Manila - Day 0 - A day of bipolar movement

I'm staying at The Ascott in Makati. This place is awesome. It's basically a corporate apartment with all the fixin's of a 5-star hotel. Kitchen - check, room cleaning - check, breakfast - check, workout facility - check, pool - check, HBO - check. I mean this place is magically. Granted, it costs twice as much as the corporate apartment I stay at in Minneapolis, but it's totally worth it because it actually costs me the same - zero.

Did I mention my job tends to have some perks? Well, it does. Though it is unfortunate I had to travel almost exactly half-way around the world over 24 hours to get here. About that...

So I realized my first post told nothing of how I got to the Philippines. There was nothing spectacular or particularly crazy that happened (which is why I probably just skipped it in my head), but maybe writing about it will be interesting. Let's see.

So I flew Northwest over here. 1) It was the cheapest ticket out there, 2) I greedy and wanted 20,000 SkyMiles in one month :) The only negative about that is that Northwest does not have a hub in Atlanta and Northwest does not fly directly to Manila from the States...equals three legs of the trip. Atlanta to Detroit to Nagoya (Japan) to Manila. Suweet.

I got upgraded on the bad boy to Detroit so that's always a nice way to start the trip mentally. Mom and Dad (love you guys) dropped me off nice and early for my noon flight so I had time to do the normal old airport routine. Sit in lounge, use internet, debate on whether or not to get a drink. Well, you all know me, that debate was a quick one.

My flight was in Concourse D and I can never remember what lounges are there so I just went to the Crowne Room in A. As my flight time approached, I mosied on over to D and noticed that the plane wasn't even there. This was not awesome because I always show up right when they should be boarding the special people (aka - me), I've gotten pretty good at timing these things. Well, luckily, there was a President's Club right next to the gate so I hopped in there to sit in a comfy seat. I looked at my ticket and realized that my transfer in Detroit was only an hour...and they board international flights an hour early. Hmmm...flight delayed equals not fun transfer. Ah well, first class will sooth my worries.

Needless to say, a couple of Beamers later we landed in Detroit a bit late but it didn't matter, the flight to Nagoya was packed and they hadn't started boarding so nothing to worry about. Only crappy thing was that I couldn't get there early to bug them about being upgraded. Coach it is. Dammit. 13 hours. Dammit.

I called my best friend Tom from the gate and chatted a bit about my trip. He had emailed me about seing this japanimation movie coming out in theatres in the States (Sword of the Stranger) on Feb 5th not knowing I was flying to where they made the thing. It was good to chat as our lives are typically hectic and, for me, the first thing to be sacraficed is all vocal communication to the outside world. Found out a mutual friend was over on this side o the world too...which reminds me I should email him.

An aside - ever noticed how distances seem shorter when you're not in your home country? For example, when you're in Europe, say Barcelona, Spain, and you have a friend visiting Amsterdam. You're like "holy crap, I'm so there too." That's nearly 1,000 miles (about 1,500 kilometers). If I have a friend from England and he's gonna be in New York City (only about 900 miles), I'm typically like "Dude, I'd totally show up but I got this thing called 'not going there' I need to catch up on." Same thing here - I'm in Manila and a friend might be in another Asian country. It's probably thousands of miles away, but hey, I'm over here right? Just a bit ridiculous.

So I board the plane in normal-person mode and await my fate. Don't you hate it when you get a big person in the seat in front of you that is physically capable of making the seat actually recline? I'm talking past the normal 2cm's here. It sucks. I like sleeping on my little table. No dice here. Ugh. At least it's an international flight, coach gets free alcohol too right?

Nope. Dammit. Shouldn't have had those Beamers. Lightish hangover after you stop drinking = me going to bed. So, against a friend's warning to not sleep the first part of the 13 hour flight, I whip out my handy dandy neck-pillow, recline my 2cm's, and try to ignore everything.

I do a decent job, though I do have vague images of Richard Gere and Diane Lane getting it on and some movie with Ice Cube and a football. I wake up for the food and wish I had brought some bagels.

Aside - bagels here are not bagels. They are airy forms of dough that are almost impossible to cut in half. It's sad.

I think the highlight of my flight was getting up to stretch and exchanging a couple words with a random Asian dude next to the bathroom. I'm really not a talker on plane flights, I like to just do my own thing and read or watch Lindy Hop clips. But it was quite nice talking "coach-shop" with a random dude. "Ow my feet hurt." "Me too." Ya know, cool stuff like that.

We land in Japan, I thank who it is I thank in my head, and I get off that damn plane.

I was wearing a red Polo on the plane and the blanket they gave us was blue. Hence I have blue crap all over my shirt. Annoying but it gave me something to do as I waited in a ridiculous security line to get to my next gate. However, I found a Star Alliance lounge there that let me in.

Yay special lounges. If you have ever been in a lounge in America - Crowne Room, President's Club, World Club, USO club, etc. - they pale in comparison to Asian lounges. I mean, they had complimentary massages, like 10 different types of snacks, a beer dispenser that auto-tilted your glass to reduce foam. Needless to say, I partook in the goodies. The only negative part was that all the plugs were Japanese and I didn't bring a converter.

Yes Mom, I admit it, I should have brought the converter.

So, as my batteries were all dead from coding on the plan and watching Lindy clips, no nerdiness in the airport. I went to my gate and boom - upgrade.

Yay.

The flight from Nagoya, Japan, to Manila is about 3-4 hours. World Business Class was awesome. The seat felt like it was from the future and I got to watch a movie (Traitor) and sit bit and read about how much I will never understand Tagalog (Philipino dialect). The only bad part was that the food was better in Coach. Ironic, huh?

Anywho, it was a nice flight. Oh yeah! I was in the first row. On a huge 747, this means you are literally in the nose of the plane because the pilot flies up on the second floor. Awesome! Made me think of that movie Flight Plan with Jodie Foster. The nose of the plane had just a bit to do with the plot.

My main memory from seeing Manila from the air was "Wow, lots of lights. Didn't see that coming. Plus they are blueish-orange for some reason."

First thing I noticed when I got off the plane was...