Flying

It's almost 2:00 AM and I've just decided to pull out the laptop out of my bag. Been busy packing stuff for our trip to cebu tomorrow. Been married for more tahn 7 years and this will be the first true vacation for us... first airplane ride for the daughter as well, she's very excited. Next year though, we're planning for them to fly into HK when I am there for my usual rounds. At least we get the hotel for free. Maybe finally fulfill my promise for a Disneyland trip.

I guess I'm really back to moving around the region. 4 trips out of the country in the last 3 months, not including 1 cancelled trip to Vietnam. The idea when I bought my laptop bag was for it to double as my luggage bag for trips not taking more than 3 days. Now I don't have to check-in bags and wait at the conveyor belt. Fucking awesome!

The only problems are the liquid stuff. Last week, I was in HK for 4 days (details of which deserve it's own blog), and I finally took a gamble. Brought some hair gel and deodorant spray with me and I didnt get flagged on both HK and Manila screenings. I guess the paranoia is really just on US flights.

It never ceases to amaze me how nuts people are at the boarding gates. I don't really know if these people are flying for the first time, or are really just stupid at following instructions. As soon as the ground crew announces that the gate is opening, a considerable mass of people line up. Of course, they always let passengers board by row number. Rear of the plane first, then they move up to the front by 10 or so. And unless your flying business class or are with children, you have to wait like everybody else.

But that doesnt deter some people I guess. I've been on many flights. Here around Asia, and several across the US as well. Regardless of the continued instructions and placards that they hold up, some people still move up to the line seemingly completely oblivious to the clear instructions being announced. It usually goes on 2-3 times before they figure it out. It's actually kinda amusing. And when you fly around as much as I do, it's something quite funny that you actually come to expect.

I did however ran into something different for the first time. For my Cathay Pacific flight back to Manila last week, they asked everybody to just fall into a huge line. This obviously didn't go well with the passengers and it drew frustration from everyone.

Sucks for me specially, because I dont go rushing in for the queue. I ended up being at the last third of the line. Of course they had 2 lines, 1 for the business class and those with children (which as always is only about 10-15 people), and another line for everyone else. So unless you're ready to shell out a thousand greenbacks for a flight that will last 110 minutes, there really is just 1 line. What ended up being amusing was, every minute or so, someone would try to crossover to the business class line and attempt to pass through from there. Of course, they get rejected and end up being sent back to our line. Not surprisingly... another dufuss would actually try the same stunt.