Flights to Manila

My flights are mostly with ANA, the first time I have flown a Japanese airline. My previous visit to Manila was via Emirates, it turns out I like them both, though the latter certainly has a much better media selection available on the seat-back display. For this itinerary, masking among passengers was best for the Dulles to Tokyo leg, worst of course for the US domestic. ANA cabin crew sometimes wore glasses with side panels, rather like my own moderately discreet safety goggles, I wondered if I should have brought those along with my masks.

For ANA, as well as their hot green tea, I availed myself of the beers, I rather like Asahi and Kirin Ichiban, less Sapporo. Before long, I was reminded of the usual airplane meal fun of matching the provided utensils and condiments to the dishes, it was lovely that they included chopsticks. One challenge was figuring what goes with the dried seaweed, I matched that with the salmon teriyaki. A nearby lady, I think maybe elderly and Vietnamese, instead matched her Italian dressing with the salmon. I also tried the grilled eel and confirmed that I am still not much of a fan of eel. I was puzzled by an unused spoon until the frozen-rock-hard ice cream was dispensed.

Politics in the Philippines

New to me is campaign season here in the Philippines. I had already seen video of outdoor exercise classes and such that were somehow tied to political campaigns. Now I get more time to explore for myself, two aspects strike me, especially in more rural areas. One is the vapidness of the many posters: they feature some candidate, or group thereof, smiling or looking enthused or patriotic or whatever, with a name, a slogan, often some color retouching, and little else. The other is the music: songs play in public that are somehow associated with campaigns, even played from vehicles that drive along the road. I suppose that there is also rather more contentful engagement from or among candidates, admittedly I have made little effort to seek such in local cable news. For day-to-day life, what I do see from the campaigns, I do not learn much from.