{"id":7179,"date":"2009-12-22T16:39:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-22T08:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/12\/22\/kyushu-from-the-air\/"},"modified":"2010-12-29T21:45:20","modified_gmt":"2010-12-29T13:45:20","slug":"kyushu-from-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/12\/22\/kyushu-from-the-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyushu from the Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

The flight to Kumamoto City on the 12 December was packed with Japanese high-school girls. From what my Japanese counterpart remarked when I was at their college, at about this time of the year, as many as 20,000 of their students will be in this region for vacation, a safe holiday, and to escape from winter and to enjoy the strong Yen currency versus Asian currencies.<\/p>\n

The flight back to Singapore 9 days after that date was quite the contrast: it was an at-most one third filled flight, with mostly Singaporeans comprising the passengers with just a small number of Japanese travelers. Fukoaka Airport is more a transit point for persons visiting other spots in Japan (if any), and also for business travelers. So, I had the row of seats to myself, which made it possible to take my last series of pictures on the flight back itself. <\/p>\n

\"blog2009kumamotoDSC_5528flyinghome\"<\/p>\n

Like the one above: the Japanese ground crew actually wave to departing airplanes! Just like what you saw in those old World War II films.<\/p>\n

\"blog2009kumamotoDSC_5536flyinghome\"<\/p>\n

Our plane was fourth in the airport pattern: three planes landed in sequence before we were cleared for immediate take-off.<\/p>\n

\"blog2009kumamotoDSC_5547flyinghome\"<\/p>\n

Just a couple of seconds after wheels-up, and before the plane did a 180 degree turn to head south towards Singapore. It was a late morning flight at about 1030, but the weather was still really murky.<\/p>\n

\"blog2009kumamotoDSC_5555flyinghome\"<\/p>\n

There was an interesting cluster of super-high rise office blocks in what looked like a spot of reclaimed land. The place looked like a business park of some kind, and still under construction.<\/p>\n

\"blog2009kumamotoDSC_5557flyinghome\"<\/p>\n

And lastly, Kyushu from about 5000 feet I think. Huge urban sprawl and the many hills on the island.<\/p>\n

There\u2019re several other pictures taken but of clouds, and on landing approach passing over Indonesia. Quite a stunning view, and the pictures are here<\/a>.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The flight to Kumamoto City on the 12 December was packed with Japanese high-school girls. From what my Japanese counterpart remarked when I was at their college, at about this time of the year, as many as 20,000 of their<\/p>\n

Read More Kyushu from the Air<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,17],"tags":[463,237,137],"class_list":["post-7179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography-cameras","category-traveling","tag-japan-2010","tag-kumamoto-2009","tag-d300","wpcat-13-id","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}