Index
Day 1: San Francisco
Day 2: Flying
Day 3: Layover
Day 4: Brunei
Day 5: Christmas
Day 6: Return
Brunei
One last day of Christmas gluttony: breakfast at the JW Marriott Executive Lounge, which was filled with the usual tasty morsels as befits a higher-end hotel in Asia. Haw gow not particularly memorable but not bad either, the rest was very much on-point. Then lucked out with a cab right outside the hotel, and was back at Changi Airport in plenty of time to scope out the Christmas stuff there, including a Pompompurin (Sanrio?) Christmas display inside Terminal 2.
Time at the airport went by quickly, picking up local snacks as gifts before flying home, then had a solid flight home. No Christmas wreaths onboard, but the crew did distribute Christmas trivia cards to everyone, and it was clear everyone was in a festive mood. The beef shortrib was served with some white-colored root vegetable I couldn't identify, and that was much like the quality of the rest of the meal-- not bad but not distinguished or particularly identifiable. Mid-flight tapas a few hours later were much better, although I would skip the empanada (curry puff?) and the cold soba; the laska-style noodles and the Hainan-style chicken are the way to go. Ended up with the omelet for breakfast by accident; it was filling but not inspired (aka stick with the congee!).
UA 2 today had a slightly quicker than average flight time of 14:05, although we took a bit of an unusual route west of Japan for a bit, before crossing over central Japan and continuing east.
Arrival at SFO was also a bit unusual, ended up at International Terminal A instead of United's usual International Terminal G. Had a very long taxi as a result, then an even longer walk to Terminal 2's Concourse D for the final flight back to LAX. United was using a gate previously shared with Southwest, which marked a final bit of interesting airport/airline trivia for the day.