35,000 feet over the North Pole

Hong Kong Local time Tuesday 9:53pm

Greetings from Hong Kong. On Sunday me and my parents got onto Continental Flight CO99 at Newark and landed 15 hours later in this former British colony. The flight we took was an interesting one. I once heard a piece of trivia on the radio that CO99 was (this was around 2000) the longest daily scheduled flight in the world and when the Boeing 777 flies directly over the North Pole, the automatic pilot has to be disabled to avoid interference from the Pole’s magnetic core. While the flight may no longer be the current owner of this title, it is still one of the longest flights in the world.

Right after we took off at Newark, the plane took a northeastern course, flew over the Davis Strait, crossed over Greenland, and with the help of the 100 mph tailwind, crossed over the North Pole and plotted a southern course to cut through Russia and China. This flight sometimes takes a northwestern course to the North Pole, depending on the time of year and/or the prevailing wind conditions.

We have been in Hong Kong for a little more than 24 hours now. As usual, I have much more to write than I have time (or energy) to do so. I will do my best in the following couple of weeks to keep all of you informed on what I am seeing, hearing, and feeling in this part of the world.

11:10am update: OK this is not the great video I have ever posted but I filmed this out the plane window during the aproach last night to Hong Kong International. The plane was flying over Hong Kong island in the northeastern direction and you see Hong Kong island at the bottom of the video, Kowloon at the top, both portions separated by the bay. The tall buildings you see on Hong Kong island make up Hong Kong's Central district.