Eva Air

From the onset I wanted to make sure that my long-winded flights were as comfortable as what my budget would take me. Naturally, I had to be booked on business class. I checked out a few airlines that flew out of Manila -- Philippine Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Asiana, Eva Air, Northwest, so on and so forth. I've experienced flying on PAL, Eva Air and Northwest. Out of the three, Philippine Airlines had the best service and was the only one that flew straight to California without lay overs. Eva Air was nice too, but required one long stop over in Taipei. Northwest -- what can I say, is probably the worst airline in the whole wide world.

Anyway, as I canvassed for business class tickets, Eva Air was the cheapest -- $2100 for a round trip. PAL costs $400 more. The others are waaay out of my league. Eva Air's business class service, called Premium Laurel, got glowing reviews from sites that I found on Google. If you find the price tag as too steep, they have their second highest class, Evergreen Deluxe Class, that costs less than half ($900). Seats are a lot roomier than coach and have generous foot rests (coach seats don't have foot rests). For sadists, there's coach that is crazy cheap at $500. I won't even go there. My cousin almost lost it after 11 hours.

Ok, so my journey began 3 days ago on July 2, 2009. I traveled with my cousin Clarice. Unfortunately Eva Air is still stationed at the nasty old NAIA terminal. Why they haven't moved to the newer one is beyond me. Check-in was quite easy because of my ticket. Took 5 minutes to get our boarding passes. 2 minutes to pay the terminal fee of P750. 10 minutes to get through immigration. Ok, sometimes being early isn't always the best idea. We had 2 and a half hours to wait for our flight LOL. We headed upstairs to the Sampaguita lounge where they offered wifi and food for P300. The lounge was clearly not well-maintained, but as long as they had wifi I didn't care.

Fast forward to boarding time. I was excited to see my seat. Damn, it was huge!



The chair had a panel where you control the angle of the seat, the backrest and footrest. There's one button to push that turns it into a full-size bed! But I found it strange that even though the bed is flat, it's angled at like 30 degrees. Without the footrest, I'd easily slip down under the seat in front of me haha.



For lunch, they served Beef Pepper Steak, which was just okay for me. Since I had a longer flight after this one, I knew there were more meals to look forward to. The flight to Taipei took only 1 hour and 30 minutes. Our next flight wasn't until 3 hours later so my cousin and I had ample time to roam the duty free shops inside the airport.

Guess what store caught our attention.



THE SANRIO STORE!!! LOL

It's the ultimate wet dream for Hello Kitty fans out there (ehem, ehem). I actually know a few guys who are hahaha.

But you know, when I was kid, I remember having a stuffed toy of this fella here:



His name is Tuxedo Sam. Not many people know him and I didn't see him at the Sanrio store. :-\ Bless his soul.

Ok, so I kinda got sick walking around. I abandoned my cousin and checked out the Evergreen Lounge. Regrettably, I didn't take pictures but it puts all the other airport lounges to shame. They had a full-on buffet, free drinks, free wifi and xboxes! Huwaw!!

Here are more pics taken on the connecting flight to San Francisco:



Notice the white wine? After two lame glasses I got drunk. I'm such a loser.











I'll make succeeding posts about the rest of my trip soon. For now, I hope you liked this one!

The French are Kinky

Found at a sex shop in Montmartre, France.



Candy Bra!!




Pecker Bath Brush LOL



Penis Pasta! Bwahahaha!

And here's a pic of me and my cousins in front of the famous Moulin Rouge.



Clarice, Kathy, Stephen, Me

Stephen wanted to see a go-go show so bad but the girls didn't want to. We ended up eating crepes instead LOL.

What the....

Yesterday we were craving for French toast. We'd expect that Paris would be the place to eat French toast right? But no, they don't know what French toast is!!

Updates from Europe

- My one-star hotel, Hotel Haussman, doesn't have air conditioning or a fan. And my shower's broken. But I'm having a great time. :)

- Surfing the Internet here costs 2.90 euros/30 minutes = 195 pesos. /wrist

- I visited the Louvre, Giverny, Versailles, Eiffel Tower, River Seine area and lots of museums. Versailles is f*cking gorgeous.

- French food sucks.

- Suddenly McDonald's and Starbucks gained more respect from me.

- My cousins Kathy and Clarice forced me on a bed and repaired my "mataray" eyebrows. It was utter torture but the results are rewarding. Now if only I could reproduce the same results when the mowed areas grow back.

- Ok gotta go.. lol

In Transit

Location: San Francisco Airport, California
Mood: Not in the mood

I'm waiting for my connecting flight to NY that's a good 4 hours away. My cousin drained out my PSP, and I'm about to drain my netbook's battery as well. Long-haul flights really bring out the worst in me. I smell like shit, feel like shit, look like shit. I'm not even going to take pictures. I can't wait to get some decent shuteye when I arrive in New York. Oh, and I paid $7.99 (~P400) to surf the Internet with T-mobile. I'm just thinking it's more expensive in Manila if I surfed the net in Starbucks. This T-mobile wifi pass lasts 24 hours. At Starbucks back home it costs P100/hour.

Anywayyy... my flight wasn't that awful. I was seated in business class, so I was able to fold down my seat to a full-sized bed. I got like 4-5 hours of sleep. The food was so-so but plentiful. Last night I had too much white wine to drink I got a little tipsy LOL. My cousin languished in ghetto economy class. An old Chinese man beside her kept rubbing some herbal oil on his arms. He stunk. Moreover, one of her check-in luggages got drenched in stuff that smelled like spoilt ginseng. I'm like WTF it smelled like feet. A jacket that was inside the bag got badly stained but her other effects were spared. She decided to get rid of the bag and stuff the things in her bigger luggage.

I'm LSS-ing over a song by Boyzone (shut up), "Better". Heard it on the radio the other day and it stuck! Gahhh.

Ok bye for now.