Haunting Air Journey October 10, 2006 I originally thought that when we reached Jakarta we would be at our destination, but who knew it was still so far, so far away. At six in the morning my colleague woke up and then began to urge our local host. We were delayed until nine o'clock, when the host called someone over. Then we ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We ordered a salted duck egg, some onion omelet, and chicken with greens. For each person there was a bowl of congee; the congee was like sticky rice porridge made at home, only salty. The salted duck egg and the onion omelet tasted pretty good. Our host was Chinese, he spoke fluent Minnan dialect, but speaking Mandarin was much more difficult for him, so communication was troublesome. At 10:30 a car came to take us to Jakarta airport. Last night when we left the airport it was already dark, so we didn't get a clear look at the outside of the airport. Today we got a general impression: almost all one or two-story tile roof buildings, the boarding corridors were like ancient Chinese winding corridors, the corridor seemed to be on the second floor, outside they had planted flowers and grass. It gave me a feeling of being very distinctive. The procedures were relatively simple. At 12:30 we took a flight to Surabaya. The plane had about 140 seats, obviously it was in worse condition than yesterday's. The food provided onboard wasn't as good as yesterday's either. Everything had been very stable the whole time, but during the beginning of the descent there was moderate turbulence, which felt very uncomfortable. I estimated it was about six or seven hundred kilometers (flew for an hour and a half). After coming out of the exit at the airport, we went back inside to the entrance where our accompanying person (another change, now understanding nothing) held additional tickets. Waiting at the airport until 15:00, we began to board the plane again. Once we entered the tarmac, suddenly I saw the kind of planes from Chiang Kai-shek's era that I'd seen in movies—those gray-green biplanes. Thinking we might have to take it, I got quite a shock—was I really going to trust my life to it? But after passing by its roaring, heat-emitting body, walking towards another slightly larger plane, I wiped the sweat off my head—it was unclear whether it was due to the hot weather or if it was cold sweat caused by fear! The plane had 60 seats, fewer than twenty passengers, and one male and one female flight attendant. Not long after takeoff, they started serving meals: a glass of plain water, a piece of cake, and a small steamed bun-like bread. I felt the temperature was rather high today, around thirty degrees Celsius. The cabin was very hot before takeoff, but after taking off, it gradually became cooler. Looking out of the window, the weather was exceptionally sunny, the buildings on the ground looked tiny, the rivers and roads were narrow, giving the impression we weren't flying very high. Passing over large expanses of sea, it was a deep blue. Occasionally, I saw two or three islands of varying sizes, clearly uninhabited. I saw two ships, unsure of their size. Occasionally, there were a few clouds, white like cotton balls, sparse, casting shadows of varying sizes irregularly on the ground. After flying over the Kalimantan Island airspace, we began to see large areas of forest, rivers flowing straight into the sea, rarely bending. Then we saw smoke rising from various places within the forests, later more and more, forming a smoky haze. The plane began to descend through the thick smoke, seeing nothing outside the window. The plane began to shake. For a moment, I felt a bit scared, then suddenly I could see things again, much closer to the ground, slowly approaching the forest, a wide river appeared, the plane continued to descend, seeming like it was going to fall into the water, but in fact, it was already above the runway. There was a jolt upon landing, and with rapid deceleration, my heart also returned to my stomach. I had heard that the airport was small, and although I was prepared, it still shocked me: my first feeling was as if I had once again returned to the small train station in my hometown town that I hadn't been to for over twenty years. The bumpy airplane runway, the export room of about forty square meters had over ten plastic chairs against the wall, in the middle was a luggage conveyor belt. When the luggage cart arrived, the items hadn't even been placed on it before the passengers had already taken them all, truly saving the baggage handlers a lot of effort. Next door might have been the waiting hall, as soon as we disembarked, we saw the door of that room open and people surged out. I guessed it was like us rushing for buses—if you're late, there are no seats. Because when I boarded this plane looking for a seat, the male flight attendant gestured while saying "no number", meaning there was no need to sit according to the assigned seat or just sit anywhere. Exiting the station, we met Mr. Chen who came to welcome us. He is a Singaporean Chinese, an investor in Indonesia, 46 years old, about 1.65 meters tall, balding, slightly overweight, having lived in China for twenty years, and recently returned to Singapore. From 11:25 on October 9th to 16:30 on October 10th, we took four flights in total: from Zhengzhou to Guangzhou for 2 hours, approximately 1300 kilometers, from Guangzhou to Jakarta nearly 5 hours, approximately 3400 kilometers, from Jakarta to Surabaya for over an hour, approximately 700 kilometers, from Surabaya to here—I don’t know the name, it's in southern Kalimantan Island, I'll ask tomorrow. Yesterday, there were probably more clouds over the sea. Under the sunlight, the reflective cloud layers were like endless snowfields, uneven, glaringly white. Farther away, there were also tall "cloud mountains". The clouds not illuminated by the sun were black and unappealing. When there were only a few clouds, it felt like the distance from the clouds to the ground was half the distance from the plane to the ground. Tomorrow, we will handle the procedures for working here at the local police station. If everything goes smoothly, we should be able to reach our destination, which is more than three hours away by car, later in the afternoon. [url=http://www.wlzgsb.com/dsdzsj.htm]Fine Crusher[/url] [url=http://www.wlzgsb.com/shzswfmfj.htm]Micro Powder Mill[/url] [url=http://www.wlzgsb.com/slscx.htm]Stone Crusher[/url] Related articles: The Men a Woman Meets in Her Lifetime How Much Should You Love Someone? What Can a Man Do if He Loses His Job? Which Helplessness Have You Experienced?