5/18/10…the trip itself

5/18/10…


Time 0; May 18th, 2010. I had been looking forward to that day since I bought the tickets back in January for this trip…one that has been 19 years in coming. It’s 4:30 A.M., and I’m wide awake. I’m typically not a morning person…but I’m ready to go now. I take my wife’s iPhone and scribble on Facebook, about what is upcoming. Then take some breakfast…! Before long, it is 5:30, and it’s time to get out the door. While the flight isn’t until about 10:15 A.M., we need to get out now, in order to miss the A.M. rush hour on the subway; not to do so today could be deadly to this commute…!!! I have to struggle with a suitcase that is exceptionally heavy for me; even though I’m going downstairs with it, I’m not of a mood to struggle with this, in the middle of the morning rush hour, with more people around that can give me a very bad time.

We hit the subway, and get in the new trolley…The Italian Bredas; the ones with the low floor. Lifting the suitcase is easy enough; it’s the next part of the trip that concerns me a little. Letty has the small carry-on case, and enough to do herself. I pull out the camera…and take some pictures of her with the luggage…! At Government Center, we exit, and here now comes the fun part for me this trip…to get the suitcase downstairs, to the Blue Line. It takes a bit of doing, but I manage this alone. Stop at the landing…rest a little. Now the rest of the way should be relatively easy. Ease it down onto the Blue Line platform. A few minutes later, the train arrives; it’s a fast trip then to the Airport. A ride on the shuttle brings us to Terminal A. Our stop, for the Delta Connection, and the first leg of the trip, to JFK airport in New York. I rattle off some more pictures of my wife, and the terminal…we descend into the tunnel to go to the remote part of the terminal…the one that stands alone from the rest of the airport terminals. Use the escalator first…and the elevator second, to get up to the terminal. Wait for the plane to reach the gate; it arrives eventually, then we get on. I make a mistake…the carry-on won’t fit in the overhead bins for this plane, and it won’t fit under the seat. We get it out again, and leave it. We were supposed to do that originally, but neither of us were aware of that detail(!!!!). This is my first time to need to do that…what do I know, as a seasoned veteran of air travel? I’ve only been on planes since the time I was a baby; I’ve logged close to 100,000 miles in the air. Couldn’t get that little detail right this morning. No surprise…for the excitement of going off to the Philippines and seeing heretofore unknown relatives. We get back to our seat, just over the wing; this plane is small. Real small; I’ve haven’t been in an airplane this small in many, many decades (Perhaps as a small child I was in a plane smaller then this??!). This is like…putting wings on a small car, adding a rudder, and 2 jet engines at the back. The plane even handles more like a mid-size car then a real jet(!!!!). We are backed out, and then we taxi out to 15R to take off. No pause this time; we aim at the runway and throttle up. It takes about 4,000 feet + to get off the runway; the pilot banks right, and Winthrop shows up out the window. This is where I shoot off some pics as we continue our ascent, but I run out of time to take pictures after about 45 seconds…too many clouds. It is completely overcast, and threatening rain; at about 4,000 feet, we hit solid clouds, and that’s the end of the view of the ground. For most of this trip, we are in the clouds; the window seat view is useless, except to look at clouds during this leg of the trip…! As we descend into JFK, I get some more pictures off near the end of final approach, just before we touch down on 4R, but it’s a hard sell. Nothing much of Long Island or Manhattan to photograph; too many clouds, and rain.

I wondered if we’d have to go through security…my question is quickly answered when I discover we have to leave the terminal and go over to the International terminal. It’s a couple of minute’s walk…but it’s now in the rain; mercifully, it’s straightforward. I click off a couple of pictures more. Not much rain right now; more like drizzle…but we have to go through security to get to the gate for our flight to Seoul. We go through security, once again. The detail crosses my mind later, while contemplating a plan…

This next part of the trip will be the longest…and most interesting, because this trip will take us through Canada and northern Alaska. I take picture after picture once we’re in the Northwest Territories; the view is simply stunning at 37,000 feet of snow, mountain ranges, and a frozen lake. The stunning views keep on coming once the plane crosses into Russia, and Asia. When I count the pictures up the following day, I find I have taken over 600 pictures of this part of the trip(!!!). I’m not surprised…the opportunities just kept on coming. Some pictures bomb…but others are spectacular; well worth the effort of taking them and experimenting on exposure and composition. They will make potently good memories of this trip…

We reach Seoul late in the day; by now, it’s May 19th, because of the machinations with the International Date Line. We have a layover of close to 4 hours; after changing money and getting some water, we get ready for the final leg of the flight, from Seoul to Manila. This time…we get the first row once we’re in the plane; there is lots of room to get around passengers, unlike the previous flight, when we had to ask our seatmates to move when we wanted to get up and stretch. Ironic, because we’re really not going to need it that much; it’s only a 4 hour flight to Manila from Seoul. We started out at about 8:45 P.M., out of Incheon airport in Seoul, in rather dense fog.

I had privately wondered if we were going to take off at all…there was so much fog, most everything was obscured. I only imagined there was enough radar to allow operations to continue; in other years, if you had less then ¼ mile visibility, you couldn’t operate your airport, and all operations would be suspended. We get out to the runway, and line up. We hold as another jet takes off ahead of us; I had seen that just before we lined up with the runway…Finally, we throttle up and take off after about 5,000 feet of running.

The trip goes by relatively fast; the computer onboard tells us where we are, and when we’ve entered Philippine airspace. We’ve approached the country from the north, and so we’re following land for a bit longer then we did when me and my father came here over 20 years ago. Eventually, I detect the plane swing out over the Pacific for the final approach. We start to descend; the lights of Metro Manila come into view. I can almost swear…we’re over Muntinlupa City, but I can’t tell. I snap a picture with the camera; we continue our descent and then turn 180° for the approach. No fog here…I can only imagine the heat and humidity; I can almost feel it, a holdover from the last time I was in Manila, on March 5, 1991. We come in fast and low; almost too fast for my liking. I see Manila in the final seconds of the flight…or perhaps it was Makati and Mandaluyong that were in the window before the South Superhighway came into view a few moments before we touch down. I’ve only seen one other flight do the same thing, and that was a lighter plane. We’re in a Airbus A300…a bit heavy and not the kind of jet to land at too high a velocity. I suspect we’re doing close to 200 mph.; you can’t land a jet once it’s going faster then 230 mph, on certain models. We land with a thud, and the pilot gives the jets reverse thrust to slow down the jet, but it takes him a long time to do it. While the markers on the runway aren’t visible, I suspect we’ve run through most of the 10,000 foot runway before slowing down. I’m thinking…he went more then a mile before slowing. I’m grateful it wasn’t raining; that would have been very interesting, had it been raining.

I look at my wife…she’s crying. Then I cry a little. Enough…because I want to be in decent shape. I’m about to meet some of my nieces and nephew for the very first time, and the emotions for me are potent enough. I’m crying more for that…but only for a minute or so. By the time the passengers file out, I’m composed again, and so is my wife.

We’re almost the last to leave the jet. When we get to Immigration, there is no one there, except the officers. We head to the desk; my wife asks for the balikbayan stamp for me. I thought I wasn’t going to get it…but I do, and it now resides in my passport. The stamp that allows me to stay for up to a year in the Philippines without worry…not that I’m staying that long during this trip. We head to Customs…the inspector looks over our paperwork and waves us through without opening the bags. I am in familiar ground…my memory of this place comes back, and never mind it has been nearly 20 years since I’ve seen the place. I’m aware now…that it is much different now. Before, people used to cram the terminal, trying to meet their arriving friends or relatives, and it was really difficult to meet a person there. Now...

The beginning of this vacation…

5/17/10:


A busy night. Pack the bags, and clean out the refrigerator. Dry stuff…but necessary. I don’t like packing up as late as this…but what can I do? It had been a busy week leading up to this final night at home, and now…there’s nothing to do but handle this the best I can. We sleep after 1 A.M., and we’re going to be up in just a few hours. I don’t sleep all that much in the time…I am too wound up and excited to sleep. It is…the prospect of meeting my relatives; my nieces and nephew for the first time is too much to all me to sleep. It has notched my engine up a bit, and there is now no cure for this…except to get on those planes and go!!