A floating airport

As you all know by now, I hate flying. The other day I stumbled across this article about one of the airports in Osaka, the Kansai International Airport.  The American Society of Civil Engineers named it the "Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium."  It took twenty years of planning, 10,000 workers, 183 million cubic meters of soil and three years to complete. It's the first airport to be constructed on a man made island and is considered to be the most beautiful airports in the world. Beauty comes at a price because it's the most expensive airport to ever be built. It survived the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in 1995 and not a single pane of glass was shattered.

I continued to read on when all of a sudden I realized that this is the airport I flew into! I remember leaving the airport and driving over a bridge (see picture) for a while but didn't think anything of it. This airport is insane. It has a three or four story mall and is just downright massive. I wish I wouldn't have seen this picture though because the idea taking off on an airplane off an island that is on an island is not so comforting. But it is beautiful, especially in person. I'll just have to keep that in mind as we are preparing for take-off  going 500 miles an hour down the 4,000 meter runway. At least I still have some anti-anxiety pills for the flight home.