Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Only it wasn’t exactly ‘jiggity jig’. Rather it took almost twenty-nine hours to travel from Manila hotel to southern Ontario house. That included three flights–about 14000 km total distance and about 17 hours flying time (that doesn’t include the short hop from Dumaguete to Manila on Wednesday). The rest of the time was waiting in airports.
We got our wake-up call at 3:45 a.m. on Thursday morning, checked out of the hotel and went to the airport. Finally found a working ATM at the ‘Arrivals’ level of the terminal so we were able to get the 1500 pesos we needed for our departure tax as well as a little extra to cover breakfast. We didn’t have any excess baggage problems this time and our bags are checked through to Toronto. Immigration and security screening went smoothly but there weren’t many food options inside the secure area (none at all outside it). Doreen used the last of our money to buy a couple of bottles of water as she finds dehydration a real problem.
When we finally found our gate, we discovered a second set of security screens. We were told that the first screening had been ‘airport security’ and this was now ‘Northwest Airlines security’. The whole rigamarole again–computer out, shoes off, belt off, liquids on display in their plastic bag, etc. The upshot was that Doreen lost the water she’d just bought. Talk about ticked! The waiting area left a lot to be desired but we had a smooth flight to Tokyo.
We got off the plane in Narita and had to go through security again even though we haven’t been out of a secure area since Manila. We had a three-hour wait in Tokyo for our connection so Doreen used the time to browse the shops and buy some Japanese candies and other stuff. We’re back in the commercial world where we can use our credit cards. Hoorah! We found our gate, finally got our seat assignments straightened out and settled in to wait for boarding. Just as boarding should have commenced, they announced a gate change. When we got to the new gate, there was no plane so we waited a little longer.
Twelve hours later we’re in Detroit. It was a pretty good flight (very good meals) made even easier by a great flight attendant, Melody. We had to collect our luggage in Detroit and go through US Customs even though we were only transiting. The process has really slowed now with the requirement to fingerprint and photograph visitors (as Canadians, we were excluded). Then, once again, we were subjected to the screening process. This is getting ridiculous. We haven’t been out of a secure area since the Manila terminal and we’ve been screened four times. I guess nobody trusts the other guys to do an adequate screening job.
The easiest part of our trip was the drive from the Toronto airport. We landed in Toronto at 7:20 p.m. so we missed the rush hour traffic and our limo driver cruised. We were home by 8:30 p.m. Now all we have to do is reset our internal clocks–we also had to reset all the house clocks as Ontario has moved into ‘Daylight Saving Time’ while we were away.