Our Jouney Begins

On Sunday March 8 we left the house and then picked up Tim Robinson at his house.  He was ready early and so we left for the Philadelphia Airport and arrive early.  We checked in uneventfully.  Lewis Lazarow was the next to arrive at 10 AM.  When Ben Giovine arrived we all were able to meet wtih  Fred Gibbs, District GSE Chair and Kathy Hiltner, District Governor whoe were both at the airport as well.  By the time we got through security and to the conference room meeting place, we only had a about 20 minutes to relax.

After meeting in the US Air Club Conference Room, the GSE Team moved down to the gate for our flight to Detroit.  Aside from the flight being very full, it was uneventful.

We arrived in Detroit a little early and were able to get to our gate for the flight to Nagoya, Japan without rushing too much.  We boarded our flight on time and got settled.  The stewardess said that everyone was on the plane and they were going to close the door.   Then came the announcement that the video system on the plane was not working.  It would only take a half hour to fix.  2 hours later the system was still not functioning properly and so the Captain said that we were going to leave anyway and the Flight Attendants would have to personally show everyone the safety features of the plane.  No Movie.  What a shame!  Once we got going the plane flew fine, the food was ok for airline food.  We all managed to get some sleep but as one can imagine that was a difficult process.

We arrived in Japan at 8:10 PM local time.  We were scheduled to leave at 8:35 PM but because of the delay the departure time was 9:20 PM.  We had to leave the plane and go through security again and then back to the gait.  We left Nagoya for Manila on time.  The video system is now fully operational.  We just had to go to where all the electronics are made to get it fixed.