Trip Preview: A Brief Aviation-Themed Weekend Visit to Nagoya

With the series of reports about a trip to Phuket I did in March being done, it’s time to tackle another trip in the backlog – a quick one-night visit to Nagoya.

While the main “reason” of going on the trip was the fact that my girlfriend had to go to Nagoya to attend her friend’s wedding and I had nothing to do so I decided to tag along and figure out what to do in the city later, it turned out to be a fairly productive trip aviation-wise.

Trip Preview: A Brief Aviation-Themed Weekend Visit to Nagoya

The Flights and Accommodation

To get to and from Nagoya, we took JAL’s flights in and out of Tokyo Haneda both of which were operated by 737-800. Given that the flights were both less than an hour long, and the fact that I reviewed a flight on this short domestic hop both onboard ANA and JAL before, I won’t be writing about the flights this time.

Similarly, I won’t be writing about Tokyo Haneda’s domestic JAL Sakura Lounge which I wrote about not long ago. I will be reviewing Centrair Airline Lounge, though, which is accessible to Japanese premium credit card holders, as well as ANA and JAL status holders.

Centrair Airline Lounge

As for accommodation, we stayed in Nagoya for one night. To be precise, we stayed at Toyoko Inn “Orange Side” just outside Centrair’s terminal. While I stayed at the airport’s capsule hotel, TUBE Sq, before, this was my first time staying at the Toyoko Inn, and so I will be writing a brief review of the hotel.

Toyoko Inn Centrair

An Aviation Filled Day in Nagoya

After arriving on Friday evening and spending the night at the Toyoko Inn, it was time to “entertain myself” while waiting for my girlfriend to get back to the airport and for our flight back.

First, I went to Centrair where I did some spotting (it was cloudy, but luckily, the sun came out when it was needed the most – when a Kalitta Air Jumbo was departing). I was also lucky to ANA 777’s training flight including an incredible missed approach that would have turned heads even at airshows.

Kalitta Air 747 at Nagoya Centrair

Besides that, I also had a chance to briefly meet my sister as she was in the Nagoya area for work and coincidentally happened to be departing back to Europe from Centrair onboard Finnair that morning.

Having sent my sister off, I hopped on the train to downtown Nagoya from where I caught a bus to Aichi Museum of Flight. While not that large, the museum housed a nice collection of aircraft and was an enjoyable place to visit. More about that in an upcoming review, though.

Aichi Museum of flight

Finally, after spending a couple of hours in the museum, I walked over to Komaki airport’s observation deck to see what it was like, grabbed a bus back to downtown Nagoya, and took a train back to Centrair airport.

There, after failing to get a night shot of a Dubai Air Wing 747 that was visiting due to heavy rain, I went back to the terminal to wait for my girlfriend and catch our flight back.

Stay Tuned!

Overall, even though it was a short trip, it turned out to be well-worth taking. Over the next couple of weeks, I will post the detailed articles about my aviation experiences from that weekend, so stay tuned!

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