This trip did not have an auspicious start. The Tuesday before I flew out to the Philippines, I was rushed in for emergency oral surgery, so I spent most of the days leading up to the flight – and the flight itself – in agony. We left the house at 5:30 am to head to the airport to discover that our car had been broken into. Since there was nothing of value in the car and they hadn’t managed to hotwire it and steal it, the perpetrators trashed the car – smashing windows and ripping the trim off of it. Good thing we had the truck, otherwise I might have missed my flight waiting for a cab to arrive and take me to the airport!

Upon arrival in Minneapolis, we were forced to circle the airport for 30+ minutes while we waited for Air Force One to land. Apparently, the president had a short state visit to Minnesota and I just happened to be flying into the middle of it. Landing was uneventful, but my connection was delayed leaving by 45 minutes – again due to the president. I felt a bit like Jeff Foxworthy – ranting that the president was taking over the airways (or in this case, the airport).

The Tokyo airport was nothing like I suspected. For a tiny country where space is a premium, I hadn’t expected the airport to be so large and airy. I also hadn’t expected this bastion of efficiency to be the home of such as disorganized plane embarkation. After the boarding call was made, airline representatives walked around the front of the counter holding up the row numbers that were called. This might have been an effective method, had any of the passengers cared to line up in any semblance of order. Groups of people pushed and shoved their way to the front of the line, regardless of what row they were supposed to be seated in. Granted the entire mass of confusion was mostly due to the passengers, but the Japanese employees didn’t seem able to exert any sort of control over those who wanted to board. In the end, what would have been a 20 minute boarding procedure back home turned into a 1 and a half hour ordeal.

Immediately upon disembarking from the plane in Manila, I was reminded of Bangalore. The air was hot and humid while the smell was familiar and almost welcoming. The Manila airport is a warren of aisles and not well signed.

On my passport, page 9 is filled with US Immigration (and now Homeland Security) entrance stamps. Paul, Doris and Darrel all had their Philippine visa’s place on page 9. Mine was on 19. Before I sent my passport to the Consulate for the visa, Paul joked that the Philippines must have a lock on page 9 for their visa’s. I figured since my page 9 was already sporting some nifty stamps, they’d have to put it somewhere else on mine. When I went through customs, the customs officer stamped the wrong date in my passport. Apparently, page 9 is the standard location for visa’s in the Philippines and when he didn’t see mine on page 9, he didn’t bother to look any further. To me, it was a poor excuse because I’d opened my passport to page 19 (the one the visa was on) when I handed it to him. I noticed the error after leaving the counter and had to have a security guard escort me back to the front of the customs line to have the date adjusted in both my passport and their computer systems. It wouldn’t do for me to be arrested for overstaying my visit when I have a valid visa that allows me to stay in the country longer.

Apparently, there is a 550 PHP exit fee when you leave the country, so I’ll have to remember to keep some cash on hand.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.