The Flight

It seems that whenever I fly somewhere I like to take a picture of the airplane. Here is the 777 that took me to Japan. Airplanes are a marvel of modern technology. The airplane is a piece of art, and no matter how many times I do it, I love it. Flying for 10 hours only increases my appreciation of the concept. It is astounding that you can get into a tube in Seattle and only 10 hours later emerge from the tube on another continent. We as Americans do a great job of taking this sort of thing from granted. Not only do we want to be sped to our destination at breakneck speed, but we want two meals along the way, not to mention snacks. I must admit, though, the movies made the time go very quickly.
The seat I got was the isle seat on the last row of the left side of the plane. It was perfect. I don't mind sitting in the back. There's nobody looking at me when I stand up. (Speaking of standing up, the guy in front of my stood for at least half the flight.)

One thing about the flight that I wasn't really prepared for was that we were not going to fly at night. We followed the sun as it tried to escape around the horizon. Of course, we didn't fly due west. We actually flew over the Bearing Sea. Not that you could see it, though. At 38,000 feet we were well above the storms and clouds that make Deadliest Catch a hit series. Unfortunately, that means you don't get to see much. This is what it looked like:
Not much to see but some deep blue sky and cloud cover. You can see a little water down towards the bottom of the picture.

Some ice crystals on the window were a friendly reminder of the not so friendly environment outside:
At some points during the flight, the display at my seat indicated that the temperature outside was a withering -70°F.

I'm glad it only takes 10 hours to travel halfway around the world. This is already shaping up to be a great experience.