Air Travel Demand in Asia Pacific Expected to Soften Review

Air travel demand in Asia Pacific is expected to soften in the months ahead.

Analysts expect a drop of between 1 and 2 per cent on-month for May, due to Japan which is still reeling from its recent disaster.

This came after industry body International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported a drop of 2 per cent in March.

Japan’s travel industry is worth US$65 billion with 94 million travellers, and accounts for 10 per cent of the global travel market.

Analysts said Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia are expected to pick up the slack in travel demand, going forward.

This is due to their large populations and strong economies, which have been driving up both leisure and business travel.

There’s yet another upside in South Korea.

“There is strong business sentiment in Korea, especially, because they want to attract more foreign MNCs away from Japan, which is a very strong business case. Korea might be coming up so maybe we’ll see passengers picking up as a result. Culture-wise, they are very similar and Korea is a very strong export-driven economy,” said Julius Yeo, lead aerospace management consultant, Frost & Sullivan.

Meanwhile, Japan remains a bearish market as analysts said ground sentiment remains very weak.

In March, Japan’s domestic market fell 22 per cent on-month, and a recovery is not yet in sight.

Shukor Yusof, aviation analyst with Standard & Poor’s said: “If you look at the Golden Week holiday last week, which is traditionally the most important travel activity of the year for Japan, there has been a marked slowdown in outbound Japanese travel.

“We are hearing significant reductions in Japanese travel on Cathay and SIA and many other carriers, and this is typically the time of the year when they travel in droves – millions of them go out within that one week. And we did not see that last week.”

Overall, analysts said Korean, Chinese and north-eastern carriers are most likely to be impacted as they rely more on the Japanese market.

They estimated that for example, Asiana Airlines saw a 25 to 30 per cent decline on-year in passenger traffic after the disaster in Japan.

1815 Polk St
(between Washington St & Jackson St)
San Francisco, CA 94109
Neighborhood: Nob Hill

(415) 931-3130

Seoul Public Transportation Guide: For Bus Lovers Review

When we first arrived in Seoul to teach English it took us a couple of weeks to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the city and the subway. When you spend all your time traveling underground from station to station, it’s hard to get a visual grasp on areas of the city. As for taking the bus, so far we’ve used it to go to Costco, Joongdong (for BBQ purposes), and City Hall. Why haven’t we taken the bus more you ask? Well, for starters all the bus stops are in Korean. My Hangul is mediocre (if you can even call it that) at best so taking a bus will result in us ending up in some far off place.
Taking the subway is interesting at times, but when it’s jam packed it can be uncomfortable. Unless it’s the during the blazing heat in the summer, the air conditioning is not turned on so there is a lack of ventilation. Trust me, it gets extremely hot and stinky when the subway car is packed to the brim and everybody is breathing heavily. That’s normal though and you will have to learn to live with it. I do enjoy the subway as it’s a fast, economical, and efficient means of transportation. Signs are in English and when you encounter a transfer line, just follow the colors on the wall to reach the next line. It’s so easy that even I can do it (and my sense of direction is non-existent)!
Through a friend from work I recently discovered the Seoul Public Transportation Guide (okay, so maybe I’m nine months too late). If you already know about this, that’s great–keep on reading anyway. If you haven’t heard about this, it will make your life a lot easier. This website is the ultimate resource to plan your transportation needs to get anywhere in the city. It’s detailed and extremely easy to use. You click on your “departure point” and your “destination point” and it will give the exact information you need for your trip: travel time, fare, route distance, a view of the route, and even walking distances. It literally helps you get from A to B with the greatest of ease. One thing, is that the website only works with Internet Explorer (like all websites in South Korea). If you are using Firefox, I’d recommend you picking up the IE Tab extension if you haven’t already.

Artspan
934 Brannan St
San Francisco, CA 94103
Neighborhood: SOMA

(415) 861-9838

The Bento Box Review

I have been eagerly anticipating a visit to The Bento Box for some time. It did not disappoint and lived up to all expectations!

Asian fusion food can be hit or miss, long and aimless menus with too many combinations and a dilution of quality. The Bento Box runs around 4 to 5 entrees each night, with the emphasis on quality of choice and not quantity.

My wife and I started with the spicy, tempura battered tuna roll, which was great! My wife is not a keen sushi eater but this dish was an excellent example of the style that she could really enjoy.

For entrees we had the Jidori Chicken and the Singapore Noodles. Both were fantastic, well portioned and utterly satisfying.  The Jidori Chicken came in a bento box, which was the star of the show, The rice, corn, dinner salad and chili jam all complemented the curry well. The curry itself was exceptional, light in lime and cream but big on rich flavor. The noodles too were fantastic, seasoned perfectly, with the BBQ pork and shrimp plentiful.

The dining room is small but we got there in the last hour of service and luckily got a table straight away. If you like Asian food in any form then The Bento Box is a must visit. It is a great BYO and we will be here again soon, possibly even for take out. Service, food and price all could not be beaten.

2246 W Armitage Ave
(between Leavitt St & Oakley Ave)
Chicago, IL 60647
Neighborhood: Bucktown

(773) 278-3932

Anna's Asian Bistro & Sushi Bar Review

One day my pre-Thailand diet will be over and soon I will be able to eat more carbs than I currently intake from fruits and veggies. When that day comes, I'll be sure to come to Anna's and get her Laotian curry noodles! It is made with my favorite noodles in the world: kanom jeen. It's the same noodles I eat with my green curry.

Anyways, the lucky gf took a half day from work and met me for lunch in the city. Usually, I have my salad and other healthy stuff, but today I felt like taking her for Thai food. Funny thing though is we didn't really order much Thai today so I'll be covering Anna's sushi mostly.

Papaya salad: Awesome portions. Anna had this one made spicy and catered to the proper Thai spicy for me which I think is a bit spicier than what most people think is spicy here. . Usually, when it is made at home, I ask for my chili's where it's really, really spicy. When I can eat this with sticky rice again, I'll be sure to ask Anna for this to be extra spicy. This is one of the dishes where you actually specify the flavors when you order from Thailand.

Tom yum: Very good. I wasn't paying attention and ate a chili because again, Anna catered to the spice level I wanted and added fresh chili. Loved the heat especially with the chili I took in without noticing.

House salad with ginger sauce: Part of the lunch special and very good. Hard to find options that we can eat right now that gf and I like to eat. We both got the house salad and liked it a lot. There's nothing special about lettuce. Gf actually doesn't like salad and I would rather have other appetizers, but we liked the ginger dressing a lot. Usually, the ginger dressing is a bit watery which isn't so desirable, but this dressing was perfect.

Sashimi: Wow. When it came out, I said suay jong leay (hard to really make Thai into English words) which basically is like OMG, pretty. It came out in these plates that looked like a big shell and was presented very nicely. The fish itself was really, really fresh. Not sure what the one (just one) bad review was talking about for their experience, but I can honestly say this was good stuff.

My only negative isn't for Anna's restaurant, but the fact that I still haven't been able to have my beloved noodles yet! I'll be back again, when I rebuild some willpower to only order food I should eat!

813 W Lake St
(between Green St & Halsted St)
Chicago, IL 60607
Neighborhoods: Near West Side, West Loop

(312) 344-1090