Longest day of my life

In both literal and figurative senses, yesterday was. Or was it two days ago? OK, so maybe I lie. It was two calendar days, having jumped across the International Date Line and skipping a day altogether, but I have never seen the sun for so many hours at a time. The sun came up just after I woke up in Denver, and it didn't go down again until 26 hours later somewhere in the air over eastern China. All three flights were problem-free, just far too long, and I managed precious few hours of sleep between layovers and meals and reading and World Cup and sappy movies and enough in-flight Tetris to make my eyeballs burn. Plenty of time to just let me mind run free, too, and plenty to think about. Such an eyeful of cultures. During my LA-Seoul flight, I sat next to a Chinese girl, whom the flight attendants with their matching turquoise eyeshadow and hair in identical black buns kept trying unsuccessfully to talk to in Korean, and a South Korean girl, who showed me and the Chinese one how to eat the rice bowl and hot pepper paste and seaweed soup and bean curd with dressing. In front of me, there was a saffron-clad Cambodian monk listening to his iPod and taking videos of the SkyMap with a little digital camcorder. And now I'm here in Phnom Penh, back at my old internet cafe where I sat to write similar blog entries three years ago, and realizing, just like then, that my time is about to run out and that I'm late for lunch. Sorry, Ma!