CHASING THE SUN TO CHINA--

Long distance, East-West, airline travel does funny things to our normal rhythms of daylight and darkness.

Years ago, while a county commissioner, I led a 10-day, economic and goodwill mission to Taipei County Taiwan, Republic of China, with whom we had a Sister-county Relationship.

That trip involved an hour airline ride from Cleveland to Chicago where we boarded a Boeing 747 for the next leg, a 13 hour, non-stop flight to Tokyo. There we had a scheduled lay-over for an hour or so then the final, 3 hour flight to Taipei.

Here’s how we followed the sun: I got up about 5 a.m. and rode a shuttle bus from Mansfield to Cleveland with my 17 colleagues. We handled international flight details and left for Chicago about 8 a.m. Nine a.m. we arrived in Chicago. About 11 a.m., we left for Tokyo. About midnight (still on Eastern Standard Time) we landed in Japan.

Of course, it was just late afternoon over there.

About 1 a.m. (still our time) we left for Taipei, landing there about 4 a.m. After being up about 24 hours by then and seeing only one sunrise and one sunset during that period, we arrived in Taipei about 8 p.m., their time—where we were promptly treated to a VIP reception by our party-loving Chinese counterparts.

As you might imagine our biological clocks had tumbled into complete disarray. I had managed to stay awake the entire trip so after a dizzying round of toasts I slept well that night and awoke the next morning—conveniently adjusted to their local time. More or less.

That 24 hour travel period—done mostly in daylight—was naturally the result of traveling the same direction as the sun.

If you think about it then, the opposite occurs on the return flight.

Yup, in one 24 hour period you will experience two sunrises and two sunsets.

Imagine being an astronaut and whizzing around the Earth in the International Space Station, 17 times every 24 hours.