Goodbye snow, hello equator

Feb. 11, 2014

Since we are now in Malaysia I will download the pictures later.

So then a few pix of our 12" snow storm that came to make sure we didn't miss that experience.  Mazu LOVES the snow with her ebullient reaction, burying her head in it and jumping about.  The last we'll see of it for a while and off to a new sail through the sky.

 

 

 Rocrimmon Land Trust walk Saturday

 Ready to cross country ski during the beginning of the storm.

We are on our way from Boston leaving at 5:30 am Monday to arrive in Singapore then Penang, Malaysia on Wednesday Feb. 12 for my daughter's large wedding celebration to Yeang Ch'ng. 

First leg of the trip Boston to Minneapolis - distance  1,100 miles.

 In the Minneapolis airport sits a harp player in the middle of shops, surrounded by the bustle of people.  There is the unmistakable strum and heavenly sound to relax the crowds, I assume.  She has a little stand of CDs to sell as well.  Rather incongruous.

As we went over Alaska from Minneapolis the pilot pointed out Mount Denali on the north side of the plane among all of the huge white peaks reaching up to our 38,000 feet.  We look at the flight data to find the outside temperature is -61 at this elevation and might be the ground temperature as well with this winter.  We are traveling 550 MPH with a head wind of 34 MPH, the jet stream.  We left Minneapolis at 1 pm and got to Tokyo, Narita Airport, at 4:30 pm but traveled for 13 hours - daylight the whole time. Distance to Tokyo is 5,900 miles.  My picture and experience was the Japanese public bathroom where there is a bidet for every heated seat toilet, and I used it, probably the second time in my life. Why don't we have these perfectly designed conveniences?  Here are all the controls next to the toilet bowl.  I'm not sure why there is "flush sound" as well as a flush button on the wall that certainly makes a sound when I pushed it to flush. 

At some point we crossed the date line at longitude 180 degrees.

Now we are on our way to Singapore Airport another 3,400 miles where we will sleep in little rooms with showers for a bit (8 hour layover) before taking the flight to Penang, Malaysia.  As we near Singapore we are at latitude 7 degrees and counting down to 1.  We will be near the equator, hot and humid.  The English they speak ends many sentences with "you see" or "is it?"  Now we're at 39,003' high with a tail wind of 57 MPH and -66 degrees cold. 

[I've watched movies: The Butler - the story of Cecil Gaines a White House butler for 6 presidents and still alive to see Barak Obama inaugurated, Enough Said, Fruitvale Station - the true story of a cop murder of a black person in 2009, and Drew also watched 42 - the story of Jackie Robinson.  I've continued to listen on Audible Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things and read on Kindle The Light Between Oceans .]