NEW YORK TO ABU DHABI

While relaxing during my flight from JFK to AUH, I took these pictures, shown on the screen infront of me. I was in team B, resting on the first half of the flight and took over on the second half. The total flight time was 12 hrs and 20 mins. As seen on the picture, we flew over the North Atlantic, no radio aids to fly to, just point to point using coordinates.. Basically on latitude of 50 deg North, from 50 deg West up to 20 deg West longitude. The first land that we met was somewhere near the Landsend, south of England. after that pretty straight forward route, overflying France, Italy, Athen, over the Mediterranean ,Cypros Lebanon,Damascus,Jordan,Saudi and Bahrain.

BEIJING AND PYONGYANG

Lama tak pergi Beijing. Dulu semasa bekerja dengan MAS almost 3 bulan sekali dapat buat Beijing flight. I was tasked to bring back UAE National football team from Pyongyang ,North Korea after playing there againts them for the wold cup qualifying. UAE was beaten by N Korea 2-0 . We took off from Beijing on 28 Mar, reached Pyongyang at 1800, just after the match,stayed on ground for refueling and took off for Abu Dhabi. It was slightly over 10 hours flight. Unable to snap any picture at Pyongyang becouse it was already dark when we landed there, beside we were afraid that our camera might be confiscated or worst we might ended up in jail. Until now I still can remember the smiling face of their president big photo that can be seen miles away at the Pyongyang airport.

The exitement was when we were in Beijing. Went up the Great Wall at Bedailing, the nearest point from Beijing city. Then we went to the Summer Palace and lastly the whole day completed with shopping at silk Market and Ya Show Market. Things getting more expensive nowadays, not as cheap as before the olympic game.

http://picasaweb.google.com/abakarhassan/TheGreatWall?feat=directlink