It is so fascinating...

Sunday,14th Sept 2013, 10h00, local time, SA/ D 20130914, 03h00

Air Traffic control made us wait and delayed us for whatever reason. Delayed is also the departure of the Shinkansen-Bullet train from Tokyo - flooding of the tracks - the other part of the group having their 3rd coffee and wait for the draining of the tracks. Those news passed on to us by Paul who is in touch with Jan, the Chief Editor of PuF.

Wenn einer eine Reise tut...

We also got wet this morning leaving the hotel on the way to the airport but dried in no time because of high temperature.

Right now we are taxiing down the taxiway at the airport, no traffic, we have received the departure clearance. As we taxi down to runway 31 we saw many people standing by the fence, some on ladders, some even have climbed up the fence hanging on with their cameras. So called plane spotters - like everywhere else in the world. I was too slow and not prepared with my camera, maybe I catch them next time; I will be prepared in Naha, from now on our small plane will be an attraction as there are few private planes in this part of the world.

We are airborne, aircraft shows very poor performance,  we know why, outside Temperature +10 DegreeC,@ 10,000feet. 30 Min required to climb to flight level 160.

Right now it is hammering down with rain, just for a minute, one layer of clouds have one direction, the other, next layer is going into the opposite direction!? - all due to the Typhoon which had reach the area east of Japan. Very strange to see.

We are very privileged and and it so interesting that we can arrive, land and visit ia foreign country just as we do. A very special way of travelling, no doubt not everyone's cup of tea. A couple of days ago one of the crew members of one of the bigger planes said to me: 'your way of flying is the real way of flying, in our plane I just sit in the back.' Well...sometimes I would not mind sitting in the back....;-)

We are in between layers of clouds - scattered clouds below us, solid cloud cover above us. 10 min later solid clouds around us, GS 147 knots, not fantastic, ETA 15h15 local time, we might see a tailwind later.

Rain has been hammering down for a good half hour now, slight turbulences all the time, we hear:  airliners are asking for deviations. We rely on our stormscope to take us through the clouds. I hope we are thru the bad weather zone very soon. Weather conditions are due to the typhoon to the east of us.

Groundspeed is now 184kn, we ask for a higher flightlevel @180 to see if it is a bit calmer up there. It is and now it's even clear just for a moment and I see the ocean choppy and turbulent.

We see huge cargo or container ships below us, maybe even a fishing vessel etc

We land far ahead of the other crews.

I must complete the toilet story, I learned something very important today but will only be able to publish tomorrow. 

We had a nightmare of service and delivery of meals tonight. We have to finish flight planning and than sleep. The whole lot starts getting stressful again. Tomorrow morning we will leave the hotel at 07h20.