The Korean Air plane at Hong Kong airport was at the gate next to our Asiana Air plane. My three checked bags as well as I made the 45 min connection in Seoul – I had to make a run for Gate 49 ! and here I am in Seattle. It was raining all over South Korea and the newspaper reported that a large number of schools closed for the day, over concerns of radioactive particles from Japan coming down in the rain. Well, I thought — and what about the air conditioning at the airport, and the airplane? .. should I care?. Let me sit back and drink my Korean pilsner beer (called Cass, probably too light and mild for most beer lovers, but I liked it fine). As always I kept an eye on our flight path over Japan. We flew almost directly over Tokyo, then turned north, brushed by the Aleution islands in the North Pacific and then down to Seattle.
P.S. Yes, I refer to the 1962 Bob Dylan song in the title of the post. I love the words, but note that Bob Dylan is on record to have said he did not refer to nuclear fall-out or rain from that, in the song. The opening lyrics :
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son ?
And where have you been my darling young one ?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.