| 01 May 2005
As promised, our cab driver arrived at 3:00 to bring us to the airport. Lyla and I had done a little shopping earlier in the day at some of the stalls which lined every corner and back street. I picked up the incredibly useful power adapter for my camcorder and external hard drives, as well as half a dozen dvd's. Yes, I usually download these movies, but a buck fifty each is a pretty good bargain when you don't have access to high speed internet.
We waited in a stifling hot common area for 2 hours. I was amazed to see you can actually purchase Pansit from little restaurants here! (Pansit is a Philippino dish that Lyla makes, and I love to death. I'm sure a few of you have had it over at our place on occasion.)
There was a delay for the flight, so I ended up reading my almost double-priced magazines before we even got on the flight. When we were finally ushered onto the tarmac to board the flight, we were told our carry-on was too big and had to be put under the plane. "Whoa - there's a couple thousand dollars worth of hi-tech gear in this bag, BE CAREFUL with it." I wasn't pleased.
Once we took to the air, we noticed a rust colored liquid dripping from the ceiling over the seats in front of us, promptly onto a passenger's head. The cabin got very cold, and we could see everyone checking their air vents to see if they were on. They weren't. People were pulling jackets and blankets over themselves to keep warm, and I even went so far as to point out the mysterious dripping to an attendant, who brushed me off.
Overhead, I could hear little things sliding (blowing?) from the front of the plane towards the back. Super - after all this, we hop on a plane that's going to fall apart in mid air, and we're all going to die. I made sure my seat belt was tight, and wrapped an arm around Lyla - just incase the roof ripped off, I'd be able to hold her down, right?
Then we hit some horrible turbulence, and I could see all the overhead compartments shaking. What felt like the longest flight of our lives (though actually the shortest - 1.5 hours) the pilot informed us that we were making our descent. We landed in one piece, both vowing to never fly Cathay airlines again.
The airport was small, stuffy and hot. I reached out to pick up our luggage from the conveyor belt, and had it scooped away from me by a steward. "I don't need any help, thanks."
"Yeah, yeah, ok sir."
And as I picked up the next piece of luggage and turned around to put in on our cart, he pulled it from my hands.
"Serious, I'm ok with this!" I said to his back.
He wouldn't leave, and once we had all of our stuff, he followed us to the exit of the airport. We saw 8 - 10 people in the waiting area suddenly become excited and pointing at us. Must be our welcoming committee. In a blur of little dark people, I was introduced to all of them in turn, with hugs and kisses abound. I had no idea who these people were. Truth be known, Lyla really didn't know who these people were. She had one name, Letty, and no face to go with it. They herded us to a car and a jeepnee, with all of our luggage - except for my laptop bag - going with these strangers in the jeepnee. And off we went into the night.
The guy driving the car was "Uncle Carl", who turned out to be an old man with a razor sharp wit, with plenty of questions about Canada. He was originally from China, and moved to the Philippines and got married 30 years ago. We discussed variances in all three cultures, though I was only partly paying attention, since I was so boggled by the view out the window.
Cebu is an island, with beautiful shores and stunning mountains. I was constantly in awe of how much was crammed into such a small amount of space. It was still a pleasant change to see English signs everywhere after spending so much time staring at foreign characters plastered everywhere in Korea.
We eventually headed out of the main city, into the "suburbs", and followed endless miles of alleyways and twists and turns. We arrived at the community parking area/basketball court and we led through a narrow alleyway up the side of some foothills, with shanties and shacks on either side of us. Their house was the biggest of the bunch, with two floors and a spacious living room.
They had prepared a meal of chicken and pork which we ate over conversation. We talked into the night, and eventually the laptop was dragged out, hooked up to their tv and we all watched some home videos and pictures - an act that they were all pretty impressed with.
With sweat dripping off my body, and soaking my clothes, we finally decide it's time to hit the sack, and we're shown to our room.
As we prepared for bed, I noticed a little gecko crawling on the wall. I yelped with glee and excitement, and tried to catch it. Unfortunately, the ability to run up walls and ceilings is something I've yet to master, and he disappeared quickly.
We had a fan blowing on us for the whole night, but it provided scant relief for the heat and humidity. But hey, at least we've got someone to talk to now, right?