Bon Voyage?

Since I never paid close attention to details and finding humor in them in past trips to and from the Philippines I figured I document this trip. Once again, my timing is impeccable.

Initially my plan was to stay up all night packing, eat breakfast with coffee so that I would not fall asleep on the drive to Grand Rapids and the flight to Detroit so that once I am flying to Japan I would just DROP (or...fall asleep for the duration of the flight-all 11 hours of it.) That...didn't work out so well. Sure I had steps one and two down, especially the latter, I LOVE bacon, egg, and cheese bagels from McDonald's; however, I stumbled upon the staying awake part. The coffee succombed to the almighty power of the food coma as I fell asleep instantly after the coffee on the way to Grand Rapids.

Once we arrived at the airport we called one of the skycaps to help us with our stuff. I was not fully prepared for Maggie McMulletstein (she must have been a Dutch Jew.) Not only did she carry our boxes like a champion but she helped me check in through the computer! Promotion on aisle 3 for 600 please! So my aunt and I arrive at the gate. I board the plane thinking everything will go smoothly as planned. Well I was Regimen RONG!! The man stopped me and said, "Where do you think you're going with that? That bag is too big." So after failing to fit the bag in the box they decide to charge me $185 for checking in the bag to Manila. For those of you who think money is no object...money IS an object! Fortunately I did NOT curse them out. I was the bigger man.

On to Detroit. Wow, I never thought I'd ever say that but since I'm 10,000 miles away I guess it's safe. I sent a text message to Emily complaining about the cheap Chipotle fix unfulfilled. We board the plane. Since I forgot my sleeping pills I figured I could just take advantage of the free booze provided as an adequate substitute. It went well as planned, except I did not make it past drink number three and fell asleep. Waking up to the smells of the airplane food jeopardized the food in my stomach for I wanted to give the heave-ho in the barf bag. Again, I resisted and remained the bigger man.

Eleven hours later we mercifully landed in Nagoya, Japan. I took much delight in the niceness of the people, the cleanliness of the bathrooms of which I am inferior, and of course the Filipinas who think they're Mariah Carey so they randomly break out in song. Fast forward another five hours and we're finally in Manila! ROCK. Manila, where faux pas are excusable, women in their seventies are still cool enough to wear Jordans, and EVERYONE has the singing voice of a bird.


Wish me luck on my quest to attend TWO weddings (no one tells me these things!) and one EXTREME retirement party and to get wiggity wasted with the president of the Philippines. I better find the little dwarf first! But don't worry! I'll be okay!