Shovelling snow

Although I have seen piles of snow in the past (in my trips to Europe, especially), I have not seen (or don't remember seeing) snow actually falling from the sky.

About 5 days before I arrived in NJ, a heavy snow storm hit NY, NJ, surrounding states and cities. Although most snow have already melted after 5 days, there are still some remaining small piles of snow.

I took that opportunity to "shovel" snow :-)
This is in front of Jojo Chan's house.

Statue of Liberty, NY

March 7, 2009

After the tour at Ellis island, we boarded another boat to take us to the more famous landmark of New York -- the Statue of Liberty. I was kidding Jojo and Lalaine that I have seen that statue being bombed, demolished, blasted into pieces, toppled by giant waves and snow storms, etc. -- in movies! :-)

The structure looks very imposing as one approaches it. NY and neighboring states just recovered from a bad snow storm a few days ago. On the day we visited the place, it was sunny, the weather was good, and it was a Saturday, so the place attracted thousands of visitors on that day alone.


A picture at this great landmark is surely one memorable event to bring home. My endless thanks to our host, Jojo Chan, for bringing us to this place. It was never in my agenda or imagination that I will step into these 2 places (Ellis island and the Statue). I only wanted to attend the conference in NY, my main purpose in coming here, plus a visit of some local places in NJ and NY.

Ellis island, NY

March 7, 2009

Our first stop (me, Jojo Chan and Lalaine Stormorken) was Ellis island. This place is very famous because it used to be the office of the US immigration several centuries ago, for migrants coming from Europe and other continents travelling by boat.

The pictures and display of various luggages, shoes, clothing, other personal belongings of the migrants then are properly chronicled. There are also enlarged photos of letters written in German, Polish, Swedish, Italian, French, etc. where migrants who have settled in America were writing to their folks back home.

In other rooms, there were pictures and replica of the boats and later steamships, that transported the hundreds of thousands of migrants. Or a dormitory for newly-arriving migrants (a 3-level hanging beds per column, generally congested.

One will realize that America really owe its economic development and cultural evolution from those numerous and anonymous migrants who travelled for many days and weeks, just to reach a "dream land".

Manhattan, from a boat

Manhattan, the famous commercial and financial center of New York City, really looks amazing from a distance: huge skyscrapers very close to each other over a wide area.

These views (pictures) are from a boat when my Filipino friend, Jojo Chan, who has been living in New Jersey and working in NYC for a long time now, toured me and another Filipina friend, Lalaine Stormorken, last March 7, 2009. We went to Ellis Island then the Statue of Liberty. These 2 places are very famous for both tourists and locals. Everyday, these places attract thousands of visitors.

The view from a boat is spectacular because it allows one to have a wide view of Manhattan and its skyscrapers.

I really enjoyed this trip.

Newark and LaGuardia Airports

(Pictures taken from www.en.wikipedia.org)

These are two of the 3 airports serving New York City and its surrounding cities and states. The third airport is JFK airport and it’s far from NY City proper. Newark Liberty is in New Jersey, just across the Hudson (?) river fronting NY City, while LaGuardia is the nearest to Manhattan. LaGuardia is the smallest of the 3, serving mainly (if not entirely) domestic flights, and it’s very busy, maybe because of its smaller facilities.

On my recent trip to NY early this month, I arrived at Newark Liberty airport (Manila-Nagoya-Detroit-Newark), and departed at LaGuardia (LaGuardia-Detroit-Nagoya-Manila). On my return flight, our plane left LaGuardia gate on time, but it took us about 35 minutes to finally take off. Not because of bad weather or other factors, but because of the long queu of planes landing and taking off. I heard our plane pilot announcing something like we’re number 14 of the planes landing and taking off. I saw something like 5 consecutive landings, then consecutive take offs, the space between planes taking off is about 2:10 minutes. When our plane was about to take off, I saw 10 planes queuing behind us! 9 on the right side, 1 on the left.

A Filipino friend whose hobbies included flying small airplanes, Sam Aherrera, made this short observation:

“All major airports -- detroit, chicago, reagan in dc, lax, boston, dulles in Virginia -- have multiple landing and take-off. NY and NJ airports are more critical, not so much because of so many planes, but because they’re very close to each other with multiple landing and taking off. That air corridor could be one of the most dangerous (in the world). The air traffic controllers there could have hypertension because they’re always on the edge in air traffic. Whenever I go to Boston from Virginia, I pass jersey and new york along I-95 North and am always amazed at the abilities of the traffic controllers and the pilots who must coordinate very well in this very tight airspace. And imagine this air traffic when flying in bad weather!”

Northwest Airlines

I have been to the US mainland thrice in my life. The first in 2004 (Michigan, Chicago, Virginia, Washington DC), the second in 2008 (Atlanta, San Francisco), and the third this month (New Jersey and New York). In all those 3 trips, I took Northwest Airlines only. Two years ago, I also went to Honolulu, Hawaii, but I took Philippine Airlines, the only airline that has direct monopoly route between Manila and Honolulu (being a monopoly, the fare is about similar to Manila-LA or SFO despite shorter distance for Honolulu).

Northwest is a big airline, and it has grown bigger with its merger with Delta Air only recently. The travel time to US east coast area though, is long because from Manila, it stops first at either Narita-Tokyo or Nagoya in Japan. Then stop at Detroit airport, one of its main hubs in the US. Passengers from Manila and Japan go through immigration and customs procedures, then take a domestic flight to anywhere in the eastern side of the US. I remember my trip last year, from the time I checked-in at NAIA-Manila airport, to the time I got out of Atlanta airport, was 25 hours! On this trip, from the time I checked-in at NAIA-Manila airport till I got out of Newark, NJ airport, was 26 hours because of more than an hour flight delay from Detroit..

A Northwest flight from Manila to either Narita or Nagoya (and vice-versa) has an all-Filipino stewards and stewardesses. From Japan to Detroit, it’s an American and some Japanese crew.

Most NWest planes that fly from Manila to Detroit don’t have individualized screens for passengers. Only wide screens in the middle and small monitors on both left and right alleys of the plane. Thus, passengers cannot choose a movie or documentary to watch, only those short films or programs shown by the plane’s crew, or the plane’s tracking system (location, speed, altitude, temperature outside, distance traveled, remaining travel time, etc.).

Passengers can choose some audio programs (music and an audio documentary program) through with their headphones, but there are only 8 or 9 audio programs to choose. I was searching for a rock n roll audio channel, there was none or their rock music collection was not my type. In instances like this, the best thing to do is to remove the headphones and either sleep or read something.

I remember my flight last year from San Francisco to Manila, the NWest plane has individualized screens. I wasn’t able to rest well because there were many movies or programs to watch (from comedy to sports to travel and documentaries), or many music programs to listen to (from rock to classical to jazz). So I arrived home groggy and sleepy 

Food at NW was just fine. For instance, from Nagoya to Detroit in this trip, choice for dinner was (a) Korean style chicken with mixed veggies and steamed rice, or (b) beef BBQ sauce with mashed potatoes.

A number of Filipinos I know who live in the US East coast fly via Asian airlines – China airlines and Eva Air (via Taipei), Korean Air, Cathay Pacific, etc. I hope to fly with one of these Asian airlines someday to the US.

Philippine International Airports

(Note: pictures here are from en.wikipedia.org)

The country has several international airports scattered around the archipelago’s major islands. These are:

1. Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila.
2. Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) in Mactan island, Cebu province.
3. Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Clark, Pampanga.
4. Davao International Airport in Davao City, Mindanao
5. Laoag International Airport in Laoag, Ilocos Norte

The Kalibo Airport in Kalibo, Aklan, I’m not sure if it’s also an international airport because Kalibo is the nearest big airport to Boracay, a globally-famous white sand beach resort. Also the airport in Subic and La Union, I’m not sure if they are international airports too.

NAIA is the biggest of all international airports. It has 3 terminals. Terminal 1 is the oldest and is used by all foreign airlines. Terminal 2 is used exclusively by the oldest local airline, Philippine Airlines (PAL) for its international and domestic flights. Terminal 3 is the newest and biggest, it has been finished about 6 or 7 years ago but never opened immediately due to politics and heavy corruption scandals. It was finally opened only in August 2008, and is currently used mainly by the new but biggest local airline, Cebu Pacific, for its international and domestic flights.

NAIA 1 is a very small international airport by world standards. It’s small and old, yet collected several millions of $ from passengers’ “terminal fee” alone, currently at PhP750 (around US$15.5). The smallness, oldness and lack of modernity of NAIA 1 being the premier terminal of the country for the big airlines in the world, should have contributed to the small volume of foreign visitors coming into the country. There are many factors being considered by foreign visitors, of course, it’s just that an international airport is the first structure that a first time foreign visitor will set foot and see in any country. Terminal 3 that was supposed to accommodate all foreign airlines currently using Terminal 1, took many years to be opened, and still not being used by those foreign airlines.

It is good therefore, that other foreign visitors can land in other international airports like those in Clark, Cebu and Davao. They can go nearer to their final destinations somewhere outside Metro Manila.

Given the country’s archipelagic nature (7,100+ islands), the high population (90 million, the 12th largest population in the world), the high mobility of Filipinos abroad, and the plentiful beautiful resorts in many islands, there should be more international airports in the country. More international airports means more choices for foreign visitors and returning Filipinos from abroad to see their provincial and city destinations more directly, and to fly out.

Airport Security Checks

After 911 attacks in the US in 2001, airport security checks almost everywhere have become more strict. But in some countries and airports, the security checks are overly strict and redundant, perhaps OA. Like the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 in Manila.

At NAIA 1, an international passenger goes through 2 security checks: first upon entry at the airport terminal building (person, hand carried and check-in luggages), and second after check-in and passing the airport immigration. Here, passengers have to remove their shoes, belts, coins, keys, hand-carried luggage go through x-ray tube.

If passengers are going to the US and fly an American airline NorthWest, they will have to go through a 3rd security check and repeat the 2nd procedures. Total time spent from entry at terminal building to the departure lounge for a US flight would be about 45 minutes on average.

Aside from those security checks, there are also plenty of private security guards at the airport. The first group are outside the terminal building, checking passengers’ plane tickets and passports. After passing through the 2nd security checks, there are again security guards checking passengers’ boarding passes on the way to their departure gates.

In many international airports in the world, like those in Asia and Europe, passengers check-in first, and they go through only one security check, them and their hand-carried bags only, before proceeding to the departure lounge.

The big difference between them and NAIA 1: the former have big and wide terminals and few airport personnel, the latter has a small terminal and plenty of airport officials and personnel per square meter of terminal area.