The Woods Are Quiet

Everyone else is asleep.  The sun’s been up, here near the Amur River for hours.  And it only went down a few hours before.  It’s green and wet and utterly devoid of people outside.  I’m not sure if we’re near the place where China and Russia faced off with tanks and platoons in 1962 when Russia, as I recall got the better of China, trying to establish just who controlled some island in the middle of the river.  

We went east to the coast and it became two hour later.  But then we went north and west and we are traveling back towards Beijing time again.  And soon we will pass it and continue on towards Moscow time, some nine times zones later.  China, of course, has one time zone for the whole country where it certainly should have at least four.  People in the west of the country just ignore this, as I recall.  With nine time zones however, this would be a particularly dark farce, with people in the east going to school and to work as the sun went down. 

I’m trying to decide what time it is.  The clock on my computer, which I think auto-adjusted to Vladivostok time, says its 8:44AM.  That’s a nice time.  The dining car will certainly be open if that’s what time it is.  My phone, which is auto-updating to local cell towers, presumably has the “right” time: 7:45AM.  I think that is still one hour further ahead than my body clock which left Beijing time 6:45AM, about four days ago. 

It’s so quiet out there.  The train rumbles but the woods are quiet.  The beech trees are lovely and the pines are all denuded except for the topmost sections of their growth.  Does that mean there is twenty feet of snow cover here in the winter? I doubt I ever will undertake to, but it would be a remarkable reverse journey to consider, in the dead of winter.  I’m sure the monotony of the snow would offer its own meditation. 

Tuesday 6/26/18