Flying through beauty

As of my last update, I left you while I was flying over the Bering Strait. Things took a turn for the worse before getting better. Our flight got delayed while we were in the air. A huge thunderstorm hit Narita and caused us to fly in circles over the ocean for an hour.  It was a rough go for most the people around me on the flight. At least 8 people in my vicinity tossed their lunches. They conveniently fed us an hour before all this turbulence.

It’s been a few months since we saw Dr. Andrew Weil for this Body of Knowledge lectures but he taught us a breathing technique that I surely put into practice. 4-7-8 breathing helped me a ton from not losing my composure myself.

Upon our hour and a half late arrival into Tokyo, there was a sign with my name on it.

Hold up this is where everything gets good. My entire experience in Japan was awesome. And this flight so far, mind blowing. After departing my Air Canada plane, there was a well-dressed man to give me all the details and directions for my next flight, but on Singapore Airlines. 

Back to the airport first though. I had to take a pee incredibly bad when walking through the airport en route to my gate. And boy am I glad I didn’t have to take a #2. They have these weird toilet stalls on the ground; you must have to squat or something. I have no idea how one would go about using those. Other interesting things were crazy vending machines and goofy little treats at the duty free.

Total cerebral explosion has been going on for about 3 hours so far and I have 4 hours left on the flight. Singapore Airlines is incredible. Upon seating there was a big pillow and comfy blanket, not that shit Air Canada gives. All the stewards (both men and women) are gorgeous and ear-to-ear smiles. This makes one hell of a difference.  I received a Givenchy bag with socks and a toothbrush (more free ones in the bathroom too and a comb).  The on board snacks were peanuts and wine. The onboard meal was poached salmon with sea vegetables as the main, some sort of tofu/ edamame appetizer. And get this without even asking they served buckwheat noodles. I couldn’t eat the dessert on account of the gluten, but it looked great nonetheless. I feel like a celebrity already and that’s sitting in economy. The staff has been friendly to chat with as well. 

I am going to try and get them to snap a picture for me. In the meantime however, my ass has been up for over 24 hours and I really need to catch some z’s we arrive in Singapore at 4 am :S

The first time I have been an immigrant. Haha. 

Carving a Magnificent Landscape

I have been on the plane for about 3 hours now. It’s rather interesting to see how everyone just mellows out on the plane when they know they are in for the long haul. Its about 5:30 pm Vancouver time and the first baby has started crying. Everyone else is absorbed in crosswords or the humour of bad teacher on their seatback TV’s. It doesn’t appear that anyone is sleeping although I am sure some are.

Efforts to establish an easier transition to time change has fallen off my radar. I am basically in the state of do whatever keeps the mind going. Its 10 am in Singapore at the moment and I should technically be starting my day. But with 1492 miles down and 3282 miles to go, I have got plenty of time to nap.

After finishing my first movie of the ride and dining on some rather unattractive Dijon chicken, I peeped out the window and saw what I least expected. Mountains! Covered in elegant layers of snow, these beautiful works of rock sliced waves across the landscape. I was in awe. What I didn’t expect that en route to Tokyo that we would not head directly across the ocean but take the route north following the coast from Vancouver up to Anchorage. Which a few moments ago I spotted a city below, which I can only assume, was Anchorage.

Back to these mountains. I spent easily half an hour admiring their beauty. All summer and all winter for that fact I try my best to bask in their glory. This view is completely different from anything I have seen before. With their permafrost conditions, the snow sparkled even from 34000 feet. When off in the distance something began to catch my eye. My forehead pressed again the windowsill I saw her in all her beauty. For the first time with my own eyes I could see one of my goals. Denali, it's the pinnacle or North American. Flying past Mount McKinley I thought back about how high she really is. Standing somewhere just over 21000 feet McKinley is the highest point in North America.

Flabbergasted I reached into my bag and whipped out my phone. I say phone because that will be my camera during these adventures. In what seemed to be an eternity it booted up. The sides of my lips hit my ears I was so excited to see this mountain. And snap! Here it is way off in the distance. I am not exactly sure how far McKinley was at this point, but that matters little, it was there. Bouncing back and forth between window and screen of our location I was begging that we would get closer. And we did, but only to be hidden by the unfortunate closing in of clouds and a ding followed by the message “ The pilot has activated the fasten seat belt sign, please return to your seats and ensure your seatbelts are securely fastened.

Whenever I hear this message, whenever that preflight safety speech is being preformed, I think of one of my favourite movies. You got it Fight Club. I can’t help but laugh at the images of smiling people as they put on their oxygen masks or that the much a seatbelt would really save you from a 500 mph impact. Considering hitting a wall at 100 mph is enough to rattle all your nuts loose. This is all meant in a rather amusing tone however. I like to think positive and that kind of stuff will not happen.

After that quick post out of Vancouver, you know that my delay in Calgary made me miss my flight to Hong Kong. So the reroute has sent me to Japan. I am excited, although I won’t be able to set foot on their turf, it is something awesome to experience.

I think in the Vancouver post I wrote about the wrong song. I think I will edit that. As I write this post I am powering through one of my favourite playlists closing my eyes periodically to grab rest and imagine pulling sick lines of some of those mountains. Aha got it. You never know by Heiroglyphics. One of the lyrics is “maneuvering through Vancouver and onto Japan where they put majors grands in my hand” about 3 minutes in.

The post ends with our plane sailing over the Bering strait we are now 1765 miles into our trip. I can’t believe I wrote for 250 miles. According to our little map thing, we have also climbed to 540mph and it’s a frigid -70.6 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Delayed Gratification

A fortunate few I had time to contact will know that my flight was delayed leaving Calgary. This means I have been stuck in Vancouver for about an hour so far. The good news of course. My reroute takes me through Japan. Immediately an old hieroglyphics song I rock every time i go boarding.

Shit gotta run. Unfortuantely I won't get into Singapore until almost 4 am Monday.  Good news is that its only 8pm Sunday night cowtown time.

Will try and post an update from Tokyo. Hopefully with a picture of their airport!