01.02.09 - 34,000 feet above Hiroshima

Well, not quite, but Hiroshima is just slightly off to the right of the plane. I wonder at what altitude the Enola Gay was flying on the infamous morning of August 6, 1945.

So the adventure begins. At the airport in Tokyo we got our boarding passes for the final leg of the long journey. I never expected to pick up a boarding pass reading “Hanoi,” but that’s what it says. Tomorrow morning we visit Ho Chi Minh (like Lenin in Moscow, Ho is preserved in the manner of Snow White or pheasant-under-glass) and the “Hanoi Hilton,” which provided no-star accommodations for John McCain and many other of our countrymen in what the Vietnamese call, quite understandably, the American War.

I am presently a zombie. About 85 minutes of catnapping aside, I last slept 26 hours ago in another hemisphere and almost another year. And I still have (many) miles (and maybe five hours) to go before I sleep. We’ll be flying over eastern China, just south of Shanghai and then on to Hanoi.

My first experience on Japan Air Lines has been great—very much like my other experiences with Asian airlines, on Singapore Air and Korean Air. The food and service have been wonderful. I wish the same could be said for American Airlines, on which we flew from Dallas to Tokyo. They offered no free alcohol and we had to beg even to get water. Things improved a bit late in the flight when George told a flight attendant that we are from Jackson. She’s from Mobile and suddenly she was our friend.

George and I have been having a very good time exchanging stories. I fear, though that I’ll have exhausted my repertoire before many days of the trip.

Happy New Year to all, and to all a good night.

RSM