The Transpacific Flight

Tour Days 1 & 2: Saturday/Sunday, April 21 & 22, 2001

Northwest Airlines 747

Here's our Northwest Airlines 747.

She waits at the gate while being loaded with supplies and fuel.

As promised, we met our Pacific Delight tour director, Renee Ho, at the gate while waiting to board our flight. We liked her immediately, and felt confident that we were going to have a good tour under her guidance. We also met two other Pacific Delight tour directors in the process of identifying the members of their groups at the gate.

Wendy Kary Wendy is one of those rare flight attendants that really go out of their way to make a long flight bearable for those crammed into the seats of the economy class cabin. She and those like her should be given some kind of humanitarian award from the passengers and the airlines. Thanks, Wendy. You made our flight memorable. May 2009: We were notified by one of her friends that Wendy died suddenly in February. Our condolences go out to her family and friends. We're certain that her friendship circle was a large one.

This lady was part of one of the other two Pacific Delight tour groups that were on that flight. She's checking out what will be her space for the next 12 hours.

Our flight left Los Angeles International Airport at about 1:00 PM. Thinking we were taking the great circle route across the Pacific, a passenger in a neighboring seat looked out a window when he was walking around, he was surprised to see a harbor with boats. He sent word to the cockpit that he wondered where we were. He received the reply that we had just flown over Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. We flew up the coast of North America and followed the Aleutian Island chain into the Pacific.

Our flight followed the sun all the way across the ocean. That is, it never got dark all the time we were in the air. It was still light when we landed at Narita Airport in Tokyo the next day at 4:55 PM! — a flight of about 12 hours. We had crossed several time zones and the Internationsl Dateline. And we didn't sleep a wink the whole way to Tokyo.

Sometimes good things happen. We were near the end of the line at Narita boarding our flight to Beijing. The gate attendants pulled us out of the line, saying they were going to change our seats. And they did! They put us in business class!

Looking out the window leaving Tokyo, the city sparkled like a jewel encrusted mosaic art work. It was beautiful! They served dinner, we didn't finish. We pushed the seats back to reclining position as soon as the trays were gone, and slept the rest of the 4-hour flight to Beijing.

And there will be the site of our next set of pictures.

Click any image for the next set of pictures.