Also, I have no idea why some of the pictures are cut off on the right side... :(
My mom and I departed from San Francisco airport at around 2135hrs Saturday, Dec 13 ,via Philippine Airlines (PAL) . It would just be my mom and I for now; my brothers would follow the following Wednesday, Dec17, so Xavi could finish all of his finals. My dad and brothers had us at the airport 3 hours before departure, a regularly-followed standard for my family everytime we travel by plane. As we checked in our luggage, the check-in attendant pointed out that my mom's name was misspelled in her passport: rather than "ALIGA", it was written as "ALLGA", much to my mom's chagrin, after traveling with that passport for the past two years to London, France, and Italy without a hitch. I suppose we'll have it all sorted out when we get back home.
The English language is known for its heavy use of euphemisms (def: the most optimistic way of saying something), and I suppose Filipino is no different. Rather than calling it "Economy Class", it turns out we would be riding in "Fiesta Class". That's right, fiesta class. Why do they call it fiesta class? Because its a mothafuckin party back there, haha. But all in all, it was pretty standard for non-first/business class.
We got to our terminal an hour early, and I took the time to get my MacBook battery to a full charge for the flight, while down-converting some of my music for my phone in the meantime. I ended up getting caught in a hurry to pack up my things before we boarded the plane, and I think I may have accidentally left the small plug adapter for my charger's power brick in the outlet at the terminal, so now I'm stuck with the long extension cable for my charger xD
Once we had boarded the plane, I was quick to leave my mark, putting a little TIZ sticker on my fold-out table.
As we made the final preparations for the flight, I set my phone to "Flight Mode", which shuts off its antenna, essentially turning it into a standalone MP3 player. Once we were at cruising altitude, they handed out the two-pring headphones and started the in-flight entertainment. They were showing The Dark Knight, a movie that my mom had never seen before. My mom's little TV screen wasn't working unfortunately, so I offered to switch seats with her so she could watch it. Meanwhile, I just sat quietly in my seat, listening to my music, glancing over at the movie every now and then, trying to vaguely fill in the soundless dialogue from my own memory.
After the movie had finished, and my mom started to doze off. At this point, I figured I'd pull out my laptop and maybe write a little but about what was going on with MS Word, most of which, unfortunately you will probably never get to read about :P After I got tired of writing, I figured I'd pop in the Metalocalypse Season 2 DVD and watch it for a little bit. I watched the first 5 episodes, breaking out in a cold sweat every time something graphic showed up on the screen. While my mom was asleep to my right, there was a middle-aged Filipino lady on my right, and I had a feeling that the flashing screen, combined with the violent imagery might have been keeping her from sleeping, so out of decency, I switched Metalocalpse out in favor of a Rex Navarrete DVD, "Hella Pinoy"; now there's one I haven't seen in a while. I was about 20 minutes in when my mom woke up, the point at which I offered her my right headphone to listen in on the fun. We were on Rex's skit about having to sit through mass as a kid in the back of a church with really bad acoustics, when my mom started laughing really loud, at which point I said to her, "Mom, you're laughing really loud right now... like really loud..." I could hear the people around me rustling in their seats, curious as to why this middle-aged filipina was laughing so hard.
After we finished Rex, my mom went back to sleep, and I resorted to the in-flight entertainment, having only an hour or so of battery left. I ended up watching this Tagalog chick flick romance movie (don't remember the title) about this girl who's obsessed with this guy who is the head of a men's magazine. The girl, who has been obsessed with this guy all her life, ends up landing a job as his secretary, and helps him to become a more calm person with better self-esteem, and the eventually fall in love, and all that shit. Funny thing about those kinds of movies: I like them a lot, because they're really sweet and everything, but at the same time, I fucking hate them to death because they're almost too sweet. It's movies like this that make every girl believe that this is the way things happen all the time, which is just crazy. But whatever, sweet movie nonetheless; I'd highly recommend it, if only I could recall the title.
So yeah, I pretty much watched the movie, and after that I tried to sleep, but me, being 6'2", couldn't get comfortable in that little seat if I tried. I think I slept maybe 30 minutes total through the whole flight. It was about 11 hours from SFO to our 30min refuel stopover in Guam, followd by an additional 3 hours to Manila. At least the food was good :)
After landing at the PAL terminal in Manila Airport at around 0500 PHT, we proceeded through immigration, who didn't give us any trouble about my mom's passport, and went to go snag all our luggage; four bags in total, took about an hour for all of them to come out. After loading all of our stuff onto a cart, I was once again quick to leave my mark...
Right there on the cart. I couldn't resist xD
Uncle Tito and Auntie Nita arrived to pick us up at around 7. Their house number was down, so we called all our other family members to get their number to find out where they were. When we finally got a hold of them, they were about 20 minutes out. After loading all the stuff into the van, we were on our way to Uncle Tito's place in Tierra Pura, one of the more up-scale subdivisions.
Traffic wasn't too bad, but hey, it's the Philippines. There's no such thing as "no traffic".
Controlled chaos, rarely any accidents. It's funny, driving in the US is so structured, yet there's still accidents all the time, because we all rely on the rules of the road to keep us safe, when really, driving is all about instinct and reading the other drivers, which is something that Filipinos capitalize on in this relatively unstructured driving environment. While there are driving regulations, they are rarely followed, and even more rarely are they really enforced; it all about a healthy mix of offensive and defensive driving.
One thing everyone notices when the come here is the ginormous billboards. Here's just one example of a Minute Maid ad on the side of a hotel.
Effin huge.
Once we arrived at Uncle Tito's place, we unloaded, and were treated to a Filipino breakfast. Can't go wrong with eggs, languanisa, Indonesia-style rice, and oatmeal.
After that we went to the University of the Philippines (UP) campus, more specifically the music building, as my mom wanted to see if she could find any of her old friends from the UP Concert Chorus (UPCC), most specifically, Tita Jai, the Chorus' current director and former co-member back in the day. Instead we found Kuya Emannuel "Eman" of the UPCC, and one of my mom's other friends.
Later we ran into Kuya Homs, also of the UPCC, who, along with Kuya Eman, toured with UPCC two years ago when I first met them when they came through the Bay Area. We ended up going to a local favorite, a dessert-based restaurant, Chocolate Kiss.
We were later joined by Anna, one of the two girls we hosted when UPCC came through Vallejo in 2006.
After that, my mom, Kuya Eman, Kuya Homs, and I went back to the UP music building area to Villamor hall to watch the annual Faculty Follies Hagikhikan (endless laughter) variety show, consisting of student and faculty participation in singing, dancing, and the like; it was hilarious seeing the college Deans, as well as the University president participating in such an outgoing performance.
Afterwards we went home, and what do you know, I was able to catch Cousin Elaine awake, and Cousin Vernon came to visit home from his apartment.
And on top of that, I unlocked my phone and installed a SMART mobile sim card, so I could call people in the Philippines :)
And that's just day 1.
DAY 2: I promise it'll go faster from here :P
Wake up, eat breakfast. Here's a cute picture of my mom:
Reminds me of some of my friends at UCD.
Check email/teach my mom how easy it is to use a Mac.
It's really not that hard, mom...
Take pictures of the backyard, and the shards of glass embedded in the top of the cement wall (most cost-effetive security measure, haha)
Went back to sleep because of the jet lag.
Woke up in the afternoon, put on my barong and black pants, shoes, and socks for the University of the Philippines Centennial Ball.
Turns out that UP is celebrating their Centennial as well.
Out family was receiving an honor for having 3 generations of UP alumni; the total count for our family came out to 28 alumni (!!!)
Huge celebration.
Not to mention I got a picture with a model for Playboy Philippines. Playmate Billy Abeleda
Before I found out what was going on, she was modeling nude for some of the artists from the UP College of Fine Arts. Too bad I came too late xD
DAY 3
We figured we'd go check out one of the many malls in the city, along with Auntie Nita and Grandma Aliga. Rode in the Toyota Revo, driven by the family's driver for hire, Tito Gerry.
Tito Gerry is an absolute badass at driving through the streets of the Philippines, by the way. Not only is he manuvering to impossible traffic, but the van is a MANUAL!
Mall of choice for today: Tri Norma. Medium sized (still bigger than most US malls), and not too far away from home. I wanted to check out some cameras because I cold feel that my current 2.5 year old Casio Exilim S600 was on it's way out with a slightly broken lens.
Spotted a giant billboard for Pennshoppe clothing store; reminded me of fellow TIZ model/popper buddy DKwan, haha
Tri Norma's pretty huge with 4 stories
Found some sweet deals on flashdrives:
4GB flashdrive for ~$10!?!?
Found a store reminiscient of downtown Davis' "Preeti Girl"
Also found some sweet Converse Chucks I've never seen anywhere else...
I just might snag a pair for myself before I head back to the US :)
After 2 hours of window shopping, my mom and I headed back to the UP campus once again to meet up with some friends. I managed to snag a few nice shots of the little Garden of Eden housed the Music Building.
Got to meet the Dean of the College of Music.
Snagged a shot of Iglesia Ni Cristo headquarters, which is located in the same area, as well as some shots of whatever else was around.
Oh yeah, and the Honda Civic looks a little different around here. It's got a much more aggressive front end...
Oh yeah, and lets not forget the very VW Passat/Jetta-esque tail lights...
After venturing around for a bit, we went to the annual Lantern Parade; this one was extra special since this year UP's celebrating its centennial.
Even the Spartans showed up, haha.
Played by the College of Human Kinetics.
And after that my camera died :( But I saw Homs later and also spent the rest of the day in the company of my mom and Anna, and watched the fireworks :)
Day 4:
Had lunch with Camille and Anna, the two girls we hosted from the UPCC when they toured the US in 2006.
Spent the rest of the day hanging out with Anna, and watched her band, Baihana, perform.
Hella good. Took mostly pictures of ther performance, no videos unfortunately, but here's one of their previous performances; they've definitely improved quite a bit since that one :)
Also gave a TIZ sticker to one of the band members to stick on their guitar case.
Left our mark at the venue as well.
And besides the set of TIZ stickers for Anna, i gave her one for her phone
Afterwards we headed to the UPCC reunion hosted by Anna's folks, the Achacoso family at their dentist clinic-turned-party room.
Met up with some old friends, from left to right, Jab from UPCC and Lorenzo aka Gabo, who I haven't seen in years, and now resides in Vancouver.
Got back home at 0200 that night xD
Day 5:
Woke up early at 0600 to go with Uncle Tito to pick up my dad, Xavi, and Riz from the PAL airport. Was wayy too tired and too busy loading luggage and talking to my bros to take pictures. They brought my PS3 with them, much to my mom's (unpleasant) surprise.
Played some Gran Turismo 5 with Riz and Resistance 2 with Xavi, then had lunch, and crashed afterwards; ended up sleeping til 1400, when Xavi woke me up to go to Mall of Asia (2nd largest mall in the Philippines, 4th largest mall in the World)
Watched the famous Manila Bay sunset from one of the balconies.
Apparently, Filipinos are just as obsessed with High School Musical as Americans are...
Reminds me of the first thing you see when you go into California Adventure in Anaheim, CA.
While Mall of Asia's only 2 stories in most places, it takes up a lot of horizontal space for sure.
After doing some casual window shopping for a new digital camera, we had lunch at the local Pizza Hut.
Xavi just ifnished his ravioli.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Jab met up with us too.
Took the train all the way from Quezon just to hang out with us. Gabo was supposed to come too but he never called, and we had no idea how to get a hold of him because we didn't have his number.
After dinner, we watched Eman direct the UPCC.
Right next to a giant Christmas tree.
Afterwards, Tito Gerry took all of us to Evergreen to watch one of my mom's old UPCC friends direct the UP Singing Ambassadors (UPSA) at a local church.
One of the best chorus groups in the Philippines, along with the UP Concert Chorus, Philippine Madrigal Singers, and the Ateneo Chamber Singers.
Mom was very happy to see them.
Alright, well, that's enough blog cramming for one night, I promise I'll start updating on a day-to-day basis. I just hope my camera doesn't completely go out on me xD
For those of you who want to see all the other pictures I took, you can find my facebook albums at the following links (from oldest to latest):
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68656&l=c6e16&id=590746458
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68657&l=c1559&id=590746458
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68843&l=d86d0&id=590746458
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68844&l=73cfc&id=590746458
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=68996&l=4d94f&id=590746458
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69163&l=135ae&id=590746458
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69241&l=57f17&id=590746458
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69339&l=15324&id=590746458
And here's where you can find all my facebook photo albums in general:
http://www.new.facebook.com/photos.php?&id=590746458&s=0&hash=de46d6997309f1d014b3787f4efb28f2
-nesqu!k
Posts
Hey Nestor! This is Ruby. It was an interesting read, and again, I enjoyed the photos. Thanks for sharing a piece of back home!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the movie is called "A Very Special Love." =P I agree with you, a lot of Pinoy movies are sweet to the point that they come off as corny =/ I would recommend "Close To You" or "Got 2 Believe" -- I think those are better "chick flicks." As for drama, I highly highly recommend "Anak," "Inang Yaya," or "Tanging Yaman"!
Hope you enjoy the rest of your trip & happy holidays!