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Published: July 12th 2008
Mr. Song...
Motion capture from the hilarious Finnair commercial featuring Early Jack...Every time I seek to travel eastwards the net seems to be cast tighter and tighter, the loopholes farther and farther between. Unless you care little for money, you really need to have a good strategy as you make a play for those coveted tickets for the central hubs of Hong Kong and Bangkok. Kay and I decided to meet up in HK on the coming Thai holiday and even though we for once were quite early about it it was still impossible for me to find anything not outrageously expensive. The airlines like to throw in some salt by promoting cheapo tickets at a quarter of the regular price which are conveniently impossible to find and book on their websites. Still, I've worked up a bit of cunning in this area as well, and after a wee bit of searching around I found a ticket via Finnair through Nagoya for less than half the price on offer to Bangkok or Hong Kong. In fact, adding connecting flights for me and Kay still conveniently stayed below the quoted amount for a direct ticket from say Copenhagen to Bangkok. There simply is no 'E' in economy class anymore.
It was not after I had decided for the Nagoya ticket that I realized that
wait a minute..., isn't July the season of Nagoya Basho? A quick visit to
Goo Sumo not only confirmed this, but it would open on the very same week I was flying into Nagoya! Now there's one of those coincidences simply too amazing to be true, and I immediately got in touch with a travel agent to secure tickets for the occasion.
I left my flat on a gloomy and rainy Friday early morning, as three trains carried me to a much sunnier Arlanda Airport outside of our capital, and the weather turned out to be even nicer in Helsinki. If this trend continues it ought to be mighty hot when disembarking in Nagoya. In fact, all the weather reports for the cities I am supposed to visit offered rain, thunderstorms, showers and temperatures in the 25-30ºC degree range.
Setting foot at Helsinki Vantaa airport it is clear that Finnair has moved into higher gear; their sunfeather service for eleven Asian destinations really seems to be taking off. The normally cramped outside-of-Schengen-terminal is now more crowded than ever, and a clichéed melting point of civilizations at that. The terminal is in the process of being extended, and it won't be day to soon, reading up on the departures board there are Finnair flights bound for Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dehli, Guangzhou and Nagoya departing within a few hours all in the same afternoon! The glass facade is now lined with half a dozen or so hooked up Moomin-painted MD11s and A340s greedily swallowing their crowds.
If this fails to impress you, you need to consider the fact that the Finnish capital with its just above half a million inhabitants used to sit on the sidelines of the traditionally western-dominated map of Europe. Now all of a sudden you find yourself listening to gate calls in Mandarin, laughing Indian kids playing in the corridors and watch greyhaired businessmen (
Earlyjacks apparently...) blend with chic Japanese girls with far too big hats and skimpy skirts. In fact the only element missing on this particular afternoon was the representatives of the backpacker community, who no doubt will show up for the nightflight to Bangkok.
Speaking of MD11s and A340s, Finnair have finally started deploying those spanking new A340s meaning the Scandinavian monopoly on long haul personal entertainment is broken and the balance of power shifts back decidedly in Finnair's favour. Still, on this particular flight, even a fairly short one at that I didn't manage to get much sleep at all. The red wine trick didn't work, and the passenger in front of me squeezed her seatback into my lap so I had to bend myself like one of those 1980s Pink Panther rubber toys to try and come up with something comfortable. Epic failure, indeed. Still, this was the only minor setback on a flawless transfer, although I noticed an unusual amount of people doing cheap seat grabs, which pisses me off to no end. You know the drill, passengers don't bother to make seat reservations and then simply plonk down into someone else's seats offering up some lame excuses about wanting to sit together or so. Especially amusing was a mother with a kid who grabbed two seats at the front of the cabin, neither belonging to her seat reservation, getting kicked out by another couple travelling together. Are there no manners anymore?
(Yeah yeah, I know this turned into a plug for Finnair, so sue me, they're still the best airline to operate out of the Nordic countries...)
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A.J
non-member comment
Love that picture! Got tickets for Nagoya as well. After some detective work it seems they got a bit of a chaos there in Helsinki airport as the new terminal will be ready later this year, but hopefully it's smooth sailing for me. Plus seems they are getting new fleet soon too(Finnair that is).