a 27-hour trip: Detroit

-
September 10, 2012. Detroit.

If my calculations were correct, I had been traveling by land and by plane for the past 21 hours because I left Calamba at 3:00am and I arrived in Detroit at 12:15pm (which is 12:15am, September 11th in Manila). Oddly enough, if I just look at the departure and arrival times without considering the time changes, it appeared that I've traveled around nine hours only! That never fails to amuse me. One more thing: the sun was up in Nagoya; the sun was also up in Detroit. If I weren't taking note of the time, I'd think my flight only took a few hours!

Anyway, my stop in Detroit was the second time I was at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. The first time was when I flew from Detroit to San Francisco after my cousin, Rico, got married in 2008. This time, though, I was entering the USA in Detroit and not flying domestic. And just like my experience in Los Angeles back in 2006, I had to collect my checked-in luggage at the bag carousel before I checked them in again for the flight to New Orleans. Take note: I didn't have to pay for my domestic flight checked-in bag :)

The express tram at the terminal is one of the main attraction (for me) at the airport. I didn't ride it this time, though. I thought it would do me some good if I walked to the boarding gate after I got through immigrations and cleared customs. After all, I'd spent most of the time in the plane sleeping in a sitting position. Walking would get the blood flowing properly before my next flight. 

I arrived at the gate an hour before my next flight. While waiting for the boarding call, I met group of fellow passengers that came from Manila on the same flight that I was on. They were also going to New Orleans; but unlike me, New Orleans was just another layover for them because they were going to Mississippi.

One more flight and I could rest. Couldn't wait to get to New Orleans!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma...
Read more