Home at Last !!!

The problem with taking naps is you wake up half asleep. My worry about my presentation was useless. It turns out I have brought my portable hard drive which contains all of my documents. So I had my presentation all along!

The trip from Vancouver to Manila was quite difficult. First, the boarding was delayed. Then when they had all of us in the plane, the flight was delayed for an hour. All of us were sitting there with no air condition running. It was quite stuffy and hot.

The plane finally took off. Surprisingly, the seats were quite cramped. Food was ordinary. I was expecting more from Cathay. Almost 2 hours before landing at Hongkong, the pilot announced we were going to land in Taipei to refuel and to sit out the weather conditions in Hongkong. So we landed in Taipei and were again asked to sit in the plane with no air condition. It was very hot. Kids were crying. The two hour delay had me miss my connecting flight from Hongkong to Manila.

Thankfully, there were several flights from Hongkong and Manila. They booked me for the 2:45 flight, which was 4 hours later. They also gave me a lunch coupon for HK$75 (about US$15). They also gave me a phone card for 5 minutes. I did not realize 5 minutes was very short. I used it to call my brother to tell him I'd be delayed. It was cut short.

I met a few other Filipinos who were stranded and we struck up a conversation. They were trying to also call their relatives, but their relatives were using cellphones. They could not contact them. Maybe the cellphone area codes are different?

The restaurant we went to was quite expensive. HK$75 for a bowl of noodle!!! Not that that filling too. Later, as we walked around the airport, we found other food stalls. Their food court is probably bigger than the one at the Bay Centre in Victoria!

Finally, the call to board. And again, we were delayed for about half an hour for take off. Interesting also while lining up to board, the airport personnel said, "All Filipinos, please line up and back up." Got my new friend and I to talk about this. What did he mean by that? That only Filipinos are to line up and those of other nationalities do not need to? Well, the 747 was full and I'd say maybe more than half were made up of Filipinos.

Anyway, I was impressed w/ the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. It was bright. Of course, you will see it is old, but what can you do with an old building? They did the best they could.

The next challenge was placing a phone call. My cell phone would not work. Then I tried using the public phone which had posted that you can call using 1 peso. But when I asked, it turns out, you need 10 pesos to make a call. I had problems calling my brother's cell phone. Not sure what it is with Philippine cellphones, it seems that their area code is weird. So I had to call my wife to have her call my sister who later called my brother.