I am back to the question of which cities are most likely to be the UNKNOWN one between Vilnius and Osaka. I have thought deeply about this and I believe that geography was decisive in the choice that Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri made on the AR12 race route. Vilnius is above the 54th parellel and Osaka is on the 35th parellel. I think they would have chosen cities that do not go much below the 35th parellel for minimum flight times in a short, quick race. That means that all of the southern cities on my list shown above would not have made the cut. In fact, the only cities that would make the cut are:
Moscow(56th parellel)
Beijing(40th parellel)
Shanghai(31st parellel)
Ulan Bator (48th parellel, but I really doubt that they went back there so quickly)
In mid-summer, all of these are nice places to visit. I personally feel that Shanghai has an edge over the other two. From a flights perspective all have good flight connections from Vilnius, although Moscow has the best by far. All have good connections to Osaka, although Beijing and Shanghai are much better than Moscow(no surprise if you look at the distance).