Day Twenty-Six: Yellowknife to Nuuk We left Yellowknife early in the morning, which was the default setting for the trip, but due to the constant time changes had become quite tiresome. The flight to Nuuk was around four and a half hours, and somewhere over the Labrador Sea we quietly handed back five hours to […]
Day Twenty-One: The Pacific Crossing – Sapporo to Unalaska We had just finished our day in Sapporo and were getting ready to leave for the overnight flight across the Pacific when the chief pilot came to us with news that looked likely to end the trip altogether. There was a NOTAM out at Adak reporting
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Day Nineteen: Kyoto to Sapporo We left Kyoto early to drive to the Osaka airport, from which we would fly north to Sapporo. The flight itself was easy and took only about an hour and forty-five minutes. Hokkaido is a different Japan, colder and emptier, and you notice it the moment you land. We drove
Day Seventeen: Hiroshima to Kyoto Since Kyoto does not have an airport, we flew from Hiroshima to Osaka and then drove an hour and a half into Kyoto. Given that the flight was only c. 30 minutes, it was a similar amount of time, but much more effort to fly as it would have been
Day Fifteen: Okinawa to Hiroshima We flew into Hiroshima from Okinawa, and somewhere on the approach the captain hatched a new plan. He’d worked out a way to somewhat circumvent the typhoon that was chasing us. This typhoon, due to come ashore on exactly the day we were meant to leave Hiroshima, could pose some
Day Thirteen: Sanya to Okinawa We flew over from Sanya to Okinawa. After landing, we had a lengthier customs procedure than in the other countries, because we were switching from an international flight to a domestic one. Once we were through, we headed straight into the city and walked down to the main shopping street,
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Days Nine – Twelve: Holidays in Sanya We left early in the morning for Sanya, on the southern tip of Hainan Island. On paper, this should have been a twenty-minute flight. In practice, it took an hour and twenty. The reason is that Chinese airspace operates on a principle that can be charitably described as
Day Six: Yangon to Hanoi The departure from Myanmar began with the airports ground crew putting their shoulders into the side of the aircraft and pushing it into position. The flight to Vietnam then served up its own quiet crisis, this one courtesy of GPS spoofing. As we set off, the navigation system began to
Day Four: Karachi to Yangon We left off in Pakistan, where the security check treated us to a masterclass in peak efficiency. Our luggage was searched not once, not twice, but three full times. Only after the Captain stepped in with a pointed reminder that we were minutes from missing our departure window did they
Day Three: Karachi The day started off with Gold Gate, which involved one of the travelers, who for anonymity purposes shall hereinafter be referred to as the Princess of Bäch. Said Princess, in an attempt to pay homage to Mansa Musa, unfortunately discovered that Uzbekistan has very strict gold export controls. She was duly found