JFK to YVR Cathay Pacific F Class

There was a significant birthday leading to a significant trip so, since it all has to come to an end sometime, I thought we’d end it with something significant: The first time either of us has ever flown first class.  Maybe the last time?

As with Santiago, there was a separate area for business and First Class, with a separate counter for F class, although we were at JFK so early there was no line-up anyway.  Regardless of the class, though, US air security is a complete undress.  No wonder the rich all have shares in private jets.

British Airways Business class lounge, JFK

The swishy bar in the first class lounge

Biz class was very spacious

In the "elite" dine before you fly, a hot and cold buffet.  Some tasty tidbits, but it was also a little hit and miss.

BA First Class Lounge; quiet, but nothing to write home about

At JFK the lounge access for Cathay Pacific is through British.  There is a general “Concorde” lounge, then a business lounge as well as a first lounge, for F class passengers.  About the only good thing I can say about the F class lounge is that it was quieter than the biz lounge.  Oh, and there was a lot of premium booze, like Woodford Reserve and Martell and Veuve Clicquot.  But who drinks before flying?  A big plus is that as F class you can access a special pre-flight dining room (through the biz class area).  There is a “chef” who creates an assortment of dishes.  We are, essentially, talking buffet.  But it was a nice touch, and since we had arrived at the airport so early, it was great to have some hot food.  Dinner on the plane would probably be after 11 (scheduled departure is 10).

We boarded without too much hassle just before 10.  There were six F class berths; 2/2/2.  Each very private.  Each spacious.  If my Google stats are correct, the 36 inch width on Cathay is the widest in the industry.  A 17 inch screen can be unhinged from the console and pivoted in front of you and as close as you like.  No overhead bin; instead, a closet for your on board items, shoes, etc.  They provide you with pajamas, slippers, and, for men (it was all men in F) a Zegna amenity kit with Acca Kappa sundries.

Wines included Krug Grande Cuvee, a prohibitively good 2008 Girardin Puligny-Montrachet, and an interesting Lynch Bages Pauillac.  Dinner was a selection of "American" food (gravlax or salad or soup, then steak or pasta) or Asian influenced dishes such as conch, vegetarian duck and stir-fried seafood.

They came around with water and Krug and warm almonds straight off.  It was a gorgeous night to leave JFK (or Kennedy, as they now call it), with all the lights of the metropolitan area and Long Island brightening up the shore.  Surprisingly, we left the gate on time and we taxied promptly and there was no waiting on the runway.  That said, it was 10 p.m. and not too many flights were scheduled afterward.  Since the flight goes JFK-YVR-HKG, a lot of the passengers put on their pajamas right away.  SS and I had the intention to try and stay awake as long as possible...
 

Bedding and duvet on the extra seat.  Screen pivots out.  Console is a closet.  Decent privacy blind.

SS settles in.

Nice pair of pajamas and slippers to lounge in

Shortly after takeoff they took our food orders.  SS had the smoked salmon, I had the salad, we both had the steak.  The air hostess says to me "How would you like your steak done?"  Seriously.  That's what she said!  I said medium rare.  What a strange question on a plane?  I had a dog of a steak on Air Canada flying to South America, and SS had a dog of a steak on LAN flying back, so expectations were low.

Giant shrimp Caesar Salad with basket of warm breads.  Below: Steak.  It was, I hate to say, perfect, cut like butter and on a very tasty jus.

Skipped the cheese course, but the raspberry yoghurt cake on raspberry coulis, with a nice pot of chamomile tea, hit the spot.

I watched movies for as long as I could then flattened the seat and dozed off.  The noise reducing head phones were good, although not as good as the real thing (i.e., Bose).  The staff asked a couple of times if they could make my bed up, but I decided to just stretch out without the mattress.  Fully flat, but with just a tiny, perfect pitch up on the head.  Very comfortable even without the bedding.  Woke up around midnight local time as the captain announced the YVR landing.  Bathrooms are "touched up" after every use it seems so even after five hours it was spotless.  Clear night, glittering lights of the Lower Mainland through my three windows (!), soared over the North Shore, turned, landed from the west.  Hassle free.  I would call service extremely efficient and organized but not as warm or friendly as Singapore, Thai or Asiana. 

We landed a little early, they had exit gates open for economy and the front end, our "priority" luggage actually came through first, and quickly, coupled with Nexus through Customs, we were the first in line for a cab, and home by 1:15 AM PDT.  Saturday night in Vancouver didn't bear any resemblance to Buenos Aires!  Good trip. 

Where next?

Broadway Bound

Midtown.  Plus: Close to everything.  Minus: Close to everything.

Think of the Tony.  Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony.... 

Friday night we had tickets to Roundabout’s The Big Knife.  This is an old Clifford Odets play about a Hollywood star coming to grips with commercialism, selling-out, integrity, etc.  Big cast, stunning set, great to see the orchestra packed for a play (as opposed to a musical).

Cannavale with Ireland.  And that's how he treats his wife

For convenience, as well as budget, we took a pre-theatre prix fixe menu at an intimate local restaurant called Silhouette; with tax and tip it turned out to be the most expensive meal of our holiday.  Thank you NYC!  But that’s the thing about staying in midtown: You are trapped with the hordes of tourists also staying in midtown, and since you’re bound up with all these out-of-towners everyone gets dragged into the expense together.  At least downtown you have some choice, variety and less exp options.  At Silhouette the couple next to us were regulars, with a friend in from California.  They had brought their own wine, which they waxed poetic about, talked boisterously about staying at the Ritz Carlton, and for some reason went on and on about how great Cleveland is.  You live in NYC and you long for Cleveland?

Richard Kind.  More impressive in a suit.

Odets play stars Bobby Cannavale, who in turn plays the hearthrob star; I guess he’s best known for Nurse Jackie, Boardwalk Empire, etc., but he’s an accomplished stage actor, had a running gig on Will and Grace and was in a quirky and forgettable indie called the Station Agent.  His wife was played by Marin Ireland, currently known for Homeland.  I guess they were the draw, but the supporting cast were the scene stealers, especially Richard Kind, who dominated the set with amazing precision (he has been around forever and aside from a voice in many Pixar movies was a regular on Spin City and Mad About You).   The star’s agent was also especially good; his career spanned back to, wait for it, Love American Style and even the short-lived Tony Randall sitcom Love, Sidney.   If there is a problem with the play it’s that the language is of a time and place; characters say lines that would be uncommon or implausible today.  They react in a way that is stagey, driven by the script.  Of course the story is quite brilliant and I was totally captivated, but when you compare it with, say, David Mamet at his best, it’s like an old car with a wind up crank versus one with an electric starter.  The set, a Beverly Hills mansion in the 1930s, was breathtaking.  We didn’t stand, but most did.  People stand so much now I’m never sure what a SO-performance is and what isn’t.

From the 1949 version

Saturday morning was sunny and clear.  How beautiful.  But it was also NYC spring: A nippy seven degrees.  We decided to have an actual breakfast out since we were scheduled for a matinee then a cab to the airport for a night flight.  Again, being bound to midtown we went to the (highly recommended and very popular) Norma at Le Parker Meridian.  SS had eggs Florentine.  I had eggs Benedict.  We both had a coffee.  That was it; two dishes, two coffees.  The bill was, wait for it, $74.  And the place was jammed with groups and young people and families, all paying $23 for bacon and eggs and $7 for coffee.  For the whole trip, whenever breakfast wasn’t included at our hotel, our breakfast budget was under $10.  Sticker shock.  Afterwards we walked up to Central Park, then back down Fifth Avenue, then to the hotel to pack and check out.  SS saw Anderson Cooper going into the Harvard Club, down the street from our hotel; our one celebrity sighting.

Scribner's on Fifth.  Once upon a time the best bookstore in the city.  Now a perfume counter.

Lyceum on 45th.  The play's the thing since 1903.

After a late checkout, left our bags at the hotel and walked a few blocks west for the afternoon matinee of The Nance, starring Nathan Lane, probably most famous on Broadway, or in the stage and film versions of The Producers, but always worth catching on Letterman.  A preview, opening next week.  Three months ago I’d tried to get tickets and there was nothing but the second balcony.  Yesterday we went into the Lyceum box office and voila, two tickets in the orchestra.  Ka-ching.

Liza With a Z; at the Lyceum in '72

Mock-up of John Lee Beatty's rotating set

Every seat was taken.  Packed out.  Neither of us had ever been to the Lyceum, the oldest continuously operating theatre in NYC (since 1903).  It’s quite a place; superb acoustics, great sightlines, but it’s also got small common areas and the perpetual issue with not enough facilities and women queuing for the toilet.  Since I wasn’t permitted to shoot photos, I’ve uploaded a few from the Net.

Nathan Lane and Lewis J Stadlen (Jerry in Serpico for those who remember)

The Nance is about the end of burlesque in NYC as LaGuardia, in a re-election gambit as mayor, used his license commisioner Paul Moss (sort of a Ray Cohn / Joe McCarthy similarity), to “clean up” the striptease acts. In real life, the Minsky's, which more or less owned burlesque, were outlawed as indecent. Lane plays a character who does a pansy routine in between the striptease segments.  It was one of those very specific focussed star vehicles that, with Lane in the lead, was funny and moving and engaging in fits and starts, and Lane was pitch perfect, but you couldn’t see it any other way.  Like how Hairspray was hysterical with Harvey Fierstein on stage and then John Travolta was this maudlin lump in the movie.  Again, an exceptional set design, an actual band, great supporting cast. 

Rake on the balcony, not shown, like Valparaiso

Oriiginally

It was cloudier afterward but still pleasant.  Back to the hotel, picked up our bags, and taxied to JFK.  Although such a short visit, it felt much longer.  Hope we’re back before another 15 or more years go by...

A Face in the Crowd

It never feels like NYC until you see the ESB

Gateway to one of the greatest avenues in the world; it's always a bit of a thrill to walk from Washington Sq to Central Park down Fifth

Where you went before Amazon

Getting newer

Despite the fact that we were both hugely fatigued, we had arrived in NYC and as such left our bags and embarked on a trek immediately.  We took the subway downtown, then walked the West Village, Greenwich Village, and took lunch in a nice French bistro.  Afterwards over towards NYU, Washington Square, Union Square, and all the way up Fifth Avenue to midtown.  I think at least a 12 km walk.  I was more than ready for a siesta.

For dinner we took the subway down to the East Village.  I remember the EV in 1981 being a haunted house; it was riddled with graffiti and drug addicts and you never knew what you would encounter around the next corner.  It was actually terrifying on the dimly lit side-streets after dark.  Now it’s rather tame.  We went to Calliope, a place we’d read about in the New Yorker, on East 4^th north of Houston.  We didn’t have a reservation and they were booked but they gave us a place at the bar.  We got there early, around seven (two hours earlier than south American dinner time!) and the place packed out fast.  By eight every table was booked, there were people waiting, and it was two deep at the bar.  Incredible dinner: A lovely salad to start, gorgeous poached halibut in beurre blanc, a spectacular rabbit stuffed with leeks, carrot and wrapped in bacon on a lentil stew, and a rhubarb tart to finish.  Amazing.  I told the chef he should serve the rabbit dish with a straw.

Exquisite: Rabbit stuffed with carrot and leek, wrapped in bacon, on a lentil stew

Halibut poached in beurre blanc

Although we both could have crashed then and there NYC is too exciting to give in, so we took the subway back to midtown then walked in and around Times Square before returning to the hotel.

Lights on Broadway

Up early and out the door Friday and it was, yes, raining.  Not sprinkling, good old fashioned Vancouver pouring rain.  With wind.  Any remnant of my tan peeled off immediately.  We decided given the weather to visit the MOMA; it's been about 20 years since I was there and of course it's had a complete reno.  We arrived to find every tourist in midtown was doing the same.  We lined up, and lined up, and lined up.

Line-up, from halfway down the block in the rain, to buy tickets to get in

Mandatory coat-check line; I put my hotel umbrella in a public box and hoped for the best

Line up for the cafe

Lining up to look at, and take a picture of, Starry Night

Brown Thrasher with its young; photo from 1941

Inspiration to many

Inspiration to many

The Jackson Pollock no one was looking at

Model for a pavillion in Seville

Rem Koolhaas' (author of Delirious New York, the most stolen book at U of T in the 1980s) design for a Dutch house

1937 photo of a Northumbrian miner taking dinner

Dots.  From a distance they made the shape of a face.  Art, as Warhol said, is what you can get away with.

We were just there.

After the museum and lunch we popped into the Bloomingdale's flagship on Lexington and 59th then went downtown to window shop.  The rain had turned to a sprinkle, so all was not lost.

Just what I was looking for

Hard to decipher, but it is a puppy Collie in a pet shop window, asleep on paper shreds.  And you would have bought it on the spot.

Chess shop.

James Bond chess set

I saw it in Buenos Aires: I said buy low, sell high

The C in ABC Carpets: Chickalicious

Laboratory Kitchen (my idea in 1987...)

Un-parallel parking

Purse. Keyboard. Multifunctional.

I kid you not: These were in the men's department at Bloomingdale's.