02.03.08

I’m Back

Posted in Uncategorized at 1:48 am by Administrator

Time flies when you’re having fun. Especially if you only have two weeks. . . But regardless, we arrived yesterday, jet-lagged, but with a bunch of pictures by which to remember our travels. Now that I’m still suffering jet-lag, I might as well blog.

The Philippines is sure different from when I last visited many years ago. When I get all my pictures sorted out, I’ll share some on the blog, but for now, I want to give a plug for Eva Air.

Eva Air is a relatively new airline, and this was my first time flying with them. We flew on their B-777 on the first long (14 hours 40 minutes from LA to Taipei, Taiwan) leg of the trip and then on a B-747 on the short (two hour) leg of the trip from Taiwan to the Philippines. I was impressed with their service and would definitely consider flying with them again if I do travel again internationally. The biggest thing that impressed me was their new class, economy deluxe, which is a step above economy class. While not having to pay for business class or first class seating for more room, the deluxe economy class has just enough extra room to make flying 15 hours economy much more comfortable. Not only does the back seat recline, there is also a foot rest that can be raised (I did not see that on British Airways when we flew to Turkey, and their economy class was tight, though I did like their movies and appreciated the GPS system for the passengers). Each seat has it’s own TV monitor with several selections from which to choose. Not only did they have movies, music, GPS, TV programs, air phone and email capability (although email was like $8.00 per email, ha!), they also had video games! That was first for me. Bejeweled kept me occupied for a good length of time. Not to mention I watched Into the Wild, War, Atonement, and a few other TV specials.

Since I’m a bit camera happy, I took some shots of the TV monitors. Each passenger had one. For a little more historical trivia, years ago when I was a kid, movies were pretty much only shown on international flights. There was basically just one big screen at the head of each cabin compartment, and if you wanted “sound,” then there was an extra charge of about $5 for a pair of headsets. Now, not only do the headsets come free of charge for each passenger, each passenger has several choices of movies to watch. Eva Air’s monitors were even “touch” controlled from instructions from the screen so that fiddling around with the remote was unnecessary.

Speaking of “remote controls,” here’s a shot of Eva Air’s remote. One side is the TV and game controls, and the other side is an airphone. Andrew has his remote showing the remote side, and I have my remote flipped over to show the phone side.

Originally I took these pictures for my middle son, Matthew, because he likes these kinds of gadgets. Personally, I’m a bit behind the times with these gadgets as I don’t even own a cell phone, nor do I want one. The Philippines is loaded with people using cell phones! Oye! It seemed everywhere I went I saw signs to “load here.” I had no idea what that was, ha! Until my sister, Miss cell phone junkie, arrived. I accompanied her to purchase her Global cards several times and watched her install them and transfer info onto them. Very interesting, and crazy how far technology has come. My aunts were even telling me that the hired help all have cell phones even though they are not exactly cheap. It amazes me that there is so much poverty in the Philippines, but yet it seems cell phones and shopping malls abound (Mall of Asia is in the Philippines and is the largest mall in the world). My aunts say that priorities are a bit mixed up in the Philippines where owning gadgets and things are higher up in priority than food, yikes! I have some pictures that I can share later of the shanties we saw, but I still have yet to sort out all my pictures. That’s another story there because it doesn’t take much to see shanties, then a short distance away expensive high rises and condominium dwellings. Anyway, back to Eva Air. . . Here’s a picture of one of the GPS pages. It’s a bit blurry, but maybe just clear enough to see the position of the plane during the shot from Taiwan to Los Angeles.

I have to admit that this is a feature that really helps people like me with the “are we there, yet?” syndrome. But that’s not all, there are a few other pages which share the flight speed, time, number of hours left, outside temp, etc. Below is one such page (excuse the glare).

I took quite a few pictures from the air, but this one below is one of the better shots. We’re just above Taiwan here.

I didn’t take any shots of the video games, but I did take a shot of one of the movie selection pages. This is only the first page. There were two pages.

I did end up watching Atonement. While the movie was “okay,” it was not my kind of movie. I think I actually appreciated the movie, Into the Wild more. It’s actually based on a true story of a guy who gets rid of all his money, breaks his ties with his family, and goes into the wild to live. Unfortunately he ends up dying of starvation after eating some poisonous plants, but at least he did not die without learning some valuable lessons. Namely, that life is not worth living if there are no people to share it with. He starts out with the attitude that of hope, love, money, etc., etc., most of all he wanted “truth.” Personally I would disagree right there because as a Christian, the greatest gift is love. With love, I think all the other good things will follow, including truth. It was a bit of a strange movie, but I felt it had more meaning or content for my taste than Atonement or War (the other movie I watched).

Okay, well maybe I should force myself to get some sleep so that I can get back to LA time. Toodles for now. . .

Marlakins

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