Fushiki to Beijing - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 45

guy makes an arduous trek that follows the equator for its entire length, while the other guy skips in a little
circle around the North Pole. Both have crossed all the longitudinal meridians, but I think you'll agree that
the feats are not quite comparable.
Rebecca and I haven't exactly been doing a jig around the North Pole, but we also haven't been making
a great circle. For amateur overland adventurers like us, unfortunately, touching our toes to two antipodal
points presents extreme difficulties. The bulk of the world's land is in the Northern Hemisphere, and it's
tough to find reciprocal points on land below the equator. There's one antipodal pair with points in Indone-
sia and Ecuador, another touches down in a town in Chile and a village in China, and a third nuzzles Spain
and New Zealand. It's hard to see a realistic scenario for us in which we hit any of these pairs without go-
ing far off course. (Some of the places involved are distressingly remote, to boot. I can only imagine the
surface transport we'd have to take to reach both Valdivia, Chile, and Wuhai, China—the latter awaiting us
somewhere out there in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.)
As for antipodal points located in the middle of oceans: To hit them, we're at the mercy of extant freight-
er routes and passenger lines. And as best we can tell, these won't do the trick. Unless we can buy, borrow,
or steal a seaworthy vessel, and then navigate it into isolated corners of the South Pacific, it seems we're
out of luck.
But we're not giving up. After much careful research and debate, Rebecca and I have decided we can
legitimately claim to have circumnavigated the earth if we meet the following four conditions: 1) Start and
finish at the same place. 2) Cross all longitudinal meridians going in the same direction. 3) Cross the equat-
or. 4) Cover at least twenty-five thousand miles—the length of a great circle around the earth. There's some
precedent in the annals of amateur adventuredom for allowing this alternate set of criteria, so we don't even
feel like we're cheating.
What does this mission directive mean for our route? It means we need to move much farther south, to-
ward the equator—so we can cross it. Since we're currently on an island, this action will necessitate a ship
of some sort. On the Web, we've found a ferry line that goes from Tokyo to Shanghai. We figure once we
reach the Asian mainland, we can head south by train, bus, or car toward Singapore, which is very near the
equator.
Unfortunately for our ferry hopes, the weather is not cooperating. “I'm checking the maritime forecast,”
says Rebecca, clicking around the Web, “and it's looking grim. There appears to be a major typhoon headed
straight for Japan.” The next forty-eight hours could be a dicey time to be at sea. We'd prefer not to spend
two days vomiting over a ferry railing into thirty-foot waves.
Impulsively, we decide we'll hop on the next train going south out of Tokyo. At least we'll be headed
vaguely in the right direction. And there appears to be another China-bound ferry that leaves from Kobe a
few days hence. We're betting the typhoon will have petered out by then.
Going south to Kobe also provides another excuse to ride on a bullet train. These things are without
doubt the coolest form of practical, everyday surface transport in the world. (Yes, to answer your inevitable
question: that includes the Quebec funicular.) The bullet trains are sleek, quiet, and stylish, and their on-
time rate is simply astounding.
Watch the digital clock above the station platform as the bullet trains pull in: Invariably, the wheels
will shoosh to a stop, and the doors snap open, within a few seconds of the scheduled arrival time. One
train after another, after another, after another. Anyone who's dealt with Amtrak on a regular basis will,
upon witnessing a parade of on-time bullet trains, experience shock, followed closely by anger, settling into
resigned sorrow.
Our own train pulls in precisely as scheduled, of course, and we find our assigned seats next to a big
picture window. Cabin attendants roll carts of tasty Japanese food down the aisles. By the time I take off
my sweater and settle in for the ride, the train has cranked up to 140 mph. Apartment towers, suburbs, and