Airplanes and Airports; Part One.

During the month of June, I've flown on 8 different airplanes and passed through 6 different airport - twice.

Needless to say, planes and airports seem to be stuck in my mind at present; I'm hoping that writing about these experiences will exorcise these thoughts.

We left for our trip to Philippines on June 5, heading first to Atlanta's Hartsfield/Jackson airport. Because going from Atlanta is our obvious choice, we were given 3 options.
1) Korean Airlines to Inchon, then Manila.
2) Flying to LA on a domestic airline (probably Delta) then Philippine Airlines to Manila.
Since our last trip to Philippines, Delta had taken over Northwest Airlines, so option
3) was to take Delta to Japan (with one US stop in-between) then continue Delta to Manila.

Option 3 was the only one that fit within our budget.

Hartsfield /Jackson was pretty much uneventful - basically, check in, wait board the plane, then off to:
JFK to change planes to Tokyo/Narita. Nothing much to say about the experience of going through JFK on the way out, except that the lunch we had at the airport was, naturally, over priced and while not horrible wasn't wonderful either.

Due the flight being delayed at JFK, our lay over in Japan was shortened considerably. We pretty much just deplaned, went through security, then back on the same flight to continue to Manila.

At the International terminal in Manila, we were met by friends after going through customs and  baggage claims. We would have to take a taxi to terminal 3 for our overnight wait for the flight to Dumaguete. One of our friends arranged and paid for the taxi - 330 Ph pesos (roughly $8). We had arrived in Manila around 9:00PM and our flight to Dumaguete wasn't scheduled to leave until 8:40 AM. Our friends in Manila stayed with us in terminal 3 until time for us to check in.
As it turned out, our flight was delayed until around noon.Our 12 hour lay over became a 15 hour layover. Ouch.

What can I say about the Dumaguete airport? The planes do not pull up to a gate. It's just like in the old movies; you deplane by way of steps pulled up to the aircraft and walk across the tarmac into the building. Once  inside, it was simple enough getting our checked bags and then into the van the family had arranged.

Thankfully, there wasn't much to complain about concerning the flight to the Philippines. OK, the flights were long, as were the lay overs; the food was mostly edible, some of the movies were better than others. Sleep didn't always come easily. All of that's to be expected.

It wasn't until the return trip, that things became unpleasant.

Leaving For The U.S..

As I write this, it is 6:45 AM, Friday in Sibulan ( 6:45 PM, Thurs. back in Georgia ). We'll be flying out of Dumaguete in approximately nine hours - if the plane actually leaves on time.

We'll have to spend the night in Manila; our flight for Japan leaves just before 8:00 AM, Saturday, Philippine time.

We're scheduled to leave Tokyo, Saturday afternoon at 3:10 Tokyo time.....we'll arrive in JFK Saturday afternoon at 3:05. Ain't time travel amazing?

This will be my last post until after we arrive home. It'll be late Saturday night in Atlanta when we arrive; I won't go back online until after Mass Sunday.

A few days ago, we went to St. Paul's University ( a Catholic school from elementary thru college ). That visit, along with an email from St.Mary's at home informing us of a large increase in tuition, has pretty much help me make up my mind about moving here.

I'll be writing more on that in the future, but it looks like June, 2015 will be the target date.

See ya'll Sunday.

Early Morning in Sibulan.

According to an article in Wikipedia, Sibulan, Negros Oriental, Philippines, where I have been visiting my in-laws, has a population of just over 51,000 people.

The article does not say how that number would break down into total number of house - holds, but I'd say it would be reasonable to conclude that the number would be close to 10,000 individual households. Give or take, more or less.
.
I would also conclude that nearly every one of those individual households has a rooster.

It's 4:30 AM as I write this and I feel confident in saying that each and every one of those 10,000 roosters is crowing.

Festival Update.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the star of our St. Anthony of Padua Feast Day was the Lechon Baboy.

I had taken photos, but was not able to post them at the time.

But, now, without further ado.........

The Lechon Baboy.

Pros and Cons.

Saturday morning, I experienced one of my least favorite things about life in Philippines; an electrical "brown-out". The power company had cut off all electrical power in Sibulan Saturday around 8:30. I'm not sure if Dumaguete went under a similar brown-out.

My sister-in-law told us that the outage would last until 5:00 PM. Fortunately for me, the power was restored much earlier than expected, 1:00 PM.

On the whole, I guess I do surprisingly well for an American without electricity; I'm no electricity addict. I can get along very well, thank you very much, without the electric lights, the T.V., radio and yes, even the Internet, but I can't withstand the sweltering heat without, at least, an electric fan.

Having grown up in Georgia during the late 1950's and early 1960's, I can channel my inner child in order to survive without air conditioning (at least for the few weeks I normally spend in Philippines).

My original plan for this blog post was to write on the brown-out and the heat, but the idea has evolved .I can take an early retirement sometime between late 2014 and early 2015. It won't be to my advantage to wait much longer than that. My wife would like for us to move here when I retire, but I'm not as sure about that as she. There are certainly things about life in Philippines which I love and appreciate, but like everything else, there are negatives.

On the positive side of moving here on a permanent basis is the fear I have of my son growing up in the U.S.  and developing into a typical American. In Philippines, there is a profound moral sense within the society, based on Catholic teachings, which is absent in the land of the free and the home of the brave. In spite of the fact that we may be active in our parish and that he attends a splendid Catholic school, the pull of moral relativism and downright depravity in American is too strong.

All the negative sides of living here are material. Could I really ever be comfortable living in a country where the plumbing is a century behind what I'm accustomed to? I've finally adapted to bathing without hot water, but without going into too much detail, I'm not a fan of the standard toilet in this country. The toilets may be better than what my grandparent may have had in the Southern United States during the Great Depression, but that's not saying much, is it?

The deal breaker for me - one way or the other - will be the quality of the education my son would receive here. Before we return to the States, we'll be dropping by St. Paul's ( a private Catholic school ) in Dumaguete. I should have most of my questions, in that regard, answered then and there.

Should we decide, ultimately, to move to Philippines when I retire, the move will not be immediate; the house and autos will need to be sold - hopefully, not at a loss. My wife would be more than happy to live in the house we built for her mama and papa. I'm not in total agreement with that; the house is fine......the improvements I'd want are easy enough. However, for my own tastes and sense of comfort, the house would be too small for the number of people who would be living here should we move in.

In the end, it will require a good deal of thought and a good deal of prayer before I know what our best choice might be.