Welcome to the Other Side of the World... (edited- now with pics link)
So, I’ve made it to China.
I’ve been keeping a little notebook to document my thoughts as I travel, and I plan on posting some of those thoughts and observations here on my LJ to keep everyone informed. Notes in :::dots like these::: were added as I wrote in my LJ, they are not in the notebook.
Seattle to Vancouver - about 10AM Tuesday Nov 20th Seattle time
I like planes.
The whole concept of being closed in this riveted metal capsule catapulting through the clouds, a world moving all in its own time - a million lives passing beneath your feet almost always unaware of you above them. I love the scale of reference, the views, the essence of “I am truly GOING somewhere” that flying entails.
Vancouver Airport- International Terminal
So you get off the plane and they don’t really tell you where to go. They just shuffle you around a bit until you are faced with walking…walking…walking… and no one else around to ask how to get to international transfers. And finally, after wandering across boardwalks above (yes, above) all the bustle of airport activity, you find a little counter where they take your customs paperwork and ask where you are going and wave you into the actual airport to wait for the plane to somewhere else.
And there are fish. Live fish, in a big tank surrounded by a fake stream with no water, just rocks, where glass salmon come up out of the floor.
In case you ever happen to be in the Vancouver airport international terminal, be sure to look for the fish.
Tea or Coffee… Random thoughts racing across the Pacific Ocean (sometime after noon Seattle time) I don’t promise complete coherency…The time between these notes and the last time I’d slept was increasing here:
It is kinda cool to hear “…and then we will be entering Russian airspace. And then into Chinese airspace…”
The view of the coast of BC is really gorgeous from the air. Islands like mountains out of the sea.
The Pacific, on the other hand, is a continual blanket of clouds.
::flying, flying, flying:::
Three and a half hours into this flight and I have no idea what time it is right here where I am right now. It must be daytime, because there is sunshine. We are racing faster than the sun.
::flying, flying, flying:::
ICE!
Vast frozen wastelands of ice and snow!
:::I woke from napping to look out the window at an ocean of ice as we traveled over the Arctic (the plane took an arc-shaped path to get to China). I don’t know if it boggled my mind more to see such vast coldness or the fact that I was the only one on my side of the plane with my window open to look at it. I literally gasped when I opened the shade and saw this.:::
::flying, flying, flying:::
This is not “something nice I’d like to do,”
This is not “oh, pretty.”
This is a WORLD - something far bigger than me. It is not that I feel small. Or connected, even.
It is that I feel ALIVE.
ICE!!!
::flying, flying, flying:::
From a frozen ocean, where glaciers crack into the sea and “iceberg” is too small a word to explain an ocean covered in ice where only rivers through the frozen endlessness and holes like lakes reveal that no land lies underneath to the land where drifts of snow pile like hills and white mountains rise up in the distance.
I cannot help but think of Europa and Titan and of worlds yet unnamed around distant stars.
::flying, flying, flying:::
Are there people who do not love travel?
Perhaps the world is divided so. People who must experience, explore, examine…
And people for whom there is no such drive.
Or is this a learned thing? This wrapping up of the soul in the whole of the world?
::flying, flying, flying:::
This world of ours holds a hell of a lot of frozen spaces.
Seriously.
::flying, flying, flying:::
Beijing, China. (afternoon on Nov 21, Beijing time. 1AM-ish Seattle time)
Traffic lights and signs are truly mere suggestions here.
A man riding a bike carrying a large piece of furniture on the back almost ran into the cab on the way from the airport.
The streets are teeming with humanity.
More later... now that I can successfuly thwart the censors! Go me!
B
I’ve been keeping a little notebook to document my thoughts as I travel, and I plan on posting some of those thoughts and observations here on my LJ to keep everyone informed. Notes in :::dots like these::: were added as I wrote in my LJ, they are not in the notebook.
Seattle to Vancouver - about 10AM Tuesday Nov 20th Seattle time
I like planes.
The whole concept of being closed in this riveted metal capsule catapulting through the clouds, a world moving all in its own time - a million lives passing beneath your feet almost always unaware of you above them. I love the scale of reference, the views, the essence of “I am truly GOING somewhere” that flying entails.
Vancouver Airport- International Terminal
So you get off the plane and they don’t really tell you where to go. They just shuffle you around a bit until you are faced with walking…walking…walking… and no one else around to ask how to get to international transfers. And finally, after wandering across boardwalks above (yes, above) all the bustle of airport activity, you find a little counter where they take your customs paperwork and ask where you are going and wave you into the actual airport to wait for the plane to somewhere else.
And there are fish. Live fish, in a big tank surrounded by a fake stream with no water, just rocks, where glass salmon come up out of the floor.
In case you ever happen to be in the Vancouver airport international terminal, be sure to look for the fish.
Tea or Coffee… Random thoughts racing across the Pacific Ocean (sometime after noon Seattle time) I don’t promise complete coherency…The time between these notes and the last time I’d slept was increasing here:
It is kinda cool to hear “…and then we will be entering Russian airspace. And then into Chinese airspace…”
The view of the coast of BC is really gorgeous from the air. Islands like mountains out of the sea.
The Pacific, on the other hand, is a continual blanket of clouds.
::flying, flying, flying:::
Three and a half hours into this flight and I have no idea what time it is right here where I am right now. It must be daytime, because there is sunshine. We are racing faster than the sun.
::flying, flying, flying:::
ICE!
Vast frozen wastelands of ice and snow!
:::I woke from napping to look out the window at an ocean of ice as we traveled over the Arctic (the plane took an arc-shaped path to get to China). I don’t know if it boggled my mind more to see such vast coldness or the fact that I was the only one on my side of the plane with my window open to look at it. I literally gasped when I opened the shade and saw this.:::
::flying, flying, flying:::
This is not “something nice I’d like to do,”
This is not “oh, pretty.”
This is a WORLD - something far bigger than me. It is not that I feel small. Or connected, even.
It is that I feel ALIVE.
ICE!!!
::flying, flying, flying:::
From a frozen ocean, where glaciers crack into the sea and “iceberg” is too small a word to explain an ocean covered in ice where only rivers through the frozen endlessness and holes like lakes reveal that no land lies underneath to the land where drifts of snow pile like hills and white mountains rise up in the distance.
I cannot help but think of Europa and Titan and of worlds yet unnamed around distant stars.
::flying, flying, flying:::
Are there people who do not love travel?
Perhaps the world is divided so. People who must experience, explore, examine…
And people for whom there is no such drive.
Or is this a learned thing? This wrapping up of the soul in the whole of the world?
::flying, flying, flying:::
This world of ours holds a hell of a lot of frozen spaces.
Seriously.
::flying, flying, flying:::
Beijing, China. (afternoon on Nov 21, Beijing time. 1AM-ish Seattle time)
Traffic lights and signs are truly mere suggestions here.
A man riding a bike carrying a large piece of furniture on the back almost ran into the cab on the way from the airport.
The streets are teeming with humanity.
More later... now that I can successfuly thwart the censors! Go me!
B