Of the Arctic Ocean and Exploding Produce (3/3/2009)

There’s something ironic in a trans-Pacific flight that doesn’t cross a drop of Pacific water until you have to double back over Hong Kong Harbour. The shortest distance across the world's largest body of water is actually around it: A fifteen-and-a-half-hour, ohmigod-Please-spare-me-this-dastardly-stretch flight from Chicago to China, while clearly easier than it was for Sir Francis Drake, is an illuminating step in the pursuit of swollen feet. "On your flight today you will enjoy three movies, two meals, and cankles."

A stretch from Durham to Singapore took us from below the 45th Parallel, well north of the Arctic Circle and over the Arctic Ocean, before charging straight south – hello, Siberia; Nice to see you again, Mongolia; oh that’s what Beijing looks like from 30,000 feet, wow the lights of Hong Kong fade in the rain. Fifteen hours from middle America to the north pole to the equator. An aerial version of Jacques Cartier’s Northwest Passage. Lindbergh, meet Boeing.

And north of the Bering Strait, there they were, in plain sight: Russia’s nuclear arsenal, lined up like stoic terracotta warriors, directly gazing over four miles of maritime border. Putin’s ugly head staring America straight down, a sliver of Cold War ideology still alive north of the Arctic Circle. But there, in his face, was the Alaska legislature, rearin’ its hearty American freedom, returnin’ that stare, God love ‘em...**

Our flight – nuclear arsenals aside – was fifteen hours of constant daylight, leaving at high noon on Sunday, arrive at dinnertime Monday. Between the movies, our entertainment was -- I loved this – a Discovery Channel special on the wonders of 1000-frame-per-second photography. “Now we can see what we’ve never seen before…” ran the narrator, and we were treated to microsecond-by-microsecond shots of:

- Water balloons to the face
- Shattering wine glasses
- Exploding fruit

Ten thousand frames per second to watch apples blow up. Scientia gratis scientiae. Knowledge at its pinnacle. Thank you, United.

We arrived in Singapore just before midnight, and it was well after 1 a.m. Tuesday as we pulled in, exhausted and we’re-actually-here-what-now? exhilarated. Singapore, dismissed as “Asia Lite” next to the chaos of Manila, Jakarta, or Bangkok, will probably be the ideal jumping off point for exploration of the sub-subcontinent. Witness the progressive island nation before flinging yourself into chaos, a dash of British tea and high culture before le dirty Indochine.

Controlled chaos begins tomorrow.

** This paragraph may or may not have happened.