Posted: Sep 26, 2017 12:50 am
I've flown a lot over the years, in a variety of different conveyances.
Upstairs on an A380, in the smoking section on a Vietnam airlines flight( next to a chain smoker
), on an Aeroflot domestic flight that seemed to have bits dropping off as we accelerated down the runway... a hot air balloon over the Nile at Luxor to watch the sunrise, in a Gazelle helicopter over Belfast (I vomited out of the window because of a massive booze up in the mess the night before....)
I fly a lot to conferences... in Asia, Europe and North America mainly.
(I got the pants off some girl recently in the toilets on a long haul flight from Asia to Europe...not the mile high club though; the pants in question were the liberally shitted ones of my 2 year old daughter!!
)
I meet a fair few Japanese who have never flown or been abroad. Or, if they have been out side of Japan, it is to Japanese friendly places like Guam and Hawaii. (Imagine the Japanese equivalent of Brits in the Costa-del-sol having fish and chips at the Red Lion.) There are a lot of Japanese for whom 外国 ('Gaikoku' literally 'out of country'), is a scary concept, rather like the travel agent shop in 'The Truman Show'.
I don't mind flying. Twelve hours on a plane starts to get a bit wearing, but anything less than 5 hours is a piece of cake. I'm off to Seoul next month. I'll actually spend less time in the air than I spend on a train for my work commute!
On the subject of not seeing the stars..as I posted on another thread, the skies here in Osaka are pretty blank at night due to the huge light pollution from the Kansai mega-city. When I was in rural Cumbria in the UK this summer I saw a star-bedecked night sky for the first time in years....it blew me away and I spent the best part of an hour just standing looking up, taking it all in.
Upstairs on an A380, in the smoking section on a Vietnam airlines flight( next to a chain smoker
), on an Aeroflot domestic flight that seemed to have bits dropping off as we accelerated down the runway... a hot air balloon over the Nile at Luxor to watch the sunrise, in a Gazelle helicopter over Belfast (I vomited out of the window because of a massive booze up in the mess the night before....)I fly a lot to conferences... in Asia, Europe and North America mainly.
(I got the pants off some girl recently in the toilets on a long haul flight from Asia to Europe...not the mile high club though; the pants in question were the liberally shitted ones of my 2 year old daughter!!
)I meet a fair few Japanese who have never flown or been abroad. Or, if they have been out side of Japan, it is to Japanese friendly places like Guam and Hawaii. (Imagine the Japanese equivalent of Brits in the Costa-del-sol having fish and chips at the Red Lion.) There are a lot of Japanese for whom 外国 ('Gaikoku' literally 'out of country'), is a scary concept, rather like the travel agent shop in 'The Truman Show'.
I don't mind flying. Twelve hours on a plane starts to get a bit wearing, but anything less than 5 hours is a piece of cake. I'm off to Seoul next month. I'll actually spend less time in the air than I spend on a train for my work commute!
On the subject of not seeing the stars..as I posted on another thread, the skies here in Osaka are pretty blank at night due to the huge light pollution from the Kansai mega-city. When I was in rural Cumbria in the UK this summer I saw a star-bedecked night sky for the first time in years....it blew me away and I spent the best part of an hour just standing looking up, taking it all in.