Eric Duffy: Eric's Big Adventure - Part 1: The Journey

My First Blog, and what a story to tell !

So where else do you begin the story of a three-week trip to Manila than with the journey itself. My flight departed Tampa @ 6:40 pm on Thursday, September 7th.

The first leg of my flight was on a Delta plane destined for LAX. A heavy downpour caused a 30-minute delay, so I was concerned about making my connection. We landed @ 9:00 pm (LA time), which only left me one hour to make my connection. It was even more challenging to discover that I had to exit the terminal and re-enter the international terminal, taking me through security once again. I was relieved to discover that my flight to Manila had been pushed back by 90 minutes. Even better, the flight was changed from making one stop in Guam to going direct to Manila.

Arriving at the gate for my flight to Manila was a bit of a shock. I've traveled on some large planes before, but never on a 747. I was shocked to see almost 500 people waiting at the gate for our flight. Included in the group were about 15 people in wheel chairs. I was seated in business class, seat 11K (see the seat map: http://www.philippineairlines.com/files/B747400%20N751-%20N753%20rev%2027dec05.pdf). Not only was it very cool to board a 747, but to go up the stairs to the business class section as well. All of the flight attendants were very friendly and they attended to your every need.

The flight was long and bumpy(a total of 7,261 miles). We traveled with the seat belt fastened sign turned on for most of the flight. We left LAX @ 11:30 pm and shortly after takeoff they served us dinner. The menu was very unique, at least for a boy raised on meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Seeing as I couldn't find the cheeseburge option, I settled for the orange peel chicken, which was actually quite tasty. This was after passing on the mini goat cheese-cake with herbed smoked salmon appetizer.

After dinner the lights dimmed and it was time to sleep. Imagine trying to sleep in a lazy-boy recliner and that's what it was like. Sure, it was comfortable, but for long periods of sleep it didn't completely work. I woke up several times and watched movies. I saw most of Mission Impossible III and later all of X-Men. At least I finally got to catch up on some movies that I had not seen.

The lady sitting next to me for the duration of the flight was named Let A (pronounced lay-ta). She was extremely friendly and was a native from the Philippines. She is a nurse and works with her husband, who is a doctor. They live in the southern part of the Philippines in the city of Zamboanga. According to our travel web-site, I would be strictly prohibited to travel to this part of the Philippines, primarily due to terrorist activity. You should check out the location using Google Earth and you will see it is very close to Indonesia, which has never been that friendly with the United States. Let A was very friendly and we exchanged business cards. I plan on sending her an email and thanking her for making the flight more enjoyable.

About four hours before landing, they offered some refreshments and assorted goodies. I readily accepted the cookies and chocolates, but I had to pass on a dish called Arroz Caldo. The best way to describe this dish is to take the verbiage directly from the menu as follows:

Arroz Caldo: Ginger-flavored rice porridge with salted egg chunks, fried garlic, chopped spring onions and line.

Now I don't know about you, but the last time I heard of porridge was when I was reading the Three Bears to my daughter before her bedtime. Just the sight of it made me close the lid back up (as I smiled at the flight attendant).

One more meal was served shortly before we landed, but I chose the fruite plate and other items which I could identify by site.

We landed in Manila @ 4:15 am (Manila time). It took almost an hour before my bags arrived. I guess I couldn't complain when I realized there were almost 500 passengers to unload. In addition to nromal luggage there were many boxes on the flight. Since most of the people were from the Philippines on my flight, it makes sense that they brough back assorted goodies from the US.

I met a representative from the hotel who escorted me to a driver and off to the hotel I went. Even at 5:30 in the morning there was a good bit of traffic on the road. I can't say that I had ever seen a street where there were five lanes of traffic and people in the right-most lane were making left-hand turns. Wow, I am not driving in this town !!!

I checked into the hotel and made my way to the room. The hotel is quite nice as seen in the picture below: