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10 Things Travelers Hate About Asia

uop1497

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What would you like to know? I just did that 10 days ago.

Great, I would like to know how you feel about United's economy seat. Is it comfortable for long hour flight compared with other Asia airlines like ANA or Singapore , how the food and service during the flight . What do you like and not like during your flight with United for this segment ect.

I read online that people said service and food is bad compared with Asian airline . I am more concerned about the seat cushion for long flight. I have flew with Singapore Air, ANA and Japan Airline , but never with United.
 

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I think in the developed part of Asia, most Americans could not afford to travel here. We are in Taipei and all the stores are designer brands: Versace, Tiffany, Gucci, Zara, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, St Laurent, and many high end brands I have never heard of. They are pegging us as the poor Americans because Asians are now richer than us!
I used to have Asia Pacific responsibilities for work and travelled extensively to many countries. Several years ago, one of my ex-colleagues from South Korea came to California to enroll her much accomplished artistically (pianist) talented 12 year-old daughter to be schooled here through a scholarship program. She expressed to me that US was so backwards. Amongst her many complaints, was one where she could not get her ATM and credit card within the same day at the bank. Whenever I travelled to Singapore, I would be like a kid in a candy store, taking pictures of all the high tech implementations that I came across, from traffic lights to train stations, and sending them back to my family.
 
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LisaH

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Great, I would like to know how you feel about United's economy seat. Is it comfortable for long hour flight compared with other Asia airlines like ANA or Singapore , how the food and service during the flight . What do you like and not like during your flight with United for this segment ect.

I read online that people said service and food is bad compared with Asian airline . I am more concerned about the seat cushion for long flight. I have flew with Singapore Air, ANA and Japan Airline , but never with United.
It’s a typical United Trans-Pacific flight, and I don’t think it’s any worse or better than ANA as we flew ANA to Tokyo then to Bangkok, and United from HKG back to SFO. Seats are comfortable in E+, and neither transpacific flight was full so there was a lot of room to spread. In fact, DH had the entire 3 seat row to himself on United and he had the best sleep on a plane in recent years. Food is so so but wine/alchohol is plentiful. I usually bring a bento/meal box or a sandwich on such long flights in case food is not to my liking. We also had lounge access so taking a banana onto the flight also helps.
 

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This article is so wrong and propagates bias and ignorance.
Along with several of the earlier posted replies, unfortunately. :(

We lived in Singapore for 4 months several years ago and absolutely loved it! If I could, I would live there in a heartbeat. Such a nice city/state, and the melting pot of cultures there is amazing. I have also traveled to Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. This article just lumps all of these very diverse cultures into a single "Asian" category, and as seen by some of the more ignorant early replies in this thread, there are obviously many people who do see it as a single culture. That's like saying all of America is a single culture -- Canada, US, Mexico, Brazil, etc. Just crazy!

Kurt
 

artringwald

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Where and when did you go? My DH travels to Japan (Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto) regularly now for business and he says hole in the ground toilets are still around in older parts of Japan but generally they are next to a regular toilet. He stays at Grand Hyatt, Park Hyatt, Ritz Carlton and St Regus so they have regular toilets. I do not think Japan would be a vacation spot for me either but it sounds interesting.
The trips were between 1994 and 2006 to Tokyo, Yamagata, Matsumoto, and Kyoto. The only place where I didn't have a choice except to use the hole in the ground toilet was at a manufacturing plant in Yamagata. The hotels where we stayed were all nice except the room in Kyoto was small, hot, and humid so I was getting rather claustrophobic. Because of power shortages, Japanese businesses rarely set the temperature lower than 78. Before my first trip, a friend recommended a book by by Don Maloney, Japan: It's Not All Raw Fish. It's a funny and very informative book about an American who moved his family to Japan and had to adjust to the many cultural differences.
 

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Great, I would like to know how you feel about United's economy seat. Is it comfortable for long hour flight compared with other Asia airlines like ANA or Singapore , how the food and service during the flight . What do you like and not like during your flight with United for this segment ect.

I read online that people said service and food is bad compared with Asian airline . I am more concerned about the seat cushion for long flight. I have flew with Singapore Air, ANA and Japan Airline , but never with United.

We just flew Economy Plus on United from SFO to Taipei - 13 hours one way. We got upgraded from Economy. Economy Plus was fairly comfortable for a long distance flight. I can’t say what regular Economy is like right now. We are flying back Polaris class but by looking at the seats, it sounds like United gave a fancy name to Business/First Class but it seems smaller than before. I do look forward to having a “bed” on the way home since I will be working the day we return. Overall, if you are using points or if you got a good cash deal, I would not worry so much about flying economy. We have flown many long distance non stop flights on a variety of airlines. Sometimes we get business class, sometime economy. The reward, assuming this is a trip for leisure, it arriving at your destination. I just focus on that and assume I will be uncomfortable on the flight (unless we get business class) and I will be jet lagged, no matter what class we get.
 

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The trips were between 1994 and 2006 to Tokyo, Yamagata, Matsumoto, and Kyoto. The only place where I didn't have a choice except to use the hole in the ground toilet was at a manufacturing plant in Yamagata. The hotels where we stayed were all nice except the room in Kyoto was small, hot, and humid so I was getting rather claustrophobic. Because of power shortages, Japanese businesses rarely set the temperature lower than 78. Before my first trip, a friend recommended a book by by Don Maloney, Japan: It's Not All Raw Fish. It's a funny and very informative book about an American who moved his family to Japan and had to adjust to the many cultural differences.

I wonder if a lot has changed in Japan since 2006. My husband has great business trips to Japan - never needs to squat over holes. He stays in great modern westernized hotels. He goes out to eat at wonderful restaurants with his boss, colleagues and business partners - and they find great wine since his boss is a wine aficienado. I keep joking that his company probably invited geishas since he seems so eager to go on these trips. LOL I hope to join him on his next trip so I can experience Japan, at least once. A client of mine went to Japan recently and then visited one of their tropical islands and the photos she showed me looked like Bali or Hawaii. I don’t recall the name of the islands but I would love to visit them as a side trip when I go to Japan. So far, no squatting in Taiwan.
 

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View of Taipei 101 from our room at the W - It held the record as the tallest building in the world for quite a while. It is an engineering achievement. Has the fast elevator in the world.
 
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TravelTime

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The Gardens in front of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. I am surprised by how much landscaping and open space there is all over Taipei. Every street is lined with trees.
 
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uop1497

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We just flew Economy Plus on United from SFO to Taipei - 13 hours one way. We got upgraded from Economy. Economy Plus was fairly comfortable for a long distance flight. I can’t say what regular Economy is like right now. We are flying back Polaris class but by looking at the seats, it sounds like United gave a fancy name to Business/First Class but it seems smaller than before. I do look forward to having a “bed” on the way home since I will be working the day we return. Overall, if you are using points or if you got a good cash deal, I would not worry so much about flying economy. We have flown many long distance non stop flights on a variety of airlines. Sometimes we get business class, sometime economy. The reward, assuming this is a trip for leisure, it arriving at your destination. I just focus on that and assume I will be uncomfortable on the flight (unless we get business class) and I will be jet lagged, no matter what class we get.

Thanks for additional information. I hope that economy seat is not as small like the one in Japan airline. I hate jet lag too. No matter what I do after the trip, I stuck with jet lag for around 2 weeks long. If possible, please share your Taiwan trip more.
 

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Racist...really? I don't know how you jump to that conclusion from anything posted by anyone in this thread. I guess it just makes you feel bigger and like a better human being to belittle and label others. I wonder what that makes you?:ponder:
 

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The article was accurate. Experienced all 10 on our honeymoon to Thailand. Now does that mean people won't enjoy going? I think that's up to each persons tolerance.

We had a good time, but it's 24 hours travel time away. Have no plans to go back.....lots left to see in other areas of the world.
From your one experience in Thailand, the article was accurate? Asia does not equal Thailand.
 

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Racist...really? I don't know how you jump to that conclusion from anything posted by anyone in this thread. I guess it just makes you feel bigger and like a better human being to belittle and label others. I wonder what that makes you?:ponder:

I was just going to post the same. I don't think it is very nice to call people racist or ignorant just because they don't like the idea of visiting certain countries. To each his own.
 

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I only mentioned a single trip to Thailand and that the 10 things in the article were accurate based on that trip. Now I am a racist?

I didn't write the article or post it. Surely I shouldn't have commented on it either.

And we wonder why children are bullied on the internet, clearly the bullies learn it somewhere.

TUG is not the place for such nonsense and name calling.
 

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I did not call anyone racist, including the author, but the author was biased and ignorant. Many posts here do feed the bias and ignorance.

For those of you who reacted and thought someone called you racist may want to re-examine why you felt you needed to be defensive.
 
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DavidnRobin

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The smoking (and cig butts all over) in many Asian countries prevents us from traveling there. Japan and Singapore not as bad - but other places... the amount of smoking and associated cig butt litter is disgusting. This goes for everywhere where smoking is pervasive - not just Asia - but certainly bad there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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I did not call anyone racist, including the author, but the author was biased and ignorant. Many posts here do feed the bias and ignorance.

For those of you who reacted and thought someone called you racist may want to re-examine why you felt you needed to be defensive.

I don't know who specifically it was directed at but it certainly wasn't directed at people who LIKE to travel to Asia.That doesn't leave many other possibilities. No matter whom it was directed at, it was uncalled for.
 

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My brother is a world traveler due to his job and he has always told me how bad the smoking is overseas in general.
 

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I don't know who specifically it was directed at but it certainly wasn't directed at people who LIKE to travel to Asia.That doesn't leave many other possibilities. No matter whom it was directed at, it was uncalled for.
I did not use the word racist at all and my last post was in response to turkel because all of a sudden she said she was being called racist. Please re-read the thread. I don't even know if anyone in this thread actually did. Bias does not equate to being racist. I do not like NY city because from my 3 trips there, it was filthy. My bias is that I treat all NY city as being undesirable but it does not make me a racist.
 

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I did not use the word racist at all and my last post was in response to turkel because all of a sudden she said she was being called racist. Please re-read the thread. I don't even know if anyone in this thread actually did. Bias does not equate to being racist. I do not like NY city because from my 3 trips there, it was filthy. My bias is that I treat all NY city as being undesirable but it does not make me a racist.


Yes I know. It was some one else who posted that - the racist and ignorant remark.
 

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It’s Monday morning in the business district of Taipei. I wanted to share a photo of the “heavy” traffic.
 
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I only mentioned a single trip to Thailand and that the 10 things in the article were accurate based on that trip. Now I am a racist?

The first person to mention the word "racist" on this thread is you in post #36 (do a search to verify). Not sure how you jumped to the conclusion that someone called you a racist; no one did. You might want to carefully read what was said before calling others "bullies".

Just for clarification:
biased ≠ racist
ignorant ≠ racist

Kurt
 

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China increasingly challenges American dominance of science

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...90efaf1f1ee_story.html?utm_term=.c9880a44e95e

Below is an excerpt from the Washington Post article. If you are interested, click on the link to read the entire article.

After decades of American dominance, Chinese science is ascendant, and it is luring scientists like Pastor-Pareja away from the United States. Even more China-born scientists are returning from abroad to a land of new scientific opportunity.

The United States spends half a trillion dollars a year on scientific research — more than any other nation on Earth — but China has pulled into second place, with the European Union third and Japan a distant fourth.

China is on track to surpass the United States by the end of this year, according to the National Science Board. In 2016, annual scientific publications from China outnumbered those from the United States for the first time.

“There seems to be a sea change in how people are talking about Chinese science,” said Alanna Krolikowski, a Chinese science expert at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Foreign observers, many of whom were once condescending, now “are rather in awe at what the Chinese policies have accomplished.”

The scientific advances are a small piece of China’s larger ambitions. President Xi Jinping aims to supplant the United States as the world’s economic superpower within three decades. In October, Xi vowed to produce “a world-class army by 2050.”

Meanwhile, China is spending more on infrastructure than the United States or Europe, and the middle class has ballooned — making relocation more attractive.

“More and more people keep coming, that’s for sure,” Pastor-Pareja said. “Right now, China is the best place in the world to start your own laboratory.”
 

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We saw TONS of women smoking in France.
 
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