While flying across the Pacific from Tokyo to San Francisco, I saw a breathtakingly beautiful display of cloud formations through my window. It boggles my mind how far into the distance I can see. A vast plain of cotton-candy clouds covering as far as the eye can see. I saw a black speck moving across the clouds in the distance, and I initially thought it to be an insect. Then I realised its movement is too straight, too regular, and it dawned on me that that insect was really a plane.

My first view of San Diego, America's Finest City.

Shiny toy cars glinting in the unwavering sun travel across miniature highways, through a dense network of toy houses and buildings. The people looked like perfect clay micro-models, going about their daily lives. Tiny rivers snake across parched desert-like mountain ranges. It looked like the perfect miniaturised version of the perfect city. Except that everything was real.

I am reminded of that scene in Superman Returns in which Superman brings Louis up through and above the clouds under a moonlit sky.