Monday, June 3, 2024

2 June 2024 Copenhagen: A 14 hour Flight Over the North Pole

 


We flew SAS from Tokyo directly to Copenhagen.  It was a 14 hour flight which makes it our third longest flight to date.  The flight path took us over the Aleutian Islands just west of Anchorage Alaska.  We saw the sea ice at the northern top of the planet.  Then we continued over the ice cap and over the North pole.  The flight crew made a very long announcement about the history of this flight path.  SAS was the first airline to blaze this trail and they were proud of that.  We then passed over the north eastern part of Greenland, over Norway and into Copenhagen.  The ice sheet over Greenland was amazing thing to behold.  So much to see.  Had this been a night flight we would have missed everything.


A funny paintjob on a plane seen from the very busy lounge


On the runway looking over to the Tokyo Skyline


Big bridge over Tokyo bay


there is no mistaking the Skytree


Goodbye Japan


Super city!


So many waterways


Leading into the heart of Tokyo


We have reached our cruising altitude


Cotton ball clouds


We are already three hours into the flight


Open water sea ice


This is the ice cap


Not solid at this point


But too icy to swim in!


We have crossed the international date line and approaching the northern coast of Alaska


Lots of rivers feeding into the sea


I wonder if the fresh water is freezing upon contact with the cold ocean?


Very rugged land


Snow filled valleys and frozen rivers


Leaving land for a while


A very interesting difference in the colors of the clouds


These look like clouds it could be ice.  Regardless there is ice below the clouds


On our way to the north pole


The belly camera on the plane has a cool rainbow like lens flare


The dotted lines changed from going to the left to going to the right once we passed the north pole


Ice cap time


Mostly solid ice with a few cracks


The ice sheet is in constant motion


Wind and currents push the ice 


It often fractures and sheets can ride up on top of each other


There are also islands up here, part of Canada


Canada's North west Territory, flying almost due north


We passed over the north pole and have turned south again over the eastern part of Greenland


It is a huge ice sheet on top of this island


The largest island in the world that is not a continent


The ice here can be as thick as 1.9 miles


7% of the worlds entire supply of fresh water is atop Greenland


It is such a treat to see this


Not your everyday occurrence


Greenland!


To orient the viewer to our location


More details appear off int he distance


Very deep fjord 


Pretty wide too


The question remains to be answered 


Arte these frozen fjords or glaciers?


The blue really showed up in contrast to all the white


This is probable a series of glaciers


Bring your mittens


I guess is that this is a fjord


To be able to see how steep these cliffs are from up in a plane makes you realize how large the scale is of this area


This looks like a fjord, a bit frozen now 


But this graphic would make one think that maybe these fjords open up in the summer


Back over the center of Greenland


Approaching Norway


Lots of lakes


Fjord Land


Denmark


Green farmland


More houses


Approaching Copenhagen


Our place is close to the center of this picture


Lots of city to explore



It has been 1 year and 363 days since we began pour Migration

Sunday, June 2, 2024

1 June 2024 Tokyo: Our Last Night in Japan

 


We took the shinkansen from Nagano to Tokyo Station and then the Metro and Monorail to the Tokyo International Airport.  There was a slight mix up on our ticket, which was odd since we bought the tickets from the JR station.  Apparently the surcharge for the fast train had expired by a day.  The attendant refunded our original pass and reissued a new pass and it was only 2000 yen more.  We were staying at a hotel attached to the international terminal, what a time saver.  The beds were very hard but the convenience of rolling out the door and getting in line to check in was well worth it.  When we first arrived we had to take the shuttle over to get our bags out of the baggage storage booth in Terminal 1.  On our way over we saw that the baggage storage in the international terminal was all full.  That would be a bummer if we were counting on using that service.  We had dinner in the airport which was nice except for a bit of glass in Leslie's food!


Penguin on holiday


The monorail is elevated


Really elevated


A great view of southern Tokyo


Lots of parks along the waterfront


Then over the water


We even went under the water as well


A sister "ship"


Build very strong


Got to the hotel and checked in via a kiosk


This are looked like it had hidden words


So I flipped it, maybe it was made for selfies?


The terminal is massive


When it is time to check in, there are huge amounts of folks


It is Hydrangea season


Bunches and bunches


So striking!


It has been 1 year and 362 days since we began our Migration