Passenger Talesstories about my experiences as a traveler and passenger

The yellow metered airport taxis in NAIA were a pleasant surprise. When I arrived from Korea it was late Thursday night so no one was able to fetch me. I was worrying how I was going to get home since I knew airport taxis cost the earth and it’s very difficult to get out of NAIA on foot with very heavy luggage in order to get a cheaper taxi ride out of the airport. Without any more options, Ate Rita and I decided to inquire how much the rate of the yellow airport taxis were. I was used to flate rates by areas from airport taxis in the Domestic and Centennial Airports so I was surprised when the dispatcher told me that the taxis were metered and cost about twice as much as the regular taxis. I asked him to approximate how much from the airport to our place. When he mentioned not more than five hundred pesos I decided to try it out. The computation was P70 flag down rate for the first 500 meters then P4 for every succeeding 300 meters.

If I remember correctly, my total was less than P350 considering that the taxi stopped to refuel and by my count he should have deducted P12 from my bill. Hehehe…It was even cheaper than the flat rate of Basic taxi from our place to the airport which is P400. What was also nice about the airport taxi was that it issued an official receipt in case you need one for reimbursement purposes.

So for my friends abroad who are contemplating of coming home and they have nobody to fetch them, take the yellow metered airport taxis in NAIA. It’s much safer because there is somebody who keeps track of the taxis and the destination of the passengers and it’s cheaper than the airport taxis with flat rates for specific areas.

On our way to and from Korea last July we flew via the Korean Airlines. One thing I appreciated about the Airline was that it was not very strict with luggage weight. It was my first time to fly in a foreign airline. During our departure to Korea, while we were waiting for the man behind the counter to finish checking our tickets, Ate Rita and I discussed the heaviness of our luggage. I turned to the man and asked how heavy my luggage was and to my surprise he told me that he had no way of knowing because they their booth was not equipped to weigh our luggage. We were at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport then so I thought maybe NAIA was not so high tech. This I can believe because its Rest Rooms in the departure area was so Jurassic. It was not something you would expect from an international airport.

Anyway, this was not the case with Incheong Airport. This airport is so big and modern. When we checked in our luggage we could see how many kilos we were racking up. As is in most cases of Filipinos traveling, we had heavier luggage coming home because of the various knickknacks to be distributed to friends and families. We checked in by pair and between the two of us, Ate Rita and I racked up 45 kilos, an excess of five kilos. We were holding our breath on how much it would cost us considering that nothing is cheap in Korea, particularly Seoul. Boy were we thankful when the Airline did not charge us anything. We were able to breathe easier once we checked in because now we could spend our very limited remaining won with an easier mind.

Last Thursday I was commuting to work because as I mentioned earlier, Kuya Alvin was absent. The jeepney was full to overflowing with two men hanging out the jeepney. One of them was in his sixties. He struck a conversation with the younger man. The older man was talking about a commuting experience. He mentioned that he’s been an on and off taxi driver from 1969 to the early part of the 1990′s. I was not really listening (not very obvious..hehehe) until he said that not many people knew it but there was no Project 5 (not sure how true this is) but there are Projects 1-4 and 6-8 in Quezon City but no Project 5. He even shared a joke about how he was in Cubao and he told one dispatcher that there is a Project 5. Just add Project 2 and 3 to come up with 5. Hehe. As I’ve said a hundred times, you learn something new everyday.