Here’s what I wrote on the plane:
Up at 6:30, final packing, quick trip to Sarah’s house. Lots of hugs all around, catch Peanut the cat as he tries to escape, wave goodbye to family standing at the picture window. Rental car fully stuffed with suitcases. Drove down to the cul-de-sac so we could make two passes and let everybody wave out of both sides of the car. Short trip south to the airport. Very easy trip through security. Breakfast. Omelet came accompanied with beans. Chose to disregard the beans for the comfort of all.
Lots of low-lying fog, but things became partially clear by the time we got to the Rockies. Wonderful views of rugged, snowcapped peaks and glaciers. Not much civilization, but signs of what we believed to be mountain goat trails at the high altitudes. Lower hills and water as we approached Vancouver. Many isolated lakes and inlets.
Not too long a walk to the international terminal. Snack, final shop. Walked beyond our gate and discovered a massive shopping mall, all within the secure international area.
Big plane, Boeing 767-300 with 2-4-2 seating. We’ve got seats directly behind Sarah and Dan for the whole trip. Passengers about a 75:25 mix of Asians and Caucasians. Cabin staff almost totally of Asian appearance, though all could easily be natural born Canadian. Vancouver has a very large Asian population. Lots of unfamiliar language in the background. A good transition for us.
Beautiful scenery as we head northwest from Vancouver. Great circle route! We stayed along the coast well up into Alaska. Wonderful views of snowcapped peaks in the background, some with lakes at the summit in what appeared to be volcanic craters. Land became green toward the coast. Some coastal areas quite rugged and others absolutely flat. Clouds filled many of the valleys. When we were flying over clouds and positioned right with respect to the sun we would see a fully circular double rainbow with the shadow of the plane in the middle. Sometimes there was even a hint of a third rainbow.
Our view of land lasted for at least a half hour or more. We hadn’t expected this.
We’re now about two hours into the flight. We filled out three Chinese forms: immigration, customs, and health. We certified that none of us was afflicted with the snivels, nor were we carrying communications security equipment, or any media “detrimental to the political, economic, cultural and moral interests of China,” or any deadly poisons. We’ve had the wine and munchie course, washed our hands with moist towels, and can smell the aroma of food in the background. It has a Western smell to it.
Later. Battery getting low. Have spares but I think I packed them. Meal was also transitional. Smoked salmon with the salad, in homage to the Pacific Northwest culture. Main course of beef, mushrooms, rice, and a kale-like vegetable could go either way, through the sauce was probably closer to gravy than something Asian. Chopsticks and plastic knife/fork/spoon.
As I blog this, Sue is working on her low tech blog, with pencil. Karin gave her a nice bound sketchbook, so her blog will of course be richly illustrated with original artwork. Maybe I can make some scans after we get back home.
I’ve reset the timestamps here on the blog so that they will show local Chinese time, though I see that this turned all the previous timestamps into Chinese time too. Oh well.
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