Travel

Back to California, after a long, parched, uncomfortable but uneventful flight. I'm worn out, but happy to be back in my room, watching desperate flight of the last (I hope) of the ants that had taken up residence in my computer.

Notes from Manila:

It's been a brilliant exit from the Philippines.
Absolutely torrential rains, and a completely flooded out street. (On the plus side, you know who your real friends are when you kinda really need someone to go out into the flood and find a taxi for you so you don't have to take your bags to the corner in the rain).
I'm flying Philippine Airlines, which has its very own international terminal. Meaning, no mitigating factors for the PAL experience. Over an hour wait to check in. Nowhere to get a magazine apart from the Christian Bookazine Corp. , and you can't even buy a bottle of water past security to take on the flight.
And then the power goes off. They've got some kind of generator, but it's still incredibly dim, and apparantly bathrooms are not a priority area. Best of all, the fancy, "hi-tech" sensor-controlled toilets and faucets do not function, and have no manual back-up (except for the charming attendent who ran out to get dippers full of water).
The power's come back, hence the wifi. But, ach, it's like packing into three hours all the things I hate, but will invariably feel slightly nostalgic for, about the Philippines.
Next stop, San Francisco.
[editors note: true to form, the touted free wifi does not actually work. So this won't actually go up until California]

Flying.

Kicking it old-school with Dr. Cullinane in the VIP lounge at Cebu-Mactan airport.

Sadly, here in Manila, where I'm waiting for my flight to Jakarta, the accommodations are a bit more basic. But I can't win every time.

It's been a short & sweet visit to Manila. Catching up with friends, visiting archives and libraries here, and making arrangements for my longer stay next month. Not overly much to report. (The greatest excitement for me was the scandalously cheap prices at the National Historical Institute. Their press once published bound collections of materials from the Spanish period, but hardly anyone here reads Spanish anymore, so they practically give them away. I returned to my friend's in Mandaluyong laden with rare books from the 1930s and '40s, laughing about how their patrimony was being sold to foreigners for a few hundred pesos.)

I'm still working with my images and recordings from Zamboanga, and I'll try posting a few little slideshows in the next days, pending broadband availability..

Taipei

Smoking Lounge, Taipei Airport

Made it to Taipei, Taiwan. Confirming, once again, that airports (at least the big ones) are pretty much identical the world over -- though this one is a bit chillier than average. Points for free wireless. Demerits for bad, overpriced coffee.
2 more flights to go.