Category: Travel

I arrived in Shanghai tonight. Here’s a tiny photo of the view out my hotel window looking at some of the city lights.

My flight was 13 hours from San Francisco. Uneventful — but certainly a long flight! On-board laptop power has to be one of the great inventions in air travel! That and Bose noise-canceling headphones! Cool, crisp evening outside. As we were coming in to land, the visibility from the plane seemed very good and seems the same from my hotel.

The Shanghai Pudong International Airport terminal is an amazing place — it’s huge by any standards, essentially brand new — like lots of things here in Shanghai.

One of the worst things that can happen to you while traveling is to get to your destination — but then not be able to get off the airplane.

I remember that happening to me about 15 years ago coming back from Frankfurt to San Francisco on Lufthansa after a long business trip to Europe. We arrived on-time at SFO but a gate wasn’t available at the international terminal and we cooled our heels for an hour gazing at the terminal from 500 yards away.

It happened again this morning on a flight to John Wayne Airport in Orange County. The incredible shrinking airline, United Airlines, appears to have sold off or entered into sharing agreements for its gates at Orange County. We landed and then promptly pulled into a parking area as the copilot announced that our shared gate had an America West flight still on the gate. We sat in the airplane for almost a half an hour waiting to get to the gate and deplane.

All of this from the airline whose CEO writes in the new issue of Hemispheres, the airline’s in-flight magazine, about how United Airlines is trying to surprise and delight its passengers with service. Some surprise, some delight.

I remembered reading somewhere sometime ago that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission was going to open the grounds to the Sunol Water Temple for limited hours.

Late this morning, on the sloppiest of new autumn mornings yet this year, I was heading home off I-680 through Sunol when I happened upon the open gates to the water temple. I couldn’t resist.

The last time I had visited the water temple must have been over 30 years ago — undoubtedly while I was exploring the East Bay backroads by motorcycle. Somewhere along the way, between then and now, the SFPUC decided they couldn’t be bothered — or afford — to keep the temple grounds open. The gates were closed. This particular water district certainly likes its privacy.

Now, amazingly, those gates are open from 9 AM to 3 PM Monday through Friday.

Today, in this morning’s rain, I was absolutely alone at the temple. Just me, the rain, and the water below. The Hetch Hetchy water flows through the temple on its way under the Bay over to Crystal Springs to San Francisco and the Peninsula cities who — in this Cadillac Desert we call California — simply couldn’t survive without this flow. About 85% of the water used by 2.4 million people in San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda and San Mateo counties flows through the Sunol facility.

Water falling, making wonderful noise, on a misty northern California autumn morning.

John Flinn writes in today’s San Francisco Chronicle Travel section about chance meetings on his travels to some not so random locations around the globe.

These seemingly chance meetings happen to me so often I’m no longer surprised by them. Those of us who love to travel are linked by an invisible web of connections that often sends us to the same remote places at the same time. The late photographer Galen Rowell, who experienced many of these encounters, wrote that like-minded people travel down hidden corridors that often converge unexpectedly.

I liked the title of this travel story from tomorrow’s New York Times Travel section!

Between mountain valleys in western Spain lies a passage fit for a king (and some goats).

I’m in New York for a couple of days of business — and it turns out to be near perfect weather for NYC here in the dog days of August!

Walking around Manhattan tonight was just delightful. I was reminded of an old friend’s advice about opening my eyes when walking in cities — take a look up a floor or two above street level as you walk along. It’s amazing what you’ll find — especially in New York!