Here's my Dad's journal from their trip to visit me here in the Philippines. I will add some details in my journal, but he states day by day our activities and adventures. It's rather lengthy, so try to stay awake :)
Thursday, February 23 - Friday, February 24:
We left DFW about 11am Thursday on Korean Air for the 15 hour flight to Seoul; the longest flight and sorest behind in my life! I maybe slept for an hour, maybe 30 minutes. First time I ever watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in its entirety. I rewound and made Tracy listen to “We don’t need no stinking badges!” I dozed off a bit during The Big Year, but that was it. I also watched The Ides of March and tried playing Tetris before my screen on the seat back in front of me went out. We then watched Courages together with one earbud each on Tracy’s screen. The Korean flight attendants were most accommodating and tried to find another seat for me but I told them I was fine. The cute one later asked me to fill out a comment card for them.
The layover in Seoul was a couple of hours, had to go through security again at the transfer point but was not as difficult as in the US. No taking off shoes and the only question came from a bag of pennies in one of the carryons. Amy wanted pennies for little gifts to the kids.
While in Seoul we sat and visited with the hostess and another traveler. He is from the UK and lives in Shanghai, a VP with a photovoltaic attachment company from the Silicon Valley. He has to leave Shanghai every 30 days, so he often flies to Seoul and hangs around before flying back; this time 5 hours at the airport. Sometimes when he has business in Honk Kong he will fly there, rent a car and drive across the border. Interesting regulations in different countries!
After the four hour flight on into Manila, it was about 10:15pm their time, 14 hours ahead of us. It took over an hour to get our bags and get through Customs. Korean Air allowed four full size suitcases, one carryon and one extra bag apiece, so we were loaded with stuff for Amy in addition to our own luggage for near two weeks. Fortunately they had free carts to load but had to stack the suitcases for quite a load. Customs just asked if for personal use and we quickly got through.
Amy was waiting at the end of a long ramp where we could get a taxi. Oh so good to see Amy! We got a taxi and headed for the hotel. Never saw so much traffic in all my life, and Jeepney’s, Jeeps with long bench seats that will hall 20 or more in the back, everywhere. Stripes on the road are only a suggestion. No one obeys lane markings, signs, or anything. It’s honk and go. There had been some kind of prom or something at the hotel and quite a jam. While stuck in a pileup a guy backed into our taxi. Could not have been much damage but the driver got out and talked to the other guy, told him to pull into the hotel and he actually did. The taxi stand told Amy what to pay him when we got on but he said, “That’s all?” So 350 pesos was all he got, not much, probably should have tipped a bit more but still learning at this point.
Amy had already checked into the hotel and I prepaid on Orbitz so all we had to do was go to our room and crash.
Saturday, February 25:
The hotel had a rather large breakfast buffet with eggs fried in front of you and all kinds of local and American dishes. Not bad. Breakfast for 3 was only an additional 56 cents when I booked the room so well worth it.
Budget Car Rental had said they closed at 9pm or we probably would have gotten it that night and driven to a pension where Amy stays with the Peace Corps. We will probably stay there Friday night before we leave on Saturday at noon, and then Amy will stay there Saturday night before a big week long Peace Corps meeting that starts Sunday. We caught a taxi at the hotel and told the driver to take us to Budget. After I know a circle or two, stopping and asking a gate guard leading into the airport, we ended up at a Budget lot. We went in a trailer and after some confusion; one of the guys drove us to a location very near the hotel. I am still confused about where to return the car to; hope to just take it to the airport.
Driving back to the hotel, we had to make a U-turn just beyond, and a uniformed officer of some sort waved me down. I was stopped under an underpass where he apparently hangs out, told me I was swerving. I told him I was only merging over. He wanted to see my license and told me I was driving illegally because I did not have an international license. I told him I did not need one for 90 days so he wanted to see my passport so I showed him we had just arrived the night before. He said he was confiscating both and I grabbed them away from him, at which point he told me he was going to arrest me. He showed me a pocketful of licenses, to prove that I needed to let him keep mine. I refused and asked him where the police station is. He told me not to be arrogant! Amy then told him she was a volunteer teacher and that we were here to visit her. He then smiled like the bandito in Sierra Madre, rambled some nonsense, and told us he would not arrest me for a reward. Tracy got out a $20, I gave him and he was all smiles. Oh my! I was really wondering about driving at that point!
We checked 2 bags at the hotel because we did not want them sitting in sight in the back seat of the car while we went to the Mall of Asia to meet the Cruz family, Amy’s first host family from Dinalupihan. They had driven 3-4 hours to see us. We had lunch at Wholly Cow, a sort of Texas themed restaurant. Ariel wanted a steak, and I was buying. Food was pretty good. I had a steak sandwich that sounded like Philly Steak, and Tracy and Amy had hamburgers. Not bad. It was nice to meet the family that had been so nice to Amy and become friends of Tracys on Facebook. We just strolled around the Mall a bit before leaving to get our bags and head to Lipa City.
Getting out of Manila was a bit nerve wracking but we did pretty well. Before getting on the SLEX (Southern Luzon Expressway) we stopped at a gas station to break 1000 peso bill for change and get some drinks. We got on the skyway and moving along pretty well until we paid a toll and the road split. Naturally I took the wrong lane and ended up driving through San Pedro, about like driving in Manila. Went quite a ways before finding a way to get back on the SLEX. Just turning around and going back is not always an option. I think it took us 3 hours to get to her place, Lipa was a little crazy driving too, but nothing like Manila! That evening several people came by to see us. We are quite an interesting attraction for the locals!
Sunday, February 26:
We went into Lipa and met DayDay, Karen, and Agnes at the Bluroze Nature Center for lunch and then to stroll around the park. We picked DayDay up in front of Jollibee, like McDonald’s. She lives next door but had gone to town earlier to shop for snacks for school, the teachers take turns. We then headed to pickup Karen, Amy’s Peace Corps buddy, and found her walking on the sidewalk texting Amy. It was kind of funny, “There’s Karen!”, and headed over to Bluroze, not too far. Agnes, who teaches with Karen, met us there. Her mother has worked at Bluroze for 25 years and the owner is her Godfather. She got us all in the park for free and I bought lunch, a nice open air restaurant. I did not think about ordering talapia and getting the whole fish. It was good, but not a big fan of bones! We are spoiled by filets at home. Tracy got some kind of pork and Amy processed fish burger patties. I don't think she was too impressed. The park was pretty neat, strolled through a section dedicated to the saints, including a chapel. Interesting for a non-Catholic, which is the predominant religion. We also strolled through the stations of the cross before climbing up in an old water tower converted to a lookout point. Tracy made friends with the locals down below and took pictures.
That evening Perla, Amy’s landlord, and the relatives had prepared a feast for us and Karen. Stuffed squid, stuffed fish, funny, the fish carcass with no noticeable fish in it, a whole tilapia that we did not touch, adobo pork, chop suey, and rice, of course. We convinced Byron to sit with us, seemed a little awkward but they expected the four of us to eat alone. I was feeling bad about leaving so much, not realizing that the family would all sit and eat what was left. Byron wanted me to sit out on the veranda and drink a beer with him, so we sat and visited for some time, met some more relatives, all the time hearing the basketball games going on across the road a few doors down. The girls went over and watched for awhile and then Amy came and got me.
Byron works as a forklift operator for Toyota, about an hour away in Santa Rosa. He is thought to be quite affluent here, though Perla’s sister in Germany actually owns the house. He does own a Jeepney and a balloon business, and Perla a cake business though she does not sell many since teaching at San Celestino Elementary School. Her other sister is in Italy but is building a house across the road that her son Ison (Nelson) will live in. He lives in a little shack now, is 21, had been to police academy, but is waiting to retake the test.
Monday, February 27:
We went with Amy to see her school, San Francisco Elementary, a little further down the road from Lipa. We saw the principal, Ma’am Valencia, on the way, I stopped along side her and she waved but did not roll down her window so we went on. She was picking up the principal at San Celestino to go to a district meeting in Lipa. She is the only one from the school who drives, and funny thing, she does not ever offer rides to any of the teachers, they wait on tricycles (motorcycles with side cars) or Jeepney’s.
At the school there are 3 or 4 buildings and we met the teachers in the principal’s office and had buko juice and cookies. I was asked if I wanted a cup of coffee and I said yes please but then Dayday said that it would make my stomach rumble, hot on cold. So I never got my coffee. The coffee is either Nescafe 3-in-1 with cream and sugar or Batangas Barako that needs some cream to cut it, but they load it with sugar. The first cup I had, had 1/8 inch of fine grounds in the bottom.
We visited each grade except for Kinder which only attends in the afternoon and they were all prepared to say, “Good Morning!” Fourth grade, Dayday’s class, also sang us two songs. It was very cute. The sixth grade class has been pen pals with Tracy’s sister Cindy’s class in Austin, so she hand delivered Cindy’s and they prepared return letters for us to take back to America. They are exchanging coins and pictures so better that they do not have to pay postage! After we visited all the classes, some were out at recess and some pay for a snack, merienda, which was sopas, a hot cup of macaroni soup, and a banana fried in a kind of tortilla. They brought both to us. The banana was not bad but I really did not want the sopas, so Amy ended up carrying all 3 away. I kind of feel bad about not liking.
That evening we met at Uncle Cheffy’s for dinner, with Karen, Agnes, Dayday, Maan, and Mike. Mike is another PC Volunteer, nice guy, 24 on Thursday, agreed to come when Amy told him I was buying. He very proudly spends all his money on alcohol and cigarettes. I ordered 3 large pizzaninis, a big salad for Tracy, and Chinese fried rice which turned out to be a large bowl, and we ended up taking a little home. The pizzanini was a very thin crust rectangular pizza with strange ingredients. I wanted the bacon and garlic which also then had tomatoes on it. This was the first bacon I had seen. Though they eat a lot of pork, they do not seem to cut into normal cuts that we would recognize. They just cut and include all the fat, like in the pork adobo.
Tuesday, February 28:
We headed on a small road trip to Tagaytay, a town overlooking Taal Lake and Taal Volcano. We stayed at a nice hotel for 4500 pesos, I think we started out at 7000, so about $105. Better than our deal in Manila and much nicer, but I could only talk them into 2 breakfast buffet’s so Amy said she would just as soon stop at McDonald’s across the road as pay 650 pesos. Amy and Tracy thought I was about to blow our deal there but I settled. Down the road was a nice restaurant overlooking the lake and we split a marlin steak, they were out of tuna belly, and an eggplant dish that was like egg foo yung. We went to a place called Picnic Grove that Amy had been to before and strolled around, some nice views of the lake. We went to a market called Pure Gold that in Subic had a lot of American foods, including Dr. Pepper, but no such luck here. We stopped then at Army Navy, a chain with burgers and burritos, and split an order of carnita tacos, quesadillas, and chips before heading back to the hotel.
Wednesday, February 29:
Tracy and I went to the buffet and left Amy behind to enjoy a nice warm shower. A nice treat after bucket showers at her house. Amy has a shower head but the water is a little cool and the water in the bucket warms a bit. We added boiling water after making coffee so that helped a bit too. Anyway, we stopped at McDonald’s and then bought gas on our way down the mountain headed to the beach at Calatagan. The gas stations have attendants and you tell them how much you want. Amy had texted Morgan Chow, another PC friend who works there and got some suggestions for a place to stay. We picked her up at her apartment as we got into the area and went to a resort called the Stilts at Calatagon where she had stayed a couple of nights with her parents. As the name would imply, there were several cottages out over the water and a very nice beach. Morgan said they had stayed there for 4000 pesos but we were told 7000. It turns out they stayed in a cottage on the beach, not over the water. Tracy asked if Amy got a PC discount and they did knock off 10%, so it came to about $179 for a nice little one bedroom cottage with AC in the bedroom, and a queen and a twin.
We had lunch there in the open air cafe; got to try tuna belly. It was very good, with rice and mixed vegetables. We then hung out on the beach and then to the pool. Before we knew it we were thinking about dinner, either drive 30-45 minutes back up the road or eat there again, which was the less stressful option. Cannot remember the names, but a noodle dish with tiny chunks of chicken in a curry sauce and a pork and banana in coconut milk dish. After dinner, we drove Morgan home and back through town. For some reason I never could keep straight a jog through town, but we got to see where Morgan works, for a foundation that does research on coastal issues, not sure exactly.
Thursday, March 1:
Breakfast was included, got a very good ham and cheese omelet with a brewed coffee before going snorkeling off the beach. Morgan had suggested we go off the porch of the last cottage but seemed easier to just walk off the beach. No idea how shallow or how many sea urchins with sharp spines! Got spines in my foot and knee, but not bad. I had had enough by the time we actually got to that stairway off the last cottage. I waited on the girls and then got out after they got there, though they stayed in awhile; got our hour’s worth on the snorkel rental.
After that we finished getting packed for the drive home. Helper took the bags to the car with Tracy and Amy. After a long while Amy came looking for me, the girl had run my card 3 times before her connection would sync. The card reader was wireless and there was not even a poor signal off their router unless you got close to another building. Finally, it took and we got going, headed back to Lipa. Karen texted Amy and wanted to know when we would be back. She wanted us to stop back by Cafe de Lipa where we had started this journey and go back to Amy’s for the night. She was meeting Edmund and Rich, a 64 year old PC volunteer, to work on their reports that are due next week. This is Rich’s third time in PC, first years ago and then later with his wife who passed away a couple of years ago. Edmund is 28 and has gotten involved in the Rotary Club in his community. I wonder how different that is?!
After some Barako Joe, we went over to Robinson’s Mall and the girls went in to pick up a couple of Pizza Hut Hot to Go pizza’s to take home with us. Tracy and I waited in the car and listened to some English radio for the first time. The concept of hot and ready not quite the same as at home, its at a kiosk but they had to prepare it. After we got in and ate the company started. First Perla, and then Dayday with Amy’s principal, Ma’am Valencia and her husband, the first time we actually met, brought gifts, a bracelet and ear rings for Tracy and a bottle of local coconut wine, actually liquor, for me. He had an open bottle in the car and wanted to know if I would have a drink before he brought it in. It was not in the original bottle and then he would not take a drink because he had had dental work done. I started pouring in a glass because I thought it was wine, and Amy stopped me, thank goodness! It was very strong. Then he would not take it with him, wanted me to drink the whole bottle but I left the open one in Amy’s ref as she now calls it, refrigerator.
Perla came over several times, when we got home, then later with pile nuts, kind of like peanut brittle, to take with us, then corn nuts that Byron’s uncle makes and sells to the Boy Bawang company, then Batangas coffee, very sweet! Dayday came back over too, and Maan said she might but didn't.
Friday, March 2:
After we got up and finished packing and loading, we went into Lipa City and got Tracy’s hair hot oiled and cut. It only cost 100 pesos, and after a 50 peso tip to the gay boy with red hair and blue contacts, the total cost was still only $3.50. The girls there all get their hair bonded, or straightened, and after blow drying, her hair was very straight. After a couple of days it was pretty much back to normal.
It took a couple of hours to drive to Manila and find the pension where we would be staying. Amy normally sleeps in the girls dorm room that sleeps 14, but she stayed with us in an air conditioned room Friday night, but then moved to the dorm since she was staying over till Sunday. Her PC group was all coming in Sunday to Cavite, a beachfront town on a peninsula southeast of Manila, to a lodge where they would be meeting through the week. Amy had been working all the time we were there on getting Ma’am Valencia to agree on a counterpart teacher to attend the meeting, having to travel there on Tuesday. She would not allow Dayday to go, saying that Rachel was her counterpart; however, Rachel did not want to go because of family issues. It is in the best interest of the school to send someone but it is the end of the year and they have testing going on. A little poor timing on PC’s part. Amy needed to be there in order to apply for funding of projects. It would be okay for a community member to go so I had suggested Ison. At that suggestion Valencia okayed Dayday. I feel a little bad for Ison not getting to go after all, but best that Dayday got to go. I am anxious to hear how that all went.
We got checked into the pension and took all our bags in having decided to go check the car in early. Driving in Manila is horrible! On the way, the road made a Y, and I kept to the right, only to realize that it brought me into oncoming lane of the road we needed to turn at. I went right and down to where we could U turn. As we were getting back to Taft street where we needed to turn right, a motorcycle with two cops riding pulled up to my window yelling at me. I rolled down the window and they told me I had gone the wrong way. I told them I didn’t see a sign and he said it was on the left side of the street. I told him I didn’t see it but just needed to get the car to the rental agency, I thought just around the corner. He said he had to confiscate my license and I would have to go to the police station and pay my fine. Amy and I insisted I needed my license to turn in the car and I did not want to drive in Manila anymore. Amy asked if we could not pay him our fine. After deliberating with 2 more motorcycle cops, he agreed, but said it would be 1000 pesos! About $23! I got out a 1000 and gave to him, and like the bandito, they were all smiles. He had given me back my license but by then I was so rattled I couldn’t find it! Seeing all this he told me it was in my shirt pocket! Sure enough; I provided a source of laughter for days I am sure!
I drove in circles trying to find the Budget location where we had picked up the car. I plugged the address into the map on my phone but the location was incorrect. Amy finally put in the intersection and it was a couple of miles away. We finally got there and I believe we all had an amazing sense of relief. It had taken us an hour and a half to get there from the pension. The driver took us back to the pension in about 20 minutes!
After that, we walked a few blocks to Robinson’s Mall for dinner. Tracy’s nose pad had broken off her glasses and we found an optical shop that replaced both for 100 pesos. We then went to Friday’s and ate. We normally like to eat the local fair, but I think we were all happy finding American food! We shared Nacho’s and Chicken tenders, saving room to go to Dairy Queen. Amy knew where that was from a previous trip to this mall. Interesting thing when we were deciding where to eat, we were standing at a second floor railing overlooking the first floor, trying to decide what to eat when we turned around and there was some kind of an armed officer in a beret standing behind us. As we walked past him I looked him in the face which was totally expressionless. We walked on to Friday’s and I never saw him again or anyone else dressed like him. After our motorcycle cop encounters I became leery of making eye contact unnecessarily!
After our DQ fix, we walked back to the pension. We sat outside and met an array of PC volunteers. A couple of young men from another batch were talking about another that had come down with dengue fever. As we are sitting there, my back begins to itch and I grab a spoon and start scratching. They all laugh and one of the girls wants to know if I need any other utensils. Lucky thing I can laugh at myself! We sat around for awhile with the group but decide its time to turn in.
Saturday, March 3:
I have been rising early all week and Tracy told me to go out to the lobby and work on this journal rather than tossing and turning. After a couple of mosquito bites to the legs, I decide to come back to the room. Now I know I will come down with dengue fever! Nice to have another warm shower, then I go down for a cup of coffee while the girls get ready and come down for breakfast. The pension has a limited breakfast but I had another very good ham and cheese omelet before we needed to head for the airport. Very sad to leave Amy!!! It is comforting to see the bonds the volunteers and even the country people share.
It seemed we were leaving plenty early, and we did have plenty of time, but we were really not any too early with all the lines to get through customs and security to get out of the country. It was another relief to get our bags checked in, and underweight! Not sure how accommodating they would be at that end. Soon we were off on our way to Honolulu via Seoul again. A man in the restroom in Seoul commented on how clean, and after the Philippines, he was right. Seoul had maybe the cleanest airport I have ever been in.
Between gates in Seoul, you have to walk a ways to a transfer point where you go through security again. This time, they confiscated a little pair of folding scissors in Tracy’s purse that was packed in our carry on suitcase, along with a blunt nose nail file. No telling how many airports those have been through over the years, even theirs on the way to the Philippines.
Next stop Honolulu, one of the worst airports I think I have ever been in. It is just laid out bad. When we arrived we went up a broken escalator and had to get on a shuttle bus to another building to go through customs. While getting through customs was a piece of cake, as it should be, the whole place seemed to have just outgrown itself with a poor design. We saw this again when leaving and having to have our bags scanned by the agriculture department and the lines crisscrossing with the baggage check.
Note, we left Manila at 12:15 pm on Saturday and arrived in Honolulu at 7:50 am on Saturday, having crossed the International date line. In the Philippines we were 14 hours ahead of home, in Hawaii we were 4 hours behind, an 18 hour time difference in all.
F
irst thing we did when getting to Honolulu was to go across the street to the beach and play for a short bit. We went back to the room and showered before meeting up with Pam (Scott) and Ron Adams from Lawton for dinner. Pam had seen that Tracy posted on Facebook that we would be there and said they were too. They own a condo there. We went to a neat restaurant for dinner that opens up to Waikiki beach where you grill your own meat. They had a great salad bar; Pam and I both got the Mahi Mahi, but I was a little disappointed that it was wrapped and cooked in foil. I would have liked to have thrown it on the grill! It was still very good.
It was so nice of Pam and Ron to hook up with us. We really neither one knew Pam that well but were friends with her younger sister Julie, whom I dated our senior year. Pam did not remember that till I mentioned it! Pam graduated with Tracy’s sister Cindy and my brother Gary. We had a great time and all got along quite well. They live in Atlanta and we agreed they would have to look us up when going home to Lawton through Dallas.
Sunday, March 4:
We had booked a Pearl Harbor tour which began at 6:10 am from a nearby hotel. We got up early and walked that way. The tour circled Oahu after leaving Pearl Harbor, which included the USS Arizona Memorial. We saw many sites we could never have done on our own. It was well worth it and the tour guide, Kono, was very knowledgable of all the sites, being a native Hawaiian who had retired from American Airlines. The tour lasted until about 4:30 and included a sandwich lunch at the Kaulua Ranch. The only down side, it was rainy!
The Honolulu Festival was going on with a parade down the street in front of our hotel starting shortly after we returned. We had dinner at the Rock and Roll Grill, not very good, just burgers and such. We enjoyed the parade though which featured various Asian dancers and dragon entries.
After the parade we decided to get a drink at the Tiki Bar at our hotel. Again, the only problem, the rain and no seats. I had Tracy ask a couple of older ladies if we could join them. They gladly agreed. They were from Vancouver BC, one had been at the hotel 2 months, the other a friend from her condo building, had joined her the week before. We had a good time visiting with them. We told them we had been to Victoria last summer when on our Alaskan cruise and Paula insisted on giving us her number so we can call when we make it to Vancouver.
It rained all night and was still coming down in the morning. I had caught a cold and did not wake up till 8am. Tracy really wanted to go snorkeling at Sandy Beach! We headed down the beach and ate breakfast buffet at Duke’s, another good omelet. We went to Bishop’s Palace, the Punchbowl Cemetery, and tried to make the Iolani Palace by the state capital but it was getting too late. We ended up eating at a place like Fuzzy’s Tacos and headed to the airport. Our flight on Alaskan left at 9:25pm to Seattle, got into Seattle about 8am and headed to DFW, getting in about 1pm.
It was wonderful to see Amy!!! But after the rain in Hawaii and nearly two weeks away, it was sure good to get home! We heard that many roads were closed later that day in Hawaii because of all the rain. Wouldn't you know that is the week we would be there!
