On the Road Again (Tokyo - Paris)

...or actually, in the air again. Left Tokyo on the 19th on an Air France flight to Paris. The last time I was there was in 1977! How much has Paris changed since then? How much have I?

You know how they have those screens showing your flight course on planes these days? I had my screen set for that during the last several hours of my flight and the icon that was supposed to be our plane looked like nothing less than a giant missile, an ICBM, a giant... It was very phallic. Oh, those masculin Gauls! I don't know how it is on other European carriers but you would never see such a thing on asexual Asian carriers or Puritanical American carriers.

It was also quite disconcerting. I felt like I was on a warhead about to blow Paris to smithereens. Very aggressive.

It was only much, much later, near the end of the flight that I saw that this penile protrusion actually had wings, but that they were black and blended in with the black, dark green and brown of the map. Kind of like camouflage wings. (They ought to do that on real planes.)

I was a bit disappointed, though, knowing that the icon was supposed to be a regular plane with wings instead of that missile.