bird's eye

a couple of months back i flew to canada. was my first time there aside from a quick trip to the canadian side of the niagara falls almost 20 years ago.


the trip didn't get off to the best start. we needed to take a bus to the plane as it wasn't parked at a gate. our little bus left, went out between two planes, turned around, went out in a different area then turned around and went back. we headed out to another area, turned around, and came back to the area where we boarded the bus. the doors opened and we were told to get out but the airport folks wouldn't let us back in the building. so we were left standing there in the wind wondering what was going on.

finally the airport doors opened and they began letting us back into the terminal. three or four of us got inside, myself included, when suddenly everyone was turned around and asked to go back on the bus. this time we went to a different area- when we saw our plane everyone cheered.


the flight itself was fairly uneventful. as we flew over canada there was some beautiful scenery, like the above photo of vancouver during our final approach.


on the return flight to shanghai we flew south over kyushu past nagasaki and into the ocean. we passed lots of small uninhabited islands when i noticed one that appeared to have some settlement on it.


here's a pic i took at full zoom (3x) of the island. after enlarging the image and passing it through color filters the features of the island become more distinct. one can see a settlement on the left side of the island- perhaps 30 or 40 buildings. there's a small road leading to the right side and some sort of construction on the top of the hill.

while not as remote as a place like pitcairn, i always wonder about places like these- how people live their lives in such relative isolation. what they do there and how they came to live there.

i'm not sure i could live in such isolation- i suppose there's satellite tv, dvds and the internet to keep people entertained.