THE LONGEST EIGHT MINUTES

THE LONGEST EIGHT MINUTES
Sept. 1, 2000

My previous travels with my wife were purely R&R (Rest and Recreation). This time we are traveling for an entirely different reason. Since about four years ago our daughters, Brinna and Madora have been encouraging us to travel in as much as both of them were Airline employees and it was their parents’ privilege to travel free. But lack of pocket money deters us from enjoying good privilege.

Until our eldest son, Paul called us one day requesting that we go to Australia to talk to his girlfriend’s parents. He promised to take care of all our expenses while there. So, at 2:00 p.m. on September 1, 2000 we begin to travel to Sydney, Australia, via Japan Airlines passing through Japan. What an interesting travel it turned out to be. We were traveling on “subject to space” or in a simpler language we were chance passenger.

As part of JAL’s hospitality, we were accommodated at the Executive Class, which was made colorful and memorable by several personalities in the movie world. More prominent were Piolo Pascual, Diether Ocampo, Rica Peralejo, Giselle Sanchez and many others.

Like the two faces of the entertainment world, our travel did not turn out all fun and color because what happened next was a thrilling and interesting true-to-life action drama full of much suspense. Because of so many passengers we were delayed at the immigration counter to our great dismay. As a result, after the immigration check, we were told that JAL f light to Sydney had just left.

After inquiring from so many JAL employees who probably felt our plight, we decided to stay overnight in Japan because the next flight to
Sydney would be at 8:30 p.m. the following day. We were already scouting for a hotel where we could check-in when a lady from counter K suddenly thought of a flight to Brisbane taking off in eight minutes and she asked if we would like to avail of it. We answered yes, and with only eight precious minutes left the pretty and helpful lady fixed everything.

Another lady, who was to accompany us, started running and so we followed her double stepping even the steps of the escalator. After a while we were endorsed to another lady who continued running with us, a few steps behind her. Upon reaching the transporting car we were again endorsed to another lady, who, like the first two continued running. After a total of around half a mile running with three smiling pretty ladies, we caught up the f light to Brisbane in unbelievable photo-finish.

Both of us still panting like dogs and about to collapse after along run, the officer we met said: “We were just about to close the door”. But we felt very good that at least we were already on our way to Australia, our destination. Boarding tickets from Brisbane to Sydney were already given to us, so we didn’t worry for a new problem.

Flight JL 777 was a small plane for domestic flight. I was luckily seated at the window side. I got a panoramic bird’s eye view of Brisbane. From the air I could sense that the place wasn’t polluted. There was a wide area of greenery and even the ocean seemed very clean. Over Sydney it warms the heart to see an immaculately clean city. Not a single roof was tarnish with dirt… and there were no squatters’ shanties.