Once Upon a Time in the Philippines, Part 6 — Provincial Life
Another two months have gone by, and the whole world has already seemed to change. With so many events happening during July and August, I hardly had any time to think for myself, much less have time to update this recap. Nevertheless, with some after hours work finished and another busy couple weeks sure ahead of me, I find myself with some rare free time. The hot, late summer weather seems to usher me toward writing about the Philippines even more, so the choice almost seems made for me.
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: How Many More Times by Led Zeppelin
After meeting with RJ, we left Manila and headed northwest toward Jo’s hometown of San Jacinto, in the Province of Pangasinan. I let Sasha take the front and squeezed into the back with Wence and Jo while Kuya Medic made the 5-hour drive into the countryside. Civilization seemed to disappear quickly as we left Manila, with the majority of the trip being full of rice patties and farmland. I ended up reading for most of the trip and didn’t end up napping all that much. While most of the trip was on the highway, the country roads were definitely something to get used to as large buses overtook cars, jeepneys, and tricycles with reckless abandon. Between reading, sleeping, and fearing for my life, the long car trip eventually ended and we pulled into Jo’s family home in the heart of San Jacinto. We were immediately welcomed by her loving family and it wasn’t long before we started cracking the San Mig Lights.
The San Mig Lights came in very handy, considering that San Jacinto felt WAY hotter than any time I had in Manila or Boracay. It was easily in the high 80s, but coupled with over 90% humidity and no air conditioning. Needless to say, we spent the vast majority of our time chilling outside on the porch, usually with a San Mig Light. The first day was very relaxing, but the next morning, Wence, Sasha, and I were challenged to a game of basketball with the locals.
Since the three of us take basketball pretty seriously, we decked ourselves out in our usual gear. Jo’s father and brother J.J. completed our team and we felt pretty confident as we walked the few blocks from the house to the court. However, as soon as we felt the morning sun hitting our backs, it was quite apparent that we’d be out of our element. While it was only about 9:30 in the morning, the temperatures were already into the high 80s/low 90s, with the humidity easily close to 100%. My shirt was already drenched by the time we reached the court. Thankfully, the court was covered, but there were no windows at all so all the heat and humidity made it inside. It was a full-size court, complete with the city’s logo on the hoops and on the court floor, as seen in Sasha’s cell phone photos:
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: Basketball by Lil’ Bow Wow
Soon enough, the locals showed up to challenge us. While we were all decked out in our basketball shorts, jerseys, and Nikes, the locals were decked out in flip-flops, board shorts, and one guy was even barefoot. It really didn’t matter though, since as we played the first game, they completely ran circles around us. Each one of them was very fast and playing full court with the high temps and humidity was extremely difficult. On top of that, they insisted on playing to 50 with a half time break to switch sides once one team reached 25. Despite our size advantage, we were completely schooled playing their game.
With one game down, Wence, Sasha, and I were determined not to go down so easily in the rematch. The locals raised the stakes even by betting us 500 pesos on the game (which was a little more than $10). Instead of playing to their strengths, we decided to switch up strategy and play to our strengths: size, power, and rebounding. We slowed the game down to our pace, threw the ball down to Sasha in the low post, while Wence took it to the hole and I shot the three when either one of them got double teamed. The strategy worked great at first, with us taking a decent lead into the half. The San Jacinto All-Stars regrouped though, catching up quickly with crazy drives, excellent outside shooting, and solid defense. Their solid defense held strong and prevented one last winning shot from Sasha, resulting in a long pass down the court that won the game for the locals. We were sad we lost, but we still made some friends and forked over the cash without any complaints. Here’s our group photo:
We relaxed the rest of the day and even went to the beach in the evening for some drinks and karaoke. We took the whole family with us by packing 10 people total in Kuya Medic’s SUV. The beach here was actually quite windy and humid, and really not that warm, but we still had a good time.
The day was over, but the night was still young. We had plans to drive 2 hours to Baguio City the next day, but we still had a little partying to do. So, after freshening up a bit and putting on some clean clothes, we had Kuya Medic drop us off in Dagupan City for a night on the (provincial) town. More to come (hopefully) soon…
Click here to see all of my photos from Pangasinan, 2-7-11 to 2-8-11
Once Upon a Time in The Philippines, Part 5 — Back to Manila
Life caught up with me in these past 2 months, and unfortunately I’ve neglected continuing with my Philippines recap. Fear not though, as I’m back and ready with an update. Today was an unusually humid day here in Seattle, and whenever I think humidity, I have to think about going back to The Philippines.
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: Happy Birthday by The Beatles
The humidity reminded me very much of the day we flew back from Boracay. It was humid when we left the island, then just chokingly hot when we arrived in Cebu for our connecting flight, and upon reaching Manila, it was back to humid again. Kuya Medic picked us up from the airport and we immediately drove out to Ayala Alabang to meet up with the family. Ate Cathy’s daughter Rain was also celebrating her birthday, so we all met up at the mall with the rest of the big family, along with Ate Bebeth’s family. A couple group shots:
After dinner, we went to Ate Cathy and Kuya Olan’s house and chilled for most of the night. Wence and Jo spent the night there, while Sasha and I spent the night over at Uncle Junior’s house about 10 minutes away. We’d only be spending one night here, since the next day we were up early and on the way up north to Jo’s home province of Pangasinan. Here, our chariot driven by Kuya Medic awaits outside Ate Cathy and Kuya Olan’s house:
It was going to be a 5-hour drive up to the Jo’s hometown of San Jacinto, but luckily we were able to meet up with RJ since he just happened to be in the country at the same time! We met up with him at an mall area known as The Fort. Check out the inside of this mall, which would be just the second of many malls we’d visit on our trip:
And here we are actually meeting up with RJ:
Don’t let the overcast skies fool you, it was both hot and humid, although not quite as unbearably hot as it was earlier in the trip. We went across the street from the big mall into a higher end shopping area and grabbed some lunch at a surprisingly decent italian chain restaurant. Check out how thrilled we are in this video that RJ took:
While we ate, we also found out that the Green Bay Packers had beaten the Pittsburgh STEALers in the Superbowl. Following lunch, we checked out a bookstore that had some crazy superhero memorabilia, until the security guard told us we weren’t supposed to take photos of it:
After clearing out of the bookstore, RJ took another video where Sasha proclaimed that he’d return, complete with Westsides from yours truly:
After saying farewell to RJ, we were off on our 5-hour road trip to Pangasinan! More to come soon…
Click here to see all of my photos from Manila, 2-6-11 to 2-7-11
Once Upon a Time in The Philippines, Part 4 — The Proposal
The grey, cold skies of the morning give way to the bright, proper Spring Time sun in the afternoon. The Seattle weather of the day acts much like a hyperbole to the story of Wence’s proposal to Jo on the beaches of Boracay: things didn’t start out very well at first, but then everything ended up great. Sasha, Wence, and I all had the plan clear in our heads, but to no fault of anyone’s, the plan had to be improvised to adapt to certain circumstances.
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: Ramble On by Led Zeppelin
The plan was actually quite simple. Wence and Jo would leave for their dinner at Friday’s resort, then Sasha and I would show up since we had been roaming around after having dinner ourselves. Wence would be sitting across from Jo, so at some point Sasha and I would both figure out an excuse to grab Wence’s camera (for video) and then disappear from Jo’s sight behind her. We’d then start some sort of commotion, in which she would have no choice but to turn around and see what was going on. At that moment, Wence would then get down on a knee with the ring in hand, so when she turned back around there he was proposing as I took photos and Sasha capture video. It definitely wasn’t a plan that required crackerjack timing, so all three of us thought it would be pretty easy. Sasha and I just had to show up at the designated time (we decided on 6:30 pm) and everything should be a piece of cake, right? Well, not quite.
Wence had the ring in his pocket and he was off to dinner with Jo on time, so that went without a hitch. At this point, we had about an hour and a half before we had to show up during their dinner at Friday’s. The logical thing to do would be to pick a place to get dinner close to Friday’s so that we could walk there no problem, and it would be an easy excuse as to why were just happened to be in the area. Sasha said that the Obama Grill was only about 30 feet from Friday’s, so that sounded perfectly fair to me. Seeing as 30 feet is a pretty close distance, we both figured that we didn’t have to be there super early. Thus, we freshened up a bit in the hotel room, I switched out my gear a bit so I was traveling light (50mm with flash and lightsphere), then flagged down a tricycle to take us over to Obama Grill.
Upon arriving at Obama Grill, the time was just past 6 pm, so while we knew we didn’t have enough time to actually have dinner, we figured we could have a drink or two no problem. We found a perfect table right on the beach and noticed that they had a bucket of 6 San Mig Lights for only 270 pesos. 6 beers for only about $6.20 sounded damn good to us, so we ordered up the bucket right away and began drinking. Here’s a photo of the bucket in question:
As we drank our beers and watched the sun set on the horizon, I glanced over in the direction of Friday’s and came to a startling revelation: Friday’s isn’t 30 feet from the Obama Grill, it’s actually quite a bit farther away. I pointed out the landmark rock in the surf that was easily 1000 feet from where we were sitting and told Sasha that Friday’s is still a lot farther away past that rock. By now, it was 6:20 pm and there was absolutely no way we’d make it to Friday’s in only 10 minutes. Nevertheless, we downed as much of the beers as we could (Sasha was able to do all 3 of his, but I only made it to 2 1/2) and we started to book it toward Friday’s.
Unfortunately, I was correct about the distance from Obama Grill to Friday’s. It had to be at least half a mile away, and walking at a face pace with already blistered feet, camera over the shoulder, in the sand and hot, humid weather was not doing well for me. Sasha, with his longer strides, easily outpaced me and before I knew it, he was barely within sight ahead of me. Covered in sweat, exhausted from the quickstep, and sore from the camera over my shoulder, I finally made it to Wence and Jo’s beachfront table about 5 minutes after Sasha. The sun was already fully set at this point, meaning I was probably easily 15-20 minutes late. Sasha was likewise drenched in sweat, and Wence had the most anxious look on his face as he looked at both of us. I could tell he desperately wanted to ask us “Where the hell have you guys been???” but obviously he couldn’t reveal any sort of secret plans to Jo. I also then realized that part of that anxious look was also because of the seating arrangement. Rather than Wence sitting directly across from Jo, they were actually sitting on the table corners next to each other. This pretty much made getting her to turn completely around more difficult on Sasha and I’s part, but of course Wence couldn’t ask the already generous staff of Friday’s to rearrange things. On top of that, since I was late, the whole timeline of events was a bit askew, so I tried to nudge Wence and ask him when he wanted this all to go down. He just kind of shrugged, and when I turned to Sasha he shrugged as well. The best Sasha and I could do from this point is look for an opportunity, and I had to hope he’d think fast to follow my lead.
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: Lovesong (cover) by 311
Soon enough, an opportunity presented itself. I glanced over Jo’s shoulder and saw (what I thought was) a gecko crawling in the lantern behind her:
I quickly grabbed my camera and exclaimed to Sasha, “Hey, check out that gecko in the light over there!” and headed over to the lantern to take photos. Sasha, thinking fast, told Wence he’d take photos of it with his camera and got up from his seat as well. I didn’t bother to turn around to see if Jo was confused or not, but just kept acting natural like I would’ve done this anyway. Sasha and I whispered to each other about when to start the commotion, and soon I started to say quite loudly how Sasha was an idiot for not knowing how to use Wence’s camera. After some fake, but dare I say convincing bickering, Sasha asked Jo to get up and show him what he’s doing wrong. However, Jo was still facing Wence, so I nudged Sasha to make him turn around so that Jo couldn’t see what Wence was doing. At the same time, I took a step back and prepared my camera for flash photos and somehow naturally, Sasha and I created a human wall that Jo could not see over. Wence immediately knew this was his queue, so he got down on a knee behind me and tapped me on my leg to let me know that he was ready. I then backed away to the side and Sasha did the same. The entire sequence that then transpired was all captured on video, which can only be seen if you’re a friend of Wence on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150112353660742
And of course among those flashes in the video are these photos:
Jo burst into tears, and while Sasha and I actually finally ordered some dinner and drinks, she spent the time calling her family. Her entire family all knew that this was going to happen, so she was even more surprised to find out she was the only one that didn’t know. The happy couple then spent a good amount of time on the beach dancing to the solo guitarist/singer:
Aside from a surprise birthday cake for Wence, this pretty much wrapped up our trip to Boracay. We took the shuttle van back to our hotel for the night, and the next day we were back on a flight to Manila. More to come soon…
Click here to see all of my photos from Boracay, 2-4-11 to 2-6-11
Once Upon a Time in The Philippines, Part 3 — Adventures in Boracay
A cold hard rain wisps drops of water onto the windows of my office, and a semi-truck splashes water onto the sidewalk. Water is everywhere, but the water is not the same; it certainly isn’t the water I was accustomed to just a few months ago, half-way around the world.
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: Porcelain by Moby
With all of our bags packed and confirmation that I had Wence’s engagement ring for Jo with me, we set off to the airport to catch our flight to Caticlan. The airplane we’d be riding on was a small Russian-built turboprop, and at check-in we all had to weigh our bags and ourselves as well to make sure the airplane wouldn’t have any problems. The excitement for our trip to Boracay grew with each passing minute and before we knew it, we were on the plane and on the way:
Here’s a photo of the plane itself, thanks to Sasha’s camera phone:
And here’s one of the weird things that happens when you take a photo of the propeller with a camera phone:
The flight was only about an hour long into the heart of the Philippine archipelago. The airport was actually at a city called Caticlan, where we met our guide from our hotel, “La Casa de Boracay.” His name was Boyet and he had us driven to the beach around the corner to take a boat from Caticlan to Boracay Island. Each resort had their own boats, but the trimaran for our hotel, sure looked pretty sketchy:
Given the rainy and windy (albeit very warm and humid) weather, life vests were definitely a must:
The boat ride was indeed sketchy, but much better than I thought it was going to be. Wearing the life vests made it really hot, so I couldn’t wait to reach shore. After about 20-30 minutes, we were on shore in Boracay and Boyet rode with us to our resort, situated near the middle of the 3 km long main beach. Boracay’s main beach is divided into three sections, called “Stations.” Station 1, the northernmost third of the beach, is considered the nicest, most well-kept, quietest, and of course, most expensive. In the middle of the beach is Station 2, which is not quite as nice and not quite as expensive, but there are more things going on, such as boats that take you out to parasailing, volleyball nets, massage tables, etc. Station 3 on the south end is the party central area of Boracay that’s typically the loudest and most busy, but of course it’s not the purest white sand like Station 1 and thus it’s the least expensive area. Our resort was located right in between Stations 2 and 3, so it was quite busy but still pretty nice. We had tried to get the resort where Wence and Jo stayed last time called “Friday’s” up in Station 1, but since it was Chinese New Year Weekend, just about everything was book well in advance, and we had to settle for La Casa de Boracay. Did it matter? Yes and no, but that didn’t really matter since we were here on the beach!
We checked into our hotel room and it definitely wasn’t the best. It was very dark, the shower was dirty and not very functional, there was a nice view of a wall out the window, and the air conditioner really only worked in one spot. Nevertheless, we figured we wouldn’t be spending much time in the hotel room anyway, so off we went to go explore a bit. Wence said we should just walk up to Friday’s for dinner and drinks and promised it’d be well-worth it, so I brought all my camera gear and my newly-bought flip-flops and headed up the beach. Unfortunately, Wence’s sense of distance was a bit out of whack, since it seemed like we were walking for a long, long time. My feet had already started to get blisters and it was very humid out, so I was sweating all over (especially with my backpack full of camera gear). Wence kept saying it’d be worth it though, and as we walked farther north, I could tell that all the restaurants, resorts, and even the quality of the beach itself was improving. Along the way, I had to take a photo of this just for the novelty factor:
At long last, we made it to Friday’s, and Wence certainly did not disappoint: this place was awesome. The resort was gorgeous, the sand was pure white, and best of all, we made it to the restaurant just in time for Happy Hour, which meant buy one drink, get one free! Given the already inexpensive drink prices, I ordered a Top Shelf Long Island for an equivalent of $5, and got another one with it for free. Needless to say, we were well on our way to a good time. Wence got us started by buying all of us shots of Hennessy XO:
Sasha and I both ordered different kinds of steak, both of which were absolutely excellent. I actually preferred the taste Sasha’s New York Strip over my Ribeye, but I wasn’t complaining:
The Happy Hour drink specials got to us pretty fast, perhaps even too fast:
Nothing better than groggy walking back to your hotel about 2 km than walking in the surf, right? With my blistered feet, it actually felt incredibly good. The water was still pretty warm at night and while I had the sinking in the surf feeling that made walking difficult, it was definitely better than walking with my flip-flops on. At this point it was still only about 7 pm, so we found a restaurant right on the beach itself to just chill out and rest a bit. We listened to the live band, sang along, had some Red Horse Extra Strong Beer (12% alcohol by volume!) and San Mig Lights, and by 9:30 or so we were already ready for bed. We made it back to our hotel rooms and Sasha and I were fast asleep by 10:30 easy. We figured it’d be a good idea to rest up, since tomorrow would be another big day: Wence’s birthday and his proposal to Jo that night.
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: Big Bank Hank by Blue Scholars
Whatcha gonna do today? As it turns out, we did a whole hell of a lot! We started out with the complimentary breakfast buffet, then sought out Boyet from yesterday to help guide us to some fun activities. Since today was Wence’s birthday, we pretty much decided that we’d do what he wants to do, and the first thing he wanted to was go ATVing. Boyet flagged down a taxi for us and we all went (Boyet included) uphill into the heart of the island to an ATV rental place. As you can tell from this photo from Wence’s camera, Wence and Sasha were definitely ready to rock:
They gave us a quick tutorial of how the ATVs worked, and as you can tell, now I’m ready to rock too:
Boyet stayed behind while we followed the ATV guide farther up the island. This was my first time on an ATV and it was definitely a lot of fun, albeit a little scary at times. Sasha kept treating it like his motorcycle, so there were a few times he was going a bit too fast. I guess somewhere in our original conversation with Boyet, Wence had mentioned zip lines, so our ATV guide took us to the highest point on the island, which of course had zip lines. Wence and I took one look at them and said “oh hell no,” but Sasha was so determined to do it that he paid for all of us. Wence sure didn’t seem happy about it, but I figured “Hey, if it happens…it happens.” As you can see, little to no fear on my face, although my swimming trunk are showing thanks to the harnesses:
Was it scary? I’d be a liar if I said I was completely fearless about it, but given my fear of heights, I believe that I handled it a lot better than I thought I would. Here I go taking the plunge:
After our zip line adventure, we took the ATVs back to the rental spot and Boyet took us back to the beach. We definitely wanted to do something on the water somehow and ultimately decided to start with parasailing. Boyet hooked up a good price for us and we took a sketchy speed boat out at least a kilometer away from shore to a group of floating docks, which was where all the parasailing boats, jet skis, and banana boat rides originated. Since Wence and I were at the back of the speed boat and we were going against the waves, the boat bounced quite a bit and quite honestly, it felt much more scary than the zip line did. Once we got to the floating pontoon docks (which were also bouncing heavily with the waves), we transferred to another boat for parasailing. Wence and Jo were up first:
On their way down, the boat slowed down enough so that they got dunked into the ocean, which meant that Sasha decided not to bring his camera up with us on our turn. We strapped up and were off into the sky, with me throwing up the double Westside:
And here we are going into the drink:
At this point, I had my fill of “cheating death” in my eyes, so I was ready for some solid ground. It was a bit past lunch time, so we headed back to the beach and Boyet found a nice Hawaiian style barbecue to enjoy. We wanted to treat him to food too, but he had already eaten and just insisted on a drink instead. The barbecue was excellent and I wish I had taken a photo of the baby back ribs before they were all gone. With lunch finished, we did a little bit of souvenir shopping until Wence and Jo had to get ready for Wence’s birthday dinner back at Friday’s. Jo of course thought it was just going to be a birthday dinner, so Wence and I had to coordinate how I’d get him the ring before the shuttle van picked them up for dinner. Nevertheless, Sasha and I had just a little bit of time to relax and take some photos, with the sun finally making an appearance:
With the sun on the way down and Wence and Jo on their way to dinner (with the engagement ring in Wence’s pocket), it was time for Sasha and I to put Wence’s proposal plan into effect. However, as usual, things didn’t necessarily go according to plan. More to come later…
Once Upon a Time in The Philippines, Part 2
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: 1901 by Phoenix
With free breakfast tickets in hand, Sasha and I meandered down to the breakfast buffet in the Bayview Hotel lobby the next morning. Sasha soon became familiar with the Filipino breakfast, which typically included eggs, some type of meat, (usually corned beef, longanisa, tocino, or bacon), bread, and garlic fried rice. Here’s Sasha about to enjoy some coffee:
We met up with Wence and Jo, then met Kuya Medic and Ate Cathy to start our first day in Manila. Since Ate Cathy worked at a bank, our first stop would be her bank to exchange some of our American currency into Philippine Pesos, which led us into the heart of Manila’s Chinatown. I could already tell that driving was going to be pretty crazy, leading me to write about it on Definitely Filipino. Here’s a shot of the good old Manila traffic:
We also spotted this ridiculously awesome idea that would make Tex proud, which we would take advantage of later in our trip:
It also happened to be close to Chinese New Year, so Manila Chinatown had dragon dances happening and streets closed off to celebrate:
After exchanging money, we visited Rizal Park and took a few photos. The weather was pretty good and comfortable all morning and early afternoon, but now in the late afternoon, things started to get really warm and really humid, but you can’t really tell how hot it really was from the photos:
Following our brief stop for photos, we paid our first visit to the SM Mall of Asia in Sucat, the 4th largest mall by gross leasable area in the world. Here is a short description from Touropia:
The SM Mall of Asia in Metro Manila, the Philippines, opened in 2006, consists of four buildings interconnected by walkways. It features a 20-seater tram which takes shoppers around the mall grounds. One of the mall’s main attractions is an IMAX theater with one of the world’s biggest 3D screens. The mall also features an Olympic-sized ice skating rink. It can accommodate both recreational and competitive figure skating, as well as ice hockey.
Recommended Listening in a New Window: Bebot by Black Eyed Peas
This mall was certainly no joke as we only explored a fraction of it in the couple hours we were there. The mall was split into both outdoor and indoor areas, with the indoor areas being nice and air conditioned, while the outdoor areas were all shaded, yet still subject to the heat and the humidity. We roamed around for a bit just to check things out, taking some silly photos along the way:
Sasha felt right at home here:
We were all ready for a late lunch, and for some odd reason we went along with Sasha’s idea of having McDonald’s. It was actually pretty good, and Sasha mentioned that the “McDo” burger was better than anything sold from McDonald’s in the US:
Yes, those are curly fries, and they were quite good:
Following our meal, we got a call from my Auntie Lena saying she wanted us to come visit, so went down to her house in Parañaque City after stopping by Jo’s apartment in Manila so she could pick up some clothes. I ended up getting my first (of many) mosquito bites at her house, perhaps because we refused a snack from her when we arrived (since we had just eaten McDonald’s, after all). Not accepting food when you visit a Filipino’s house, especially one as traditional as Auntie Lena, is borderline offensive, so maybe it was bad karma for me? Not sure, but it was good to see her nonetheless.
Soon after we left Auntie Lena’s place, we met up with Kuya Olan, who just got out of work. Since we were leaving on another plane the next morning to go to Boracay, Kuya Olan wanted to make sure we got some karaoke time in, so we visited a karaoke place in between the Mall of Asia and our hotel on Manila Bay. The karaoke place was laid out similar to Seattle’s Best Karaoke in that you get your own room, but the big difference was that they also served restaurant quality food with their karaoke packages AND they also served beer. It was easily a 7-course meal for our group, and Kuya Olan made sure to keep the buckets of San Mig Light filled. It wasn’t long until we were all in a singing mood:
While Kuya Olan probably sounded the best out of all of us since he used to be in a band, Sasha really stole the show with his rendition of “Bebot” by the Black Eyed Peas. If you’ve been listening to this song in a new window, you’ll notice right off the bat that it’s completely in Tagalog. This didn’t stop Sasha though: he still sang the song with pride, conviction, and surprising accuracy. Here he is showing us what’s up:
We left the karaoke place stuffed with food, half-drunk, and 100% satisfied. Tomorrow would be another traveling day, so went back to our hotel pretty early to get some shut-eye. I also needed to make sure I had the goods with me: Wence’s engagement ring to Jo, which he was going to use on the upcoming Saturday night to propose to her on the beach in Boracay. Jo obviously didn’t know anything about this, so Wence entrusted me to carry the ring with me in my baggage. I had it on my mind the whole time that I even woke up in the middle of the night to make sure that I had it packed properly. Big weekend coming up…more to come soon.
Click here to see all photos from Korea and Manila, 2-1-11 to 2-3-11
Once Upon a Time in The Philippines, Part 1
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: Good Times Bad Times by Led Zeppelin
The garage door opens. I breathe in the cool, Seattle pseudo-Spring morning air as light rain drops splash upon the hood and windshield of my black Audi. It’s early April, and I’ve got my laptop camera bag over my right shoulder, lunch bag and iPad2 in my left hand, and my right thumb clicking the unlock button on my key fob. The cool, moist air creates an ambience that’s such a stark contrast to where I was just two months prior, half-way around the world.
When Wence first approached me with the idea of going to The Philippines with him in February 2011, I was definitely a bit apprehensive. In many ways, I felt like I wasn’t quite ready to go. I hadn’t been back to The Philippines in 16 years, way back when I was just a sophomore in high school. Deep down in my heart, I knew that this was a good a time as any, but in my mind I still felt like I had financial obligations to take care of first, loose ends to tie up with work and photography gigs, and honestly a bunch of other made-up excuses that tried to convince myself away from going. When I heard that Sasha was making the trip with us though, I felt a bit at ease since I wouldn’t be a third wheel to Wence and his soon-to-be fianceé, Jo. Nevertheless, as the February 1st departure date quickly approached, I was starting to freak out a little bit about how much money to bring, all the luggage to pack, and simply what we’d be doing there for three full weeks.
On the night of January 31st, I finally came to terms that I needed to be at Sea-Tac Airport at 5:30 am the next morning, so all worries, reservations, and apprehension I had leading up to this day were simply pushed out of my mind. I was going to The Philippines, with two of my best friends, and for the first time, without my parents. It was going to be an awesome trip for sure, however there was still some uncertainty leading up to our departure. Eugene was supposed to give us a ride to the airport, but since he had been out of town for over a month, the battery in his minivan died. Despite Wence and I’s efforts to jumpstart the vehicle, it promptly died on The Ave when Eugene shut off the engine for an ATM stop. I started to stress out, and while Wence, Eugene, Kyle, and Carlos found that all quite amusing at the time, I was really freaking out. I made some quick calls and Hubert said he’d be available if absolutely necessary, but we weren’t sure if all of our luggage would fit in his CR-V. Thankfully, Wence called Nicoli and it looked like our ride situation was figured out, with Nicoli picking us up at my house at 4:30 am. Crisis averted? Well, not quite.
I barely slept a couple hours that night since my mom had a ton of last-minute packing to do, not only into my luggage, but also into Wence’s and Sasha’s extra bag too. We hadn’t heard from Nicoli yet, but as 4:30 am came and went, we started to freak out again, especially since we were supposed to pick up Sasha on the way to the airport. A quick phone call revealed that Nicoli was on his way but running very late, so as soon as he arrived, we rushed to put our luggage and boxes into his van and sprinted off to meet up with Sasha. As soon as we were on the freeway with Sasha with us, he realized that he had forgotten his phone in his girlfriend Christina’s car, so he started to freak out this time. Thankfully, he used Wence’s phone to contact her and she had no problem meeting us at Sea-Tac with his phone.
Our first leg of the journey took us from Sea-Tac to San Francisco via Alaska Airlines, and while the Alaska check-in process took much longer than it probably should’ve, the rest of the time in Seattle went rather smoothly. Wence was stopped at random going through security, and since the full-body scanner was offline, we all had to wait about 15-20 minutes for a male officer to give him the “Don’t Touch My Junk” pat-down. Despite all these delays, we still had time to get some breakfast and a beer at the terminal, resulting in a rather relaxing first 2-hour flight to the Bay Area. The layover in SFO was very uneventful other than being awed by the vastness of the airport, and before we knew it, we were on a Korean Airlines flight to Seoul.
Boeing 777: The Current Cadillac of the Sky. I don’t care what anyone says, this flight on a Boeing 777 was probably the best flight I’ve ever been on. Wence’s travel agent booked us some awesome seats with no one behind us, so we spent the entire 11-hour flight reclined back. We had unlimited movies and music, and even multiplayer games built into the seat backs in front of us, the stewardesses were all very cute (and very Korean), and even the food overall was pretty good. I’d say that the food was better when I took Air France to Paris a few years ago, but the overall experience on this flight definitely has it beat. With so much to keep us occupied, along with the obligatory multiple naps, we found ourselves at Incheon Airport in South Korea in no time.
Recommended Listening in a New Tab: New People (Empire Remix) by Blue Scholars
There was snow on the ground as we landed, and after the longest taxi to the terminal ever (had to be at least 20 minutes after touch down), we exited our warm 777 into a cold and frosty glass outer terminal. Following another security check and finding where our next departure gate would be, we sought out to explore Korean’s amazing Incheon airport during our 2-hour layover. Sasha discovered the smoking rooms, glass fishbowls full of chain smokers, while Wence and I explored the various food offerings. I was determined to have some type of noodles since we were finally in Asia, so I convinced Wence to try some ramen with me. It actually turned out to be quite spicy, but Wence amazingly ate it anyway. At least he looks like he’s enjoying himself in this very first photo I took on our trip:
With our food finished, we went back to our departure gate and rushed into line with all the other Filipinos:
If we weren’t already excited about our trip on the way to Korea, then full-on excitement hit us on the flight from Incheon to Manila. It didn’t matter that it was going to be about midnight when we arrived, nor did it matter that we felt like we’ve been traveling for several days already. We were all super pumped to touch down in Manlia, and Wence of course was extremely excited to see Jo. The air was instantly warm as soon as we stepped off the plane, signaling that we had finally arrived. We rushed to immigration as fast as we could, but we still ended up being stuck in a pretty long line. Retrieving our baggage afterward took a long time too, and with no sign of my relatives that worked at the airport to usher us through the final customs check, we decided to just forge ahead anyway. We breezed through the final check and walked out into the warm and humid midnight air, greeted finally by my relatives who guided us down to the pick up area. Once there, Sasha and I finally met Jo for the first time, and I could tell that a big weight of worry, longing, and anxiousness had been lifted off Wence’s shoulders.
My cousin Ate Cathy and her husband Kuya Olan would be our ride, along with our hired driver Kuya Medic, who drove an Isuzu SUV that had no problem carrying all of our luggage. It was well past midnight, but Ate Cathy and Kuya Olan insisted we get something to eat, so we drove to a late-night restaurant/bar that was open right on Manila Bay. Here we are enjoying ourselves as we wait for our food and drinks to arrive:
This meal would not only be Sasha’s introduction to a few Filipino food staples, but it would be both he and I’s introduction to our new favorite beer, San Mig Light. 100 calories per bottle makes San Mig Light a “light” beer, but the 5% alcohol content puts it right on par with most regular beers here in the US. Needless to say, Sasha and I were already having a good time. Following our late night dinner, Ate Cathy, Kuya Olan, and Kuya Medic dropped us off at the Bayview Hotel, which would be our home for just the next couple days. Although it was close to 4 am by the time Sasha and I went to bed, we really didn’t have much time to rest, since our schedule was going to be packed until the next week. More to come soon…
With a return to baseball and back to Tumblr for me, I felt this song was a bit appropriate. Stay tuned for my entire recap of my trip to The Philippines, complete with photos. Oh yeah, and scope the new theme I decided on too :)
Random Daze theme by Polaraul
