Mongolia
While the rest of the group did a day tour of Ulaanbaatar and the surrounding region, last-minute schedule changes meant it was time for me to head home. Mongolia is surprisingly green in the middle of summer, with picturesque cloud-speckled skies over their new and modern Chinggis Khaan International Airport. MIAT Mongolian Airlines operates new Boeing 737 MAX 8's on the UBN-NRT route, complete with gasper valves (aka individual air vents), which are oddly rare on Asian airlines. There's only overhead IFE, which showed old Hollywood action movies before switching to childen's cartoons, and leg room in economy wasn't too bad.
Going from Narita Airport Terminal 2 to Terminal 1 via the airside bus is great fun for airplane spotting, including a beautiful paint job on a China Airlines A350, then I had just-ample time to indulge at Sushi Kyotatsu1. They have caved to the "omakase" trend of renaming their deluxe sushi dinner, but it was still pretty damned good, especially for airport sushi. Somehow I forgot to photograph the sashimi dish, so might have to go back?
United flight 33, NRT-LAX, was done with customary efficiency. They had another copy of the 2MM certificate and thank you note waiting for me at the gate, along with the final item most million milers get-- the United Airlines million miler pen (woohoo!). The crew was excellent and clearly had a lot of fun working together, the Japanese meal (sea bass) continues to improve, and decided to go for one more ice cream sundae on this trip as it was National Ice Cream Day. With my upgrade clearing, it was a quick flight, and less than 10 hours later, UA 33 arrived at LAX, and with that, the end to a memorable trip.