Good Morning South East Asia

Well I ended the last blog talking about when we first got to Uncle Pakito's House. Wow I am getting far behind in my blogging because right now I am chilling in KL and about 2 weeks behind in my journal so that is no fun. Anywayz after a nice lunch and getting introduced to a few more relatives we decided to check into the Asia Star hotel. NOw this place is cool because it is run by Uncle Jack. Now I have been using Uncle and Auntie a lot in these blogs and I am going to set the record straight. I am not related to them you just use the word Uncle and Auntie when you are talking about someone older than you. It is kinda a word for respect like Sir I think. Who knows.
Anywayz we got settled, took our showers then head off to Uncle Pakito's house. When we arrived that evening everyone was leaving to go to someone elses house for dinner. We got into one of their vans and took off. Evidently we were one of the last group to arrive at this party because everyone was already sitting and finishing up with their dinner. Again it was a nice buffet style dinner with the whole roasted Lechon, prawns dish, rice of course, and some other goodies. Joe, Mattie, Alain, and I all sat in a different room with a couple of older gentleman that I doubt spoke much english and just smiled at us.
After we were done Uncle Pakito took up a seat next to us and asked the host to bring out some Tuba. Tuba is a coconut wine they make from the sap of the coconut tree. It is fairly bitter and pretty strong. Since Filippinos seem to enjoy sweet stuff over a lot of spice we of course had to mix in some Coke Cola. The Host brought out two 2 liter bottles of Coke filled with straight Tuba and then another just normal Coke. We had it over ice and made a nice cocktail. It was fun talking with Alain who recently completed level 1 sommeiler training and we talked about the tannin structure of tuba and stuff. But the best part was after a few glasses Uncle Pakito started telling some dirty jokes. We all laughed but I swear he was going from Filipino back to English because I only really understood hlaf of the jokes. Jun-Jun joined us in drinking a little later on and he is a Tuba drinking champ. He was putting it down like it was water.
When the Tuba was all gone Uncle Pakito didn't want the night to end so whoever was up for it went in 2 vans to a Karoke Bar called Cue Ball. Who came? It was Mattie, Joe, Uncle Pakito, Alain, Norm and Sharon, Jun-Jun, and I. Mattie Joe and I were obvioulsy the only white people in the bar but that was alright. We started ordering up the San Mig. San Mig=the beer of the Philippines. The Karoke was just done by 2 girls dressed up. The night started to become a blur but I do remember some entertaining moments

-Mattie dancing with Uncle Pakito
-Uncle Pakito singing (Karoke is like the Filippino past time)
-Sisig (at least I think thats how you spell it) It is amazing Bar food made from the cheek of the pig. I asked what it was then Jun-Jun told me to eat some first. I did and said I loved it. If done other way around I might have had a different responce.
-I eventually got up and sung grease lightening and did the dance to go along with it.
-In America we usually look like Jack-asses when we sing Karoke, but the Filippinos really practice and sing good songs. I was impressed.

October 9th 2008

Once we landed we were greeted by a bunch of people we would later call friends. First there was Joe Lopez who was our initial contact (Mattie’s former boss in Maui as well as her ex-boyfriend) then there was Alain (Joe best friend from Chicago and family friend of the brides side of the family), Arwin (The groom’s brother), Jun-Jun, (The doctor and the Bride’s brother), Ton-Ton (A relative of Alain’s) and maybe someone else but the details were kinda hard to follow. During the car ride Joe told us an awesome story about his first day in Tacloban. Joe had gotten in a day before us and earlier he and Alain went out shopping for Barongs which is formal attire for the Philippines. A Barong is a very light shirt and ideal because it can get hot in the Philippines. While shopping Alain left Joe alone for a second and then Joe got the attention of a group of 10 year old local school girls who all started giggling and pointing at Joe. When they got a little ways away from Joe one of them yelled “HEY JOE”. Now this kinda startled Joe and then Joe searched his pockets and tried to find his wallet fearing he had just gotten robbed. What Joe didn’t realize until he talked to Alain later on was that white people in the Philippines are called Joe. I think it is because of GI Joe and how the Philippines was liberated from the Japanese by the US, but who knows the origins. It is a pretty entertaining story because for the rest of our time in the Philippines all the kids were calling Mattie, Joe and I, JOE.
We also got told the story of when Joe first got picked up from the airport. There must have been a miscommunication somewhere because the family we were staying with sent 2 vans to pick up Joe, Mattie, and I, but Mattie and I didn’t arrive till the next day. Well Ramon was the name of the family driver and when he pulled up Joe was already sitting in back of the other van. Ramon poked his head inside the van and told Joe to lower his gun glasses so Ramon could see Joe’s eyes. Ramon was a cool old guy who didn’t speak much English, but drove like a mad man down the streets of Tacloban.
They are much more aggressive drivers in the Philippines than in America were we stress defensive driving. If someone is going slow in front of you you simply honk your horn twice then proceed to pass them on the other side of the rode. The nice thing about this system is that the slower vehicles don’t get upset about it because they are used to it. Also the police there who are everywhere I might add aren’t really worried about traffic violations so that is a nice difference than what we have in America. Joe told one of the relatives that he liked their way of driving and he thought it was safer because we hadn’t seen any accidents. She shook her head and said “no no no accident happen all the time.”
When we pulled up to Uncle Pakito’s house you could tell that he was definitely well off. It was a great looking house, but unlike places in America where the rich are by the rich and poor by the poor his house stood about among the poor houses close to his. Uncle Pakito now is not directly related to our buddy Alain. Alain stayed with Uncle Pakito’s family while his parents were in America getting settled so he essentially grew up with them, but is not a blood relative I don’t think. The house had 4 servants I believe who had their own quarters next to the main house. I only remember the name of the head servant called Edwin because he was the guy who did all the cooking for the family as well. When we arrived most of the relatives had already eaten, but there was still a nice spread out for us that had of course rice, some seafood stew, prawns, the best mango I have ever had, and of course Lechon which is the roasted pig.
Now I have used the words Uncle and Auntie to describe people I have met on the journey. I was told that you call people Uncle and Auntie out of respect for individuals. When you greet them you shake their hand and then bring their hand to your forehead as a sign of respect as well. Just a little tid bit of information if you ever find yourself in the Philippines. 

October 9th 2008

The hotel we stayed at was called Copa Cabana. On the ride over was the first time we saw a vehicle called a Jeepney. It is like a Filipino public transportation where locals hope in and the long jeep just drives around town and people hop off when he gets to their stop. The cool thing about these vehicles is that the drivers I believe paint on crazy decals so they are super colorful and some even say they made by Mercedes or Porsche. Well back to the hotel. It was a clean room and once we got in Mattie and I tried to figure out the phone and then just gave up and passed out. I woke up at like 6 am I think, remember we got in at like midnight, but I was still trying to adjust to the jetlag. Took a shower and got our first Filipino breakfast. I ordered the Longansia, which I figured would be a seafood dish because Spanish has a word similar to that which means lobster or shellfish I think. It turns out that longansia is Filipino sausage and is actually pretty good. Mattie went for the French toast which surprised me because I thought she was going to be more adventurous. We talked about how excited we were over coffee.
The ride to the airport was another story. The tickets we got the night before were from Manila to Tocloban city but unknowingly to Mattie and I the terminal was no where to be found and Manila has 3 terminals 2 of which are for domestic flights. We guessed on one, but when I asked a guy standing outside the terminal he said we had to go to a different one. We evidently got ripped off by the taxi driver who asked us 400 Pesos for the ride. I figured that was 10 dollars so whatever, but when we used a taxi later on for a longer ride to the airport it came out to 170 Pesos. I hate that my sister and I were taken advantage of. I now stress NEVER STAY AT COP CABANA or at least when visiting a new country ask the front desk how much a ride should be and if the driver is being difficult tell him to keep going and you will find a different taxi.
The flight was fairly uneventful except for the in-flight entertainment. It was a show called “Just for Laughs GAGS”. It is a Canadian program where actors pull pranks on unsuspecting people. We weren’t issued headphones so we couldn’t hear what was going on, but I liked it better that way because we instead got to hear the laughs from the other people on the flight and boy do Filipinos know how to laugh. My favorite gag was when a man wearing a skunk skin cap like Davey Crockett walks into an office waiting room and sits next to another man waiting there. Davey Crockett then leaves for some reason, remember I had no headphones, but also leaves his cap on the seat he was just occupying. Then the lady behind the front desk gets the unsuspecting mans attention and simultaneously and curtain opens slightly and someone behind that replaces the skunk cap with an actual skunk. It usually takes a few second before the man waiting freaks out to be sitting next to a live skunk and his reaction is priceless. They do this to a couple different people in the waiting room. As I write this I can feel that other people who read this won’t understand how funny this actually was and is kind of one of those “Had to see it” stories. But I don’t care. Another funny one which I won’t go into detail about concerned a woman with a caged Boa hailing a taxi. Basically same kind of prank where someone hides in the back of the taxi with a fake Boa and tries to scare the taxi driver who usually ran out of his taxi freaked out.

October 7th – 8th 2008

The title is no exaggeration; this flight from SFO to Hong Kong was honestly the hardest flight I have ever been on. It was on United so it obviously wasn't 1st class service, but the problem I had been with the location of our seats. Luckily for me Mattie opted to take the center seat so I got to occupy the window seat. The trip was actually worse for the guy sitting in the aisle seat who didn't speak a word of English because of the location of our seats was right next to the stewardess' station. This meant that while everyone was asleep with the lights off we got the lights shining in our faces from that station as well as the noise they made the whole flight. The reason I feel bad for the guy in the aisle seat was because all throughout the flight he was getting banged up by those carts going up and down the aisles.
This on top of the poor choice of movies they showed made this a hard flight. The movies were "Speed Racer" which was a kid’s movie and I would have given it a poor review. So much was going on during the race scenes I couldn't figure out who was who. Also we got a couple Helen Hunt drama's which I think are the worst things coming out.
Anyway we land in Hong Kong and the transfer process is actually fairly easy. Find the gate and then we got like 3 hours to kill so Mattie and I get our money changed. That sucked because our US dollar had to first be changed to Hong Kong currency and then to the Filipino Peso so we got like 38 Pesos to the dollar, but the going rate was supposed to be more like 46 Pesos to the dollar. We obviously learned from our mistake and don't change money now until we get to the country we need the cash for. Once that was done we got a bite to eat at the Food Court. The food was actually pretty good. We got Dim Sum with some pork buns and some pearl milk tea. We were kinda jet lagged and in limbo. I was tired but I couldn't tell what time it was outside. I got no sleep on the plane ride over as mentioned before. Anyway we sat down at the gate and watched some TV. I got really into this like Samurai Soap Opera they were playing. Mattie just passed out, I swear she can fall asleep anywhere.
The flight to Manila was actually pretty painless. Once we got to Manila and out of the airport that’s when the heat hit us. Being from California we are used to some heat, but we definitely don't have the humidity like they have here in the Philippines. We waited outside for a while until I saw a sign saying Pantling's on it across the way. Thank God for my store bought eyes I had Lasik surgery done a couple of years ago and now I see like a champ. The lady holding the sign was Auntie D'Veena who is a relative of Alain our contact here in the Philippines. She took us through a mob of people waiting outside the airport. It was truly our first look at poverty and I am sure we will experience more of it. That’s when it hit both Mattie and I while we were driving in the van to our hotel. "Are we really here in Asia?" It was kind of a shocker, but a good feeling out the adventured we had just embarked on.