The shout came from the group of professional astronomers and experienced amateurs who were collected at the edge of the plaza at the local Wuhan University which our group had reserved to watch the eclipse. 

Excitement increased among the crowd of ninety Eclipse Chasers who had traveled from all over the United States, Venezuela, Columbia, England, and Canada. The noise level from the nearly 1000 local citizens mostly standing on the edge or the plaza rose also though it was obvious they were less clear on what was happening. 

First Contact refers to the first moment that the edge of the moon touches the disk of the Sun. From that point on begins what is both the longest and shortest periods of time that any of the observers will experience. First Contact in Wuhan was called out at around 8:15 am, three hours after our bus left the hotel and five hours after the first of the three buses had left the hotel; that first bus carrying those people with telescopes and specialized photographic equipment. 

Totality would not start until close to 9:30am. This period of time for the professionals was continually busy but for those of us who were merely enthusiasts it was a time for discussing what was going on, looking upward periodically with our ‘special’ glasses to see the increasingly large chunk of the Sun rising up in the sky as the moon seemingly dropped down over it; as the nervousness over the increasingly problematic cloud cover caused the entire scene to slip in and out between the clouds. 

We were also entertained by a special guest, Alvin Drew, an Air Force Colonel, a US astronaut, and a recent visitor to the Space Station. Alvin had read about the eclipse, and our group, from a New York Times travel article, and talked about it a while ago with the author of the article. He had never seen an eclipse before, was spending a year in Moscow working with the Russian space program, and decided it was close enough to hop over to Wuhan. Thus he flew into Wuhan from Moscow the day before. 

Everyone had their picture taken with Alvin including me. 

Me, Alvin Drew, and Howie Spero in Wuhan China Before the Eclipse

As we got closer to totality, a number of group members started handing out extra copies of our protective filters which allowed viewing directly of the Sun to the local Chinese. The local Chinese crowd continued to grow in size and noise level.

“Two minutes”, came the shout as what was left of the Sun vanished behind the clouds, unfortunately not visibly behind the moon. 

By then it had started to cool down noticeably from the extremely hot day in Wuhan which eventually got to 100 degrees. The light had shifted to the blue part of the spectrum, everything had gotten darker. The long wait when little seemed to change became a faster and faster maelstrom of events. 

“Thirty seconds to totality”. 

My daughters and I looked behind us away from the Sun and saw the approaching darkness. My older daughter gripped my arm tightly as the almost physical movement of dark came closer quickly. 

“Totality”.

And almost instantaneously even though the Sun and moon were both behind the clouds, everything became dark. The crowd burst into applause briefly. 

The hundreds of photographic flashes that suddenly came out, all from the local crowd who didn’t understand why they needed to tape over their flash, was less of a negative since the clouds prevented viewing much more effectively than the flashes would have. 

The crowd quieted down and we began to hear crickets chirping louder and louder as they assumed night had fallen. 

“Half-way through totality”. 

Coolness on the skin. Night when there should be day. Strange night sounds when there should be silence. The collective special feeling being part of one of nature’s truly unique events. 

“Come on, come on”, came voices from those with binoculars, most of whom had traveled thousands of miles to see the eclipse. Vainly looking for something in the now night sky. 

Suddenly a shout, “Was that a light, over there?” 

And through a brief gap in the clouds all suddenly saw the incredible sight, which photographs easily accessible on the web, do not convey accurately the power of the sight. The blackest circle that one has ever seen, with the Sun’s atmosphere brightly surrounding the black circle. 

A loud cheer erupted. Eclipse virgins as first time viewers are called, were awestruck, amazed. 

“Thirty seconds to go.” 

The Moon and Sun continued on their separate paths, but as they did, the first light of the Sun shown brilliantly at one point of the Moon as well as around the entire disk creating a beautiful diamond ring for an instant as the day then returned. 

Applause again as the total eclipse ended though the entire event still had more than another hour to go until the two bodies were completely separate. However, it doesn’t take much of the Sun to be visible day to return. 

While those of us who had been to previous eclipse’s were disappointed that we had only seen a part of this one, we were very happy to have seen what we did and thrilled to share the experience with still another group who have been initiated into that small group of umbraphiles who have experienced this very special event. 

It took many hours to come down, or up, from our reaction to the eclipse, but by evening we had left Wuhan and moved on to Xian to continue the other part of our trip, the tour of China.

Firefly was a TV show created by Joss Whedon, who among other things was the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which lasted less than one season. It was shown on the Fox Network who evidently weren’t exactly clear on what to do with a quirky, character driven, space western whose principals ran around in a spaceship, used six-shooters, rustled cattle, and whenever feeling strong emotions would rattle off a phrase or two in Chinese. 

The end result is that only 11 of the 14 filmed episodes were ever shown on TV and the show was canceled. 

I never saw Firefly on TV during that season. 

However, Firefly fanatics, often called Browncoats from the color of the jacket that the Captain in the show wore as did other rebels during the losing war against the Alliance (don’t ask, rent the DVD’s), agitated and lobbied enough that Universal decided to authorize a film version of the show named after the name of the spaceship, Serenity. 

I saw Serenity in a movie theater and loved it. Rented the TV DVD’s and loved the TV show even more. 

Since then I have demonstrated the results of that passion in a number of different ways. I hosted a Firefly lunch once a month for the three years I was a the US Department of Transportation as the CIO for a small but equally addicted group where we watch one of the Firefly TV episodes, repeating the set when we finished the 14 filmed episodes. Getting dispensation from the DOT General Counsel that we were conducting Team Building exercises, we showed the two-hour movie, Serenity, twice, at the end of each cycle. 

I attend and this year worked at the annual showing of Serenity at the Arlington Cinema and Draft House which also servers as a fund raiser for Equality Now, a favorite charity of Joss Whedon. 

And here I am finishing up my Yangtze River cruise in China, getting ready for the eclipse we hope to see in Wuhan. The other day at lunch, I sat with members of a family from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. 

“Edmonton”, I noted, is the home of Nathan Fillion, the Captain in the TV show Firefly. Amazingly the response from the otherwise seemingly normal fellow members of the group, was the beginnings of a detailed discussion of which episode they liked best and which individual scenes illustrated the qualities of each of the characters from the show. They too had not seen the show on TV, were loaned the DVD set from a friend, watched the shows and joined me in wondering how such a great TV show could have been canceled. 

The family was even familiar with the Edmonton comedy group, Three Dead Trolls in a Baggy, a completely unexpected bonus. A conversation I rarely have been able to have anywhere and certainly unanticipated on the Yangtze River in the middle of China.

Some of my quick reactions to Shanghai in our 2.5 days here. Home to over 13 million people, it is hard to describe the sense of change and transformation that is happening. One of our guides mentioned that over 20% of China’s GDP is generated here. Construction is going on everywhere, the traffic is awful, and the driver’s make Boston driver’s seem tame.

Traffic signals are evidently suggestions, often ignored. Vehicles make left turns across multiple lanes in front of cars and trucks rushing toward them, each daring the other to stop or not. Pedestrians do not have the right of way our guides emphasize over and over.

What to make of a society that has an enormous complete model of every building in Shanghai at the Urban Planning Exhibition Center, updated a few times each year. Perhaps one that also has beautiful exhibits of ancient ceramics and jade and furniture at the Shanghai museum, and notes the existence of the various ‘concessions’, which are where Western powers carved out areas under their control within Shanghai in years past.

Our 90 fellow eclipse chasers are divided into three buses; called sun, moon, and stars. My family is on the stars bus.

Our guide in Shanghai was a lovely young woman, Jin Jing, who provided us with much information an entertaining stories about herself and China.

Here is her name in Chinese:

One of the stories she told involved the head of the United States, the head of Russia, and Deng Xiaoping riding in a bus.

The bus driver asked the head of the United States which direction to take at an intersection, and he answered turn right since we support capitalism.

The bus driver then asked the head of Russia which direction to take, and he said turn left since we support socialism.

Worried at what to do, the bus driver asked Deng Xiaoping what he should do. Deng said turn the turn signal so that it signals left, but turn right. We will call this Socialism but with Chinese characteristics.

My take is that the people of Shanghai have embraced this approach completely.

We were up by 4am to leave by 5am to pick up my younger daughter, Tamar, at 5:30am, to get to Dulles airport at 6am, where we got through the entire ticketing process and security within 30 minutes so were way early for our 8am flight. I can never get the timing of these things right.

We had two flights to take us to Shanghai, the first to Chicago and the second from Chicago to Shanghai. The second which was scheduled to take off a little after 10:30 was about ½ hour late due to debris on the runway, a new reason, at least for me, for a delay, and took just under 14 hours; the longest flight I have ever had.

BUT it turns out after talking to one of the United staff on the plane, only the second longest run that United has, the longest being from Chicago to Hong Kong, which takes about 15 hours. All I know is that after a lunch and a movie and a brief nap, when one of your daughters asks how much longer to go and you answer 10 hours, it means the flight is more than long enough.

The highlight of the trip happened just after we landed. We had been warned by announcements on the plane a few times and then again when we landed that Chinese authorities would be boarding the plane and taking everyone’s temperature one-at-a-time to verify that no-one had a fever. Their goal was to check for swine flu. Evidently if you had a fever or were within three rows of someone who did, you had a chance of being quarantined for up to a week.

When we got to the gate, there was an announcement that we were the first flight that they had decided to stop checking and that therefore we could immediately deplane and proceed. When we entered the terminal, we did have to pass a scanner which evidently was checking body temperatures but a variety of Chinese officials with masks on, but otherwise got through customs in a matter of a few minutes.

Shanghai

My first impressions of Shanghai were that it reminds me of New York but with a LOT more Chinese Restaurants. Lots and lots of construction. Very vibrant, felt pretty western actually. The hotel we are staying at, the Huating Towers, which used to be a Sheraton is pretty nice.

We saw but did not ride the maglev, which is a high speed wheel-less train which goes between the airport and the center of Shanghai. The train which evidently cost over $1.2 billion to build goes up to 270 miles per hour. It evidently can go faster but the less than 8 minute trip that it takes at that speed isn’t long enough for it to get to anything higher. We were told two or three times that the Shanghai maglev went faster than any comparable train in Japan, in case we were unaware.

We had dinner with an old friend of mine who I worked with at Sun Microsystems, and who returned to China to take over her family business a few years ago. We went to a local dumpling restaurant with her husband, who is of Chinese descent but was born in New York City and grew-up in New Jersey and young son. While my family was fading as the night went on from the flight, the food was great.

Back at the hotel, we ran into many of the people who will be with us over the next few weeks including a number we had met at the 2006 Turkey eclipse trip. We staggered back upstairs and were sound asleep by 9:30pm.

Accessing the Web

Thus far I am unable to access facebook, twitter, or dorobekinsider; so have no idea as to if/how any of this is being received. I do post after I send a copy to Chris, a copy to www.ourownlittlecorner.com so to the extent anyone cares hope they look at one of these locations.

Eight days later we hope to see the longest total solar eclipse in this century, slightly less than six minutes long at Wuhan, China. Regardless of the viewing conditions that morning,  we will get an all too short glimpse of this still controversially emerging global super-power between July 14^th and July 27^th when we leave Beijing to return home.

How This Trip Came About – Turkey

The possibility of the trip to China actually began in late 2004, when I decided that it was important for me to see a total solar eclipse.  It turned out that one was scheduled to occur in March, 2006 in Turkey, a country I had always been interested in because of the many cultures that had occupied that territory over time.

Searching around the Internet I came across a web site called Eclipse Chasers and was referred to someone who organized Eclipse tours, Rick Brown.

My wonderful wife, Ellen, was used to these kinds of random thoughts, and while Turkey was probably not on her top three list of countries to visit next, acquiesced to going.

We had a wonderful time in Turkey, saw many wonderful sites, and had a great time watching the eclipse in Side, Turkey, at a resort on the Mediterranean. We literally were able to see the shadow of the eclipse come at us from the water and cross over us as the eclipse became total.

For those who are interested in what it was like to be in Side, here is a summary from one of the participants:

http://www.eclipse-chasers.com/tse2006p2.html

We made many new friends, a number of whom we have kept in active touch with and who have since visited our home. And, of course, we enjoy the Turkish rug we bought while there – is it possible to go to Turkey and not get a rug?

One final story from the Turkey visit is that before I left I had started serious conversations with the Bush Administration about joining the Department of Transportation as the Chief Information Officer.  We had gotten to the point where the next step was to make an ‘almost’ final decision and then have that likely choice meet Secretary Mineta for a final sign-off.

When we arrived, tired and jet-lagged late afternoon, I confirmed that I had received no phone calls or emails. Assuming this likely meant that they were delayed in deciding or had decided to select someone else, I called the White House liaison. Though it was very late in the day, she was still cheerful, I was to learn she always was, telling me she really looked forward to seeing me at 10am the next day for my meeting with Secretary Mineta.

The next morning I arrived at the Department, thankful that I had checked in but to be honest barely awake. Evidently I didn’t make a complete fool of myself because within a day after that final meeting I was offered the position and happily accepted leading to almost three greats years working with some of the finest people I have ever had the good fortune to meet.

How This Trip Came About – China

The first email from Rick Brown, the organizer of the Turkey eclipse trip, about joining him in 2009 in China came in September, 2006.

Though we really hadn’t planned to go on still another eclipse trip, both Ellen and I had talked about visiting China and once we found out both of our daughters would be interested in going, we let Rick know we were in.

The plan for the trip is pretty extensive:

http://www.eclipse-chasers.com/esafari/default.html

Our group this year is almost 50% bigger than last year with just about 90 people. We will typically be going in three buses when on land.

We land in Shanghai, tour for a few days while getting used to the time change. Then fly inland to take a cruise down the Yangtze River. During the four days we are on the Yangtze we take a number of side excursions visiting the three gorges and other sights.

July 21^st we fly back to Wuhan where we will watch the eclipse the next day. Up at 5am the current plan is to go to a local university to watch the eclipse.

For those who are interested, the University of North Dakota plans to do a web cast from our site:

www.sems.und.edu

and I am told we will have a New York Times reporter joining us in Wuhan.

After the eclipse we leave Wuhan that afternoon, flying to Xian to see the Terra Cotta soldiers and finally to Beijing.

Assuming we have no problems accessing flickr, we plan to upload pictures from time to time to:

www.flickr.com/technogeezer

As we finish packing for the trip and our older daughter comes back to DC from NYC, where she continues her efforts at perfecting her acting craft:

www.miriammintz.com

our excitement only builds; from the opportunity to see China, to spend two weeks with our entire family, and naturally to see another eclipse, a very special experience.