My recent trips to Nagoya, Japan, and Beijing, China, were eye-openers once more, both transportation-wise and infrastructure-wise. Happening just days apart, the journeys brought me to heights of imagination, luring me into a society-changing binge again.
Ah, winged feet.
We go out once in a while for a whiff of new breeze, for a new scenery that enriches the soul. We don’t have much money to burn, yes, but some not-so-lean years had provided us with some escapade moolah if only to make life worth living. If we don’t do it now, when? As a line in John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy” song goes: “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
I come back with an almost empty wallet, but my life teems with happiness that money can’t buy. That’s what matters—ultimately.
As in previous travels, I can’t help but relate—compare would be a harsh word—our situation with how our neighbors go about their business of existence, living. For isn’t that an integral part of every overseas tiff—study, analyze and praise what is good and discard the bad, ugly?
In Nagoya, vehicles abound—well, isn’t Toyota’s main manufacturing plant based there?—but traffic flows so well that there is not a single car jam to mar the visit of writer-journalist-now-filmmaker Sol Juvida and her grandson, Mayo (scholarship grant at Nihon Fukushi University). The subway system there—was it really built nearly 100 years ago?—is so superbly precise you’d be a moron if you whine even a bit about it.
But super subway and all, the taxi system was equally efficient, too. At Nagoya’s Central Railway Station was an impeccably hitch-free taxi queue, with cabbies too polite to a fault.
Just three days after our arrival from Nagoya, off we flew to Beijing.
Perhaps also endowed with a subway/train system that runs almost seamlessly as well despite a virtual sea of humanity all over, cabs could hardly be seen plying the roads of Beijing.
Grab and Uber are gone, gobbled up by China’s DD. But there is a thriving rent-a-bike business, with thousands of bikes parked/locked on pavements/sidewalks for commuters to use for a minimal fee using a bike app. Once you get to your destination, you can leave the bike in any place of your choice, your billing reflected in your cell phone. The bike owner has a GPS to monitor the location of the rented bike all over Beijing. Isn’t that awesome?
Infra for sports, tourism and growth
Aside from the immediate need to build a subway/train system of international standards to help ease traffic snarls in the metropolis (will the Naia-BGC subway project really begin next year?), massive infra projects must also be addressed, now, including the building of a modern international airport.
The latest advocate to this is Rep. Michael Romero (1-Pacman party-list), who recently cited the ongoing Jakarta Asian Games as impetus for our aggressive infrastructure buildup, including a modern international airport.
“Many studies show the positive correlation of sports tourism through the hosting of sporting events like the Olympics, boosting revenues as well as economic activities for the hosting country,” Romero said.
He cited our lack of infrastructure cost us the hosting rights of the 2019 Fiba Basketball World Cup won by China.
“While we were trumpeting our passion for basketball, China had the decided edge in infrastructure through modern roads, playing venues and even its airport. Its hosting the 1990 Asian Games and the Olympics in 2008 were clinchers,” Romero said.
“So if we wish to host the Asian Games again after we did it in 1954 and trigger economic growth, we must go now to transport infrastructure, like building a new international gateway,” he said.
Romero said modern sports infrastructure for our hosting of the 30th Southeast Asian Games in 2019 must now go hand in hand with the construction of an airport with international standards.
Citing the likes of modern airports in Singapore (Changi) and Incheon (South Korea), Romero said San Miguel’s proposed Bulacan International Airport can accommodate more passengers and spur development on a global scale.
The now-cramped facilities of the one-runway-only Naia will be more than augmented with the proposed Bulacan airport having four to six runways when finally completed. It also has a modern terminal and transportation infra like roads, a train system, and even a ferry route.
I’ve seen growths long enjoyed by Nagoya and Beijing.
I now long to see them happen right at my doorstep in my home sweet home.
PEE STOP As I said, our trip to Nagoya was basically to chaperone our grandson’s scholarship fulfillment at Nihon Fukushi University. Sol and I happily see in Mayo our “great and glorious” days in college. Thank God…eternally cherished during our Beijing trip was the warmth-laden company of Mercy and Bob Corrales, Jay and Senen Glorioso, Angie Castillo, Yumi Gunigundo and Lydia Villacrucis, our fellow college editors deciding, quite aptly and grandly, to rendezvous in the Chinese capital with Anna Segovia and Jimmy FlorCruz, Ericson Baculinao and Chito Sta. Romana, our exceedingly learned Philippine ambassador to China. With Anna and Jimmy drawing up a superbly trouble-free itinerary that had all the trappings of a tourist’s dream-come-true journey, and the Fab Four’s hosting us to lauriat dinners and one Italian lunch to our heart’s content, we couldn’t ask for more. Mabuhay kayo lagi diyan!