Sights at 33000 feet!

I am now in Atlanta Georgia for a week before I proceed to San Francisco. Simply looking forward to capture some interesting shots of both these cities. We took a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore for our first transit. Checked into the transit hotel for a night and left from Singapore to Narita Tokyo on Delta Air at 6:10am for our connecting flight to Atlanta from Narita.

The flight was relatively long. It was a 6 hours flight from Singapore to Narita and another 12.5 hours from Narita, Tokyo to Atlanta, US. I loves travelling and seeing new places but I absolutely dislike the long hours spent sitting in the plane with absolutely nothing to do.

For such a long journey, I would normally prefer the aisle seat because I have more leg room and also I can get to the washroom no matter how many times I like without having to wake up the another passengers. Hence, I would have no reservation whatsoever, ordering my beer and wine.

However, all aisle seat have been taken and we got the window seat instead for the sector from Narita Tokyo to Atlanta.

For whatever reason, I just could not sleep the entire trip and I was awake practically the entire 23 hours end to end. Flying from west to east and almost half way across the globe, I have the opportunity to see something rather magnificent...the sun setting on one side of the globe and catching her again rising on the other side of the world.

I must said the experience was simply amazing.

I stored my Nikon in the cabin bag above and because I was seating next to the window, I was unable to get hold of my Nikon. Fortunately, however, my wife was carrying our old Canon Ixus 860 in her handbag. This old faithful point and shoot compact camera was our very first digital camera.

Despite her age, (we had her for over 4 years now), she still does a pretty decent job capturing these amazing shots at 33000 feet above from my window.

I was quite engrossed with the in-flight movie and my beer with the window shade down. When the movie finished, I opened the shade and I was greeted with this amazing sight. We were flying approximately 31000 feet then at about 987km/hour. At that point in time, we were flying over the Pacific Ocean. The feel was like we were literally floating on a bed of fluffy white clouds.

 As we flied from west to east, and while crossing the Pacific Ocean, I caught a glimpse of the sun setting on our side of the globe (6:05pm Malaysian time). I have captured lots of sun set setting over the horizon by the sea but seeing the sun setting behind a sea of swirling clouds was totally out of this world ....

As we approached the West Coast of USA and flying in from the Canada airspace, the sun rose from the other side of the globe. Finished with her job in brightening the lives of millions there, she rose to begin her job now to provide warm and cheer to those living on this side of the world.

The warm and bight golden sun ray caught being reflected on a sea of fluffy and swirling white clouds, not something that you would see everyday ....

As we flew into North America, looking down, one could see the vast and rugged terrain of North America. This is truly a big big country with very diverse terrain and landscape.

Another thing I like about sitting next to the window was the opportunity to see GOD's wonderful creation of clouds. Honestly, you can never find two identical clouds formation just like you will never find two identical snow flake. The above clouds formation is known as altocumulus clouds, normally found between 6,500 to 20,000 feet. We were then flying between 31000 to 33000 feet above sea level.

So, if you are flying the next time, and if you happen to have a window seat, have your camera ready and every now and then, open up that window shade. You could be greeted with another magnificent sight that will simply blow your breath away.