It's a different day here

We have finally adjusted to the time difference.  When we left the west coast, almost two weeks ago, and arrived the next afternoon we were suddenly 15 hours ahead.  Our flight was 11 hours, but it was 26 hours later.  Even though I've started getting up at 7 a.m. (ok, 7-ish) local time, I still haven't wrapped my mind around the time difference.

We're a full 12 hours ahead of Florida (which we call home, whatever that means when you live out of a backpack); it's hard to think about people being a day behind. I called home on Mother's Day (a call which cost about 75 cents - thank you, Skype!) and had to think, "is it better to wait till Monday morning and try to catch my mom, in the evening?" or, "should I try to call at 8 pm, before church?"  I have a hard enough time knowing when my parents go to church when I'm in the same time zone.  As it was, my mom got the hairy eyeball from my dad, since my call, from China, was now making them all late.

The ease of calling and staying in touch, but still being so out of touch with everyone is peculiar and perhaps time and space are not entirely related.

In many ways, we have conquered the space between us.  

You can get on a plane and be half way around the world within a matter of hours.  No trans-oceanic, month-long sojourns, no stowing away on freighters, no worrying about scurvy, just hop on a jet and go.  In the same way, you can contact a loved one by merely hitting "send", which is fortunate since my carrier pigeons were quarantined at customs.  

Despite these great advances in getting through space, literally being able to outrun the sun (as we never did have the sun set on our plane as we headed west and yet, it was the next day when we arrived), and electronic communication meaning we are instantaneously connected to those people we left in the US, we can't avoid the fact that it's morning on the other side of the planet.  

We haven't conquered the time between us.  While I see the sun rise, someone else sees the sun set; sometimes the sun doesn't even set, depending where you are.  Will we ever truly be able to see eye-to-eye with people who have just a slightly different or opposite view of the sunrise?  After all, where we stand determines what time of day, and even which day, it is.