Written January 5, 2007

Finally…after too many hours to keep track of and several realizations, I have arrived at my destination: The National University of Singapore, Prince George’s Park Residences. Anyway, the journey has been long and at some points excruciating. I woke up at 4:10AM Thursday; Bryan picked me up and took me to the airport for a little after 5. Thank you, Bryan. I did the usual Maui to Honolulu…cake flight. I also managed to get on my flight to Manila…breeze…I even went to sleep a little and the plane food was decent enough. It wasn’t a bad 10 hours after all. However, I would like to discuss the Philippines. My initial impression was wow, it is beautiful; so many colourful houses, trees, waves, skyscrapers, shanty-towns of tin. I thought I’d like to go back for a real visit….that is until I had to hike my bags(an enormous hiking bag, two back packs) about three-quarters of a mile from one terminal to the next. When I asked an airport guy about how I was to get to Singapore Airlines from the Philippine Airline terminal, he shrugged…”no shuttle, nothing”…only beaming sun, humidity, my shoulders, legs, and a million Filipino men who watched my trek. That was weird, and I’m pretty sure I got a nice sunburn, bruised shoulders, and super disgustingly sweaty. I figured from that experience, I wasn’t going to give the place a second chance. It’s over between us. Anyhow...that was the first of my travel "experience."