I was hoping that the business class seats would allow me in. Normally they would, but since this was a "bump up" using coupons, I wasn't sure how the rules would work.

In Japan, they very graciously bowed me into the Narita airport Admiral's Club, which was very large and very empty.

Now, it's always been my understanding that booze and drinks (and some cookies and fruit) were mostly free at Admiral's clubs. Specialty cocktails cost some money. When I was a member, I really never took advantage of this because alcohol in your system while you are on a flight is a really bad idea for me. You get DRIED UP at 30,000 and feel awful. So a little wine or beer (just one), is fine. But not 5 or 6.

I had 3 hours to kill, so I explored the Club at Narita before I settled down to read my book.

And then I saw this:

The Narita Admiral's Club doesn't have a bartender (whereas the LAX club had two manning the bar). Instead, they have the ASAHI AUTOMATIC BEER BARTENDER!!.


My GOODNESS!

They had no one person manning the area, and there really wasn't a bar. They had women popping out ever 5 minutes to wipe down and clean the area.

But leave it to the Japanese to have a machine serving me a cool beer with a nice head.

It was SOOOO tempting not to get a second or third beer just to watch that machine go. But alas, what you enjoy on the ground you pay for hours later in the air.

There were many Americans (okay white guys) around and for a brief moment I considered asking one of those folks to take a picture of me "Tebowing" in front of the ASAHI AUTOMATIC BEER BARTENDER!!

And then I thought to myself, "Well, you need to have a little more class than that. C'mon man!". And so I didn't.

But now, in retrospect I wish I had. I'm going to think about this for a LONG time until some circumstance in the future allows me to run across an ASAHI AUTOMATIC BEER BARTENDER!! and let me rectify my bad call.

Dude, auto beer filler.

Anyhoo, some more shots of free booze just there for the pouring.

Yeah, yeah...next


And then after a 9 hour flight, I arrived at LAX. Here, the guardians at the gate of the Admiral's Club are just a bit more snooty (as the one in Dallas - very snooty). They had to look at my ticket and since I came in on a business class ticket, I was allowed to park myself in the LAX club for the next 4 hours.

When we were members, we had spent a few times at the LAX club. I knew they had showers (as did the Narita club) and so I had clothes in my backpack ready. Nothing beats a long plane ride more than a refreshing shower "in the morning".


One more wrap post of random thoughts in my head.

Got any questions?