The Long Road to Manila

Per Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiike's request, I figured I would let everyone know all about my fascinating trip so far. So my last day in the US started with a delicious breakfast with Brigid and Christy at Mitchell's. If you haven't gone it's an awesome diner on the corner of Cortland, Armitage, and Clybourn in Lincoln Park. It's highly recommended by this guy. We had breakfast and then I was dropped off at the airport a bit earlier than I usually get there. My flight was scheduled for 12:50 and I got to O'Hare at 10:30. Luckily I was able to locate a local establishment where I was able to persuade the bartender to turn off some horse racing pre-game show to see the Iowa/Michigan St game. I figured that would be my last football game for a while and the Hoosiers were sucking against Wisconsin. To answer your question, I didn't have anything to drink which was hard because I saw some dude take two shots of whiskey and a 70 year old man order Grey Goose on the rocks at 11:30 AM.

To cut to the chase my flight was delayed until about 2 PM before we finally took off. Now I didn't know that we didn't fly a straight line directly to Tokyo. I guess Chris Columbus figured that out a long time ago that the world is round and the quickest route isn't a straight line. Luckily I got an aisle seat so I could stretch out one of my legs in coach. Flying coach for 13 hours isn't fun! Luckily there were little tvs on each on the seats in front of the passengers, so I was able to watch tv the whole time.

I watched 2 piss poor movies, one OK, and one good one during my flight. Evan Almighty and License To Wed qualify as piss poor. Steve Carrell played it safe in the epic family comedy. Just go back to the Daily Show, Steve. Or pick better roles or something. License To Wed was just brutal although it did feature many members of The Office. Hopefully that's the last time I get to see Mandy Moore attempt to act her way out of a bag. The okay movie was Invicible. It really wasn't that great, but it was sports related so it kept me going. Finally, I saw a good movie - Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. It's cool how the dialogue that he came up with 50 years ago is still relevant in today's world and much better than you see in cinema currently. If you haven't seen it, it's recommended. The story stars Jimmy Stewart, as a magazine photographer who is recovering from a broken leg. He has nothing to do, but stare out his rear window and watch all of his neighbors comings and goings. A mystery unwinds that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I won't give any more details, but it's a good time.

The food on the plane was better than expected. They kept serving the whole time. I didn't sleep a wink even though I took some sleeping pills which made for a loooooong flight. I ended chatting with the guy that sat next to me for the last hour of the flight. It turns out he's a 20 year old that is two years in to the Navy. He's based out of Japan, but he was on his back from a two week leave. He's originally from Dayton and had gone back because his brother had been hit by a dump truck in a traffic accident. His brother had a bolt put in his head and the only broken bone was his cheek bone. He told me cried the whole time up to his flight back because he didn't want to leave the US, as that was the first time he had been back in over a year. He also talked about seeing a girl he really liked that he wanted to date, but knew it wasn't right since he is 6000 miles away. He finished by saying that he's been sent to Iraq in January. I felt really sorry for the guy.

We finally arrived in Tokyo at 5 PM local time (12 hours ahead of Chicago) and I wished my neighbor good luck and he told me not to eat the balut in the Philippines. He said he vomitted both times he tried it. Balut is an 18 day old duck egg that is steamed and then dipped in vinegar and salt. Sounds good? 18 days is enough for the beak, bones, and feathers to form on the duck. I'll do what I can not to try this while I'm here. The Narita airport was packed when I got there and I walked around for a bit to check everything out. I was surprised at the amount of Hello Kitty merchandise available for purchase. However, I didn't have any yen so I passed on a decorative purse. I sat down because I had 20 minutes till boarding, but then my flight was delayed by about an hour so I sat more. I was pretty tired at this point.

We finally got on to my Japanese Air flight. The seats were not built for a 'powerful' American like me so it was a bit tight. However, the service was excellent on the flight and the booze was free. Japanese beer is pretty good so I had an Asahi dry and a Sapporo during the flight. It was very relaxing and I was ready for the inflight movie. And the inflight movie is...Evan Almighty. You gotta be kidding me. I wonder if this will be more entertaining in Japanese. No, strike that. Oh well...at least the booze was free.

We arrived at Ninoy Aquino International Airport at midnight local time (13 hours ahead of Chicago). To say the least I was thrilled to get the hell off the plane after a total of 16 hours of flight time and 5 hours of waiting around. The customs lines were big and I thought it would take an hour to get thru, but luckily it was only 15 minutes. I was able to get my luggage within 5 minutes and I was out the door ready to find my driver. The hotel I'm staying at sent a driver to pick me up to take me to the Ascott. I finally witnessed a jeepney that I'd been reading about. A jeepeny mostly resembles an american military jeep, but smaller. Somehow they fit 33 people in these things. I'll be taking a picture for reference at some point. I also notice something called JollieBee which looks like a whacked out version of every American fast food restaurant I've ever seen. The next thing I notice is the blatant disregard for traffic laws. There is no way I could drive here. I would take someone off the road. There are constant 3-lane lane changes, cutting off other drivers, using the shoulder as another lane, everyone going over the speed limit, no one using turn signals (except my driver), but I had been forewarned of this so it didn't bother me too much since it was 1 AM local time now.

It took about 20 minutes, but I finally got to check in around 1:30 AM and I was pleasantly surprised by the outstanding accomodations here at the Ascott. This place is sweet. I immediately set up my computer, so that I could call my lovely wife and my parents. I turned on the TV and immediately spotted the Giants vs Dolphins live. I've been saved by the sports gods. I finally got to sleep around 3 AM after one long day (thanks to you, oh Advil PM)...