Took CX879 SFO-HKG the other day. Flight path took us through the following: SFO-Northern California Coast-Juneau-Alaska (Mt. McKinley)-Eastern Russia-Bering Strait-Hokkaido-Sea of Japan-Korean Strait-Taiwan-HKG. Despite flying nonstop all the way from SFO to HKG and managing an on-time departure from SFO, ended up arriving HKG close to 8pm, almost an hour late from the scheduled time. So is it common for an SFO-HKG flight path to fly as north above Alaska & Russia? So clear that the snow capped mountains from those terrains were cleary seen from my window seat (and quite beautiful as well). Frankly from past experiences, it is merely a shallow curve across the Pacific flying above mostly ocean and very little land. Hence the path above Alaska, Russia, and Northern Japan surprised me. Also any reason why it arrived almost 1 hour late despite no significant delays during departure?