Monday, April 19, 2004

posted by: copernicus on 4/19/2004 06:14:00 AM
After posting my journal that I kept during my scuba trip to Mexico in February, I decided to post my journal from the Australia trip in February of 2000..

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SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE VOL 1 of 5
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"February 12, 2000, somewhere over Japan. 2:30 am Miami time Saturday morning -- 4:30 pm in Seoul Saturday afternoon. Endless carpet of cauliflower clouds finally punctured by mountains of northern Japan. Saw Mt. Fuji a little while ago, poking up through clouds like a majestic pimple. Tokyo must have been somewhere below, wish it were visible from this height.
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Hour & a 1/2 till Seoul. 600 miles an hour @ 35,000 feet. Left Los Angeles over 11 hours ago. Mountains of Japan were only thing to break the cloud cover since California. Haven't seen the ocean since. Now over Sea of Japan. Clouds starting to break again and a hazy blue melds with blue sky and borders fade. I have to admire these Korean stewardesses, this flight has to be a 14 hour shift for them, and they've been up & down the aisle every half hour since Los Angeles.
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1/2 hour from Seoul, and a video comes on the t.v.'s about proper stretching after a long flight. Cheesy Ace of Base music comes on, and on the video stewardesses do a dance/stretch exercise, while real stewardesses do synchronized dance to video. They have it memorized and are not looking at the screens. 90% of Asian passengers comply and dance/stretch along in their seats, and plane erupts in applause when video is done. All who dance clap heartily. Still cloudy, can't see Korean landscape
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On ground in Seoul. Can smell smog from inside plane. No bullshit, eyes are itchy. Extremely dirty, overpopulated city set into small, rolling Appalachian-type mountains. Every square inch is developed. Very crowded tenements all over city with hundreds of high rises. Packed in like I imagined a major Asian city to be.
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Layover in Seoul airport. Can't wander around much because of tight customs security. Just a smoking lounge, a gift shop, and 2 restaurants. And beautiful women everywhere. 80% of the Koreans are wearing American clothes (polo, nike etc.). 90% of that groups clothes have English writing prominently positioned.
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Just woke up from a nap into bad turbulence. Halfway between Seoul & Sydney. Will be crossing the Equator in an hour or so. 2600 miles to go @ 568 m.p.h. next land mass we'll be crossing is Indonesia (I think). I see cities of Jayapura, Madang, Raboul and Point Moresby on the map, but the island they're on isn't marked.
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