20 Hours of Night

The flight from Toronto to Hong Kong races away from the sun like a skittish vampire. From the time we took off from Pearson at 10:30pm it was black outside the windows until just a bit before landing in Hong Kong.
It made the refueling in Anchorage an odd but uneventful stop (Although they had trouble opening a frozen door). I know it's a city but you expect very little as you approach it, especially since there has not been a light on the ground in hours. All of a sudden you catch sight of "city glow," just as you would coming into Toronto but with an erie pool of nothingness around it.
Hong Kong was almost the same but 40% lighter. It was foggy and it looked like someone had simply held up a giant flat matte gray cardboard paint chip outside, just past the wing. It was impossible to guess where we were as there were no landmarks, not even distinguishable clouds. Than suddenly a ship just materialized out of the murk below and even more startlingly the runway leapt out and ducked underneath the plane. The approach to the runway hangs over the ocean so from the side window you have no idea it's coming.
I've already made a run into Honk Kong's city center which I'll talk about later, but for now I'm safely back in the airport waiting to board my next plane to Auckland where I'll stay on the ground for a while.