The SEAIR flight out was delayed by 3 or 4 hours.. telling us, and I quote “the plane is broken”. Great PR skills. Around 11:00, they fed us. It was fried bits of fried bits. I couldn’t tell if it was chicken, pork, beef, dog, cat, or what. its was pure crunchy fried meat with a slight bit of flexibility… barely. See that fork? Took me a while to stick it in there and the tine broke off. This isn’t SEAIR’s food but something from the airport cantina they bought for us. I always fly SEAIR because they’re cheaper and I like the small planes and they have some of the best pilots. Unfortunately, this ticket was expensive – likely because they’re carrying extra fuel in case they have to divert on a weather basis.

We waited, they fed us this while waiting to get to Boracay. Fried bits of fried bits anyone?

Giving credit where credit is due. The Caticlan cantina.

At the last minute the weather turned foul and the plane was slammed into the runway, causing people to scream… no crash, just a massive hard landing. Finally made it back to the Land of Brownouts. Sure enough, we have them every day so it’s a good thing I sprang extra for a 7 hour battery on my new laptop. Boracay itself isn’t bad, but the trip getting here is never pleasant. I’m just glad I didn’t have to suffer that horrible, uncomfortable, packed-like-sardines trip from the Kalibo.

Stayed at Hostel 1632 next to Robinsons Mall in Ermita and the first room was ghetto as hell. I mean a pure dump. Front desk telling me incorrect hours for everything. NOTE: always get a room on the 4th floor (smoking) since they’re all nicer/newer, preferably room 404 or 405 (the largest) at the same price. The first room was on 2nd floor with high ceilings, almost dead light bulbs, cracks in the wall, dirty, aircon filter a solid mat of dust and mildew, human soap scum/grime in the shower, unbolted sink faucet, dirty linen, small and they refused to change rooms that night. Then…. at 4:30 am on a second night…. the hotwater pipe under the sink blew out spraying steamed water from bathroom into the room, flooding it. F.L.O.O.D. Hot. Steam.

This was odd because I hadn’t been able to get hot water from the sink. Took them an hour to cut the water and fire alarm (even 20 minutes to respond after calling). Several neighboring rooms flooded as well and guys with their prostitutes were in the halls.

They moved me to the 4th floor an hour later and by floor design, 404/405 are longer by a couple meters.It’s freshly painted, the bathroom is three times bigger, low ceilings with good lighting, good linen/pillows, much nicer and even had a small dining table! Even the minibar was fully stocked whereas the other one was almost empty. I asked: its the same price as the ‘dungeon’ I had before. First night, the front desk chick was indifferent like I was annoying her but after that, everyone else was nice as hell, really cool. Oh, and their room service food is really, really good! Try the Seafood Salpicao or Stuffed Chicken.

Hostel 1632 floor plan - best room is on 4th floor, same price

When they called on the intercom doctors or medics on the plane, a few of our eyes met and knew we’d better keep our mouths shut. One idiot didn’t and went back where they expected him to do some over-the-Pacific life saving — what a dumb-ass. Watched her a few times trying to wander off, trying to sleep but not making it, stomach pain…. I knew exactly what it was. This girl was on shrooms at 40,000 feet and couldn’t handle it.

They put her in my center row seating right about the time I started hallucinating tracers from a lack of sleep and too much cold medication. She appeared to be the only one noticing my condition and tried telling me it was gonna be OK. Great, the crazy girl is taking care of me now.

She spoke English but kept using some kind of hand signals to communicate… oddly enough, I understood. She couldn’t figure out if she was hot or cold. I slept finally and we woke to differing movies…. of course, I was thinking of taking her for a mile-high club membership but figured I’d get arrested for taking advantage of a crazy person. She signed her desire for my bottle of Gatorade – I gave it to her. Not because I was nice but ’cause I wanted to shag her in Korea.

Woke again shortly before landing……… she was gone. Her stuff was gone. The flight attendants asked where she had gone to which worried me, losing a person on a plane over the Pacific Ocean doesn’t normally happen.

Korean Air planes are nice and the service staff has got to be the best service attendants I’ve seen anywhere in the world. One note, unless you speak Korean, take your own entertainment. The western movies are in Korean and even the subtitles are in an Asian symbol-language. The in-flight magazines are mostly Korean as well as the SkyMall, which is huge but mostly women’s cosmetics and accessories…. and in Korean. An mp3 player with a lot of blue-collar comedy recordings goes a long way.

The flight back didn’t go as planned so I never made it through Moscow but instead stayed in Seoul overnight and got back a day earlier than planned. I gotta say, Koreans (in Korea) are possibly the nicest, most polite humans I’ve ever encountered. Considering how they act here… who knew? Guess I went from living 15 years in war zones to living in the Philippines a few years ago, and forgot what real hospitality and nice people were like. People in the US are also nicer than here but Koreans take the award, hands down.

One thing that put me off was in the DFW terminal (Dallas Ft Worth) which is insanely huge. Loved it but c’mon, $8.00 for a tuna sandwich?

There were Border Control guards at the loading ramp of Korean Airlines… AFTER you’ve scanned a ticket to board. Asking questions about purpose of visit and blah blah… excuse me, I’m an American, what goddamn business is it of yours where I’m going and why? I understand they have the right of warrant-less search and seizure these days, but automatic questioning every single person leaving? Since when does the TSA, DHS, and anyone have a reasonable cause to stop all American passport holders and question their departure motives? Wow. That’s not a far cry from having to present papers crossing State and City borders. Remind anyone of the Soviet Union or East Germany?

And these guys were friggin’ huge. As in Security Contractor steroid huge. Yes, I lived in the Green zone for a few years so trust me when I say I’ve seen my fair share of contractor and firefighter steroid results. Not that these guys were rude or anything, they had the average people skills to be expected of someone ready to body-slam a 60 yr old Korean woman going home. Polite? yes in a “I’m tired if this assignment” kinda way. But why is an out-of-shape cracker with a southern accent like me getting questioned about traveling to Korea?

MANILA — A plane carrying 32 people from the Philippines resort island of Boracay skidded off the runway after landing at Manila’s main international airport on Sunday, officials said. The plane got stuck in the grass at the side of the runway, he said. The runway was temporarily closed while repair crews tried to move the plane, which suffered damage to its landing gear.

The plane was returning from Caticlan, the town that serves the island of Boracay, one of the country’s leading beach resorts, airport officials said.

The accident came less than a month after a hard landing by a SEAIR plane at Caticlan airport forced flights there to be briefly suspended.

In January, at least two passengers were seriously injured when a small plane operated by Zest Airways missed the runway on landing and smashed into a concrete wall at the Caticlan airport.

Another SeAir crash relating to Boracay

Computer’s been wigging out and I suspect its from some virus. Ever since, it’s been slowly going down hill with random settings changes, browser going haywire, heavy network traffic when nothings happening – one day, it was so slow I slammed the mouse on the desk, shattering into my palm. The DVD drive is completely offline and the USB ports randomly disable. Sometimes even the wireless adapter doesn’t seem to exist. Out of nowhere, WGA reappeared telling me the Windows copy was illegal, which its not – aside that WGA isn’t supposed to be on this computer.

I’m sure to have put on weight by eating 2 bags of Taco Bell everyday but hell, I’m still nowhere the size of these huge fat-assed ghetto booty bitches. Used to think everyone just picked on America about obesity but man, these bitches are HUGE everywhere!

Found a boxful of pictures from my Army days but don’t have the time to scan ‘em, might drop them at WalMart to be digitalized. If pictures on the site seem broken, drop me a line, there’s a plug-in setting that’s been going screwy.

Dear assholes, would you please stop chain smoking at 06:30 am in the lounge? I dont even feel like drinking. Got 4 hours to Tokyo, layover, ..no fucking way… no, no, no… what the hell….

I shit you not, they made a Muzak acustical version of Umbrella from that ugly gorilla looking bitch Beyonce. I hate her. Really, its more than a general dislike – more of a “we’ll scour the earth to steralize anyone with a partial DNA match.

Damnit,  seat’s wet and its the last one. With my luck, it’s probably baby piss.

Airport: Everyone says all the flights were transferred to Kalibo… as they’re still selling tickets and checking luggage. hmmm… I go to the Zest Air Cargo and found the real reason – he has a clipboard with pre-scheduled days of flight diversions when only a single airline is allowed to use Caticlan. They decided these routes before you bought your tix but still tell people differently.

I’m in a bit of hurry to leave so the only seat going out is to Clark where I can hop a flight to Manila. After a few flight delays, our ride pulls infront of the busted Zest Air plane. I’m on a small deHaviland with SeaAir….. and… hold on…. POW! Smoke form the engine. A mechanic starts poking around and looks lost for the next 2 hours. He doesn’t seem to do anything but look lost until finally using 2 zip-ties on something and apparently fixing it….. just great….

Note: The toilets in the Caticlan airport were disgusting and unsanitary looking. I had eaten a lot of beans the night before and now the piss-seat was starting to irritate – there wasn’t a scrap of toilet paper to be found… hell, there wasn’t even soap or paper towels.

Plane ride was decent, a small 19 seater. Too small for a cabin door or toilet. I don’t think anyone else noticed but the plane wasn’t pressurized. That wasn’t aircon or even a fan – it was an open external vent that had also let the exhaust fumes inside the cabin during takeoff.