Julian Lepinski

[5:38PM EST \ 5:38 AM CST]

Looks like the great circle taking us to Beijing will have us flying over the arctic, which is thrilling. I’ve never seen these northern latitudes by land or air, so I’ve my fingers crossed that the cloud cover will break at some point.

[11:58PM EST \ 11:58AM CST]

A strange thing about China is that the whole country is on a single time zone (which is conveniently centred around the capital, Beijing). China’s breadth covers a lot of longitude, and if you use the eastern expanses of Russia to the north as a guide, China is in desperate need of two or three more time zones. People living in the extreme western parts of the country pay the price for the iron clock; the cycles of the sun don’t match up with the little hand and the big hand. Word is that in places like Urumqi there is “official time” and then “local time,” despite the illegality of it. How subversive.

Below us is a vast expanse of sea ice, broken occasionally by a snaking, dark channel of open water. From up here the snowdrifts, carved by the wind, look like the lines on the back of your hand.

Over northern Quebec and then Nunavut the clouds opened up, and we got our first glimpses of the arctic, bright and cold. Out of the sea rose sharp, rocky cliffs and small mountains, softened by deep snow cover.

As we fly over northern Siberia I’m reading Solzhenitsyn.

[1:34AM EST \ 1:34PM CST]

We have guiltily kept our window shade up, flooding the sleepy cabin with white light. There’s too much to see out the window to leave it down; the white of the arctic has softened to taiga. We recently passed over what looked like a table mountain made of snow and ice. I’ve decided it was a glacier.

Planning the trip we debated where to visit after Beijing. We settled on Hong Kong, but also under consideration was Mongolia. As my seatback tv cycles through maps I keep noticing Mongolia’s capital, Ulaan Bataar. I feel sheepish; I was scared of Mongolia.

Hong Kong is not indicated on the map.

[6:55PM CST]

In a taxi, heading to the hotel. Flashes of an arc welder on a massive steel dome in the distance. (Hotel? Conference centre?) I’m quite relaxed, and I think it’s freaking Susana out.