As for the next flight...

I didn't particularly want to be leaving Taiwan, mind you - I had friends here who were showing me around to some excellent places to eat in Taipei, the weather was pleasant, and the people far, far nicer than in mainland China. In fact, Lin and two of her friends were about to take a week-long bike trip down the wild and scenic East Coast of Taiwan, and, from the little I got to see of the coast earlier, I think I'd have really enjoyed coming down with them... (more on my life and times in Taiwan in a soon-to-come post... I promise). But, I had a flight to catch out of Hong Kong a day later, so it was time to go.

The whole crew at Lin's apartment in Taipei, huddling around my backpack

Five of us biked up through the hills to the nearby hotsprings of Wulai the day before

My flight out of Taiwan was aboard Cebu Pacific Airlines, a Filipino-based carrier, whom I had grown to sort of like, back when I was in the Philippines in December. It's a budget airline, but they [generally] do budget well: the planes are new, seats are comfortable enough, and, hey, they are cheap! So, while I wasn't exactly expecting a reprise of Eva Air with three passengers on board, I figured I had reason to be optimistic. And the flight to Manila was optimistic enough, as I had a whole row of three seats all to myself. I probably even slept for an hour and a half.

Manila was where things started to get a little more interesting - I got off the plane and headed out to look for my next flight. Encouraged by lots of Transfer signs in the terminal, I skirted around the lines for immigration and ended up at the Transfer desk. Which was empty. Except for a security guard, who called for an agent. We waited for an agent... This was at about 4 in the morning, so my patience wasn't on its best behavior after some 10 minutes. After another 10 minutes and a bit more prompting from me, an agent materialized. And slowly sauntered down the hall. Finally(!), she made her way down to us (another plane had landed in the mean time, and the transfer desk was now home to three of us), and announced that we had to go and get our bags. I was not amused - why!? My luggage tag clearly indicates Hong Kong as the bag's destination. She babbled on about airport regulations. I felt she was full of shit and clueless, but followed.

Of course, between us and the baggage counter lay immigration. I, once again, pointedly noted that I wasn't actually staying in the Philippines, so I didn't need immigration. We went anyway, came around the line, and ended up with a Filipino entry stamp each. I thought about running out of space in my passport, we moved on anyway. Finally at baggage claim, a good 45 minutes after deplaning, I got my bag, and was told to take it over to another transfer desk, this one down on this level. Some more in-decipherable chatting followed, then my bag was taken away again, and my original luggage tag returned. We walked back towards the gates. I inquired as to the whole point of this process, since it seemed completely pointless - they didn't need me to come down to baggage claim, through immigration, just to carry my bags 50 feet. My Cebu agent prattled on about regulations and how new this terminal was. I paid just enough attention to start to gather a picture (in the mean time we passed back through immigration... and didn't stop this time. I knew I probably should have said something, but I didn't really want a Filipino exit stamp for my 3 hour stay at the Manila airport).

Anyway, the picture: the staff at the airport aren't allowed to handle passengers' bags. Security measure, I guess. But, how do you do transfers then? Well, some background - Cebu Pacific has an entire terminal in Manila. Apparently, this terminal was built some 7-8 years ago, then sat unused for about five years, while everybody fought and argued about what should be done with it. Somehow, the argument was never really resolved, and Cebu (which might not have even existed 7 years ago?) ended up with the terminal almost by the default. I suppose they are the 2nd biggest Filipino carrier, after Philippine Airlines. But whereas Philippine Airlines, being a somewhat established carrier, has automated transfer facilities in its terminal, Cebu is a budget carrier, specializing in point-to-point flights, so they do not. The rules still apply though, so if you do end up with an international transfer in Manila, at the Cebu terminal, you have to carry the luggage yourself, all the way to the transfer desk 50 feet away - the staff aren't allowed to touch it, and the machinery hasn't been installed. My sauntering agent-lady claimed it wasn't installed yet, as this terminal is so new, however as the terminal has actually been around (if not used) for a while, I suspect Cebu just hasn't bothered, since they don't get a lot of international transfers. And immigration, of course, expects you to be stamped into their country before you can go to baggage claim.

So, this took an hour and a half in the middle of the night, and I learned a little more than i had wanted about the Filipino Civil Aviation regulations. But, of course, I wasn't actually done with Cebu yet, I still had a flight to catch to Hong Kong. Mine wasn't scheduled to leave till 8, but another departed at 5:45. Agent lady claimed I'd have to rebook (and pay the fare difference in fare) to get on the earlier flight, but now I knew she was full of shit, so I went for the gate and asked about stand-by's. They explained the flight was already over-sold. I sulked a bit, and headed over to find some early breakfast - just as my salmon and cream cheese focaccia was arriving the gate agent came back looking for Mr Alex, and announced that they did have a seat available for me.

I prefer waiting in Hong Kong to waiting in Manila so I went off. My bag, unfortunately, didn't have quite as much free will to direct its own destiny, and, after 10 minutes on the walkie talkie, we decided it was still going to be on the 8 o'clock flight. I didn't really care, so things got interesting. I landed in Hong Kong and confirmed that my bag wasn't joining me, as expected. I didn't really want to hang around for two hours waiting for it though, so I went off searching for another Cebu agent to see if they could help with this situation. An agent was, once again, difficult to locate (I was getting annoyed with them by now... maybe because I had slept for about 3 hours total, all on airplanes), but I eventually found one upstairs by the check-in counters. She considered my situation - I proposed leaving the bag with Cebu till that evening when I would actually need it for my flight to London - and stated that they weren't really allowed to that. However, here's the number for Lost and Found, just go into town now and make sure to call them in a couple hours to verify that they got your bag, and come back to get it a couple hours early. And you didn't hear any of this from me! I considered the solution to be fairly ingenious, in spite of finding a few potential potholes in the execution, so I went with it and got on a bus for Hong Kong. A couple of hours later, a helpful gentleman at Lost and Found confirmed that they had, in fact, located my bag - I promised to come back for it around nine, and they assured me it would be waiting. Well, I actually showed up around 10 (I played frisbee in the afternoon, and felt I deserved an hour's worth of massage before spending a second consecutive night on an airplane; and that was time and money well spent!), but the bag was, in fact, waiting for me, after some 20 minutes of talking, checking and waiting.

Hong Kong wasn't quite this gray and sinister on this day (I did enjoy a few hours of playing frisbee on the beach shortly before taking this picture on the ferry back), but it was rather overcast.

So, finished with Cebu, I now headed over for Qatar Airways, my 5-Star airline destined for London. I continue to suspect that the 5-star rating is self assigned... First, of course, I had to re-pack my bag once again, as Cebu charges for checked luggage over 15kg, so, obviously, I just carried 5 extra kilos of carry-on luggage with me (what, you thought I'd be willing to pay, sauntering agent lady?).

The Qatar flight came in two legs: about 8 hours to Doha, Qatar. Then another 8/9 hours from there to London. My Doha layover could've just been a couple of hours, but I opted for a later flight, spending some six hours in the state of Qatar. I figured I might see something... Well, what I saw wasn't particularly interesting - the Persian Gulf countries are dominated by, well, sand. And flatness. On the horizon, I could see the gleaming towers of Doha. Nearby, I could see dusty two and three story buildings, that wouldn't have looked any different in any other part of the world.

And Doha has this weird water tower thing to greet you...

All the planes I saw on the ground were Qatar Airways. The only other one I saw was from Air Atlanta Icelandic, which seemed horribly out of place here, in the desert. I later learned that it belonged to an Icelandic company that simply leases planes around the world. This was likely one of the two they had out on lease to Saudi Arabia

And I had plenty of time to take all of this in, as we landed, deplaned, boarded a shuttle bus, then must have traveled some 20 minutes to reach the chaotic terminal building (dominated by the sprawling duty free store). Considering that the whole country is flat, sandy, and empty (as far as I can tell), I'm not sure why the runway couldn't have been closer to the terminal, but maybe they have a reason... The whole time, I kept expecting Dubai's newly constructed Burj Dubai to poke over the horizon - it's the new tallest building in the world, and at over 850 meters in height (that's almost a freaking kilometer!), it's over 350 meters taller than the 504 meter Taipei 101, now #2 in the world. Alas, it's apparently not quite tall enough to be visible from Qatar. Well, it is almost 400km away... Slightly ruining my pre-conceived notions of the place, was what I could not see around me - not a single mosque... There was one inside the airport, of course, but, I suppose, this isn't Saudi Arabia, so we are probably not quite as fanatically Muslim around here...

As for my 5-star flights? Well, they were nice, albeit not quite overwhelming. I slept most of my first flight, and kept myself busy watching TV and drinking French Syrah on the next one. 5-star or not, but they do provide as much complimentary wine/beer/spirits as you can handle - I landed with a bit of a headache... The food was pretty good, and the entertainment system, of course, absolutely blew anything on an American-based carrier away. But it also lived in a computer box under the seat, which limited my leg room, which I didn't appreciate. All in all, certainly one of the nicer flights I've been on, but Emirates was definitely better, and Thai Airways could probably give it a run for its money!

And four flights and three cities after leaving Taiwan, I finally arrived in London, which was cold, but at least not rainy!

Odds and Ends

a few random thoughts as I've made my way down from Japan to the Philippines over the last day and a half...

today's weather

Seattle: bad

Tokyo (left) and San Diego (right): better

Manila, Philippines: Just right!

flying in luxury and style
Admittedly, I am very much looking forward to my March 1st flight on Qatar airways, a self-proclaimed 'five-star' airline. Cebu Pacific, a Filipino discount airline which got me from Japan to Manila last night, is admittedly nowhere near five-star status. However, having an exit row seat means plenty of leg room, and not having anyone sitting in the middle seat, means plenty of elbow room as well, so luxury and style! There are admittedly a few limitations to exit row seating - the seats don't recline and your bags all have to be overhead. There's also some limitations to discount airlines - food for purchase and a 15kg luggage limitation, but all in all, it was better than I might have expected!

highway bus vs. the gaijin
Before climbing aboard my Cebu Pacific Airbus, I needed to get from Nagoya to Osaka. This was accomplished by virtue of a Willer Express highway bus - the cheapest, and reasonably convenient, way I've found to get around Japan. At boarding time, they have a full list of all the passengers seats assigned and all. All the names are in Japanese... except for one: Aleksandr Slepak at the top. So, in order to board the bus, I chose to simply smile and point to my name. This was sufficient - no id checks, nobody even wanted to look at my confirmation printout... When you are the only 'gaijin' on the bus, Japan doesn't really want to deal with you, they just hope you won't cause any trouble. I didn't.

what you never expected
I enjoy wine. And I would've been disappointed to have left Mendoza, Argentina, the Napa Valley, or the South island of New Zealand without tasting some (I wasn't disappointed). Somehow, I don't really think of wine when coming to Japan though. Sake? Sure. A bar featuring 300 hundred different types of tequila? I'll introduce you to the Iranian guy running it in Tokyo... Organic French wine? Apparently, you should expect that as well!

A wine tasting in Nagoya, featured organically-grown French wine. The proprietor, dressed more for snowboarding than wine-tasting (but who makes several trips to France to select his wines yearly) may have been the best part...

the industrial metropolis of Osaka
My flight was actually at 7:20 at night, but I arrived in Osaka around 10:30 in the morning, so even after taking a couple of hours to navigate my way around the enormous conglomerate that is the Osaka train station in search of such things as Baggage Storage, tourist information, and lunch, I still had a few hours to play tourist.

The most striking feature dominating the Osaka skyline is the Umeda Sky Building:
The 173 meter building is apparently only the 7th tallest in Osaka, but certainly the most recognizable, with its pair of 40-floor towers coming together to support the floating terrace at the top. It's an exhilarating ride in the glass elevator to the top, where it's capped by an outdoor walkway (which is surprisingly less blasted by the wind than I would've expected). A few views of the building, and of Osaka from the top of the skyscraper:

Up close on a sunny afternoon

View from the top

The Yodo river pulses through the center of Osaka, and is spanned by a variety of bridges

Massive escalators lead to the top

looking extremely symmetrical inside

Industrial achievement, abstract art, or both?

Umeda building posing with a more industrial side of Osaka in the foreground
controlled chaos
Just step outside your first airport in any city in SE Asia, and this is what you're confronted with: chaos, but somehow controlled. You are also hit in the face with warm vibrant air, the screams of touts trying to sell you everything under the sun, and more often than not, the scents of exotic cuisine. Manila is no exception, and the contrast is especially stark coming from Japan (Singapore may be renowned for its cleanliness, but Japan is certainly the cleanest country in the world).

My experience started when I landed around 10:30 at night and hailed a taxi to go to the nearest LRT (light rail) station. We arrived 15 minutes later, and chaos immediately ensued. The driver couldn't actually drop me off right in front of the station, as, with Christmas approaching, the market has taken over several adjacent streets, so I walked for 10 minutes through a sea of humanity buying, selling, screaming, arguing - living their chaos. Then I got to the station, discovered that it had actually closed two hours ago, and had to walk back... I do wonder what the cab driver thought of the foreigner who appeared out of the middle of nowhere, with a large backpack on, to hail his cab, but he got me to my hostel 30 minutes later for a price that's still less than an average subway ride in Tokyo.

Navigating around Manila is also a bit chaotic as there seems to always be traffic, and while there are street signs, there seems to be an alarming lack of numbers marked on any (well, most) of the buildings, so finding an address can take a while. While I wouldn't have expected my cabbie to have known anything about the Red Carabao hostel on Felix Huertas street, I was a little surprised when my driver ths morning also had to stop and ask for directions to get to the World Trade Center building, home of Manila's Chinese embassy. Fortunately, Manila seems to be overflowing with guards of various sorts, who, while seemingly not doing much else, are good for providing directions.

lingua franca
What do you get when you take a country, whose population is almost entirely indigenous, have Spain colonize it for a few centuries, then have the US come in and take over in the 20th century? Well, confusion, as far as I can tell. I suspect Manila is not actually representative of the rest of the country, but as that's all I've seen so far, here's what I've found:
- vast majority of signage on the streets (let's say 60%) is just in English. All advertising and street shops are posted in English. At the malls, you often hear English spoken as the first language behind the counters, even though the people on both side of the conversation are Filipino. Most people do speak I language I do not understand, so presumably Tagalog.
- some signs are in English and Tagalog. Safety warnings and instructions and such. I'll give these 35% maybe. That might be generous for the upscale shopping and business neighborhoods, like Makati.
- the remaining 5% is just Tagalog - you have to search for these. They are usually official government signs of some sort

No Spanish you'll note, however, Manila has a distinctly Latin American feel to it, and it's not just the near-tropical climate. The street names are all Spanish, and I can occasionally pick up a word or two in the Tagalog conversation that seems derived from the Spanish language. Catholicism is king, of course, and there's plenty of churches, while the jeepney, the preferred method of local transport, appears to be straight out of Central America central casting:


Santa Cruz vs. Santa Cruz
my hostel here in Manila is in the Santa Cruz neighborhood. When I arrived last night, it immediately struck me that it reminded me of something. This morning, it finally came to me - it reminds me of the hostel I stayed in in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, of course! Both used to be relatively upscale private houses that have been converted to a new life as hostels. The patently un-hostel-like fancy bathrooms are a dead give-away... Wonder what Santa Cruz in California's like?

Happy Holidays
I've heard loud-speakers at the malls here in Manila (in English, of course) reminding potential customers that Christmas is only 11 days away. Both Japan and the Philippines are fully decked out in Christmas decor - perfectly sensible in a deeply religious Catholic country like the Philippines, a bit strange in a largely secular, and Buddhist, if anything, country like Japan, but I'm only here to observe, not to judge...

The Umeda Building in Osaka wishing you a Merry Christmas

And a display on the street in Manila reminding you how the whole thing got started

This isn't holiday related, this is Gena and Cheburashka, from a Russian children's cartoon, I used to watch growing up. It wasn't even the best Russian children's cartoon, which makes it appearing today in Japan even odder...