I’ve never considered doing a mileage run before… until I noticed that I had a chance at hitting 1K with United… However, I needed one extra trip this year to reach it.

Then, a few weeks ago, I came across a cheap fare (on United) to Singapore. I poked around with the dates, and noticed it was available the weekend of the Singapore Grand Prix, which I attended 5-years ago. The Singapore GP also marked the starting point of this blog.

At this point, I’m thinking, “hm! this could work!”

Next, I looked to see if race tickets were still available, and they were… and my thoughts went from “hm!” to “shewwwwwwt…”

I ran the silly idea by my lead at work, who was like “why not? just do it!”

Thus, I BOUGHT ALL THE TICKETS!!! For maximum mileage accrual (21,003 PQM), I booked a roundabout routing of:
SEA-IAH-NRT-[6 hour layover]-SIN-HKG-SFO-SEA

…and those were the only things purchased. Hotels wouldn’t be utilized on this trip.

First up? Narita! With the long layover, I left the airport and wandered around the town of Narita. One can take the Keisei line from the airport to the city, and ditch their bags in a luggage locker.

It took me a few tries to figure out where I was… If you go, take a right when leaving the station and that will take you to Omote-sandō, a giant shopping arcade filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. This is also the path to Narita-san Shinshō-ji (aka, where I wanted to go).

The street is filled with shops that make an assortment of rice crackers, and also restaurants that serve up fresh unagi!

After a short walk, you’ll be at the temple. Here’s the main hall of this Shingon Buddhist temple.

Looking up at the three storied Tō

Prince Shōtoku Hall

Shaka-dō

Daitō

Tsukubai

Kūkai

Niomon Gate

After a few hours, I returned to the airport for my flight to Singapore, only to find that United had cancelled it… The agent offered to book me on a JAL flight, but that would mean less UA miles. I pushed back with my best Japanese “ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?” and asked if I could get a hotel for the night and then fly out the following morning, in order to keep with a United/Star Alliance routing.

Pro Tip: If you’re ever in Japan, definitely utilize the power of the, “ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?”

The longer you “ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?” the more they know you care about something. Or something like that.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuVmVafAxOw]
^caution: ehhhhh? at your own risk.

As a compromise, they re-booked me on a Singapore Airlines red eye flight from Haneda Aiport.

The really big positive out of this was that I’d arrive in Singapore at 5am, instead of midnight. Meaning, I could sleep on the plane; instead of my original plan to sleep at the airport. They also gave me a bus voucher to transfer from Narita to Haneda.

The even bigger positive was that I now had time to head to Tokyo. So, I exchanged my bus voucher to Haneda Airport for a ticket to Shinjuku Station and met up with Aaron for Mexican food. Cuz you know… no trip to Tokyo is complete without getting taco rice and drinks w/ Aaron!

After dinner, I made my way to Haneda, got on the flight, snuggled up against some random Japanese couple in my row, passed out, and woke up in Singapore!