Journey to Sri Lanka, First Leg

Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 5:14:25 AM

10/14/09 2:20 PM Wednesday
We've left the land, the last view I had of the USA was the mouth of the Golden Gate exposed through a crevasse in the clouds. I could see the white edge of the San Francisco shore, delineating the Richmond District, the Sunset District with Golden Gate Park cutting through with a dark swath running to the ocean and the white edging of the Marin headlands to the North. In between I see the open space that Drake missed. It seems obvious from here at 20,000 feet, but when I viewed it returning from the Farallon Islands the opening couldn't be seen, a continuous panarama of hills and sky, nothing to be discovered here.

The day started easy, I had plenty of time to get to my flight at 1:20 PM in SFO, a leisurely breakfast and time to finish reading my novel. The emails from Tom Murray were waiting on the computer when it opened up. He's back in the world from his slow-boat trip to New Guinea, two weeks incommunicado. All the issues I have been emailing him these weeks coming home to roost just as I am leaving. A call from Gail Berger, Steve Berger's credit cards may be closed because new ones have arrived; I'll be meeting him in Sri Lanka. The tension and confusion having arisen, descend into my body. It was a good thing that I had stayed up late finishing packing and detailing. I did my reports and settled the problems as best that I can do and continued on with my morning and awaited Dee Brown's call and arrival to escort me to the airport under her protective wing.
At the Airport, I tested the "Red Carpet" Club service of United Airlines at SFO to make sure that all was in order and it was, coffee and snacks, passed on the alcohol.

The plane took off at 1:55 PM and I have a double shot of Glenlivet Scotch straight up with a water back no ice. and I have settled in for the 10 hour flight to Narita Airport,Tokyo. I got a window seat with a bulkhead in front, plenty of room to stretch. My seat-mate is a Chinese man in his forties maybe and I nod and greet him with a hello fellow traveler and he nods maybe a little surprised. We begin to chat about nothing. He is an engineer working for a company that makes equipment that manufactures computer chips for computer manufacturers. I ask and he tells me how chips are made from silicon wafers and that there are 6000 steps in the process from 12 inch wafer to hundreds of thousands of chips with doping, engraving, smoothing, depositing and more smoothing etc. He knows that I understand what he is saying so he doesn't hold back on detail. His name is Zhengquan, and he begins a story of his life, which I pull out of him.

From a small village in Hunan; his family subsisting on an acre of rice, no electricity. His only reading materials the writings of Chairman Mao, but he says not the "the Little Red Book". Today he has his Doctorate in Physics from a University in Connecticut, BS from the University of Beijing and his earlier schooling from one which before Deng Xiaoping would only have taken children of elitist Communist party officials. He got there because he was a very intelligent boy, his mother didn't take the failure of his acceptance to the the big schools and finds a way to get him into this school, a boarding school. He carries his own rice for food. His view of success is to graduate and get a job working in a factory and having a life, but his teachers see that he has the best grades in the district not just the school and they convince him to try for Beijing University. I tell him that his life story need be told, "From a rice paddy to PhD Silicon Valley". Four hours later we have covered everything from space travel, evolution, atomic physics, design of aircraft and problems of long distance navigation, city planning, Chinese and Romantic English poetry. I propose the thought to him that when looking down on railroads from airplanes, pretty much, there is nothing happening there. Railroads are underutilized. We both agree that needs looking into. I haven't had a conversation with this much enjoyment and enthusiasm with anyone since my Sophomore years of youth. We are neighbors, he lives in San Jose and we agree to exchange cards.

12:00 AM, 10/16/09, Friday
Singapore in flight, I don't know what happened to Thursday. I have slept twice since beginning the flight and I am arriving in Singapore at midnight. I had to run with my backpack to the next gate in Narita Airport and wait less that ten minutes to board my flight to Singapore. I did see some great views of the coast of Japan and the landscape to the landing site, windmills lining the ocean shore on white towers all facing the rising sun, extensive power plant complexes with some buildings looking atomic without the cooling towers. Moving inland I saw farm plots laid out in mosaics grouted with dense stands of trees their tops rising in crazy patterns between. It was beautiful from the sky. We had chased the sun across the Pacific and in the late Autumn afternoon the metal roofs of the houses and sheds were shining silver. I never pass up a chance to stick my head out the window and contemplate the landscape below, there is much to be understood about the people who live there.

I'm in the Singapore Airlines Business Class lounge now, I've been here since midnight local time. My flight to Sri Lanka isn't until 10:40 tonight. I could have gone to the city but arriving so late I made the decision to come to the lounge to bivouac. I have showered, shaved, eaten some tasty food and am now nearing the end of my first report. I have effectively left Singapore, I can't go to the city now. I must remain here in the departure section of the airport and the lounge until I leave. I guess I will get to know the place pretty well. We'll see.

This feels like the first leg

Joe