Back From Manila.....

Took the Cebu Pacific Airline back from Manila this morning, to some wonderful weather here in Hong Kong. Puffy clouds and bright blue skies.

I am almost recovered from my bout of travelers sickness that I think that I contracted in cafeteria of the Asian Development Bank from a fish entree at lunch. Later that afternoon, I was fighting off a splitting headache when I sat down with Madame Chiang for before dinner drinks and all hell broke loose later that night when I returned home after a wonderful dinner in Malate.

Most notable about the flight back home is that when we were landing, no one was standing up and wandering around the aisles looking for the toilet on approach or seconds after touching down standing up and removing their baggage from the overhead compartments, jockeying for position. Also, people politely filed out of the plane allowing people to enter the aisles to deplane, holy cow, infront of them! I chalk this up to the observation that most of the people were Filipino on the flight and I did not see one single PRC passenger. If there was one, they would have stood up at the most inappropriate time and I would have noticed them.

I think that traveling with PRC passengers is one of the most unpleasant experiences one can have in the skies. On a flight to Shanghai a few months ago, there was a chorus of coughers and throat clearers for the first 30 minutes that made my skin crawl.

Connected, Asia Pundit has a post on politeness of Asian cities, finding them amongst the rudest on the planet. No surprise there, but Manila didn't score that high, either. I find the people almost always polite to me.

However, New York scoring the top of the list as the MOST polite city is no surprise to me. As a former New Yorker, and sometimes diffident sometimes unabashed, I did occasionally go out of my way to help strangers and I think that that is the norm for the City and not one that can be completely credited to former Mayor Rudolf Guiliani, despite his many accomplishments, or a post 9/11 phenomenon.

Look confused on a City street and someone will probably ask you if you need some help. We know how sometimes our City is overwhelming and that visitors need a halping hand. New Yorkers come to their aid!