#GOW Boat Captain | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mwcowan · 6 years

Text

Mark and Georgia’s March 2019 Philippines Trip

Day 22 - Manila to Reno

Writing this last post from SFO waiting for my final flight to Reno, already delayed 2 hours - thankful again for the lounges. Georgia’s already in Reno having flown there from San Jose this morning, so once again I look forward to seeing her waiting for me in the airport, and for her to drive me home as she’s a few days ahead of me in getting readjusted to this time zone. So, signing off for this blog, hope you’ve enjoyed it. Until next time, safe travels!

Day 21 – Corregidor

Due to a mix-up with Georgia’s Mom’s travel schedule, Georgia and Mom started home last (Weds.) night, while I’m not scheduled to travel until tomorrow, Friday. That left me with a day in Manila, and I decided to take a day tour to Corregidor, a place I’ve wanted to visit but we’ve never been able to fit it into our schedule. If you look at a map you can easily see Corregidor’s strategic value as it sits right at the entrance to Manila Bay. Since the times of Spanish colonization it’s been fortified to guard the bay and has seen its share of conflict, however none more noteworthy than WWII. I won’t launch into a full history, but Corregidor was the last courageous hold-out of the American and Filipino forces against the Japanese in the Philippines. General Douglas MacArthur and his family were withdrawn in March 1942 (“I shall return”) and though it eventually fell to the Japanese in May 1942, the protracted battle for Corregidor substantially slowed the Japanese advance in the Pacific, eventually a decisive factor in the Pacific war. In February 1945 American and Filipino forces waged a 10-day invasion that succeeded in recapturing Corregidor from the Japanese. Enough history… you can read all about Corregidor and MacArthur on WikiPedia and many other online sources.

Today Corregidor is a national historic park, with the American gun emplacements, barracks, HQ buildings and such preserved as they were following the war. New structures such as the Pacific War Memorial and museum, Eternal Flame, and Filipino Heroes Monument have been erected to honor the men and women who fought so bravely to defend, and ultimately retake, Corregidor and the Philippines. When I say ‘preserved as they were’ that means destroyed. Generally just a shell of these reinforced concrete buildings still stands. Most of the destruction came during the initial Japanese conquest; those that still stood succumbed during the American-Filipino re-invasion. None of the original buildings or gun batteries were untouched.

It’s an odd and somber feeling to walk on a quiet day through the ruins. To someone like me who was fortunate to came of age between all the modern conflicts it’s a way to understand the enormity of war. How grand these buildings and the life there must have been in this peacetime tropical paradise. You can imagine the rowdy Bachelor Officer Quarters, idyllic life at the Officer’s Family housing. The theater, the chapel. The terror of the bombs dropping, the rush to relative safety in the Malinta Tunnel where operations, quarters, even the hospital were moved after the invasion started.

Enough words.

Day 17 – Kawayan Cove, Fruit of the Day

A quick trip back to Kawyan Cove to check on the progress of the last 2 weeks. Looking good, all the roof trusses for both the living room and master BR are in, as well as the last set of stairs from the guest BR level to the pool deck. The bottom and part of the sides of the pool have received concrete, and much wall finishing work has been completed. This is looking out the master BR towards the cove.

From the beach, it’s looking more like the house it will be, with the roof outline and the exterior stairways visible. At this point all the walls are complete, so everything that doesn’t look like a solid wall will be glass – basically every wall with a view of the cove will be floor-to-ceiling glass.

Something familiar, but in a new way, as today’s fruit of the day – Mango! I totally love mango, one of my favorite fruits. As long as it’s ripe and sweet and creamy that is. Over here, very green, crispy mangos are eaten as a snack, dipped either in rock salt or bagoong, fermented shrimp paste that, if it’s possible, is saltier than salt. This mango is really sour, not bitter like that kamias ‘fruit’, but just sour – think those sour green apple candies times ten. I think a lot of the sourness is magnified by the salt or bagoong.

This is not for the timid. Even an experienced consumer of green mango gets “mango-face”. Thankfully it’s not permanent.

Day 15 – Siargao

We originally had ambitious plans for today. We were going to ride the motorbike over to the port of Del Carmen and hire another bangka to take us to Sugba lagoon on the island of Caob. We’d flown over this on final approach to the Siargao airport and it looked pretty amazing, and indeed it’s one of the top spots to visit in Siargao. Then last night, we decided we were pretty weary of bangkas and another 1-hour trip didn’t sound attractive, plus we were still a little sore from the other day’s motorbike adventure and a 1+ hour ride to the port wasn’t very appealing, either. Thus Sugba was scratched from the list. Next time.

But we’re in this great surf town, right? How about a surfing lesson! That sounds right up the alley of two adventurers like us! So after breakfast we walked down to the Cloud 9 area, found out about lessons and board rentals (about $10/hour) and then decided to sit on the beach near the baby surf area and watch the beginners with their lessons.

And then we…

…decided to go for a 90-minute massage on the beach. That felt great, working out all the sore muscles from the imaginary surfing session. And Joyce, if you’re reading this, the massage included a lot of stretching and putting us into a number of positions similar to Pilates. We liked this and think it would be great if you could have people at your lessons to stretch us so we wouldn’t have to do so much work. We’ll expect this when we return at the end of the month. 😉

A last word about Siargao – I’d ranted earlier about plastic waste on the beaches; Siargao seems to be especially progressive about this for the Philippines. In the talipapa there were no plastic bags; a sign warned that it is illegal to use or distribute any non-reusable or non-recyclable plastic items. Along the beach we found signs urging action,

and simple bins, which people used!, to collect recyclable plastics.

The beaches were very clean, plastic trash was very rare. Bravo Siargao, we hope this spreads to the rest of the Philippines, and the rest of the world!

Day 14 – Siargao

Q: What’s noisier than a bangka?

A: A bangka with two motors.

That’s what we got today when we went on an adventure to a couple of the outer islands near Siargao, La Janoza and Mam-on. There are a few very popular and very nearby islands that are subject to swarms of boats and people; we’d read an article advising the adventurous tourist to avoid these and head instead for a string of more remote, less inhabited and less visited, islands. That sounds like us.

After meeting up with our boat captain, we headed for the local talipapa (market) to get supplies for lunch. A fresh mahi-mahi looks good, as well as a chicken and some veggies. And of course an adequate quantity of San Mig Lights.

Embarking on our sturdy bangka, we immediately wished we’d brought earplugs as the pair of un-muffled one-cylinder jackhammers beat our eardrums senseless for the next hour. Once we cleared the inland waters this became a very different sea, the Pacific in all it’s non-pacific ways, swells tossing our little boat in every which direction. “…If not for the courage of her fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost…” kept running through my head. We see now why these islands are less visited – you must really want to get here to endure the trip. It’s definitely not for those prone to sea-sickness or who have fears of being in a little boat on a large and angry ocean.

We were rewarded with the most incredible blue water. No, that color is not photoshopped!

Pristine and uncrowded beaches,

We found some people on Mam-on island to cook for us, they charged 500 Pesos (less than $10) to prepare kinilaw (local ceviche), sinigang (fish and vegetable stew), and grilled mahi and chicken for our lunch. Amazing fresh food, amazing location… it doesn’t get much better.

Alas, we had to head back, but now in the late afternoon the wind had come up and the ocean swells were twice as high as they were on the trip over. Jackhammer motors, roller coaster ride, spray in the face, no Gilligan’s Island theme song this time, Georgia was praying. Our crew was steadfast, they said this was nothing and we eventually arrived safely back at port. We did have to walk the last 100 yards as it was low tide, but we were both glad to be back on firm, if not dry, land. Hopefully our ears will stop ringing in a couple days.

Day 13 – Siargao

We flew to Siargao (Shar-gow) yesterday for a 5-day ‘vacation’. Neither of us have been here before and as it was rumored to be relatively ‘undiscovered and pristine’ we wanted to give it a try as our new place for this trip. Siargao is one of the easternmost islands in the Philippines, and is fully exposed to the Pacific ocean. That means something pretty rare over here – surf! Although undiscovered by most tourists the surfers sure know the place. There’s a famous break called “Cloud 9” near where we’re staying, and when the surf’s up (big waves September thru November) there’s a stop here on the world professional circuit. Not surprisingly then, most of the dudes and dudettes hanging around town are surfers. Surfers are predominantly young and broke, so most accommodations lean towards the hostel category; rooms with a/c and private baths are more scarce. Happily there are a few wonderful exceptions. We’d booked a place called the Kawayan Resort that looked pretty nice (no relation to Kawayan Cove – kawayan means bamboo so it’s pretty common in place & business names). I had no idea but this resort only has 2 rooms, each a private villa, one on each side of the pool and garden, plus it has one of the highest-rated restaurants on the island. Pretty deluxe!

Our villa across the pool -

Siargao has good roads and little traffic, so the favorite way to get around here is to rent a motorbike. Since we didn’t want to deal with annoying things like shifting we found a Honda scooter – I quickly found that it had plenty of power; as I started a solo shakedown drive (Georgia was smart to make me drive it before she got on!) I immediately bolted across the road and almost into a roadside vendor on the other side! I think the lady who rented it to us was sure she’d never see us alive again… Anyway I got used to the throttle and off we went. We drove about 50 km from our hotel to nice Pacifico beach where we enjoyed lunch and spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach. The drive up and back was very enjoyable, this really is an unspoiled and beautiful island. Through many small villages, past innumerable rice fields, loads being pulled by carabao, rice being winnowed by hand. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so far away from modern life, even with a modern scooter under my puwet (which is quite sore by the way).

I think I’ve got the better seat!

Philippines gas station and mini-mart. Gas 50 pesos/liter from 1-liter coke bottles, snacks and dried fish hanging from the roof...

Day 11 – Birthday Party, Balut of the Day

Filipinos love a party, and every birthday, anniversary, holiday, you name it, is a reason to have one. Lolo Mylvin’s (Grandpa Melvin) and Lola Yoli’s (Grandma Yoli) combined 80th birthday was certainly a reason for a big one. Talk, food, games, music, smiles everywhere, it was all there. Georgia and I felt like honored guests although we hardly knew the celebrants, I’d only met Lola Yoli once and hadn’t met Myl before the party – Myl especially seemed proud to have guests all the way from San Francisco, and made sure we sat at the head table, got into plenty of photos, and each got our bag of party favors which included a special cake and some balut. Below, clockwise from bottom left are Lola Yoli, Lolo Myl, Georgia, Me, and Georgia’s mother Dolly.

I’ve written about a number of ‘fruits of the day’ but we have a new feature today, ‘balut of the day’. Balut (ba-loot) isn’t a fruit but at least it rhymes with fruit. Balut is a favorite pulutan (drinking snack), possibly because it helps to be drinking when you eat it. Balut is a fertilized duck egg, embryo inside, feathers, beak, duck feet, and all, that’s been cooked for you to eat. They range from beginner balut (barely developed embryo) to hard-core (ready to hatch). My first, and only, before was pretty mid-range, these we received as party favors last night are said to be towards the mid-beginner level. Still, there was much speculation whether the white guy would eat them. I assured them I would. Here goes…

Basic balut pulutan kit:

This looks good! (Glad I have that beer to wash this down...)

Yumm!

Day 10 – Manila, another Fruit of the Day

Relaxing and running a few errands in Manila today; this evening we’re going to the 80th birthday celebration for the parents of Georgia’s sister-in-law, who you may remember from previous blogs are the most wonderful and generous people who let us use their car whenever we came over here.

But not much else going on, so without further ado here’s the fruit of the day.

These are called Kamias in the Philippines, known as Bilimbi in Indonesia and Malaysia. To call them a fruit is a cruel joke on an unsuspecting victim, although I guess they meet all the technical requirements of a fruit. They look like little cucumbers, are about as long and as big around as your thumb, and have a firm, crisp texture. We westerners think of a fruit as something you enjoy, a snack or a dessert… these are SOUR!!! and very acidic to boot. In the picture you see them on a plate with some rock salt – some people, Georgia included, will eat these things with salt, which cuts the sourness. Cuts it maybe a tiny bit but not at all enough. No redeeming value as a ‘fruit’ to me!

They do redeem themselves as an ingredient in Sinigang, a common Filipino fish stew. Sinigang can be made with any sort of fish, fish broth, various veggies, simple seasonings (salt and pepper), and always something to make the broth a little sour – vinegar, tamarind, calamansi (local lime), or kamias. Georgia normally makes her sinigang with tamarind; for lunch today we had sinigang flavored with the kamias, and it was delicious. Even the kamias in the stew was good; cooking magically transforms all the evil sourness into goodness.

Enjoying a nice cool guyabana smoothie at the moment, cheers!

Day 8 – Tacloban and Catbalogan

Magandang Araw!

Today while waiting for Georgia at the Registrar of Deeds in Catbalogan, I was bored enough to read all the posters and posted notices and it dawned on me that I was reading English. That got me started thinking about language in the Philippines and my own very slow quest to learn enough Tagalog to be functional.

Depending on the reference you read, there are between 3 and 8 distinct native languages and from 170 to 195 different dialects in the Philippines. Some references even classify each of these dialects as separate languages. The government calls the ‘official’ native language Filipino (essentially Tagalog) which most Filipinos speak, although many will also speak one or two of the regional languages. Georgia speaks Tagalog and Ilongo fluently, and is functional in Waray (from Visayas where we are now) and Cebuano. She’s pretty handy to have around when we travel about the country.

So how does a Tagalog-illiterate American get by over here? Speaking English of course, the second official language of the Philippines. It became an official language in the late 19th century with the start of the American occupation, and is still the language used in all official matters. Public education across the nation, from Kindergarten through college, is conducted in English, with Tagalog taught as a separate course. Thus most Filipinos speak or at least understand English to some level. A very English-friendly country, although the language of everyday conversation is still Tagalog or the local dialect.

Tagalog itself is a native language that’s suffered through 300 years of Spanish colonization and then nearly 100 of American occupation. To someone like myself, having grown up in California and endured 6 years of Spanish classes in school, many words sound familiar and do come directly from Spanish, and since a lot of our words have mutual Latin roots there’s a lot of overlap into English. A few examples, English-Spanish-Tagalog: ice-hielo-yelo; straight-derecho-diretso; family-familia-pamilya; direction-direccion-direksyon; education-educacion-edukasyon; and so on.

Of course a large percentage of the language still consists of pure native words. Some of my favorites are maaliwalas (open, airy, spacious, serene, happy – a word I learned from our architect and is a theme we’ve tried to embrace in the design of our house), kilikili (armpit) and puwet (butt). Sorry, not all of my Tagalog education is very sophisticated.

And then there’s a third element, Taglish. This is an unofficial mash-up of Tagalog and English, both from the fact that many of today’s words come from modern English – our places, technology, brands, etc., think Silicon Valley, iPhone, Facebook, and from the speaker’s comfort with the language. English is a very rich language, and some concepts may just come across better in it. So when listening to conversations, the news or other shows on TV, it often seems that much of the dialog consists of 1/3 native words, 1/3 Spanish/English homophones, and 1/3 English. Keeps you on your toes, but allows you to get the gist of what’s going on.

So how’s my Tagalog? As long as I’m listening to Taglish my understanding is fairly good. Pure Tagalog however, especially spoken at a native’s rapid pace, quickly leaves me in the dust although I’m starting to understand a few phrases. Georgia’s changed the language on our Waze navigator to Tagalog so when driving I have to concentrate lest I make a wrong turn, but I’m understanding directions pretty well now, and can even give simple directions to cab drivers (although they’d probably prefer I just speak English). Beyond basic directions I’m mastering one-word sentences, and even have a few 2-worders in my vocabulary. This old brain doesn’t catch onto these things as quickly as a young one would, but give me time, more immersion over here, and I’ll get there.

Ingat po.

Day 6 – Manila: Fruit of the Day and Bugs

For readers of the last Philippines blog you know there are slow days, but there always seems to be some new (to me) fruit to try. Today Georgia found what’s called locally a “star apple” in a fruit stall. She’s never seen it in the US, neither have I (not that I’d ever have looked for it). Georgia says she rarely sees it even in markets here as it has a very short season. From WikiPedia I find that it grows in the West Indies, Africa, the Central America lowlands, and throughout Southeast Asia. It’s known by various names, such as cainito, caimito, tar apple, star apple, abiaba, pomme de lait, estrella, milk fruit and aguay. Pomme de lait and milk fruit stem from the milky sap that runs when it’s cut.

No similarity to an apple at all, the taste is mildly sweet and not at all unpleasant, but nothing distinctive that makes you say “wow”. The flesh is quite firm, similar to a firm plum but not crunchy, almost meat-like. A hearty fruit. It’s supposedly a strong antioxidant, and is used as a remedy for diabetes and rheumatism. Georgia only let me eat one since she says it’s a strong anti-diarrheal too. That’s not a remedy I need at the moment...

I washed the NAM this evening, and reflecting on the job I realized that there wasn’t a single bug splat on it. This is after a 170 km round trip from Manila, about half in Manila and outskirts, half over mountain and jungle roads. I understand no bugs in Manila – any bug worth its wings can outrun the traffic. But outside that we’re driving at genuine splatting speeds, yet still no bugs. Seems unlikely. I have to find out about this.

Day 5 – Kawayan Cove to Manila

Today’s excitement consisted of getting the NAM all packed up, turning the key, and hearing RR-RRRR-rrrrrrrrr-rrr-pffffft. Georgia had trouble starting it when she first got here and the starter had turned over slowly a few times during the trip to Kawayan. It had always started but was abnormal enough to let us know something wasn’t quite right. Luckily the security guard at the resort was able to call the engineering department for some help. Shortly two guys showed up carrying a large auto battery and some tools; they removed the dead battery from our car, hooked up their battery, and it started up with no problem. Then they removed the temporary battery and put ours back in. A different method of “jump starting” but it worked!

On the drive back to Manila, Georgia called the Toyota dealership near her Mom’s house and was able to arrange a service appointment in the afternoon. We were due for the 25,000 km service anyway so it was a good opportunity to get that done and get the battery/charging system checked out too. No problem with the charging system, and the battery of course had recharged during the drive, but it’s the most likely culprit so we had it replaced. Sitting idle for months isn’t a good thing for batteries so I’ll try to find something like a ‘battery tender’ here – I have one at home to keep the trailer battery fresh between uses and it works well.

Not much else planned for the next couple days before we head back to Tacloban and Catbalogan to continue the business with Georgia’s family land there. If anything more exciting than doing laundry comes up you’ll hear about it.

Transport yourself to this view of the world from a lounge by the pool...

Day 4 – Kawayan Cove

Today’s agenda went something like this: sleep in, eat breakfast, chill at the pool and/or beach. Check, check, check. Since the pool club was closed for renovation the last time we were here we decided to hang out there first. Both the club pavilion and pool are very nice, although the food selection here is much more limited than the beach club. The San Migs are the same both places.

After a little swimming and some serious napping Georgia suggested we go down to the beach so I can do some snorkeling. I think that was her polite way of telling me to get off my butt. Always happy to snorkel in my private coral garden I agreed. Today was amazing! I’m always impressed by the abundant and many-colored corals, but generally there isn’t a lot of fishy marine life. Today was like I’ve never seen before, a real tropical aquarium, I guess it’s the right season. Three fish at least were new to me, including a blue clown fish (Nemo fish). I wasn’t sure that there was such a thing. It looked like a clown fish, acted like a clown fish, but it had blue stripes rather than orange. A little research on the web after we got back confirmed it does exist, it’s rare, but that’s what it was. I think I need an underwater camera one of these days…

Swimming back to the beach I encountered a large plastic bag in the water, which I grabbed, and then looking about I saw and collected more bits of plastic and put them in the bag. We all know there’s a lot of plastic in the ocean, but this is MY BEACH DAMMIT! When I got out of the water I saw Georgia combing the beach picking up plastic too. We soon collected quite a few pounds of plastic from the beach and the water. Unfortunately this is nothing new for us, the Philippines seems to get more than it’s share of plastic washed up on its beaches due to the currents and the volume of shipping through it’s waters. We’ve seen what would be beautiful beaches, if only you could see them under the layer of plastic garbage. We’ve picked up many beaches ourselves, we’ve even recruited and paid locals to help us. If we’re going to have a purpose and a passion over here, this is it. This has to stop. Cleaning up isn’t the answer although we’ll continue to do that. It has to stop at the source – less plastic to begin with, more education about what it does to our oceans, means to recycle or properly dispose of what remains necessary.

Walking down the beach we realized our house has grown rather prominent, the only house seen on the ridge above and to the left of the pool club...

Day 3 – Kawayan Cove

First an update on the remaining 0.33 day. The final leg from Tokyo to Manila was uneventful, on-time, and best of all my checked luggage showed up! In today’s world where your luggage is bar-coded and moved through the bowels of an airport by conveyors and machines it’s reassuring that there’s still a place for human intervention and effort.

Well maybe ‘best of all’ was to see Georgia waiting at our usual meeting spot in the Manila airport! We got to our NAM (see last year’s blog for an explanation) and drove to Kawayan Cove, making it in just over 2 hours. Before you get alarmed, Georgia drove. I was in no shape to do so after the previous 40 hours, though overall I think I came through it pretty well.

Waking a little early on day 2 we enjoyed our first cup of coffee on the veranda. The weather is perfect, 76 degrees with a gentle ocean breeze, blue skies. Not missing snowy Graeagle a bit at the moment. This is possibly the best time of the year over here, end of winter/early spring. The rains are over but it’s still not hot yet. I’ve never been here in these months but looking forward to enjoying more of this. We walked down to the beach restaurant for a larger-than-necessary breakfast; all the customary tropical plus traditional fare and some great fresh-squeezed mango juice. Actually, squeezing a ripe mango would be a mess, they must have a juicer. Serenaded by the worker raking leaves from the beach, singing while using his rake and trash can as a drum set. Maybe he wasn’t the most efficient leaf-raker, but we enjoyed his efforts and it welcomed us back to the Philippines.

Off to Kawayan Cove to meet with our contractor Rey. We first went through the house, with him pointing out progress and some changes he’d made as construction was going on, fixes to things you don’t easily see from the plans but show up once you start to build. One example, the stairs from the lower level to the pool deck blocked access to the lower property. The solution was simply to move the stairs 3’ to the right. Simple, but nice to have a contractor who notices details like that and takes action rather than just builds to plans no matter what. We also went through sample materials such as tiles for floors, bathrooms, deck, and pool, roofing materials, etc., and made our selections.

Progress since our December visit includes the completion of all concrete work except the pool and pool deck. The roof trusses, which are on-site fabricated welded steel, are being installed so now you can start to see the lines of the completed structure. Below is the living room above, one guest bedroom below, entry foyer deck behind the tree, and master bedroom mostly out of the picture to the right.

The pool is taking shape too, with the steel rebar installed, awaiting concrete.

We come away with still more confidence that Rey is the right contractor for us, someone who sweats the details, has a great eye for both aesthetics and function, and feels a personal stake in giving us a home we’ll be very happy with. We continued our meeting over lunch at the beach club with Rey and his wife Mona. You may remember from the ‘fruit episodes’ of the last blog that Rey is an accomplished amateur farmer. At lunch we delivered a gift of Haas avocados brought from home. A gift with a string though – we challenged Rey to plant the pits. We have more to plant at Georgia’s mom’s home in Manila. The first seeds of ‘real’ avocados in the Philippines!

Day 1.67 - Reno to Manila

At LAX now, about 16 hours into the ‘day’. OK it’s only day 1.67 for Mark as Georgia’s been in the Philippines for a few days now. But she’s not writing this so that’s where we start. How does it become Day 1.67? That’s how long it’s going to take for me to get from Reno to Manila. This wasn’t how I planned it but Mother Nature had some different ideas. To start with, this February it has been continually snowing. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, I think we’ve had 2-3 nice days this month. Other than that I’ve been clearing snow off the driveway every day, sometimes more than once. Here’s a picture of the house from early in the month before the snow really started piling up.

The plan for me was to leave for Reno right after the White Sulphur Springs board meeting on Tuesday Feb 26, spend the night there, and get to the airport early for a flight to SFO making a connection to Tokyo Narita and from there to Manila, arriving Thursday evening. Well we awoke Tuesday morning with about 4” of very wet snow (yes, cleaned off the driveway again). Still snowing but by noon it had turned to mixed rain and snow and shortly after that just rain. And wind, a lot of wind, all combining for an interesting drive from Graeagle to Reno. Although by Wednesday morning Reno was fairly calm and mostly sunny, the airport had been closed all day Tuesday, with SFO suffering a nearly similar fate. The impact of closures like this do not go away quickly in the aviation world and although I was optimistic to see Reno looking favorable, SFO was still imposing 1-2 hour holds on incoming traffic to help them sort things out. We of course got the maximum 2-hour penalty, killing any chance of making my 1 ½ hour connection. The easiest thing would have been to wait until the next day and start over, but I wanted to get to Manila for a Saturday meeting with our contractor. By working with a helpful and patient airline agent we finally came up with a 40-hour tour from Reno to SFO to LAX to Tokyo Haneda to Manila, arriving Friday afternoon. Thus day 1.67. Oh, and the worst part? I was originally booked in business class all the way, but with this last minute change, seats in business weren’t available. Go to the back of the bus, Mark.

Now about 32 hours into day 1.67, I’m in the lounge at Tokyo Haneda for a few hours until I catch my final flight to Manila. Just so you all don’t feel too bad for me that I got bumped out of my business class seats, one favorite perk-for-life I have is access to Star Alliance (a consortium of about 20 airlines) business lounges around the world. Nice places to kill some time, grab a bite, have a drink, catch up on your email (or blog…), etc. One “etc.” that I enjoyed on arrival here at 5:30 this morning after a 12-hour flight was to be handed the key to a beautiful and immaculately clean shower room, with all the amenities you need to make yourself feel human after such an ordeal. I took full advantage, and I feel wonderful! I wish I would have had some clean clothes other than these I’ve been wearing for 30+ hours, but at least the body and soul underneath are fresh and clean.

I believe Japan has many Gods; I hope at least the majority are willing and I’ll get to Manila on time, around 1:30 this afternoon. I also hope that the gods specifically assigned to luggage have looked after my bags and that they arrive the same time and place as I do after all the re-routing I had to do to get here. Georgia will pick me up at the airport and we’ll drive directly from there to Kawayan Cove, and tomorrow’s meeting with our contractor.

0 notes