In-Flight Movies, Ospreys, etc.
It’s 4 a.m. here in the Philippines.
JETLAG.
That dreaded ‘fact of life’ for most travelers is wreaking havoc to my system. The difference this time is that I no longer have a 9 to 5 responsibility that I need to worry about. So here I am, blogging!
On my EVA Air flight from Taipei to the US a couple of weeks ago, one of the movies I watched was Goodbye, Bafana, a movie telling the story of Nelson Mandela’s prison guard while the former was incarcerated at South Africa’s infamous Robben Island. It's weird, when I looked it up on Yahoo Movies, it shows the title as Color of Freedom. Hmmm..
The problem with in-flight movies – you’re at the mercy of flight attendants and/or the pilot making announcements interrupting one’s viewing pleasure. Pleasure is sort of a misnomer here since watching DVD’s in a plane is probably the worst way to do it. The sound off those mini head sets is terrible not to mention the constant buzzing of the jet engines. But my worst pet peeve is when I’m in the middle of a really tense scene or perhaps the story is approaching its climax and here comes the PA system, “We’ll be landing at LAX in 15 minutes, please adjust your seats upright, put on your seat belts and hand your headsets to your flight attendant.” This exact same thing happened to me while I was watching Goodbye, Bafana. But since these video systems are interactive and personal with your own small screen just above the food tray – you can actually pause a movie for bathroom breaks and stuff. On my flight back to the Philippines, I went and finished my movie which turned out to be a good one, by the way – I’m sure it would have been much better if I watched it in my home theater!
After the movie, I was sort of channel surfing and here comes a Chinese cooking show of sort, I think, because they were talking about ‘beer fish’ or perhaps it’s Taiwan’s Food Network? Mind you, the program was in Chinese with some English subtitles.
Anyway, the host went into this village and met a group of fishermen on rafts on their way to catch fish which will become the beer fish. My story is not so much about the dish but how the fish are caught. I noticed there were a few birds that look like big ducks on the rafts with the fishermen. I figured they were there to try to steal some of the guys catch just like sea gulls flying around off shore fishermen’s boats. Boy, was that a big mistake!
When they reached the spot, they shoosed the birds out and started splashing into the water with their sticks. The birds started diving just like ducks looking for fish. All of a sudden one of the birds came up from the water with its catch in its beaks trying to swallow the fish whole. Before the fish became its meal, one of the fishermen extended his stick towards the bird and it stepped on the stick. He then put the bird back onto the raft with the fishtail wagging about in the bird’s beak. He proceeded to hold the bird on the back of its head and shook the fish out into a basket. I thought that was amazing. They actually trained these birds to catch fish for them! They tie the throat of the bird enough for it to be able to breath I guess, but in the process constricting its throat a bit thus, preventing the fish from getting swallowed. I caught the word osprey in the subtitles while the host was excitedly watching the whole process. When I looked it up, ospreys are indeed birds of prey but they looked like eagles and these birds are nowhere near as dignified looking. In fact now that I think about it, they’re like a cross between vultures and pelicans.
Hey, I just realized I just turned 55 today!
WooHoo!
Party!
Happy Anniversary to my honey!
JETLAG.
That dreaded ‘fact of life’ for most travelers is wreaking havoc to my system. The difference this time is that I no longer have a 9 to 5 responsibility that I need to worry about. So here I am, blogging!
On my EVA Air flight from Taipei to the US a couple of weeks ago, one of the movies I watched was Goodbye, Bafana, a movie telling the story of Nelson Mandela’s prison guard while the former was incarcerated at South Africa’s infamous Robben Island. It's weird, when I looked it up on Yahoo Movies, it shows the title as Color of Freedom. Hmmm..
The problem with in-flight movies – you’re at the mercy of flight attendants and/or the pilot making announcements interrupting one’s viewing pleasure. Pleasure is sort of a misnomer here since watching DVD’s in a plane is probably the worst way to do it. The sound off those mini head sets is terrible not to mention the constant buzzing of the jet engines. But my worst pet peeve is when I’m in the middle of a really tense scene or perhaps the story is approaching its climax and here comes the PA system, “We’ll be landing at LAX in 15 minutes, please adjust your seats upright, put on your seat belts and hand your headsets to your flight attendant.” This exact same thing happened to me while I was watching Goodbye, Bafana. But since these video systems are interactive and personal with your own small screen just above the food tray – you can actually pause a movie for bathroom breaks and stuff. On my flight back to the Philippines, I went and finished my movie which turned out to be a good one, by the way – I’m sure it would have been much better if I watched it in my home theater!
After the movie, I was sort of channel surfing and here comes a Chinese cooking show of sort, I think, because they were talking about ‘beer fish’ or perhaps it’s Taiwan’s Food Network? Mind you, the program was in Chinese with some English subtitles.
Anyway, the host went into this village and met a group of fishermen on rafts on their way to catch fish which will become the beer fish. My story is not so much about the dish but how the fish are caught. I noticed there were a few birds that look like big ducks on the rafts with the fishermen. I figured they were there to try to steal some of the guys catch just like sea gulls flying around off shore fishermen’s boats. Boy, was that a big mistake!
When they reached the spot, they shoosed the birds out and started splashing into the water with their sticks. The birds started diving just like ducks looking for fish. All of a sudden one of the birds came up from the water with its catch in its beaks trying to swallow the fish whole. Before the fish became its meal, one of the fishermen extended his stick towards the bird and it stepped on the stick. He then put the bird back onto the raft with the fishtail wagging about in the bird’s beak. He proceeded to hold the bird on the back of its head and shook the fish out into a basket. I thought that was amazing. They actually trained these birds to catch fish for them! They tie the throat of the bird enough for it to be able to breath I guess, but in the process constricting its throat a bit thus, preventing the fish from getting swallowed. I caught the word osprey in the subtitles while the host was excitedly watching the whole process. When I looked it up, ospreys are indeed birds of prey but they looked like eagles and these birds are nowhere near as dignified looking. In fact now that I think about it, they’re like a cross between vultures and pelicans.
Hey, I just realized I just turned 55 today!
WooHoo!
Party!
Happy Anniversary to my honey!
posted by reyjay @ 5:00 AM
3 comments
