San Diego Sep2011: Flights

I flew to the US day before the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  I've read reports that security will be tight, and so I was readying myself to deal with additional checks at the airport, tighter immigration screening and longer queues.  Surprisingly, that was probably the least stressful of all my US entries.

I landed in Portland and the queue at immigration was very light.  Getting my check-in luggage in San Diego was quick, too.  Thank God for smooth transitions.

Portland Airport - not busy at all.

My flight wasn't trouble-free though.  On the plane from Narita to Portland, the person beside me accidentally tipped his glass of water to my side.  My seat was all wet and the right/back part of my jeans was soaked, as with the pillow and part of the blanket.  He apologized profusely though, and it really was an accident so I just told him to not worry about it.  He offered me his dry pillow, which I accepted and the flight attendant wiped the seat dry.  I had to deal with the wet pants issue, pretty much just hoped it would dry fast because it was cooold, and I hate being cold.

Narita Airport

Another mishap that was avoided was missing my flight from Japan.  I was hanging out with some officemates at the Delta lounge.  I didn't know they were flying on the same day, and it was good to have company for part of the way.  While waiting to be called for check-in, one of them asked me if I was going already and I said, not yet.  Then she reminded me that Japan time is 1 hr ahead.  Oh no!  At that point, I had ~30 minutes left before the flight.  I packed my laptop and rushed for the gate while the final boarding was being announced.  Whew!=)

Nang Lani's family picked me up from the San Diego airport and we all drove to their house.  I stayed with them for the weekend.  On Sunday afternoon, they drove me to the Holiday Inn which will be my home for the week.

Flight: Manila -> Narita -> Portland -> San Diego
Movies: X-Men First Class, Arthur

***

The flight home from San Diego was almost a version of Amazing Race for me.  On my two layovers, I had to walk directly to the gates because it was already boarding.  It's great that there were no delays whatsoever.

I was looking forward to watching a couple of movies on the long flight but my tv unit was not working.  It would constantly stop-and-play and have other movies interspersed. :(  They tried to reset it a few times but to no avail.  So how was I to entertain myself?  I read (finished Personal Best by Marc Woods), wrote random notes on my little notebook, did the puzzles on the flight magazine and slept a little.  It also was able to listen to a few albums (music function was still working) and liked a few songs on the Glee soundtrack, even though I just can't get into the series.  Delta also awarded me and a few others with 15k miles for the inconvenience.  So, it wasn't so bad.

I flew in Monday night as typhoon Pedring was entering the country.  It was raining and the flight was turbulent close to the end but we were able to land without trouble.

Happy to be with family again.

Flight: San Diego -> Detroit -> Narita -> Manila

Movie: Something Borrowed, Rio