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I slept a bit for the last leg from Amsterdam to Copenhagen, but I think it was mostly clouds until Denmark. Today’s first photo is of the east coast of Denmark and a bit of the water between Denmark and Sweden.
We had a nice aerial view of the Oresund Bridge, linking Denmark to Sweden, just before landing.
The view from my apartment looking out the windows to the left…
… and to the right.
After Mt. Hood the view was rather unspectacular until the sun began to set. We went over a piece of Idaho, Calgary, much of Canada, Hudson Bay, and then things got interesting.
Before Greenland, the sun set, sort of. It was the slowest sunset I’ve ever seen, and it never completely set (keep in mind this was two days after summer solstice). The horizon was always orange and sometimes touched with brilliant red streaks. Unfortunately, these pictures don’t do it justice. Taking photos through thick, dirty airplane windows in relatively low light does not yield the true picture. I wanted to roll down my plane window and stick my head out the window. 😉
This was my first time seeing Greenland from the air. We were so high that we had a good angle on the lower part of Greenland. The water, rocky coast, ice sheets, and sunset combined for a breathtaking view. Note that most of that is ice, not clouds, in the above photo. Again, it’s difficult to see and not reflective of the true beauty at the time when the photo had to go through that many layers of unclean glass. On the east coast of Greenland I could even see a few lights.
I think I was the only person on the entire plane looking out the window. Everyone else had their windows closed so they could sleep or watch a movie. I was riveted to the view out the window which looked otherworldly. If you are like me, and enjoy aerial views, be sure to get a window seat on the left of your plane if you may ever be flying over Greenland from the west in summer.
Soon after Greenland the sun began to rise again. The sunset/sunrise combo clocked in at about three hours. It never did get dark.
The sun rose perfectly behind the plane wing so that the sea glowed the sun’s orange reflection while I could still view the scene without hurting my eyes by looking at the sun.
At long last we reached the coast of Holland.
The first flight (of 3) to get to Copenhagen was from Medford to Portland. Most flights out of Medford afford a nice view of Table Rock, a formation created from some ancient lava flows 7 million years ago.
Here is downtown Portland, along the waterfront, as my plane was landing in Portland.
From Portland (one of my favorite airports) I got on a flight to Amsterdam (one of my least favorite airports). If you ever take a flight from Portland to Amsterdam (or London or someplace else in the vicinity), be sure to get a window seat on the left side of the plane.
Soon after takeoff we had this great view of Mt. Hood. Tomorrow, I’ll show you another reason (in summer at least) why a window view on this side of the plane is a good idea.
Another angle out of the Sumitomo Building in Shinjuku appeared as my desktop wallpaper today. The building to the left is now the more common place for tourists to view Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office Building.
Back in the 1980s, when I first lived in Japan, the Shinjuku Sumitomo Building was the building to go to the top of if you wanted a great view of the city. There was no Sunshine City, Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office, Mori Tower, or Ebisu Garden Place Tower at the time. The two times I revisited the Sumitomo Building on our most recent adventures in Japan the observation deck was empty. It’s still a great place to view the city (although with the other high rise buildings that have since been built some views are more obstructed than they were 20+ years ago), and you can avoid the crowds at the other places here. Also, there are several floors of relatively inexpensive restaurants at the top with fabulous window seats.
The building in the center may look like a nuclear power plant to the untrained eye, or to someone at Fox News, but it is actually one of Tokyo’s many incinerators. I was able to tour a different one, and the experience has forever changed my world view of garbage.
There aren’t any nuclear power plants in Tokyo. And in case the radiation hysteria has entered your mind as well, know that as of this writing Tokyo still has lower radiation levels than most big cities in the world.