The Tinder Box
Saturday, December 25, 2004
More Fun Stuff!
You know, I have no idea who this guy is. Buti pa si San, Eric Bana.
So it says that im not only gay (banana are you reading this?)...apparently there's a whole naked thing going too. At least the starbucks part seems accurate!
i actually like these songs! (Hoie ho! You had better take this! You too pupi!)
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
So far its been…
So I just woke up and am feeling incredibly lazy. I got up and just had a pack of chips (bad!) and two peanut butter slices. Am apparently recovering from last night’s after effects. Was planning to go to the gym today but I guess noooot! Maui has just left for her Christmas break in Manila so I have the room all to myself (yaaay!). As much as I love Maui there is nothing like solitude. I am an only child after all. Right now TL Chi is defrosting the freezer and finishing off our wine and we’re going to watch “Pretty in Pink”.
How have the past weeks been? I havent been able to update the blog as frequently as I would like, due to the lack of internet connection. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we will never get a telephone and that for me to connect to the internet manually I will have to go to the boys place and use their telephone. In the meantime, its internet cafes for me. Thank God for memory keys.
Last night was the office Christmas party. Before I get into that, I must go into the events that lead to this evening. This week was pretty regular. I’ve found myself continously getting restless in the office, probably because its not busy enough. Here you can actually get everything that you set out to do done because no one interrupts you and im not used to that. The boys all had only 9 hours OT this DSR time, I still had 22 (I think this was because of *#&$&%^#% Resolution Bay). This week though, I haven’t done OT except for maybe an hour, twice, which for me is a big thing. The boys in Manila seem so bloody harrassed and we’re trying to take stuff away from them, but to no avail. They just keep getting these inpromptu things.
This week I had to take a split off to handle the Resolution Bay finals today. (Don’t ask what this is!) So fortunately, Lance & I aren’t due in until 4pm. My offs were Thursday and Sunday. There have been two days this week where all I did was totally crash and burn. As in I went home and slept through the entire afternoon – I think that was Tuesday – when I said I would go to the gym but never woke up. And Friday where I think I must have said exactly the same thing. Fortunately I was able to go the gym Wednesday. I walked to the gym Saturday as well, only to find that they’d closed early for the Christmas party… but more on that later.
Hey sister go sister go sister go! (aka Ang Kamandag ni JP)
Wednesday night my friend Car’s Uncle’s Best Friend Joseph, who had been introduced to me over text invited me to a despidida party at his house. Car gave me his number one desperate day when we couldn’t find a place in Cebu to gimmick and the boys ended up in “the gillage” (aka the village na nasa gilid ng office, thus the monicker, the gillage) to have some “dunzing” tonight. Joseph is gay, really funny, generous and helpful and an all around great guy. He’d given me advice on parlors to go to – entirely wonderful results, each time – restaurants, etc. So since he was going off for the holidays and we’d never met, I decided to go, taking Maui along with me. We ended up dragging JP (the L2 not the puput) along since we had no idea where it was and we felt it would be safer.
Joseph lives in a village in Banilad, in a house with two french people, Alexandra and Diom (?). They pay pretty good rent considering it’s a good sized house. He works for the same law firm my best friend Jenny works for in Manila and the Cebu branch happens to be in our building. The party was for his friend Mike, who was moving to head the spa in Shangri-La Dubai. (He previously ran the spa in Shangri-La Mactan) We spent the entire night mingling and having lots of alcohol. I managed red wine, some vodka, and some punch. With my ulcer in tow, I had only about four cups in total. Maui and JP packed a punch but we were all relatively sober. We met all these people – Serge, who runs a small 50 person call center, Bunny, who owns Oh Georg, a wonderful restaurant in Ayala (more on this later), Rachel, who owns Guiseppe’s this posh-ish resto near the boys’ house which they frequently nag us to eat in but we’ve never tried, and a whole darn lot of french people. We met this guy, Cheri, who runs an import or something business, Johann who is a french tutor somewhere south of the city – where I had no idea that french tutors were in demand! – and spoke Cebuano. His girlfriend was Marla, who we spent most of the night chatting with. She was Cebuana, still in college and she sang with a reggae/skaa band and gave us tips on beaches and places to eat and chill. We ate Guiseppe’s pizza (excellent), chips and got good tips as to where to go eat and hang.
The biggest hit of the night had to have been JP. In an entirely subtle manner that lead us to believe that most of the time he was not aware of what he was doing, he managed to chat up or be chatted up by every single French chick in the party, including a fourteen year old girl that we all thought looked at the very least, barely legal. Apparently we were all wrong and, despite the smoking and wine, she wasn’t legal at all. One of the french chicks even told him, “It’s so lonely here in the Philippines, I have to find a boyfriend.” (JP has her number) Being a naturally friendly person JP was having conversations and mingling with everyone… which lead to guys chatting him up without him noticing. He proved to be a hit on both sides of the ocean.
Why do you always find everything except what you’re looking for?
Thursday, Maui & I went shopping for the Christmas party because it was her off. We tried to find a dress for me but there really wasn’t anything nice on the racks. The dresses were all prom-y or, worse yet, in the kind of clingy lycra fabric that turns my tummy into a tiyany-tiyan. So never mind. I walked away with another mini-skirt, my shortest yet, I think, in black with the words KIKAY on the back in nice flirty little script, a whole lot of CDs and a pink embellished corset top from sari-sari to wear to the party. It took us a really long time to find it – two malls included – since there really wasn’t much to choose from. I even went to Rustan’s and was willing to shell out a large amount of money for desiner-esque (read: Jessica, colour eighteen or something) clothes but to no avail. Nothing. The teens/young people section in Rustans was probably the size of our room in Keppel. (The bedroom, not the living room) Everyone seemed really into sweaters besides, as I was looking for shorts as well, not thick furry things just yet.
I started out the day by paying all my bills – hello Globe! Hello Credit Card! – and am now debt free, except probably for the monthly gym free and the four hundred peso cd I got because the atm lines were too long. No matter, Im glad my huge bill is gone. Then I met up with Maui at SM where she changed her ticket, I checked my mail for a bit and then we booked an appointment at a spa. We had the volcanic stone massage which was absolutely worth it. It was 700 bucks (cheap given manila prices) and they put stones on our backs, legs, hands, which were absolutely warm and they helped improve circulation. The massage was great, too. It was so good Maui fell asleep and I could hear her snoring in the next room. After that we went to Ayala and that’s where I found my corset.
Friday I had another lovely ulcer attack which reduced me to eating chicken stars soup and crackers. Saturday I woke up for work to find Banana had just arrived with Jon from another gimmick at Vudu, and they were about to watch dvds. When I got home that day he was still there, wearing the same thing as apparently he drunk so much beer he fell asleep on the couch and didn’t wake up until then, prompting me and Banana to rib him to no end because “yun pa rin ang suot mo!”. I went off to the gym, did a little trashy romance novel shopping, came back as the gym was closed and found him gone because according to Banana, “hindi na niya ma take na maabutan mo pa siya na ganun pa rin ang suot niya!”.
Dead Bugs & Forts
In lieu of my gymming I decided to try out one of the exercises in my National Geographic Adventure. Having taken pilates before, I thought it would be a good idea to try one of the moves described there. The move was called the dead bug, which involved you lying on your back with both your legs and arms straight up in the air and then you move your left leg down and your right arm down simultaneously slowly. Without hitting the ground you move them up again and then switch legs and arms. You do it about 8 reps. It requires some coordination but not much and it fucking hurts your core when you start out. I wasn’t expecting it to have that much impact, which is why I was slightly writhing in surprise from the slight pain.
At which point I called Banana to tell her what I was doing. Now in fairness to myself I was doing it right but I must have looked entirely hilarious lying on the ground of my bedroom floor with legs and arms in the air (Oliv are you reading this?!?! You had better try this at home, in honour of our efforts at pilates!) with my fingers and toes spread out like a dead person, prompting Banana to burst into gales of laughter going, “Hindi mo pa madikit yung mga daliri mo, ano ba yan!”. Of course she had to go and try it and having no coordination she couldn’t get her arms and legs to match. Then she had to go and tell Cathy and Gae who were eating Jollibee in the dining room and I had to explain the whole Dead Bug thing all over again, and more hilarity ensued.
Banana and I seem to have many moments of hilarity together. I think the most priceless moment for her is the one about the forts. One day, we were having lunch and I was walking around the living room and eating at the same time, which I do when I’m restless, and I was looking out our massive windows at the lovely views from all angles. Looking towards the port area, I said, being the history nerd that I am, “Nani, why aren’t there any forts?”. And of course Banana drew a complete blank and not being familiar with my history nerdoks thing combined with the fact that I was walking around and eating, she had this impression that I was drunk without any alcohol. “What forts?” she said. “Well,” I pressed on, “this used to be a Spanish colony and they you know, had lots of enemies. How come there arent any forts in the port area, I mean shouldn’t they have had forts to defend themselves?” pause. Banana, as she said later, was at a loss for words, prompting her to reply, “Maybe they’re in Mactan.” (on the other side of the island) at which point I argued that it was a major waterway before finally concluding that they were either gone or in Mactan. I will admit that if you don’t know that I have major moments of history nerdoksness you will find this conversation weird. Banana of course just found the entire episode drunkenly hilarious and will bring it up given the opportunity. I think, though, that my question made sense although it would have been best brought up in more academic circles, which I will do next time I find a freaking historian :P
Anyway, later that Saturday the boys called as we were supposed to go out. Banana didn’t want to go out until much much later so I finished a trashy novel while waiting for her to get up. The boys were really insistent about going to Vudu – since they hadn’t gone the week before, we’d all been too tired – so they kept calling. When we finally got dressed at around eleven, they had given up and Lance was already asleep. I felt that they could have gone ahead, since well, you know we could have found each other there anyway, and besides I didn’t want to stay too long, as I am more of a chiller than a clubber. In the end, the boys slept, I read another trashy novel and Banana… went to work.
Kick up your heels!
Sunday dawned bright and early, as I am Maui’s alarm clock so I got her up at 5am. I knocked out again and missed mass because the only morning mass I knew was at 11am. I had lunch with Roy at Oh Georg’s where we had bacon & mushroom dip, 2 different kinds of pasta – Pasta di Marco (really salty, I only had a tiny bit) with capers and tinapa, Beef Lasagna – Salad, and dessert. We were joined by JR & Lance who were in search of formal party clothes. JR finished off my pasta while Roy had cheesecake and I had the charlie brown – peanut butter with oreo cookies in a cheesecake. Lance had been trying to find himself a decent top for the party but he couldn’t find any in his size so while the boys went off in search of party clothes (I was honestly relieved to find out that I wasn’t the only one having a hard time) and to check out the car show, I went to buy girlie stuff.
After fielding numerous troublesome calls about Super #$#%$#%$# Grover (don’t ask what this is either) I ended up going to the office to check my mail for a bit before heading off to JY with Maui to go to the parlor. We ended up in Bridges, another one of Joseph’s great recommendations, where we had stuff done for the company Christmas party. It took about two hours, and I ended up with bright shiny pink toes to match my corset and a lovely french tipped manicure and brushed & blow dryed hair, among other things. Maui grabbed take out at Mc Donald’s and we headed home to get dressed and changed to make it in time for the presentation.
Our group, TSBU had prepared Moulin Rouge. Mirrel, our housemate was going to play Satine (nicole kidman) and Veejay, this TL from Bulldog was going to play Ewan Mc Gregor. Oka, trainer extraordinaire was Harry Zidler, and several of the TLs/L2s from the group were dancing as well. Mirrel had several costume changes including a corset and pair of high boots that I had to have sent from Manila, thanks to Alnair. We were all imagining the site of a butchy squat guy carrying a bag with a corset and high heeled boots in the airport, as apparently he had had to hand carry the whole thing. Thanks to Alnair, Mirrel had something to wear for the first act.
When we got to Waterfront hotel we made it just in time for the raffle. The biggest prizes were a trip to Boracay for two and an overnight stay at the Shang. Unfortunately we didn’t win anything, not even the plantsa or the industrial size electric fan. (Imagine taking that home.) We had a pretty okay buffet, then they had the first team presenting, Stealth, who did the Grammy Awards complete with a pseudo Britney Spears who sang Toxic and got lifted into the air – still singing – ala Lovliness. The other groups were Stealth, who did a nice tweetums-esque Grease number and the Support Group where three men dressed in drag did a variety of gay theme songs including “It’s raining men”, “I will survive”, etc.
When our turn came, our group did “Diamonds are Forever,” “Rhythm of the Night,” “Elephant Love Medly,” “Hindi Said Diamonds,” and “Come What May.”. They came complete with belly dancing esque costumes and winner dancing. Oka’s impression of a pimp was priceless, complete with expressions and the boys turned out to be pretty good dancers, especially Dyl aka “Loverboy” complete with acrobatics. The Dyl & Dih partnership turned out well. All the girls were great dancers and the image of Mirrel in a corset complete with fur scarf drag thingy surrounded by boys in bow ties will forever be a winning but hilarious (boys in bow ties?!?!) image for me.
Of course we won. After all the presentations were over there was some dancing involved, where loverboy and Dih showed off their dancing prowess, Lance did his dance thing with his hand in the air as if to simulate flying, JR stood there and watched and everyone else sort of bobbed around. It was fun even if my heels had no grip and I was forced to limit my steps even if it didn’t stop me from jumping up and down at certain points.
At some point Maui, Roy, Lance, JR & I headed over to Tinderbox for some chillin’. They have a deli and an excellent Wine Cellar and Cigar Bar where the waiters all know what they’re talking about. When I asked for wine recommendations they gave pretty good ones, resulting in an excellent Australian Merlot. Roy had a chocolate cigar and we all had fondue. Kenman joined us for a bit and the girls (Goldine, Russel, Joy, Migs) all passed by on the way to Vudu. Maui & I enjoyed ourselves but I think the boys were rather restless because a) it wasn’t beer (or Tanduay) and b) there was no dancing involved so they headed off to Vudu while we headed home to chill. I knocked right out while Maui packed for her flight, which was in the next few hours.
So I just woke up and am feeling incredibly lazy. I got up and just had a pack of chips (bad!) and two peanut butter slices. Am apparently recovering from last night’s after effects. Was planning to go to the gym today but I guess noooot! Maui has just left for her Christmas break in Manila so I have the room all to myself (yaaay!). As much as I love Maui there is nothing like solitude. I am an only child after all. Right now TL Chi is defrosting the freezer and finishing off our wine and we’re going to watch “Pretty in Pink”.
How have the past weeks been? I havent been able to update the blog as frequently as I would like, due to the lack of internet connection. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we will never get a telephone and that for me to connect to the internet manually I will have to go to the boys place and use their telephone. In the meantime, its internet cafes for me. Thank God for memory keys.
Last night was the office Christmas party. Before I get into that, I must go into the events that lead to this evening. This week was pretty regular. I’ve found myself continously getting restless in the office, probably because its not busy enough. Here you can actually get everything that you set out to do done because no one interrupts you and im not used to that. The boys all had only 9 hours OT this DSR time, I still had 22 (I think this was because of *#&$&%^#% Resolution Bay). This week though, I haven’t done OT except for maybe an hour, twice, which for me is a big thing. The boys in Manila seem so bloody harrassed and we’re trying to take stuff away from them, but to no avail. They just keep getting these inpromptu things.
This week I had to take a split off to handle the Resolution Bay finals today. (Don’t ask what this is!) So fortunately, Lance & I aren’t due in until 4pm. My offs were Thursday and Sunday. There have been two days this week where all I did was totally crash and burn. As in I went home and slept through the entire afternoon – I think that was Tuesday – when I said I would go to the gym but never woke up. And Friday where I think I must have said exactly the same thing. Fortunately I was able to go the gym Wednesday. I walked to the gym Saturday as well, only to find that they’d closed early for the Christmas party… but more on that later.
Hey sister go sister go sister go! (aka Ang Kamandag ni JP)
Wednesday night my friend Car’s Uncle’s Best Friend Joseph, who had been introduced to me over text invited me to a despidida party at his house. Car gave me his number one desperate day when we couldn’t find a place in Cebu to gimmick and the boys ended up in “the gillage” (aka the village na nasa gilid ng office, thus the monicker, the gillage) to have some “dunzing” tonight. Joseph is gay, really funny, generous and helpful and an all around great guy. He’d given me advice on parlors to go to – entirely wonderful results, each time – restaurants, etc. So since he was going off for the holidays and we’d never met, I decided to go, taking Maui along with me. We ended up dragging JP (the L2 not the puput) along since we had no idea where it was and we felt it would be safer.
Joseph lives in a village in Banilad, in a house with two french people, Alexandra and Diom (?). They pay pretty good rent considering it’s a good sized house. He works for the same law firm my best friend Jenny works for in Manila and the Cebu branch happens to be in our building. The party was for his friend Mike, who was moving to head the spa in Shangri-La Dubai. (He previously ran the spa in Shangri-La Mactan) We spent the entire night mingling and having lots of alcohol. I managed red wine, some vodka, and some punch. With my ulcer in tow, I had only about four cups in total. Maui and JP packed a punch but we were all relatively sober. We met all these people – Serge, who runs a small 50 person call center, Bunny, who owns Oh Georg, a wonderful restaurant in Ayala (more on this later), Rachel, who owns Guiseppe’s this posh-ish resto near the boys’ house which they frequently nag us to eat in but we’ve never tried, and a whole darn lot of french people. We met this guy, Cheri, who runs an import or something business, Johann who is a french tutor somewhere south of the city – where I had no idea that french tutors were in demand! – and spoke Cebuano. His girlfriend was Marla, who we spent most of the night chatting with. She was Cebuana, still in college and she sang with a reggae/skaa band and gave us tips on beaches and places to eat and chill. We ate Guiseppe’s pizza (excellent), chips and got good tips as to where to go eat and hang.
The biggest hit of the night had to have been JP. In an entirely subtle manner that lead us to believe that most of the time he was not aware of what he was doing, he managed to chat up or be chatted up by every single French chick in the party, including a fourteen year old girl that we all thought looked at the very least, barely legal. Apparently we were all wrong and, despite the smoking and wine, she wasn’t legal at all. One of the french chicks even told him, “It’s so lonely here in the Philippines, I have to find a boyfriend.” (JP has her number) Being a naturally friendly person JP was having conversations and mingling with everyone… which lead to guys chatting him up without him noticing. He proved to be a hit on both sides of the ocean.
Why do you always find everything except what you’re looking for?
Thursday, Maui & I went shopping for the Christmas party because it was her off. We tried to find a dress for me but there really wasn’t anything nice on the racks. The dresses were all prom-y or, worse yet, in the kind of clingy lycra fabric that turns my tummy into a tiyany-tiyan. So never mind. I walked away with another mini-skirt, my shortest yet, I think, in black with the words KIKAY on the back in nice flirty little script, a whole lot of CDs and a pink embellished corset top from sari-sari to wear to the party. It took us a really long time to find it – two malls included – since there really wasn’t much to choose from. I even went to Rustan’s and was willing to shell out a large amount of money for desiner-esque (read: Jessica, colour eighteen or something) clothes but to no avail. Nothing. The teens/young people section in Rustans was probably the size of our room in Keppel. (The bedroom, not the living room) Everyone seemed really into sweaters besides, as I was looking for shorts as well, not thick furry things just yet.
I started out the day by paying all my bills – hello Globe! Hello Credit Card! – and am now debt free, except probably for the monthly gym free and the four hundred peso cd I got because the atm lines were too long. No matter, Im glad my huge bill is gone. Then I met up with Maui at SM where she changed her ticket, I checked my mail for a bit and then we booked an appointment at a spa. We had the volcanic stone massage which was absolutely worth it. It was 700 bucks (cheap given manila prices) and they put stones on our backs, legs, hands, which were absolutely warm and they helped improve circulation. The massage was great, too. It was so good Maui fell asleep and I could hear her snoring in the next room. After that we went to Ayala and that’s where I found my corset.
Friday I had another lovely ulcer attack which reduced me to eating chicken stars soup and crackers. Saturday I woke up for work to find Banana had just arrived with Jon from another gimmick at Vudu, and they were about to watch dvds. When I got home that day he was still there, wearing the same thing as apparently he drunk so much beer he fell asleep on the couch and didn’t wake up until then, prompting me and Banana to rib him to no end because “yun pa rin ang suot mo!”. I went off to the gym, did a little trashy romance novel shopping, came back as the gym was closed and found him gone because according to Banana, “hindi na niya ma take na maabutan mo pa siya na ganun pa rin ang suot niya!”.
Dead Bugs & Forts
In lieu of my gymming I decided to try out one of the exercises in my National Geographic Adventure. Having taken pilates before, I thought it would be a good idea to try one of the moves described there. The move was called the dead bug, which involved you lying on your back with both your legs and arms straight up in the air and then you move your left leg down and your right arm down simultaneously slowly. Without hitting the ground you move them up again and then switch legs and arms. You do it about 8 reps. It requires some coordination but not much and it fucking hurts your core when you start out. I wasn’t expecting it to have that much impact, which is why I was slightly writhing in surprise from the slight pain.
At which point I called Banana to tell her what I was doing. Now in fairness to myself I was doing it right but I must have looked entirely hilarious lying on the ground of my bedroom floor with legs and arms in the air (Oliv are you reading this?!?! You had better try this at home, in honour of our efforts at pilates!) with my fingers and toes spread out like a dead person, prompting Banana to burst into gales of laughter going, “Hindi mo pa madikit yung mga daliri mo, ano ba yan!”. Of course she had to go and try it and having no coordination she couldn’t get her arms and legs to match. Then she had to go and tell Cathy and Gae who were eating Jollibee in the dining room and I had to explain the whole Dead Bug thing all over again, and more hilarity ensued.
Banana and I seem to have many moments of hilarity together. I think the most priceless moment for her is the one about the forts. One day, we were having lunch and I was walking around the living room and eating at the same time, which I do when I’m restless, and I was looking out our massive windows at the lovely views from all angles. Looking towards the port area, I said, being the history nerd that I am, “Nani, why aren’t there any forts?”. And of course Banana drew a complete blank and not being familiar with my history nerdoks thing combined with the fact that I was walking around and eating, she had this impression that I was drunk without any alcohol. “What forts?” she said. “Well,” I pressed on, “this used to be a Spanish colony and they you know, had lots of enemies. How come there arent any forts in the port area, I mean shouldn’t they have had forts to defend themselves?” pause. Banana, as she said later, was at a loss for words, prompting her to reply, “Maybe they’re in Mactan.” (on the other side of the island) at which point I argued that it was a major waterway before finally concluding that they were either gone or in Mactan. I will admit that if you don’t know that I have major moments of history nerdoksness you will find this conversation weird. Banana of course just found the entire episode drunkenly hilarious and will bring it up given the opportunity. I think, though, that my question made sense although it would have been best brought up in more academic circles, which I will do next time I find a freaking historian :P
Anyway, later that Saturday the boys called as we were supposed to go out. Banana didn’t want to go out until much much later so I finished a trashy novel while waiting for her to get up. The boys were really insistent about going to Vudu – since they hadn’t gone the week before, we’d all been too tired – so they kept calling. When we finally got dressed at around eleven, they had given up and Lance was already asleep. I felt that they could have gone ahead, since well, you know we could have found each other there anyway, and besides I didn’t want to stay too long, as I am more of a chiller than a clubber. In the end, the boys slept, I read another trashy novel and Banana… went to work.
Kick up your heels!
Sunday dawned bright and early, as I am Maui’s alarm clock so I got her up at 5am. I knocked out again and missed mass because the only morning mass I knew was at 11am. I had lunch with Roy at Oh Georg’s where we had bacon & mushroom dip, 2 different kinds of pasta – Pasta di Marco (really salty, I only had a tiny bit) with capers and tinapa, Beef Lasagna – Salad, and dessert. We were joined by JR & Lance who were in search of formal party clothes. JR finished off my pasta while Roy had cheesecake and I had the charlie brown – peanut butter with oreo cookies in a cheesecake. Lance had been trying to find himself a decent top for the party but he couldn’t find any in his size so while the boys went off in search of party clothes (I was honestly relieved to find out that I wasn’t the only one having a hard time) and to check out the car show, I went to buy girlie stuff.
After fielding numerous troublesome calls about Super #$#%$#%$# Grover (don’t ask what this is either) I ended up going to the office to check my mail for a bit before heading off to JY with Maui to go to the parlor. We ended up in Bridges, another one of Joseph’s great recommendations, where we had stuff done for the company Christmas party. It took about two hours, and I ended up with bright shiny pink toes to match my corset and a lovely french tipped manicure and brushed & blow dryed hair, among other things. Maui grabbed take out at Mc Donald’s and we headed home to get dressed and changed to make it in time for the presentation.
Our group, TSBU had prepared Moulin Rouge. Mirrel, our housemate was going to play Satine (nicole kidman) and Veejay, this TL from Bulldog was going to play Ewan Mc Gregor. Oka, trainer extraordinaire was Harry Zidler, and several of the TLs/L2s from the group were dancing as well. Mirrel had several costume changes including a corset and pair of high boots that I had to have sent from Manila, thanks to Alnair. We were all imagining the site of a butchy squat guy carrying a bag with a corset and high heeled boots in the airport, as apparently he had had to hand carry the whole thing. Thanks to Alnair, Mirrel had something to wear for the first act.
When we got to Waterfront hotel we made it just in time for the raffle. The biggest prizes were a trip to Boracay for two and an overnight stay at the Shang. Unfortunately we didn’t win anything, not even the plantsa or the industrial size electric fan. (Imagine taking that home.) We had a pretty okay buffet, then they had the first team presenting, Stealth, who did the Grammy Awards complete with a pseudo Britney Spears who sang Toxic and got lifted into the air – still singing – ala Lovliness. The other groups were Stealth, who did a nice tweetums-esque Grease number and the Support Group where three men dressed in drag did a variety of gay theme songs including “It’s raining men”, “I will survive”, etc.
When our turn came, our group did “Diamonds are Forever,” “Rhythm of the Night,” “Elephant Love Medly,” “Hindi Said Diamonds,” and “Come What May.”. They came complete with belly dancing esque costumes and winner dancing. Oka’s impression of a pimp was priceless, complete with expressions and the boys turned out to be pretty good dancers, especially Dyl aka “Loverboy” complete with acrobatics. The Dyl & Dih partnership turned out well. All the girls were great dancers and the image of Mirrel in a corset complete with fur scarf drag thingy surrounded by boys in bow ties will forever be a winning but hilarious (boys in bow ties?!?!) image for me.
Of course we won. After all the presentations were over there was some dancing involved, where loverboy and Dih showed off their dancing prowess, Lance did his dance thing with his hand in the air as if to simulate flying, JR stood there and watched and everyone else sort of bobbed around. It was fun even if my heels had no grip and I was forced to limit my steps even if it didn’t stop me from jumping up and down at certain points.
At some point Maui, Roy, Lance, JR & I headed over to Tinderbox for some chillin’. They have a deli and an excellent Wine Cellar and Cigar Bar where the waiters all know what they’re talking about. When I asked for wine recommendations they gave pretty good ones, resulting in an excellent Australian Merlot. Roy had a chocolate cigar and we all had fondue. Kenman joined us for a bit and the girls (Goldine, Russel, Joy, Migs) all passed by on the way to Vudu. Maui & I enjoyed ourselves but I think the boys were rather restless because a) it wasn’t beer (or Tanduay) and b) there was no dancing involved so they headed off to Vudu while we headed home to chill. I knocked right out while Maui packed for her flight, which was in the next few hours.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Just a Quickie
Just sneaking a quick post while Im in the internet cafe and people are waiting outside.
Highlights from the last week:
- Burnt pancakes in Sarossa, because I didnt notice it was cooked already while I was mixing the next batch, prompting Kris to wake up, open the door and say, is something on fire?
- Bought the pancakes from the store across sarossa where a semi-drunk chinese guy manually counted out my change.
- Banana and some of the boys went to Vudu and one of the guys from work knew the owner, they ended up with a free bottle of Vodka and they did not go home sober.
- The boys moved into their new house and suddenly switched from mega complainers to super yabang people, never mind if all they had in their fridge were beer, bacon & ham! Everything had to be cooked using the microwave, Even the eggs!!!!
- GMA the president came to inagurate our center and JR got paranoid that she would step into his training class so he went out and bought a suit complete with tie (sans jacket) but he never saw her!
- GMA stopped right in front of Lance and he was so shocked so he went and introduced himself: "Hi My Name Is Lance. Welcome To Etelecare!" Big Smile. She shook his hand and ... moved on.
- I missed the president because I had so much stuff I had to go to Keppel first since they blocked the road and I wouldve had to walk.
- They had buffet in three different places when she was there so I had lunch twice :P
- I may be gaining weight, damn it. (My doctor said I am not allowed to gain. Nooooo.)
- Gym finally opened so I went back. The people there are so nice and friendly they keep trying to help me.
- Did a double shift sort of - wednesday got home, knocked out so completely i never heard the doorbell ring. In the meantime, Maui supervised the house renovation (changing door locks so that JR couldn't break in with his credit card anymore, which he has had to do for us several times) and the girls all went out. When they got back they found Cathy and Gae lying outside the door, dead tired because they couldnt get in. No one realized I was at home because I was so out of it.
- Got a nice new light blue cover for my phone. Went shopping a bit, got pants and a top and underwear and now have a free polkadot outdoor camera.
- I think my poor babies are having a hard time without me!!! My poor little puputs! (Don't ask either)
- I am sooo tired of Resolution fucking Bay. (don't ask) And that pretty much sums it all up.
More later!!!
Highlights from the last week:
- Burnt pancakes in Sarossa, because I didnt notice it was cooked already while I was mixing the next batch, prompting Kris to wake up, open the door and say, is something on fire?
- Bought the pancakes from the store across sarossa where a semi-drunk chinese guy manually counted out my change.
- Banana and some of the boys went to Vudu and one of the guys from work knew the owner, they ended up with a free bottle of Vodka and they did not go home sober.
- The boys moved into their new house and suddenly switched from mega complainers to super yabang people, never mind if all they had in their fridge were beer, bacon & ham! Everything had to be cooked using the microwave, Even the eggs!!!!
- GMA the president came to inagurate our center and JR got paranoid that she would step into his training class so he went out and bought a suit complete with tie (sans jacket) but he never saw her!
- GMA stopped right in front of Lance and he was so shocked so he went and introduced himself: "Hi My Name Is Lance. Welcome To Etelecare!" Big Smile. She shook his hand and ... moved on.
- I missed the president because I had so much stuff I had to go to Keppel first since they blocked the road and I wouldve had to walk.
- They had buffet in three different places when she was there so I had lunch twice :P
- I may be gaining weight, damn it. (My doctor said I am not allowed to gain. Nooooo.)
- Gym finally opened so I went back. The people there are so nice and friendly they keep trying to help me.
- Did a double shift sort of - wednesday got home, knocked out so completely i never heard the doorbell ring. In the meantime, Maui supervised the house renovation (changing door locks so that JR couldn't break in with his credit card anymore, which he has had to do for us several times) and the girls all went out. When they got back they found Cathy and Gae lying outside the door, dead tired because they couldnt get in. No one realized I was at home because I was so out of it.
- Got a nice new light blue cover for my phone. Went shopping a bit, got pants and a top and underwear and now have a free polkadot outdoor camera.
- I think my poor babies are having a hard time without me!!! My poor little puputs! (Don't ask either)
- I am sooo tired of Resolution fucking Bay. (don't ask) And that pretty much sums it all up.
More later!!!
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
I think it's been almost a week here already...
Freeeak Shooow
I think it’s funny how I can walk down the street at three in the morning and feel perfectly safe but be freaked out by the funny noises coming from the bathroom.
Last night I finished reading a trashy romance novel by Eloisa James, a writer who was orginally a scholar at Oxford and who also teaches Shakespearean literature. I went to bed with strange dreams. In the first half, Kris had wrote me a letter both berating me and regaling me with tales of her and Bea, one of the lead heroines in the book I had just read. I kept thinking, how does Kris know Bea? In the second part, there was someone, a faceless man, on top of me trying to pound me really, I kept trying to push him off but it was like I was trapped. Both of us were dressed, and there was no attempt at anything really indecent I was just completely pinned and I couldn’t get up, I kept pushing, I bit his tongue (weird!) but it didn’t work and I kept pushing and pushing and trying to wake up, at first I couldn’t and then I was. I got up, opened the door to the room so that there was light from the hallway and actually managed to go back to sleep.
I seriously wished I was back at home in Keppel next to Maui (never mind the snoring) rather than in Sarossa with Kris, it was that freaky. I’ve come to the conclusion that it was all because of reading trashy romance novels and an overactive imagination. It may also be the fact that I am by myself in a hotel room that is frequently used for illicit liasons or to quote Kris, a “Dalahan”.
My bathroom here has a window that will not close. My head is the same level as the window and I can look out at the smorgasboard of buildings and shanties, gasoline stations and neon lights while I take a shower. Despite the curtains, it is never truly dark in my room – formerly Anton & Jeanine’s – thanks to the neon lights, which I think is a good thing, given my overactive imagination.
The creaking noises coming from the pipes in the bathroom and the neighbor’s mumurs – I can’t tell if it’s the tv or not and at this point I would rather hear ecstatic noises of joy than any creaking – have led me to frantically text Lance to have him and JR come and stay over. Of course, both boys have, in amusement, both tried to placate me by saying, “Alam mo, wala yan. Dalahan lang talaga yan kaya madami ka talaga maririnig.” JR, in fairness offered to come over in exchange for a deferred off, to which I replied, “Ha? Bukas na lang, Respeto.” as both boys are moving to their new digs in the morning.
I seriously do not underestand what led our procurement department to book the managers in a “better hotel” that turned out to be frequented by foreign men with hookers on the side and then leave the only female manager we have left staying here alone in the suite. Again, I don’t mind staying, I like having my own room, and it was perfectly fine until well, I got all freeeeakkked. It’s only five in the afternoon and the guys have decided not to go out. I would love to go to Keppel and have dinner – spaghetti – but I’ve eaten too much today – Lord I need exercise and a weighing scale just to prove to myself, see, see! You should stop eating, never mind the amount of walking you’ve done – and really, I’m pretty comfortable where I am, funny creaky noises in the background notwithstanding. That and I can hear what must be the murmur of the neighbor’s tv. I refuse to be freaked out further. Earlier I tried to connect to the internet but after a few tries I got a 12kbps connection, utterly brilliant and without the capacity to open anything, least of all yahoo messanger. Thus, I gave up, decided the card was useless and would need no further attempts. I will visit JY in the morning.
On a side note I am glad that I finally got to brush my teeth after almost a day and a half of using my finger and toothpaste. I forgot my toothbrush at Keppel when I packed some stuff for my stay at Sarossa. I asked Maui to bring it over the next day and having forgotten it before, I did remember that I had purchased a spare left behind in a drawer in the office. I told Lance to bring toothpaste. In the intervening hours, our bathroom at Keppel got locked again – leaving Maui without a toothbrush as well – and Lance forgot the toothpaste, which meant, basically that all I had done that day was brush my teeth with my finger. When we got to Keppel that afternoon (yesterday) the bathroom was still locked, thanks to an unidentified little monster named either Eli or Alvin, and the procurement manager hadn’t gotten back with a copy of the keys so I went home with my teeth unbrushed. Thankfully they got the bathroom open last night and Maui took me my toothbrush this morning, plus Lance remembered to bring the toothpaste, so I was fine when I got to work. I will never take my breath for granted again. I swear.
FLASHBACK!
I found part of the chat I had with John the night before I left. It is probably the last chat conversation I have had since I left, damn it! I need internet! Anyway, here are my adventures packing:
mariya_larochka: baaacak
mariya_larochka: i have this moooountaaaain of undies
mariya_larochka: to pack
rugjug50: ok, not really a response for that
rugjug50: exempt you can never have too many
rugjug50: speaking of packing, have you started
mariya_larochka: i put one pair of jeans in.
rugjug50: its a start
mariya_larochka: everything
mariya_larochka: is all out on my bed
mariya_larochka: it would help if we were casual month
mariya_larochka: but were not!
rugjug50: you never know, they might declare it casual again bec its so critical. just bring both
rugjug50: plus, you are basically casual anyway even if it is not casual. difference lang is pants and jeans
rugjug50: the tops are the same and the slippers are the same
mariya_larochka: true
mariya_larochka: do i need 2 pairs of sneakers?
mariya_larochka: i have one but i dont think the black ones can be used for the gym
mariya_larochka: the ones that jason and i both have
rugjug50: depends, can you use the gym sneakers for everyday stuff
mariya_larochka: yeah
mariya_larochka: but the black sneaks keep my feet warm.'
rugjug50: are they cumfy and can you take them out easily when need to go bearfoot
rugjug50: cant argue with that. plus the black ones are small. no harm in bringing them
mariya_larochka: yes
mariya_larochka: i guess that makes five pairs of shoes
mariya_larochka: but two of them dont count
mariya_larochka: because theyre slippers ;P
rugjug50: what is your weight limit ba
mariya_larochka: same as bkk
rugjug50: phucket or bkk. phucket it was 15, bkk it was 23
mariya_larochka: bkk
rugjug50: you can always pack a small bag and have someone else bring it.
rugjug50: hey oceans 12 is opening soon. oceans 11 is opening soon too...in cebu
mariya_larochka: damn the sneakers are fucking big
rugjug50: so dont go gym, just go beach every weekend
rugjug50: you can try for the beonce gold thing again
rugjug50: or you can wear the sneakers going there
mariya_larochka: uhm, im wearing the other sneakers
rugjug50: less bulky and heavy thing goes into suitcase, more bulky you wear. thats how i do it.
rugjug50: the reviews for alexander are positive.
rugjug50: where they watching a different movie
mariya_larochka: mixed
mariya_larochka: some of them are good
mariya_larochka: some are bad
rugjug50: again where they watching the same movie, i wanna watch that one.
mariya_larochka: im tired
mariya_larochka: i wanna stop packingn a
rugjug50: this is where you do what i do. jus dump all the other unpacked stuff on top and sit on the suitcase until it closes
mariya_larochka: noooo
mariya_larochka: packing is an art
mariya_larochka: i strive to master
rugjug50: i would have thought you mastered it by now, being the lonely planet junkie that you are
mariya_larochka: iv enever had to pack for 6 weeks before
mariya_larochka: imagine what im gonna pack for australia
rugjug50: everything
mariya_larochka: aaaah!
mariya_larochka: no more space
mariya_larochka: i forgot to count
mariya_larochka: in fairness
mariya_larochka: i counted all the tshirts
mariya_larochka: its the office clothes
mariya_larochka: i forgot to count
rugjug50: im sure you have enough
mariya_larochka: no no non on ononon
mariya_larochka: I HAVENT PACKED MY PAJAMAS
rugjug50: are you bringing big handcarry
mariya_larochka: yes
mariya_larochka: its called a portable and 4 books
rugjug50: oh ok. so pajamas dont fit in portable bag
mariya_larochka: actually the pajamas are good
rugjug50: i cant wait till the superman movie comes out. i know it will be a while, but it will be cool.
mariya_larochka: shitload of underwear not good
mariya_larochka: it is not spreading around
rugjug50: put the underwear and your socks in your shoes, thats some extra space right there
mariya_larochka: do you know why?
mariya_larochka: because of th efreaking underwire
rugjug50: so much easier being a guy. thats all i have to say
mariya_larochka: ive just stuffed everything in
mariya_larochka: in the end because my handbag wouldnt smush, that's one
mariya_larochka: and two, theres a lot of space in the cracks
mariya_larochka: pero bahala na
rugjug50: im sure your stuff will be fine. anything deformed can be ironed
mariya_larochka: i think ive packed too much
mariya_larochka: there is such a thing as laundry
mariya_larochka: i must run through it again
rugjug50: true
rugjug50: arent you guys getting a labandera or something
mariya_larochka: yeah
mariya_larochka: i gave up
mariya_larochka: the bottom half was so well packed i didnt want
mariya_larochka: to fuck it up anymore
mariya_larochka: i think i overpacked
mariya_larochka: seriously
mariya_larochka: the maleta is full.
mariya_larochka: but then i guess
mariya_larochka: im not shopping naman
mariya_larochka: so never mind
rugjug50: better you overpack than run out of stuff
mariya_larochka: i guess. anyway, its time for me to figure out the handcarry so i gotta pack up the portable.
mariya_larochka: see you again soon :)
mariya_larochka: bye bye!
rugjug50: ok take care and have fun:D
rugjug50: remember if you meet a dude, no glove, no love
I think it’s funny how I can walk down the street at three in the morning and feel perfectly safe but be freaked out by the funny noises coming from the bathroom.
Last night I finished reading a trashy romance novel by Eloisa James, a writer who was orginally a scholar at Oxford and who also teaches Shakespearean literature. I went to bed with strange dreams. In the first half, Kris had wrote me a letter both berating me and regaling me with tales of her and Bea, one of the lead heroines in the book I had just read. I kept thinking, how does Kris know Bea? In the second part, there was someone, a faceless man, on top of me trying to pound me really, I kept trying to push him off but it was like I was trapped. Both of us were dressed, and there was no attempt at anything really indecent I was just completely pinned and I couldn’t get up, I kept pushing, I bit his tongue (weird!) but it didn’t work and I kept pushing and pushing and trying to wake up, at first I couldn’t and then I was. I got up, opened the door to the room so that there was light from the hallway and actually managed to go back to sleep.
I seriously wished I was back at home in Keppel next to Maui (never mind the snoring) rather than in Sarossa with Kris, it was that freaky. I’ve come to the conclusion that it was all because of reading trashy romance novels and an overactive imagination. It may also be the fact that I am by myself in a hotel room that is frequently used for illicit liasons or to quote Kris, a “Dalahan”.
My bathroom here has a window that will not close. My head is the same level as the window and I can look out at the smorgasboard of buildings and shanties, gasoline stations and neon lights while I take a shower. Despite the curtains, it is never truly dark in my room – formerly Anton & Jeanine’s – thanks to the neon lights, which I think is a good thing, given my overactive imagination.
The creaking noises coming from the pipes in the bathroom and the neighbor’s mumurs – I can’t tell if it’s the tv or not and at this point I would rather hear ecstatic noises of joy than any creaking – have led me to frantically text Lance to have him and JR come and stay over. Of course, both boys have, in amusement, both tried to placate me by saying, “Alam mo, wala yan. Dalahan lang talaga yan kaya madami ka talaga maririnig.” JR, in fairness offered to come over in exchange for a deferred off, to which I replied, “Ha? Bukas na lang, Respeto.” as both boys are moving to their new digs in the morning.
I seriously do not underestand what led our procurement department to book the managers in a “better hotel” that turned out to be frequented by foreign men with hookers on the side and then leave the only female manager we have left staying here alone in the suite. Again, I don’t mind staying, I like having my own room, and it was perfectly fine until well, I got all freeeeakkked. It’s only five in the afternoon and the guys have decided not to go out. I would love to go to Keppel and have dinner – spaghetti – but I’ve eaten too much today – Lord I need exercise and a weighing scale just to prove to myself, see, see! You should stop eating, never mind the amount of walking you’ve done – and really, I’m pretty comfortable where I am, funny creaky noises in the background notwithstanding. That and I can hear what must be the murmur of the neighbor’s tv. I refuse to be freaked out further. Earlier I tried to connect to the internet but after a few tries I got a 12kbps connection, utterly brilliant and without the capacity to open anything, least of all yahoo messanger. Thus, I gave up, decided the card was useless and would need no further attempts. I will visit JY in the morning.
On a side note I am glad that I finally got to brush my teeth after almost a day and a half of using my finger and toothpaste. I forgot my toothbrush at Keppel when I packed some stuff for my stay at Sarossa. I asked Maui to bring it over the next day and having forgotten it before, I did remember that I had purchased a spare left behind in a drawer in the office. I told Lance to bring toothpaste. In the intervening hours, our bathroom at Keppel got locked again – leaving Maui without a toothbrush as well – and Lance forgot the toothpaste, which meant, basically that all I had done that day was brush my teeth with my finger. When we got to Keppel that afternoon (yesterday) the bathroom was still locked, thanks to an unidentified little monster named either Eli or Alvin, and the procurement manager hadn’t gotten back with a copy of the keys so I went home with my teeth unbrushed. Thankfully they got the bathroom open last night and Maui took me my toothbrush this morning, plus Lance remembered to bring the toothpaste, so I was fine when I got to work. I will never take my breath for granted again. I swear.
FLASHBACK!
I found part of the chat I had with John the night before I left. It is probably the last chat conversation I have had since I left, damn it! I need internet! Anyway, here are my adventures packing:
mariya_larochka: baaacak
mariya_larochka: i have this moooountaaaain of undies
mariya_larochka: to pack
rugjug50: ok, not really a response for that
rugjug50: exempt you can never have too many
rugjug50: speaking of packing, have you started
mariya_larochka: i put one pair of jeans in.
rugjug50: its a start
mariya_larochka: everything
mariya_larochka: is all out on my bed
mariya_larochka: it would help if we were casual month
mariya_larochka: but were not!
rugjug50: you never know, they might declare it casual again bec its so critical. just bring both
rugjug50: plus, you are basically casual anyway even if it is not casual. difference lang is pants and jeans
rugjug50: the tops are the same and the slippers are the same
mariya_larochka: true
mariya_larochka: do i need 2 pairs of sneakers?
mariya_larochka: i have one but i dont think the black ones can be used for the gym
mariya_larochka: the ones that jason and i both have
rugjug50: depends, can you use the gym sneakers for everyday stuff
mariya_larochka: yeah
mariya_larochka: but the black sneaks keep my feet warm.'
rugjug50: are they cumfy and can you take them out easily when need to go bearfoot
rugjug50: cant argue with that. plus the black ones are small. no harm in bringing them
mariya_larochka: yes
mariya_larochka: i guess that makes five pairs of shoes
mariya_larochka: but two of them dont count
mariya_larochka: because theyre slippers ;P
rugjug50: what is your weight limit ba
mariya_larochka: same as bkk
rugjug50: phucket or bkk. phucket it was 15, bkk it was 23
mariya_larochka: bkk
rugjug50: you can always pack a small bag and have someone else bring it.
rugjug50: hey oceans 12 is opening soon. oceans 11 is opening soon too...in cebu
mariya_larochka: damn the sneakers are fucking big
rugjug50: so dont go gym, just go beach every weekend
rugjug50: you can try for the beonce gold thing again
rugjug50: or you can wear the sneakers going there
mariya_larochka: uhm, im wearing the other sneakers
rugjug50: less bulky and heavy thing goes into suitcase, more bulky you wear. thats how i do it.
rugjug50: the reviews for alexander are positive.
rugjug50: where they watching a different movie
mariya_larochka: mixed
mariya_larochka: some of them are good
mariya_larochka: some are bad
rugjug50: again where they watching the same movie, i wanna watch that one.
mariya_larochka: im tired
mariya_larochka: i wanna stop packingn a
rugjug50: this is where you do what i do. jus dump all the other unpacked stuff on top and sit on the suitcase until it closes
mariya_larochka: noooo
mariya_larochka: packing is an art
mariya_larochka: i strive to master
rugjug50: i would have thought you mastered it by now, being the lonely planet junkie that you are
mariya_larochka: iv enever had to pack for 6 weeks before
mariya_larochka: imagine what im gonna pack for australia
rugjug50: everything
mariya_larochka: aaaah!
mariya_larochka: no more space
mariya_larochka: i forgot to count
mariya_larochka: in fairness
mariya_larochka: i counted all the tshirts
mariya_larochka: its the office clothes
mariya_larochka: i forgot to count
rugjug50: im sure you have enough
mariya_larochka: no no non on ononon
mariya_larochka: I HAVENT PACKED MY PAJAMAS
rugjug50: are you bringing big handcarry
mariya_larochka: yes
mariya_larochka: its called a portable and 4 books
rugjug50: oh ok. so pajamas dont fit in portable bag
mariya_larochka: actually the pajamas are good
rugjug50: i cant wait till the superman movie comes out. i know it will be a while, but it will be cool.
mariya_larochka: shitload of underwear not good
mariya_larochka: it is not spreading around
rugjug50: put the underwear and your socks in your shoes, thats some extra space right there
mariya_larochka: do you know why?
mariya_larochka: because of th efreaking underwire
rugjug50: so much easier being a guy. thats all i have to say
mariya_larochka: ive just stuffed everything in
mariya_larochka: in the end because my handbag wouldnt smush, that's one
mariya_larochka: and two, theres a lot of space in the cracks
mariya_larochka: pero bahala na
rugjug50: im sure your stuff will be fine. anything deformed can be ironed
mariya_larochka: i think ive packed too much
mariya_larochka: there is such a thing as laundry
mariya_larochka: i must run through it again
rugjug50: true
rugjug50: arent you guys getting a labandera or something
mariya_larochka: yeah
mariya_larochka: i gave up
mariya_larochka: the bottom half was so well packed i didnt want
mariya_larochka: to fuck it up anymore
mariya_larochka: i think i overpacked
mariya_larochka: seriously
mariya_larochka: the maleta is full.
mariya_larochka: but then i guess
mariya_larochka: im not shopping naman
mariya_larochka: so never mind
rugjug50: better you overpack than run out of stuff
mariya_larochka: i guess. anyway, its time for me to figure out the handcarry so i gotta pack up the portable.
mariya_larochka: see you again soon :)
mariya_larochka: bye bye!
rugjug50: ok take care and have fun:D
rugjug50: remember if you meet a dude, no glove, no love
Sunday, November 28, 2004
More of Cebu! It's getting better!
Things Are Getting Better!
On Saturday Maui & I woke up late. Or rather, I woke her up by sneezing, she said “Bless You” and knocked right back out. So did I. Later on when I finally woke up for real, I finished my blog and we waited for the boys to come over to have brunch. We ended up at JY Mall, which was the minimall from the day before. It’s pretty cool with an internet café and a couple of french bistros. Pretty chic, considering its in the middle of nowhere. I updated my bloggie and chatted a bit with Den and Paul before we went to eat at this really good, cheap and fast serving Thai restaurant where we bumped into the people who lived in the room next to JR & Lance’s. They were all pretty big boys, and I was told later that since the big guys (Edric & Paul) were on the top bunk, the mattresses sunk downwards and their beds were changed to two big ones, so now the four boys in that room slept next to each other.
We then made our way to the mall where we generally wandered around a bit. I got two trashy romance novels at book sale, Maui bought shoes and we found a nice Italian restaurant where JR and I had bruschetta. I tried on earplugs that didn’t block out the noise and we ended up back in our condotel where Maui & I watched the Miss World “choose via text” and checked out all the chicks. (in short, namintas kami, but nicely.) We noticed that all the girls from African countries where generally very happy, and pleasant. It would be nice if one of them won, because then they would put their tiny little countries on the map, and it would be different for once. Maui’s favorite was Ms Sweden bec she had an unusual haircut. Half of the girls said they were eighteen but looked like they were older than what I looked (which is generally in that range), except for this one girl who looked Jason’s “apparent age” (i.e. 12) . Ms Japan looked like a porn star in those anime inspired movies. There wasn’t anyone who was really ugly although some of them just really needed better hair stylists.
The boys came over for dinner pretty quick – it was like after two hours they were there already – I think they just wanted to get out of their house. Maui & Lance's friend Gid came over to visit since he was also on a business trip from Manila. They went to smoke in the terrace and suddenly he started screaming, "Lance, Lance, may patay na kambing dito sa baba!". Turns out it was the statue of this reindeer without antlers that was lying on its side on the ground with the rest of the trash, some left over Christmas decor. Mau & I noticed it the day before and the boys also thought it was a goat (kambing) when they came over.
We ordered pizza from pizza hut and were shocked to discover that stuffed crust family plus pepsi and fettucini was PhP605. We had no spoons & forks for the fettucini so we called the front desk to borrow some. They refused to lend us any, even the plastic kind, if we didn’t buy anything, which led to us eating the fettucini by hand. (Yes, I know it’s sad.)
Moving Out!
The next day Lance, Maui & I had to go to work. Maui & Gae had the first teams to go live for the CTS Segment in the morning so we all had to go in. I spent most of my morning trying to get the Outlook to work, but managed to get some work done anyway. In the middle of the day, Maui & I left to move into our new condo in the Keppel building. It is very nice and it used to belong to a Japanese guy who had to move suddenly (hmm… sounds familiar). There are three bedrooms and four bathrooms (kakaiba, diba?). We share with TLs Chi, Gae, Cathy, Abby and Kay from QA. I set everyone’s expectations and told them that I never lived with anyone before so they have to tell me if I’m being too much of a brat. I brattitad my way to getting the room I wanted and Maui and I ended up sharing again (we brattitad our way to do that).
On Saturday Maui & I woke up late. Or rather, I woke her up by sneezing, she said “Bless You” and knocked right back out. So did I. Later on when I finally woke up for real, I finished my blog and we waited for the boys to come over to have brunch. We ended up at JY Mall, which was the minimall from the day before. It’s pretty cool with an internet café and a couple of french bistros. Pretty chic, considering its in the middle of nowhere. I updated my bloggie and chatted a bit with Den and Paul before we went to eat at this really good, cheap and fast serving Thai restaurant where we bumped into the people who lived in the room next to JR & Lance’s. They were all pretty big boys, and I was told later that since the big guys (Edric & Paul) were on the top bunk, the mattresses sunk downwards and their beds were changed to two big ones, so now the four boys in that room slept next to each other.
We then made our way to the mall where we generally wandered around a bit. I got two trashy romance novels at book sale, Maui bought shoes and we found a nice Italian restaurant where JR and I had bruschetta. I tried on earplugs that didn’t block out the noise and we ended up back in our condotel where Maui & I watched the Miss World “choose via text” and checked out all the chicks. (in short, namintas kami, but nicely.) We noticed that all the girls from African countries where generally very happy, and pleasant. It would be nice if one of them won, because then they would put their tiny little countries on the map, and it would be different for once. Maui’s favorite was Ms Sweden bec she had an unusual haircut. Half of the girls said they were eighteen but looked like they were older than what I looked (which is generally in that range), except for this one girl who looked Jason’s “apparent age” (i.e. 12) . Ms Japan looked like a porn star in those anime inspired movies. There wasn’t anyone who was really ugly although some of them just really needed better hair stylists.
The boys came over for dinner pretty quick – it was like after two hours they were there already – I think they just wanted to get out of their house. Maui & Lance's friend Gid came over to visit since he was also on a business trip from Manila. They went to smoke in the terrace and suddenly he started screaming, "Lance, Lance, may patay na kambing dito sa baba!". Turns out it was the statue of this reindeer without antlers that was lying on its side on the ground with the rest of the trash, some left over Christmas decor. Mau & I noticed it the day before and the boys also thought it was a goat (kambing) when they came over.
We ordered pizza from pizza hut and were shocked to discover that stuffed crust family plus pepsi and fettucini was PhP605. We had no spoons & forks for the fettucini so we called the front desk to borrow some. They refused to lend us any, even the plastic kind, if we didn’t buy anything, which led to us eating the fettucini by hand. (Yes, I know it’s sad.)
Moving Out!
The next day Lance, Maui & I had to go to work. Maui & Gae had the first teams to go live for the CTS Segment in the morning so we all had to go in. I spent most of my morning trying to get the Outlook to work, but managed to get some work done anyway. In the middle of the day, Maui & I left to move into our new condo in the Keppel building. It is very nice and it used to belong to a Japanese guy who had to move suddenly (hmm… sounds familiar). There are three bedrooms and four bathrooms (kakaiba, diba?). We share with TLs Chi, Gae, Cathy, Abby and Kay from QA. I set everyone’s expectations and told them that I never lived with anyone before so they have to tell me if I’m being too much of a brat. I brattitad my way to getting the room I wanted and Maui and I ended up sharing again (we brattitad our way to do that).
Rock Star God
Later that afternoon (since we had to go back to work) I met up with Kris and we went to church at Sto. Nino, which is about 300-400 years old. It should technically be old and crumbling, but instead it just looms above you like an old crone with her hand outstretched, frail but strong and steady at the same time. Inside there is an almost equally old statue of the Sto. Nino, which devotees come to see specially. The ceiling is painted with frescos that contain scenes from the Bible but were done in more modern times, as the pictures are still pretty clear. My favorite was of God descending down to the garden of Eden after Adam & Eve bit the apple. He descends feet first, all in white with long, wavy hair, just like a rock star and behind him are the planets (most recognizably, Saturn with its rings) and the stars. It was pretty cool actually.
The mass was in Visayan and since there was a little projector thingy that flashed the words to the responses I managed to follow. Within a few moments of entry Kris and I were surrounded by people which made the church one big sardine can of claustrophobia, if you were the type that got like that. The people in the church though, were very earnest, they sang along and responded to everything, which is more than I can say for a lot of the churches I have been in.
Since it was raining we got splatterd on and ended up going back to Kris’s hotel so she could change her pants. The door was locked so we went in through the window. Since I saw that the bed was maybe two or three inches from the window I let myself in backwards and did a nestea plunge like backward dive onto her bed, which she took a picture of. Kris let herself in the proper way, front first. Their place was pretty decent and I liked it a lot bec she had her own room and they had all the appliances they needed, including a TV.
After changing we went to the mall (again) where I got moisturizer and we met up with Paps , our former boss, who was visiting to make sure everyone was settled. We chatted a bit then had dinner at the Italian restaurant from the day before. The 4 cheese tortellini and the pizza were both excellent. We then took them to see our new condo and they helped us move our stuff in, which made the whole place finally feel like a real house. We got all the appliances and the glasses and things together, we put sheets on our bed, etc. It was actually fun. The boys were a bit saddened by our apartment, compared to theirs but fortunately Alvs was able to find them a better place which they will be moving into within the week. While I was unpacking, Abby arrived and cooked some pork steak, which she and Maui ate while I was sleeping.
Laidback
I woke up in the middle of the night bec Mau was snoring really bad. Usually its just a slight breathing thing but last night was pretty loud. Also, I kept waking up when everyone passed by to go to work. The slightest noise would wake me. I then decided that it was really time to get a decent pair of earplugs. My boss Alvs also came to crash in the middle of the night because he couldn’t get into their house (same house as JR & Lance) because of this giant rottweiler wandering outside. (Respeto! I have since found out the place they are staying in is located in "Camp Lapu Lapu" which may explain the rottweiler.) I decided a few moments later, that it was time to get up bec I kept falling asleep and then getting up due to one noise or the other. When I got to the bathroom, I found that it was locked. No one knew where the key was and I ended up taking a shower somewhere else, using someone else’s stuff (actually various persons stuff) and eventually I went to work… without brushing my teeth :P
Work was pretty uneventful today. I realized I had P500 for the cab so I tried to wake up Alvs to get change. He kept right on snoring. I tried to get his wallet but no avail. Good thing the driver had change. JR & I walked to another panaderia at 330am and went to the convenience store to buy ruffles potato chips and a toothbrush for me (Lance brought the toothpaste later on). We had no stations bec everything was plotted exactly so JR and I spent about two hours napping in the pseudo quiet lounge where everyone seemed to hang out outside and talk, their voices permeating.
Although I will be staying at Keppel, I'm going to be sharing with Kris for about a week and a half because she'll be all alone in Sarossa. I hope to get to use the pool but most likely will go home to Keppel to hang every now and then. Hopefully the boys will also have moved into their place, which will also have a pool. I am glad that things are getting better... Hope to also get some pics up soon.
Friday, November 26, 2004
Cebu - The first day
*** I know I'm not done with the Thai blog yet, but I just had to post this. Bangkok to follow later.
Cebu! Cebu? Cebu…
Honestly my Cebu Trip began the night before. After returning home from watching the disastrous “Alexander” – complete with middle agend ladies in the background, “Ay, si Alexander bakla!” – I set out with the mountainous task of packing. Then my mother came home. At this point I had done nothing so far. She then said, come here I want to talk. At which point she asked where I was staying, which I really, honestly did not know, I said, tired of the whole thing since she’d been bugging me about it forever, You know what, I don’t really know, I’ll tell you when I get there tomorrow. And then she asked me to give her the names of my team mates, and she was really demanding about it. So, feeling like I was stuck in a conversation that should have been done when I was about, oh, seventeen, I said I’m not going to tell you. In fairness, as per usual I would have given her at least a name and a number anyway just to pacify her but when she asked I was just like, are we doing this again? Like a repeat performance of my trip to La Luz, here we went again with the old argument that made me feel like I wasn’t old enough to do anything, wasn’t capable of doing anything. I know she just cares but it’s really hard to grow up if your mother won’t let you.
After that argument I began packing. It took me three rounds to get the right weight/amount of clothes I thought would be best. In between that, I chatted with John and entertained Falxie, who came over. Paul was supposed to come over too, but his timing was really bad and I had to ask him not to come around bec at that time mum was still screaming at me. The next morning, in a slight panic – bec Nene said my suitcase was 42 kilos, exag! – I took out some stuff, which I later realized I didn’t need to, like a miniskirt and a blouse, like 2 items will make a difference! I did not sleep well and I slept late (like around 1) so my morning wasn’t so good either.
I left a bit later than the boys – JR & Lance from my team - to get to the airport, they were already there by the time I got there. Mum came along, per usual and I had to wait for her before I could go as well. We checked in with TL Edric – to make sure the baggage wasn’t overweight, with me transferring some stuff into JR’s maleta - but unfortunately not early enough to get first class seats. We ended up grabbing a bite to eat at the Nescafe Café, where everything was really priced outrageously, including JR’s mini-stopesque Iced coffee something or the other. Then we hung around waiting for friends of Lance’s from the time he used to work in Terminal 2. We got some mabuhay magazines and checked out Lance’s old office. He wanted us to meet his old boss but he wasn’t coming in till our boarding time, so we had to leave, else we might have gotten to hang out at the mabuhay lounge or maybe even an upgrade. :)
While we were boarding I ran into Edsel, a good friend of mine from college, now a lawyer who was going to stay at Waterfront hotel. We made arrangements to meet up. True to form, we took a lot of pictures using JR’s digicam. Later on I discovered it was JR’s first plane ride ever, which I sort of surmised as it explained why he kept taking pictures of everything. It was cute, actually.
When we got to the airport, we fought for our luggage and made our way out to meet with the HR peeps – Mommy Heather, Malou, Rolly, Tessa and some other people I didn’t know – and we got divided into girls and boys. Girls went to Bus #1 and Boys went to Bus #2. We all pretty much resolved to work out a way to get us to share together, since we’re team mates and it will be easier to turnover once JP & Grae get over here but it turned out to be harder than expected. In the meantime, we said we’d stick it out and then see what we could do once we were settled.
Our bus went to Ayala Center first, then Keppel, then our hotel, Metro Park. By the time we were moving from Keppel to Metro Park the boys had already called twice and were texting frantically. Apparently their hotel was actually a “dorm room” straight out of a disastrous sitcom. As they told me later, they drove through the industrial park and were initially very impressed. Then they came to a squatters area, which they thought they were just going to pass by, but they ended up stopping somewhere there. When they got down, the first thing that my boss Alvs apparently said was, “Lars will never live here.” And if its anything like what they’ve described, I never will.
They rolled their suticases down some bumpy muddly walkway and in consequence had to carry them so as not to tack mud in. Lance & JR ended up in a triple sharing room where the beds were all next to each other and the shower was right on top of the toilet so that you could “take a crap and a shower at the same time”, as JR said. JR also took the bed next to the wall because the other 2 beds faced each other, meaning that Lance and Pong (arriving on Sunday) would stare at each other in their sleep, causing lance to remark: “Paano ba yan, sasabihin ni Pong, Ang guwapo ni Lance pag natutulog siya. Ako naman, sasabihin ko, Ang guwapo ni Pong pag natutulog siya! Hello!” They also had nothing but the beds and the shower-toilet.
Naturally, after their frantic phone calls we were somewhat apprehensive about where we were ending up. I got a 2 bedroom condotel with Maui, Kay from QA and a TL from Bulldog who wasn’t arriving until later. Our room had a tv, fridge, dining room table, bathroom with shower and bathroom with a tub, plus a terrace where we had a view of… goats… but a view just the same. We decided we got the better end of the deal. The boys came over right away and regaled us with their horror stories of their “dormotel”. I then went off to lunch while Maui went to get a foot spa. We walked down the road and ended up in this restaurant that served us crispy pata that was stringy and chewy. I asked Lance, “why does the crispy pata taste like that?” and he replied, “It’s because the pigs are different here.” When I asked why again he explained that, “It’s because they’re older.” At which point I stopped eating. JR described the experience as eating “microwaved crispy pata.”
After our truly olats meal we made our way to a mini mall further down the road where we found our salvation - Mc Donald’s. Why, I ask, is it always fast food that saves the day? It isn’t healthy or particularly nutritious, but it’s filling and when you’ve had a truly bad day which has left you tired and hungry, it can make you happy. I got a double cheeseburger & a mc spaghetti, JR got twister fries & Lance got a sundae. (Having eaten the least amount of crispy pata, I naturally got the biggest meal). We also wandered around Watson’s where I got toiletries, including bath milk bec I refused to use soap as in meant having to put it down on the bathroom sink without a dish. I didn’t trust the cleanliness.
When we got home, I decided to take a nap only to discover that the sheets in 3 of the 4 beds in the suite were dirty and/or had holes and that the tv wasn’t working. After repeated attempts to fix the tv the guy finally disappeared. There was apparently, some sort of code to the tv that wasn’t working and it couldn’t be manually used because the channel button wasn’t working. I called to request for an extra pillow and for housekeeping to change the sheets. About 20-30 minutes later they hadn’t shown up. I was about to make a follow up call when I heard a voice outside, belonging to what appeared to be an Italian guest, who was asking the recepitonist, who is, I believe the sole person who can speak English in the mornings, why the furniture, with cracked upholstery wasn’t changed yet. She replied they had no budget. Wonderful. I noticed that housekeeping was also making its rounds so I walked right up to them and said I was having the sheets changed. I have no idea why it took five of them to change each bed, one at a time, with smiles on their faces. The whole process – including the part where the guy finally showed up and changed the tv – took about 2 and a half hours.
As I lay down and contemplated my existence, I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell it was that I had gotten myself into. Granted, we were the pioneer team again and yes, we shouldn’t expect everything to be ironed out, but God, all I wanted it was for it to be clean. Is that too much to expect? A clean room? I have not stopped sneezing due to my allergies. As I write this, the day after, I still haven’t stopped and there’s a huge pile of tissues to go with it. I ended up on the phone describing my experience to both Jason & John who alternatively laughed and commiserated with me. Seriously I never thought I would say it but at that point I just wanted to get home, if nothing else just so that I could lie down on my own, lovely, clean bed.
After relaxing (but not sleeping) for a bit, Lance & JR came by so that we could go have dinner. Only JR was able to take a little nap. We ended up going to SM where I bought a towel – 80 pesos on sale – and found the poncho that was completely out of stock in Manila in Bayo. I got it. In Fuschia. We had dinner at Rai Rai Ken, and then I headed off home while the boys went out to gimmick. Maui was home when I got there and we sat up a bit watching tv and chatting before we knocked out.
This morning I found out that the night life was dead, JR went to work and Lance is currently filling up some sort of feedback form on their place. Maui and I are about to go have breakfast, and all I have to say is Thank God for friends, tissue, my laptop (despite the lack of internet) and the fact that food is freaking cheap here.
I am not sure if USB keys are allowed in this internet cafe but what the hell, here I am. They don't have a picture uploader so pics will follow... soon!
Cebu! Cebu? Cebu…
Honestly my Cebu Trip began the night before. After returning home from watching the disastrous “Alexander” – complete with middle agend ladies in the background, “Ay, si Alexander bakla!” – I set out with the mountainous task of packing. Then my mother came home. At this point I had done nothing so far. She then said, come here I want to talk. At which point she asked where I was staying, which I really, honestly did not know, I said, tired of the whole thing since she’d been bugging me about it forever, You know what, I don’t really know, I’ll tell you when I get there tomorrow. And then she asked me to give her the names of my team mates, and she was really demanding about it. So, feeling like I was stuck in a conversation that should have been done when I was about, oh, seventeen, I said I’m not going to tell you. In fairness, as per usual I would have given her at least a name and a number anyway just to pacify her but when she asked I was just like, are we doing this again? Like a repeat performance of my trip to La Luz, here we went again with the old argument that made me feel like I wasn’t old enough to do anything, wasn’t capable of doing anything. I know she just cares but it’s really hard to grow up if your mother won’t let you.
After that argument I began packing. It took me three rounds to get the right weight/amount of clothes I thought would be best. In between that, I chatted with John and entertained Falxie, who came over. Paul was supposed to come over too, but his timing was really bad and I had to ask him not to come around bec at that time mum was still screaming at me. The next morning, in a slight panic – bec Nene said my suitcase was 42 kilos, exag! – I took out some stuff, which I later realized I didn’t need to, like a miniskirt and a blouse, like 2 items will make a difference! I did not sleep well and I slept late (like around 1) so my morning wasn’t so good either.
I left a bit later than the boys – JR & Lance from my team - to get to the airport, they were already there by the time I got there. Mum came along, per usual and I had to wait for her before I could go as well. We checked in with TL Edric – to make sure the baggage wasn’t overweight, with me transferring some stuff into JR’s maleta - but unfortunately not early enough to get first class seats. We ended up grabbing a bite to eat at the Nescafe Café, where everything was really priced outrageously, including JR’s mini-stopesque Iced coffee something or the other. Then we hung around waiting for friends of Lance’s from the time he used to work in Terminal 2. We got some mabuhay magazines and checked out Lance’s old office. He wanted us to meet his old boss but he wasn’t coming in till our boarding time, so we had to leave, else we might have gotten to hang out at the mabuhay lounge or maybe even an upgrade. :)
While we were boarding I ran into Edsel, a good friend of mine from college, now a lawyer who was going to stay at Waterfront hotel. We made arrangements to meet up. True to form, we took a lot of pictures using JR’s digicam. Later on I discovered it was JR’s first plane ride ever, which I sort of surmised as it explained why he kept taking pictures of everything. It was cute, actually.
When we got to the airport, we fought for our luggage and made our way out to meet with the HR peeps – Mommy Heather, Malou, Rolly, Tessa and some other people I didn’t know – and we got divided into girls and boys. Girls went to Bus #1 and Boys went to Bus #2. We all pretty much resolved to work out a way to get us to share together, since we’re team mates and it will be easier to turnover once JP & Grae get over here but it turned out to be harder than expected. In the meantime, we said we’d stick it out and then see what we could do once we were settled.
Our bus went to Ayala Center first, then Keppel, then our hotel, Metro Park. By the time we were moving from Keppel to Metro Park the boys had already called twice and were texting frantically. Apparently their hotel was actually a “dorm room” straight out of a disastrous sitcom. As they told me later, they drove through the industrial park and were initially very impressed. Then they came to a squatters area, which they thought they were just going to pass by, but they ended up stopping somewhere there. When they got down, the first thing that my boss Alvs apparently said was, “Lars will never live here.” And if its anything like what they’ve described, I never will.
They rolled their suticases down some bumpy muddly walkway and in consequence had to carry them so as not to tack mud in. Lance & JR ended up in a triple sharing room where the beds were all next to each other and the shower was right on top of the toilet so that you could “take a crap and a shower at the same time”, as JR said. JR also took the bed next to the wall because the other 2 beds faced each other, meaning that Lance and Pong (arriving on Sunday) would stare at each other in their sleep, causing lance to remark: “Paano ba yan, sasabihin ni Pong, Ang guwapo ni Lance pag natutulog siya. Ako naman, sasabihin ko, Ang guwapo ni Pong pag natutulog siya! Hello!” They also had nothing but the beds and the shower-toilet.
Naturally, after their frantic phone calls we were somewhat apprehensive about where we were ending up. I got a 2 bedroom condotel with Maui, Kay from QA and a TL from Bulldog who wasn’t arriving until later. Our room had a tv, fridge, dining room table, bathroom with shower and bathroom with a tub, plus a terrace where we had a view of… goats… but a view just the same. We decided we got the better end of the deal. The boys came over right away and regaled us with their horror stories of their “dormotel”. I then went off to lunch while Maui went to get a foot spa. We walked down the road and ended up in this restaurant that served us crispy pata that was stringy and chewy. I asked Lance, “why does the crispy pata taste like that?” and he replied, “It’s because the pigs are different here.” When I asked why again he explained that, “It’s because they’re older.” At which point I stopped eating. JR described the experience as eating “microwaved crispy pata.”
After our truly olats meal we made our way to a mini mall further down the road where we found our salvation - Mc Donald’s. Why, I ask, is it always fast food that saves the day? It isn’t healthy or particularly nutritious, but it’s filling and when you’ve had a truly bad day which has left you tired and hungry, it can make you happy. I got a double cheeseburger & a mc spaghetti, JR got twister fries & Lance got a sundae. (Having eaten the least amount of crispy pata, I naturally got the biggest meal). We also wandered around Watson’s where I got toiletries, including bath milk bec I refused to use soap as in meant having to put it down on the bathroom sink without a dish. I didn’t trust the cleanliness.
When we got home, I decided to take a nap only to discover that the sheets in 3 of the 4 beds in the suite were dirty and/or had holes and that the tv wasn’t working. After repeated attempts to fix the tv the guy finally disappeared. There was apparently, some sort of code to the tv that wasn’t working and it couldn’t be manually used because the channel button wasn’t working. I called to request for an extra pillow and for housekeeping to change the sheets. About 20-30 minutes later they hadn’t shown up. I was about to make a follow up call when I heard a voice outside, belonging to what appeared to be an Italian guest, who was asking the recepitonist, who is, I believe the sole person who can speak English in the mornings, why the furniture, with cracked upholstery wasn’t changed yet. She replied they had no budget. Wonderful. I noticed that housekeeping was also making its rounds so I walked right up to them and said I was having the sheets changed. I have no idea why it took five of them to change each bed, one at a time, with smiles on their faces. The whole process – including the part where the guy finally showed up and changed the tv – took about 2 and a half hours.
As I lay down and contemplated my existence, I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell it was that I had gotten myself into. Granted, we were the pioneer team again and yes, we shouldn’t expect everything to be ironed out, but God, all I wanted it was for it to be clean. Is that too much to expect? A clean room? I have not stopped sneezing due to my allergies. As I write this, the day after, I still haven’t stopped and there’s a huge pile of tissues to go with it. I ended up on the phone describing my experience to both Jason & John who alternatively laughed and commiserated with me. Seriously I never thought I would say it but at that point I just wanted to get home, if nothing else just so that I could lie down on my own, lovely, clean bed.
After relaxing (but not sleeping) for a bit, Lance & JR came by so that we could go have dinner. Only JR was able to take a little nap. We ended up going to SM where I bought a towel – 80 pesos on sale – and found the poncho that was completely out of stock in Manila in Bayo. I got it. In Fuschia. We had dinner at Rai Rai Ken, and then I headed off home while the boys went out to gimmick. Maui was home when I got there and we sat up a bit watching tv and chatting before we knocked out.
This morning I found out that the night life was dead, JR went to work and Lance is currently filling up some sort of feedback form on their place. Maui and I are about to go have breakfast, and all I have to say is Thank God for friends, tissue, my laptop (despite the lack of internet) and the fact that food is freaking cheap here.
I am not sure if USB keys are allowed in this internet cafe but what the hell, here I am. They don't have a picture uploader so pics will follow... soon!
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Phuket!
Phuket
** Pictures come after. Be sure to read the pre-phuket portion in previous entry beforehand!
Are We There Yet?
We arrived in Phuket mid afternoon, expecting to make it to the beach before sundown, since apparently, the beach was across the street from the hotel. Instead, we realized that we should have learned from experience: In Thailand, distances are never what they seem. Little pictures in maps do not indicate a short walk but a long one and five minutes is more likely to be twenty. But Im getting ahead of myself.
When we got to the airport, the first thing we did was pick up a bunch of maps at the airport before heading into town using the airport transfer that we had pre-arranged. The drive was rather idyllic at first, we were comparing the scenery to the ride up kennon road except that this was going to Baguio just to get to the beach. It seemed to take a just as long, too. After a while we began to wonder. We had decided to stay at Karon Beach, the middle of three beaches, (Patong & Kata being the other two) because it was more private and quiet. We figured we could just take a cab or something to Patong, where all the nightlife was if we needed. What we didn’t count on was that what looked like a tiny squiggly distance on the map was actually, well, miles away.
Almost two hours later we got to our hotel and checked in. Looking outside the window, the tiny squiggly map that said cross two small roads before we got to the beach turned into one main road and a bridge over a lagoon. The pool, down below, however, was magnificent, so after a short nap, we all went off to test the waters, so to speak.
Donna showed up at our door in a neon green bikini that only she could look great in, Jason & I, being brattito and brattita respectively, had taken the beds for ourselves and left John with the middle hospital type bed. In fairness, I did ask if he needed to switch. He said no. I was determined to share with them because as far as I knew, Donna snored and they didn’t. (In the end of course, Oliv got more sleep then I did – but that’s a different story for another time.) Our room contained the person who got up first (John) and the person who got up last (Jason). Both boys liked to sleep in. A lot. Although John never managed to do it and Jason always could. I was always the in between one who got up, went to the bathroom and woke up Jason. We always took naps in the afternoon. Unlike my previous trip where we had only a few hours rest – the boys seemed to not want to get up from those naps, although we all did eventually.
Anyway, by the time Donna knocked on our door, Jason and I had alternately slammed down the phone and the door in people’s faces. Donna was no exception. Cheerful even after Jason slammed the door into her face, she went down for a swim and we knocked out for a bit. Eventually, we made it down for a dip in the pool, discovering the jacuzzi, the ping pong table and the joys of people watching. Unfortunately all the foreign dudes came with significant others – much to Donna’s dismay – except for one blonde German dude who came with a friend who appeared to have dwarfism, who we mistook for a young adult with curly hair (who smoked) at first. There was also a spanish couple where the girl looked fantastic no matter what time of day (nice titties too).
We had dinner at the hotel, since we discovered it would be futile to walk anywhere given the distances, and Jason & Oliv had this wonderful lobster thermidor whilst I stuck it out with Good Old Spaghetti Bolognaise, for a change. We ended the day watching tv and knocking out, like good boys and girls, all ready for the day ahead.
Channeling my Inner Beyonce
Donna and John, of course, were the first ones up. By the time Jason & I had reached minimal coherency Donna had eaten breakfast and possibly rung us twice. Except that I think we were too knocked out to notice. Oliv sent Donna to knock on our door and John, realizing that neither of us would get up when he was already dressed, screamed “wait lang!” while he plodded to the door hurridly. By the time he got there, Donna was scurrying away in fear and Jason and I woke up to John muttering, “Crap. Now I have to apologize!”, slamming the door and scurrying after Donna. It was the first of many episodes, and a hilarious way to start the morning.
Before I continue I should explain a bit about John & Donna. John is a naturally quiet boy, and he is equally sarcastic and full of dry humor. Sometimes his comments are mistaken for something else and because he’s so quiet, people arent used to the way he speaks. He also has a tendency to clam up instead of expressing discomfort and he has trouble sleeping in foreign countries, leading to occasional crankiness and the tendency to be called “sungs”. Since both he and Donna were always up early, they inevitably ended up spending the most time together. Which left Donna to bear the brunt of most of his sungs-y moments and at first, to equally retailiate, in the form of JResque battles, mostly involving bringing up his bumbayness. (Donna’s original nemesis is JR, another team mate) In the end they learnt to co-exist peacefully (read: ignore each other).
Anyway, back to breakfast. We had the first of our many breakfast buffets with the usual bacon, pancakes, omelette, pad thai, thai rice, sausage, ham, bread, jam, etc. before trekking off to the beach, We discovered that to get there, we had to turn right, go around the lagoon for a bit, hit the canal and then cross a bridge to get there. It was all worth it though, the view was spectacular and we ended up renting four chairs for us to lounge in at the beach. I opted to use my sarong and lie down in full sight of the sun with my hard-to-find tanning lotion (everyone in the Philippines wants to be white!) with the goal of attaining that “Beyonce Glow”.
While we took dips in the ocean, Donna began what would turn out to be a routine walk down the beach to people watch (read: check out them farang dudes). Given the distance, it turned out to be very very far and it often took her at least 20-30 minutes to get there and back again. In the meantime we discovered that the waves were perfect for bodyboarding and that goggles were useless in the murky water. We got sloshed and sloshed by waves and I must have swallowed a gallon of water at one point. Refusing to reinact my moment of glory in Balai, Batangas – where I tumbled and semi- flashed the entire resort’s populace (which then consisted of 2 people: Jason and a sleeping JP) - I was very careful to leap or duck when the next big wave came along.
At some point, John – who can’t swim either – called out, “There’s another wave, we better hurry” and I stopped, mid sentence and began dog paddling somewhat frantically to closer waters. Oliv swears there was a look of panic in my eyes and I probably will never live down the “lars hysterical panicked dog paddling moment” for as long as I live. In my defense, all I can say is, I trust my friends and if they say hurry, then well, I hurry. Unfortunately I should have considered the fact that the person who mentioned it couldn’t swim either. Never mind if we never went deep enough for his head to go underwater, him being six feet tall and all.
Donna headed back early to get a massage while the rest of us hung out some more, got darker (Oliv tried to hide from the sun, but to no avail), and had lunch at Tony’s café where they had the most amazing Beef Fried Rice and Grilled Garlic Shrimp. Yum yum. Most of our trip, as you may have guessed by now, is about food. (So much so that when I got back people started saying I gained weight. For the record, I haven’t. I am the same size as when I left. I just used to be better at hiding it… plus I’ve got that Beyonce glow now, y’know.) We took a lot of pictures of our food. We ate three full meals a day. We had fun eating. What can I say, we all like food…
We headed over to the pool after to crash and ended up exploring the “waterfront rooms” these are rooms that have little balconies where you step out and straight into the pool! They were great. We took pictures – again – and then headed up for a nap. We ended up watching Mary Kate & Ashley – our hotel had on ly 6 channels, with three of them in English – on HBO and suddenly, Jason & I found ourselves in desperate need of food. We ordered cheeseburgers which did not taste like them at all. They tasted like beef with spices and we kind of ditched them after awhile.
Them Chickens Rule.
That night, we went to Phuket Fantasea, which is technically a kitschy tourist place where the culmination of the evening is a Thai cultural performance complete with 28 elephants on stage. The evening begins with you being ushered through the amusement park that looks like the elephant version of enchanted kingdom with no rides, just games and souvenier shops. Then you go to the buffet hall, which comes with dinner, which was very, very good – you had a choiCe of thai, japanese, italian and chinese food. Jason and I, however, were too full of hamburger to make more than a halfhearted effort of an otherwise sumptous meal.
After chowing down on dessert –never say no to that!- Oliv and I hurried to get a ride on one of the elephants, which was one of our goals for the trip. We had missed riding elephants the first time and definitely refused to leave without riding one this time around. We got on our nice, friendly elephant and went on rounds, with John our official photographer, attempting to take our picture in various locations. After that lovely ride, we bought a bucket of elephant food and we all took turns feeding and taking pictures with the elephant. I thought the elephants were all cute and huggable and nice but I kind of felt sorry for them because they had to work in the show and give people rides but then again, in the wild it would probably be the same because elephants are used for logging and stuff so I guess they’re better taken care of there then they would be in some other places.
After some more time with the elephants and some souvenier shopping we headed into the “Palace of the Elephants” for the actual show. Before we got into the actual room, however, there were more tourist trappy picture taking opportunities. Donna and I had our picture taken with cute baby tigers, which was great but felt more like an assembly line. You sat down with the tiger while holding a bottle to feed it, they snapped a picture, you got up they gave the tiger to the next person. Kind of felt sorry for the tigers but I guess they were just happy to be fed.
The show was fun, there were chinese acrobats, thai dancers and all these other cultural things. The main story was of this prince, who came to save the land from evil and rescue his princess. My favorite part of the show was when he sang this song – which was kitschy and sounded like kundiman, complete with magtanim ay di biro clothing – and they were supposed to be in a farm so there were animals and these trained chickens came out and ran across the stage! They were really cool chickens and there was even one chicken that pretended to be lost and delayed in the end – unless of course it was really lost… (Them chickens rule.) The elephants also performed and they were cool too, along with the Thai cultural dancing and all the pyrotechnics.
Once we got home, John & Donna crashed right away while Oliv, Jason and I made the trek to 7-11 to get ourselves alcoholic beverages to drink. The only bar nearby looked rather sleazy and was already closed on the way back so we ended up with Bacardi coolers and Cranberry cruisers to take back to the hotel. We hung out in our balcony until around two, just drinking, smoking, talking and eating twisties (my favorite Australian snack, that surprisingly, they had there without my even knowing since everything was in Thai). Eventually we went to bed, ready for the next morning…
More of that Beyonce Glow
The next day Jason & I woke up late per usual – him later then everyone else – and by the time we were all done with breakfast John was already at the beach, lounging in his own little beach chair. We made our way to the beach again, where Donna began her solitary walk, with an extra agenda to find a good (and cheap) place to eat. She went farther this time and was gone almost an hour. Later on we discovered that she’d gone almost all the way to Karon town, which people usually take tuktuks to.
In the meantime, Oliv gave up her anti-sun policy and decided to get a tan since she already had the beginnings of it. John, having been there longer, was already darker then all of us and had spent most of his time bobbing along in the sea, this big stick all by himself in the midst of the ocean. We all spent most of the morning alternately tanning and dipping (like something cooking…) until John, Jason and I decided to take a walk. We made it some way down the beach - probably about half Donna’s walk, which shows how far she went – took pictures in the water, where I endeavored to ensure that I was not rolled about by the waves for what John calls my “Dyesabel” picture. When we got back we decided it was time to eat so we made our way to these carinderia type seats somewhere down the beach, near the road. We ate at Ying’s Café where they had absolutely marvelous rice. I had like some sort of thai rice (like bagoong rice at home) which was excellent. The servings were huge and the food was excellent especially considering it was cheap, too.
When we got back, John & Donna headed back to the hotel. John decided to get a massage. Donna had gotten one the day before and said that it was great, so he went to have his own done. Oliv, Jason & I stayed at the beach where they finally convinced me to have my hair done in cornrows with braids. I had only half my head done because I still wanted some of my hair loose – later on I realized I should have had all of it done, given that it took 40 minutes to shampoo – and it turned out to suit me very well. I liked the way I looked, complete with a complementing tan. It looked so nice I even got Oliv to get one – just one – on one side of her head. The ladies doing the braiding were also very nice and friendly.
After this adventure, we headed back to the hotel and lounged by the pool. We also arranged for us to be picked up and brought to Patong that night. Jason & Oliv had drinks at the pool bar while I lounged around and bobbed up and down with a ball in the water. We saw a cute brother and sister white couple that we thought orignally were going together. Unfortunately they were probably a hell of a lot younger than we were since they came with parents.
That night Jason got the time wrong – having forgotten to set his phone an hour back – and woke us all up too early for the trip to Patong. After an extra hour of rest we all got dressed and made our way there. Patong is the more familiar of the beaches in Phuket and is heavily commercialized with bars and restaurants all over the place. There are no hotels fronting the beach and to get there from a hotel you would have to pass through the commercial areas with main roads in between. It confirmed that we had made the right decision by choosing to stay in Karon instead.
We had dinner at this Italian restaurant where the chef was really Italian and the food was really good. We had ravioli, pasta, killer four cheese pizza and some wine. The dude had been living in Phuket for a while and he had pictures of all these famours people he had met (just like our tour guide at Phuket Fantasea, who incidentally, could sing pinoy songs – he sang us dahil sa iyo on the bus, and he was great at it too!) who we didn’t quite recognize, except for this actress that I remember seeing in the movie Legend of Suriyothai as the bad guy.
We took a walk later on down the strip trying to find a decent bar but they all had either a) too loud 80s rock music, b) gyrating women that either didn’t look too hot or were really men (you could tell from the adam’s apples), c) middle aged or older white men or d) all of the above. So we ended up in an Irish pub next to Mc Donald’s, after passing several seafood restaurants with lobster and shrip on display, a bar that was featuring the Thai Elvis – who really sounded like him when he sang, a bar featuring the “manila machine”. Apparently Filipinos are very well known in Thailand for their singing, so they are always in hotels and stuff performing. They make good money. It made me wonder if I was the only filipino in the world who couldn’t really sing because if there are a lot of them out there, that means its cultural. Unfortunately it didn’t appear to run in my family.
Oliv, Donna & I had margaritas while the boys had beer, which I treated because my student visa pre-application was approved. After some drinks we headed over to Mc Donald’s to get a picture next to Ronald, who was posed like a Thai with his hands closed together in a sawasdee pose. We ended up in Watson’s, where I got some aftersun lotion and almost bought a david beckham book before we headed home on our last night in Phuket.
Lucky Me
I was the second to the last person at breakfast again. By the time I was done with breakfast and ready for a shower, Jason was making his way down for his daily bacon and pancakes. We packed, checked out and made our way to the airport leisurely. While waiting I found Douglas Coupland’s latest in the airport shop. Thinking I would find it in Bangkok, I didn’t purchase it. I never saw it again and in fact Im not even sure what the title is anymore. Given that he’s one of my favorite authors I should have just bought the damn thing.
Sat with the girls on the plane ride back. When we got to the airport we discovered that the agency had forgotten to send us someone to take care of our airport transfer. So we all took turns calling with our cellphones with Donna as our spokesperson trying to arrange for a pickup that we already paid for. By the third call Donna had become a customer service nightmare, although she was well within her rights. Unfortunately the poor Thai girl probably couldn’t understand her English. She requested for a call back and when the girl said it would be an international call, Donna said, “what do you think I’m doing?!?” and that was the end of that. In the meantime, we had lunch at a cheap chinese restaurant where for 60 baht I had some pork and noodles that tasted exactly like Lucky Me Pancit Canton. When the van finally arrived after about an hour, we made our way back to our hotel, which was called the Mandarin but not to be confused with the Mandarin Oriental was not anything like it. It was all right, as rooms go, but our triple sharing room consisted of us moving some tables around so that john (again) could get the hospital bed that later turned out to creak everytime he rolled over. (Initially since the beds were stuck together we thought that was it, with Jason having to sleep in the bed crack, but fortunately they brought the bed in.) With bed’s creaking and my “rosary bead sounding” hair clicking – my cornrows had beads at the end” – Im not surprised that John didn’t get much sleep that night. Jason, of course, slept like the dead and I honestly thought that I was the only one who could hear the beads… apparently not.
In Search of Great Whites and Real Women
After some rest, we went to Khao San Road for Dinner. We went to an old favorite, Tom Yung Kum, where we had the best Tom Yum Soup ( a Thai favorite!), killer crab rice, and a lot of other things. John & Donna each had a milkshake which looked really good. We also went up and down Khao San, just people watching. We saw all these white people getting fake dreads and Oliv, Jason and I all bought the same shirt in different colors and sizes. We ended up in another Irish pub where they almost wouldn’t let us in! They asked for Jason’s ID first and almost wouldn’t let him go. Given that fake ids are being sold outside, it was understandable. Then again, why would anyone want to fake a Philippine license? Jason had to tell them he was 26, while they spent some time computing. Once they saw my ID, equally the same they must have figured that there couldn’t be two of us faking this, so they let all of us in.
We ended up splitting a bottle of Bailey’s, which was Donna’s first attempt at drinking it. She enjoyed it a whole lot. The music was pretty good, they played things that were modern and that we knew. Even the funny drunk white dude in front of us didn’t deter our evening. While drinking, I watched one of the Premiership games on tv. I have probably not watched as much football as I have except in Irish Pubs in Thailand. There’s an irony in that somewhere.
The whole night we kept seeing really pretty girls that turned out to be men – so much so that the boys stopped looking . The creepiest was this girl who was as tall as John in a really nice white halter with a huge adam’s apple who picked up this guy in a bar right in front of us. So much for hot chicks. We headed home soon after that. After we got there, Donna knocked out immediately – possibly due to the Bailey’s – while we all took showers and I watched a fun German movie about former anarchists who had one of their old bombs explode and the police were all tracking them down now that they had normal lives. There was also mild intermission while I called JP to tell him to fix things at work – mildly screaming the whole time of course – because I was kind of getting bothered by work. After that we all knocked out.
** Pictures come after. Be sure to read the pre-phuket portion in previous entry beforehand!
Are We There Yet?
We arrived in Phuket mid afternoon, expecting to make it to the beach before sundown, since apparently, the beach was across the street from the hotel. Instead, we realized that we should have learned from experience: In Thailand, distances are never what they seem. Little pictures in maps do not indicate a short walk but a long one and five minutes is more likely to be twenty. But Im getting ahead of myself.
When we got to the airport, the first thing we did was pick up a bunch of maps at the airport before heading into town using the airport transfer that we had pre-arranged. The drive was rather idyllic at first, we were comparing the scenery to the ride up kennon road except that this was going to Baguio just to get to the beach. It seemed to take a just as long, too. After a while we began to wonder. We had decided to stay at Karon Beach, the middle of three beaches, (Patong & Kata being the other two) because it was more private and quiet. We figured we could just take a cab or something to Patong, where all the nightlife was if we needed. What we didn’t count on was that what looked like a tiny squiggly distance on the map was actually, well, miles away.
Almost two hours later we got to our hotel and checked in. Looking outside the window, the tiny squiggly map that said cross two small roads before we got to the beach turned into one main road and a bridge over a lagoon. The pool, down below, however, was magnificent, so after a short nap, we all went off to test the waters, so to speak.
Donna showed up at our door in a neon green bikini that only she could look great in, Jason & I, being brattito and brattita respectively, had taken the beds for ourselves and left John with the middle hospital type bed. In fairness, I did ask if he needed to switch. He said no. I was determined to share with them because as far as I knew, Donna snored and they didn’t. (In the end of course, Oliv got more sleep then I did – but that’s a different story for another time.) Our room contained the person who got up first (John) and the person who got up last (Jason). Both boys liked to sleep in. A lot. Although John never managed to do it and Jason always could. I was always the in between one who got up, went to the bathroom and woke up Jason. We always took naps in the afternoon. Unlike my previous trip where we had only a few hours rest – the boys seemed to not want to get up from those naps, although we all did eventually.
Anyway, by the time Donna knocked on our door, Jason and I had alternately slammed down the phone and the door in people’s faces. Donna was no exception. Cheerful even after Jason slammed the door into her face, she went down for a swim and we knocked out for a bit. Eventually, we made it down for a dip in the pool, discovering the jacuzzi, the ping pong table and the joys of people watching. Unfortunately all the foreign dudes came with significant others – much to Donna’s dismay – except for one blonde German dude who came with a friend who appeared to have dwarfism, who we mistook for a young adult with curly hair (who smoked) at first. There was also a spanish couple where the girl looked fantastic no matter what time of day (nice titties too).
We had dinner at the hotel, since we discovered it would be futile to walk anywhere given the distances, and Jason & Oliv had this wonderful lobster thermidor whilst I stuck it out with Good Old Spaghetti Bolognaise, for a change. We ended the day watching tv and knocking out, like good boys and girls, all ready for the day ahead.
Channeling my Inner Beyonce
Donna and John, of course, were the first ones up. By the time Jason & I had reached minimal coherency Donna had eaten breakfast and possibly rung us twice. Except that I think we were too knocked out to notice. Oliv sent Donna to knock on our door and John, realizing that neither of us would get up when he was already dressed, screamed “wait lang!” while he plodded to the door hurridly. By the time he got there, Donna was scurrying away in fear and Jason and I woke up to John muttering, “Crap. Now I have to apologize!”, slamming the door and scurrying after Donna. It was the first of many episodes, and a hilarious way to start the morning.
Before I continue I should explain a bit about John & Donna. John is a naturally quiet boy, and he is equally sarcastic and full of dry humor. Sometimes his comments are mistaken for something else and because he’s so quiet, people arent used to the way he speaks. He also has a tendency to clam up instead of expressing discomfort and he has trouble sleeping in foreign countries, leading to occasional crankiness and the tendency to be called “sungs”. Since both he and Donna were always up early, they inevitably ended up spending the most time together. Which left Donna to bear the brunt of most of his sungs-y moments and at first, to equally retailiate, in the form of JResque battles, mostly involving bringing up his bumbayness. (Donna’s original nemesis is JR, another team mate) In the end they learnt to co-exist peacefully (read: ignore each other).
Anyway, back to breakfast. We had the first of our many breakfast buffets with the usual bacon, pancakes, omelette, pad thai, thai rice, sausage, ham, bread, jam, etc. before trekking off to the beach, We discovered that to get there, we had to turn right, go around the lagoon for a bit, hit the canal and then cross a bridge to get there. It was all worth it though, the view was spectacular and we ended up renting four chairs for us to lounge in at the beach. I opted to use my sarong and lie down in full sight of the sun with my hard-to-find tanning lotion (everyone in the Philippines wants to be white!) with the goal of attaining that “Beyonce Glow”.
While we took dips in the ocean, Donna began what would turn out to be a routine walk down the beach to people watch (read: check out them farang dudes). Given the distance, it turned out to be very very far and it often took her at least 20-30 minutes to get there and back again. In the meantime we discovered that the waves were perfect for bodyboarding and that goggles were useless in the murky water. We got sloshed and sloshed by waves and I must have swallowed a gallon of water at one point. Refusing to reinact my moment of glory in Balai, Batangas – where I tumbled and semi- flashed the entire resort’s populace (which then consisted of 2 people: Jason and a sleeping JP) - I was very careful to leap or duck when the next big wave came along.
At some point, John – who can’t swim either – called out, “There’s another wave, we better hurry” and I stopped, mid sentence and began dog paddling somewhat frantically to closer waters. Oliv swears there was a look of panic in my eyes and I probably will never live down the “lars hysterical panicked dog paddling moment” for as long as I live. In my defense, all I can say is, I trust my friends and if they say hurry, then well, I hurry. Unfortunately I should have considered the fact that the person who mentioned it couldn’t swim either. Never mind if we never went deep enough for his head to go underwater, him being six feet tall and all.
Donna headed back early to get a massage while the rest of us hung out some more, got darker (Oliv tried to hide from the sun, but to no avail), and had lunch at Tony’s café where they had the most amazing Beef Fried Rice and Grilled Garlic Shrimp. Yum yum. Most of our trip, as you may have guessed by now, is about food. (So much so that when I got back people started saying I gained weight. For the record, I haven’t. I am the same size as when I left. I just used to be better at hiding it… plus I’ve got that Beyonce glow now, y’know.) We took a lot of pictures of our food. We ate three full meals a day. We had fun eating. What can I say, we all like food…
We headed over to the pool after to crash and ended up exploring the “waterfront rooms” these are rooms that have little balconies where you step out and straight into the pool! They were great. We took pictures – again – and then headed up for a nap. We ended up watching Mary Kate & Ashley – our hotel had on ly 6 channels, with three of them in English – on HBO and suddenly, Jason & I found ourselves in desperate need of food. We ordered cheeseburgers which did not taste like them at all. They tasted like beef with spices and we kind of ditched them after awhile.
Them Chickens Rule.
That night, we went to Phuket Fantasea, which is technically a kitschy tourist place where the culmination of the evening is a Thai cultural performance complete with 28 elephants on stage. The evening begins with you being ushered through the amusement park that looks like the elephant version of enchanted kingdom with no rides, just games and souvenier shops. Then you go to the buffet hall, which comes with dinner, which was very, very good – you had a choiCe of thai, japanese, italian and chinese food. Jason and I, however, were too full of hamburger to make more than a halfhearted effort of an otherwise sumptous meal.
After chowing down on dessert –never say no to that!- Oliv and I hurried to get a ride on one of the elephants, which was one of our goals for the trip. We had missed riding elephants the first time and definitely refused to leave without riding one this time around. We got on our nice, friendly elephant and went on rounds, with John our official photographer, attempting to take our picture in various locations. After that lovely ride, we bought a bucket of elephant food and we all took turns feeding and taking pictures with the elephant. I thought the elephants were all cute and huggable and nice but I kind of felt sorry for them because they had to work in the show and give people rides but then again, in the wild it would probably be the same because elephants are used for logging and stuff so I guess they’re better taken care of there then they would be in some other places.
After some more time with the elephants and some souvenier shopping we headed into the “Palace of the Elephants” for the actual show. Before we got into the actual room, however, there were more tourist trappy picture taking opportunities. Donna and I had our picture taken with cute baby tigers, which was great but felt more like an assembly line. You sat down with the tiger while holding a bottle to feed it, they snapped a picture, you got up they gave the tiger to the next person. Kind of felt sorry for the tigers but I guess they were just happy to be fed.
The show was fun, there were chinese acrobats, thai dancers and all these other cultural things. The main story was of this prince, who came to save the land from evil and rescue his princess. My favorite part of the show was when he sang this song – which was kitschy and sounded like kundiman, complete with magtanim ay di biro clothing – and they were supposed to be in a farm so there were animals and these trained chickens came out and ran across the stage! They were really cool chickens and there was even one chicken that pretended to be lost and delayed in the end – unless of course it was really lost… (Them chickens rule.) The elephants also performed and they were cool too, along with the Thai cultural dancing and all the pyrotechnics.
Once we got home, John & Donna crashed right away while Oliv, Jason and I made the trek to 7-11 to get ourselves alcoholic beverages to drink. The only bar nearby looked rather sleazy and was already closed on the way back so we ended up with Bacardi coolers and Cranberry cruisers to take back to the hotel. We hung out in our balcony until around two, just drinking, smoking, talking and eating twisties (my favorite Australian snack, that surprisingly, they had there without my even knowing since everything was in Thai). Eventually we went to bed, ready for the next morning…
More of that Beyonce Glow
The next day Jason & I woke up late per usual – him later then everyone else – and by the time we were all done with breakfast John was already at the beach, lounging in his own little beach chair. We made our way to the beach again, where Donna began her solitary walk, with an extra agenda to find a good (and cheap) place to eat. She went farther this time and was gone almost an hour. Later on we discovered that she’d gone almost all the way to Karon town, which people usually take tuktuks to.
In the meantime, Oliv gave up her anti-sun policy and decided to get a tan since she already had the beginnings of it. John, having been there longer, was already darker then all of us and had spent most of his time bobbing along in the sea, this big stick all by himself in the midst of the ocean. We all spent most of the morning alternately tanning and dipping (like something cooking…) until John, Jason and I decided to take a walk. We made it some way down the beach - probably about half Donna’s walk, which shows how far she went – took pictures in the water, where I endeavored to ensure that I was not rolled about by the waves for what John calls my “Dyesabel” picture. When we got back we decided it was time to eat so we made our way to these carinderia type seats somewhere down the beach, near the road. We ate at Ying’s Café where they had absolutely marvelous rice. I had like some sort of thai rice (like bagoong rice at home) which was excellent. The servings were huge and the food was excellent especially considering it was cheap, too.
When we got back, John & Donna headed back to the hotel. John decided to get a massage. Donna had gotten one the day before and said that it was great, so he went to have his own done. Oliv, Jason & I stayed at the beach where they finally convinced me to have my hair done in cornrows with braids. I had only half my head done because I still wanted some of my hair loose – later on I realized I should have had all of it done, given that it took 40 minutes to shampoo – and it turned out to suit me very well. I liked the way I looked, complete with a complementing tan. It looked so nice I even got Oliv to get one – just one – on one side of her head. The ladies doing the braiding were also very nice and friendly.
After this adventure, we headed back to the hotel and lounged by the pool. We also arranged for us to be picked up and brought to Patong that night. Jason & Oliv had drinks at the pool bar while I lounged around and bobbed up and down with a ball in the water. We saw a cute brother and sister white couple that we thought orignally were going together. Unfortunately they were probably a hell of a lot younger than we were since they came with parents.
That night Jason got the time wrong – having forgotten to set his phone an hour back – and woke us all up too early for the trip to Patong. After an extra hour of rest we all got dressed and made our way there. Patong is the more familiar of the beaches in Phuket and is heavily commercialized with bars and restaurants all over the place. There are no hotels fronting the beach and to get there from a hotel you would have to pass through the commercial areas with main roads in between. It confirmed that we had made the right decision by choosing to stay in Karon instead.
We had dinner at this Italian restaurant where the chef was really Italian and the food was really good. We had ravioli, pasta, killer four cheese pizza and some wine. The dude had been living in Phuket for a while and he had pictures of all these famours people he had met (just like our tour guide at Phuket Fantasea, who incidentally, could sing pinoy songs – he sang us dahil sa iyo on the bus, and he was great at it too!) who we didn’t quite recognize, except for this actress that I remember seeing in the movie Legend of Suriyothai as the bad guy.
We took a walk later on down the strip trying to find a decent bar but they all had either a) too loud 80s rock music, b) gyrating women that either didn’t look too hot or were really men (you could tell from the adam’s apples), c) middle aged or older white men or d) all of the above. So we ended up in an Irish pub next to Mc Donald’s, after passing several seafood restaurants with lobster and shrip on display, a bar that was featuring the Thai Elvis – who really sounded like him when he sang, a bar featuring the “manila machine”. Apparently Filipinos are very well known in Thailand for their singing, so they are always in hotels and stuff performing. They make good money. It made me wonder if I was the only filipino in the world who couldn’t really sing because if there are a lot of them out there, that means its cultural. Unfortunately it didn’t appear to run in my family.
Oliv, Donna & I had margaritas while the boys had beer, which I treated because my student visa pre-application was approved. After some drinks we headed over to Mc Donald’s to get a picture next to Ronald, who was posed like a Thai with his hands closed together in a sawasdee pose. We ended up in Watson’s, where I got some aftersun lotion and almost bought a david beckham book before we headed home on our last night in Phuket.
Lucky Me
I was the second to the last person at breakfast again. By the time I was done with breakfast and ready for a shower, Jason was making his way down for his daily bacon and pancakes. We packed, checked out and made our way to the airport leisurely. While waiting I found Douglas Coupland’s latest in the airport shop. Thinking I would find it in Bangkok, I didn’t purchase it. I never saw it again and in fact Im not even sure what the title is anymore. Given that he’s one of my favorite authors I should have just bought the damn thing.
Sat with the girls on the plane ride back. When we got to the airport we discovered that the agency had forgotten to send us someone to take care of our airport transfer. So we all took turns calling with our cellphones with Donna as our spokesperson trying to arrange for a pickup that we already paid for. By the third call Donna had become a customer service nightmare, although she was well within her rights. Unfortunately the poor Thai girl probably couldn’t understand her English. She requested for a call back and when the girl said it would be an international call, Donna said, “what do you think I’m doing?!?” and that was the end of that. In the meantime, we had lunch at a cheap chinese restaurant where for 60 baht I had some pork and noodles that tasted exactly like Lucky Me Pancit Canton. When the van finally arrived after about an hour, we made our way back to our hotel, which was called the Mandarin but not to be confused with the Mandarin Oriental was not anything like it. It was all right, as rooms go, but our triple sharing room consisted of us moving some tables around so that john (again) could get the hospital bed that later turned out to creak everytime he rolled over. (Initially since the beds were stuck together we thought that was it, with Jason having to sleep in the bed crack, but fortunately they brought the bed in.) With bed’s creaking and my “rosary bead sounding” hair clicking – my cornrows had beads at the end” – Im not surprised that John didn’t get much sleep that night. Jason, of course, slept like the dead and I honestly thought that I was the only one who could hear the beads… apparently not.
In Search of Great Whites and Real Women
After some rest, we went to Khao San Road for Dinner. We went to an old favorite, Tom Yung Kum, where we had the best Tom Yum Soup ( a Thai favorite!), killer crab rice, and a lot of other things. John & Donna each had a milkshake which looked really good. We also went up and down Khao San, just people watching. We saw all these white people getting fake dreads and Oliv, Jason and I all bought the same shirt in different colors and sizes. We ended up in another Irish pub where they almost wouldn’t let us in! They asked for Jason’s ID first and almost wouldn’t let him go. Given that fake ids are being sold outside, it was understandable. Then again, why would anyone want to fake a Philippine license? Jason had to tell them he was 26, while they spent some time computing. Once they saw my ID, equally the same they must have figured that there couldn’t be two of us faking this, so they let all of us in.
We ended up splitting a bottle of Bailey’s, which was Donna’s first attempt at drinking it. She enjoyed it a whole lot. The music was pretty good, they played things that were modern and that we knew. Even the funny drunk white dude in front of us didn’t deter our evening. While drinking, I watched one of the Premiership games on tv. I have probably not watched as much football as I have except in Irish Pubs in Thailand. There’s an irony in that somewhere.
The whole night we kept seeing really pretty girls that turned out to be men – so much so that the boys stopped looking . The creepiest was this girl who was as tall as John in a really nice white halter with a huge adam’s apple who picked up this guy in a bar right in front of us. So much for hot chicks. We headed home soon after that. After we got there, Donna knocked out immediately – possibly due to the Bailey’s – while we all took showers and I watched a fun German movie about former anarchists who had one of their old bombs explode and the police were all tracking them down now that they had normal lives. There was also mild intermission while I called JP to tell him to fix things at work – mildly screaming the whole time of course – because I was kind of getting bothered by work. After that we all knocked out.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Sunday, October 31, 2004
And Finally...My Thai Blog
***Note: the pictures are too friggin big to add! I will have to shrink them first. Otherwise, email me and I will send you an invite to my webshots page, and you can check my online album out.
Cast of Characters
Oliv – trip mastermind and planner, queen of obssessive compulsiveness
Donna – the independent woman with a slight thing for farangs
John – perpetually silent but secretly capable of bouts of drama
Jason – looks like a twelve year old, drinks like a fish with an ulcer and sleeps like the dead
Me – brattita extraordinaire with perpetual wanderlust, the need to explore and a slight obsession with elephants
Disclaimer: for those who are reading this who are actual characters, no offense is intended. I have tried as much as possible to put a lighthearted humorous (but somewhat sarcastic – this is after all, me) touch to all that happened, in line with our agreement that “what happens in thailand, stays in thailand”. As such, no censored or classified discussions have been included in any of these entries. My apologies for any entry that may give offense to your persons.
Pratsa!
My trip officially began with a text message at 430pm on Sunday afternoon. It was Oliv, saying that she had just left the house for the airport. It came a minute before my mother knocked on the door asking why I hadnt started getting ready yet, given that I had to be in the airport at least two hours before the 720 flight to Bangkok. I took a quick shower, threw some last minute things together, strapped on my travel bag and headed off to the airport. I got there in fifteen minutes. By then, Jason was leaving his house, Oliv was rounding the corner, John was going through immigration and Donna, being the most excited apparently, was already waiting at the boarding gate.
For the first time in my life my mother did not wait for me to go through the ticket check before leaving. She just kissed me goodbye and went off. End of story. It was a pleasant surprise. Thanks, Mom.
I waited for Oliv before checking in so we got seats together. We waited for Jason at the smokers lounge where I had funny tasting tea and he bought us cigs for the trip (4 packs) since I was ending my 3 and a half month drought by smoking on vacation. (Note: I smoked an average of 4-6 sticks, 6 out of 8 days during the trip, and have not smoked since. Not bad.) After discussing the contents of our various suitcases and John’s apparent need to bring dress pants, dress shoes and a dress shirt – he ended up not packing any of them – we made our way to the boarding gate to join him and Donna.
Having had ample time to bond, both John & Donna decided that we should all have pseudo travel personalities and names to go with them. As such, John became Malcom, venture capitalist – even if he didn’t know what the heck he was a capitalist of – Donna became Tatiana, the starlet with a budding acting career (read: potetntial bold star) , Jason became Mike, freshman college student on sem break while I was Ana, his Ate in 3rd year college also on sem break. Oliv was our classmate, who was secretly a princess trying to experience a more down to earth life. (She thought of that one all on her own) Since she couldn’t think of a name I started calling her Princess Cariboo after the early nineties Phoebe Cates movie.
The flight was mostly uneventful. Since there were a lot of free seats, Jason and I took a row each and ended up curled with two seats each since the middle arm rest could not be lifted. I had my feet stuck out on the aisle and it kept getting bumped. By the time it occurred to me to switch around, it was time to land. Oliv had the best deal as she had 3 seats to herself since Jason & I moved. She got the window seat, too.
The first thing we heard when we landed was “Pratsa” which is probably Thai for announcement but it ran through all our heads the entire trip. Donna, in particular, does a very good impersonation of a Thai woman doing the flight landing and boarding announcements. Since we werent sure of the rates, we changed very little money. I changed about five dollars only while Oliv changed pesos and Jason withdrew from the atm via credit card. Since Jason had the most money, he ended up paying for most of everything for the first day and a half. Fortunately, Oliv is obsessive about details and the boys are very good accountants so everything we ever shared was well covered and reimbursed.
We took a 1000 baht van rental to the Oakwood Premiere Apartments where we would be crashing for the night with my friend Jake. Jake has lived in Thailand on and off for the past few years, both for his previous and current jobs. He works for IBM now and does some sort of sales combo checking on equipment or something like that for banks and stuff. Heck, Im not really sure what he does but the company pays for everything and he gets to hang out in cool places, so its all good. Jake took along his friend Rio to join us for dinner. Rio works on an oil rig alternatively for a full month then has a whole month off. His job (and Jake’s) really fascinated all of us because none of us had ever met anyone who worked in the middle of the ocean before – plus he’d been to Trinidad and Tobago.
Jake took us to what was supposed to be a German Beer Garden, except that everything was in Thai, and they served, of all things, crispy pata. It was here that we learnt our first lesson on Thai music. Apparently, Thais are fond of music that goes back to a bygone era: i.e. the 80s or even earlier. The words classic rock werent even enough to describe how far back the music went, even if the band did dress up like they came from the 80s. As Jake, who has hit the big 3-0 said, “Hindi ko panahon yan. Panahon ng tatay mo yan!!!” Any music that was recognizable was really old., and there were people dancing – if you could call it that – to whatever it was. And it was there that we learnt lesson number two: Thai people can’t dance. Of course, our theory is that it isnt entirely their fault. How can you dance to classic rock? All I remember from the Bon Jovi era was that we used to head bang. All the people in that bar looked as though they were attempting to channel trance combo Beyonce combo any aging rock star from the big hair period with their arms flailing about. It was as if they were going to take out their lighters and start swaying them around any second.
The food was really good – first of our food trip in Thailand – and everyone except me had a jug of beer or so from the three liter tube thingy that was positioned next to our table. We ate a whole darn lot and Jake & Rio spent the time educating us on the mysteries of Thai people and their weird dancing. The staff was very friendly though, and they took the time to explain the Thai songs to us. That, in essence is the best thing about Thailand. The people are very, very firendly and very, very helpful. Their english sucks sometimes but they make up for it in effort. They are wonderful people, 80s music notwithstanding.
We ended the evening at Jake’s apartment, watching The Girl Next Door on DVD. Jason and Donna crashed on the couch, Jake, Oliv & I crashed on the bed, and John martyred himself by crashing on the floor. Personally I discovered two things: 1) Donna only snores when she’s tired and the tiredness is work related because we didn’t hear a peep from her the entire trip and 2) Jake snores. Pretty loudly.
The next morning we all went to have the Oakwood buffet breakfast. I conned Jake into paying the excess for my breakfast (I had only 200 baht after all) by promising him a Lord of the Rings DVD for Christmas, which I probably would have gotten him anyway. Jake and I have this thing where we get each other real DVDs for Christmas. Last year I got him To Have and Have Not off Amazon and he got me Pirates of the Caribbean with all the lovely special features. This year I think I’ll probably ask him to get me a Jamaica shirt and a shitload of indie films from the stall I never found in Chattuchak (Jakie are you reading this? :P). We all thoroughly enjoyed the breakfast, Donna alone had 6 servings (that’s plates not pieces) of bacon. John skipped breakfast to take a nap and the rest of us lounged about while Jake got ready to leave for Manila. His flight was at least two hours ahead of ours so he left way before we even got our shit together.
After one final picture (warning: we took pictures everywhere, like the camera whores that we were) we split up to take cabs to the airport for our flight to Phuket. Oliv & Donna’s cab driver spoke better English and was a bit smarter than ours. We had been informed that Air Asia was an international flight, and that we should get ourselves to Bangkok International Airport. Oliv and Donna’s cab driver conferred with the guards and they found out that flights to Phuket were domestic, so they ended up in the right airport while Jason, John & I were stuck in the international airport. We were advised repeatedly to take a cab but somehow we discovered there was a connecting walkway so we attempted to make our way to domestic, traversing through all 700 meters with John and his giant-has no wheels-suitcase.
It was like a sitcom gone wrong, to say the least. Prior to leaving we had all weighed in our suitcases and John’s by far was the heaviest, due to size alone. It was built for long term trips to america and since he may have packed two of everything it was extra heavy. He got himself a cart and it was fine… until we got to the part where the carts werent allowed anymore. Fortunately we bumped into this dude who was driving one of those cart things that could have passengers sitting on them, so he loaded up our luggage and the rest of us and we made it through the second half of the journey – including a really, really long tunnel – without too much effort.
I don’t think we wouldve made it otherwise. As it was, John was starving by the end and ran off to grab a hamburger while the rest of us waited for the japanese food at a sitdown restaurant. Donna & I had yummy chocolate drinks while Oliv & Jason pondered the strangeness of their dry teriyaki. We finished the meal, took pictures as usual and headed off to check in. We spent the waiting period discussing the merits of hanging out in Phi Phi or Pha Nga (Phi Phi won) and since it was first come first serve seating, rushed to get to the head of the line. We got pretty good seats and then off we were to Phuket, for the real start of our adventure.
Cast of Characters
Oliv – trip mastermind and planner, queen of obssessive compulsiveness
Donna – the independent woman with a slight thing for farangs
John – perpetually silent but secretly capable of bouts of drama
Jason – looks like a twelve year old, drinks like a fish with an ulcer and sleeps like the dead
Me – brattita extraordinaire with perpetual wanderlust, the need to explore and a slight obsession with elephants
Disclaimer: for those who are reading this who are actual characters, no offense is intended. I have tried as much as possible to put a lighthearted humorous (but somewhat sarcastic – this is after all, me) touch to all that happened, in line with our agreement that “what happens in thailand, stays in thailand”. As such, no censored or classified discussions have been included in any of these entries. My apologies for any entry that may give offense to your persons.
Pratsa!
My trip officially began with a text message at 430pm on Sunday afternoon. It was Oliv, saying that she had just left the house for the airport. It came a minute before my mother knocked on the door asking why I hadnt started getting ready yet, given that I had to be in the airport at least two hours before the 720 flight to Bangkok. I took a quick shower, threw some last minute things together, strapped on my travel bag and headed off to the airport. I got there in fifteen minutes. By then, Jason was leaving his house, Oliv was rounding the corner, John was going through immigration and Donna, being the most excited apparently, was already waiting at the boarding gate.
For the first time in my life my mother did not wait for me to go through the ticket check before leaving. She just kissed me goodbye and went off. End of story. It was a pleasant surprise. Thanks, Mom.
I waited for Oliv before checking in so we got seats together. We waited for Jason at the smokers lounge where I had funny tasting tea and he bought us cigs for the trip (4 packs) since I was ending my 3 and a half month drought by smoking on vacation. (Note: I smoked an average of 4-6 sticks, 6 out of 8 days during the trip, and have not smoked since. Not bad.) After discussing the contents of our various suitcases and John’s apparent need to bring dress pants, dress shoes and a dress shirt – he ended up not packing any of them – we made our way to the boarding gate to join him and Donna.
Having had ample time to bond, both John & Donna decided that we should all have pseudo travel personalities and names to go with them. As such, John became Malcom, venture capitalist – even if he didn’t know what the heck he was a capitalist of – Donna became Tatiana, the starlet with a budding acting career (read: potetntial bold star) , Jason became Mike, freshman college student on sem break while I was Ana, his Ate in 3rd year college also on sem break. Oliv was our classmate, who was secretly a princess trying to experience a more down to earth life. (She thought of that one all on her own) Since she couldn’t think of a name I started calling her Princess Cariboo after the early nineties Phoebe Cates movie.
The flight was mostly uneventful. Since there were a lot of free seats, Jason and I took a row each and ended up curled with two seats each since the middle arm rest could not be lifted. I had my feet stuck out on the aisle and it kept getting bumped. By the time it occurred to me to switch around, it was time to land. Oliv had the best deal as she had 3 seats to herself since Jason & I moved. She got the window seat, too.
The first thing we heard when we landed was “Pratsa” which is probably Thai for announcement but it ran through all our heads the entire trip. Donna, in particular, does a very good impersonation of a Thai woman doing the flight landing and boarding announcements. Since we werent sure of the rates, we changed very little money. I changed about five dollars only while Oliv changed pesos and Jason withdrew from the atm via credit card. Since Jason had the most money, he ended up paying for most of everything for the first day and a half. Fortunately, Oliv is obsessive about details and the boys are very good accountants so everything we ever shared was well covered and reimbursed.
We took a 1000 baht van rental to the Oakwood Premiere Apartments where we would be crashing for the night with my friend Jake. Jake has lived in Thailand on and off for the past few years, both for his previous and current jobs. He works for IBM now and does some sort of sales combo checking on equipment or something like that for banks and stuff. Heck, Im not really sure what he does but the company pays for everything and he gets to hang out in cool places, so its all good. Jake took along his friend Rio to join us for dinner. Rio works on an oil rig alternatively for a full month then has a whole month off. His job (and Jake’s) really fascinated all of us because none of us had ever met anyone who worked in the middle of the ocean before – plus he’d been to Trinidad and Tobago.
Jake took us to what was supposed to be a German Beer Garden, except that everything was in Thai, and they served, of all things, crispy pata. It was here that we learnt our first lesson on Thai music. Apparently, Thais are fond of music that goes back to a bygone era: i.e. the 80s or even earlier. The words classic rock werent even enough to describe how far back the music went, even if the band did dress up like they came from the 80s. As Jake, who has hit the big 3-0 said, “Hindi ko panahon yan. Panahon ng tatay mo yan!!!” Any music that was recognizable was really old., and there were people dancing – if you could call it that – to whatever it was. And it was there that we learnt lesson number two: Thai people can’t dance. Of course, our theory is that it isnt entirely their fault. How can you dance to classic rock? All I remember from the Bon Jovi era was that we used to head bang. All the people in that bar looked as though they were attempting to channel trance combo Beyonce combo any aging rock star from the big hair period with their arms flailing about. It was as if they were going to take out their lighters and start swaying them around any second.
The food was really good – first of our food trip in Thailand – and everyone except me had a jug of beer or so from the three liter tube thingy that was positioned next to our table. We ate a whole darn lot and Jake & Rio spent the time educating us on the mysteries of Thai people and their weird dancing. The staff was very friendly though, and they took the time to explain the Thai songs to us. That, in essence is the best thing about Thailand. The people are very, very firendly and very, very helpful. Their english sucks sometimes but they make up for it in effort. They are wonderful people, 80s music notwithstanding.
We ended the evening at Jake’s apartment, watching The Girl Next Door on DVD. Jason and Donna crashed on the couch, Jake, Oliv & I crashed on the bed, and John martyred himself by crashing on the floor. Personally I discovered two things: 1) Donna only snores when she’s tired and the tiredness is work related because we didn’t hear a peep from her the entire trip and 2) Jake snores. Pretty loudly.
The next morning we all went to have the Oakwood buffet breakfast. I conned Jake into paying the excess for my breakfast (I had only 200 baht after all) by promising him a Lord of the Rings DVD for Christmas, which I probably would have gotten him anyway. Jake and I have this thing where we get each other real DVDs for Christmas. Last year I got him To Have and Have Not off Amazon and he got me Pirates of the Caribbean with all the lovely special features. This year I think I’ll probably ask him to get me a Jamaica shirt and a shitload of indie films from the stall I never found in Chattuchak (Jakie are you reading this? :P). We all thoroughly enjoyed the breakfast, Donna alone had 6 servings (that’s plates not pieces) of bacon. John skipped breakfast to take a nap and the rest of us lounged about while Jake got ready to leave for Manila. His flight was at least two hours ahead of ours so he left way before we even got our shit together.
After one final picture (warning: we took pictures everywhere, like the camera whores that we were) we split up to take cabs to the airport for our flight to Phuket. Oliv & Donna’s cab driver spoke better English and was a bit smarter than ours. We had been informed that Air Asia was an international flight, and that we should get ourselves to Bangkok International Airport. Oliv and Donna’s cab driver conferred with the guards and they found out that flights to Phuket were domestic, so they ended up in the right airport while Jason, John & I were stuck in the international airport. We were advised repeatedly to take a cab but somehow we discovered there was a connecting walkway so we attempted to make our way to domestic, traversing through all 700 meters with John and his giant-has no wheels-suitcase.
It was like a sitcom gone wrong, to say the least. Prior to leaving we had all weighed in our suitcases and John’s by far was the heaviest, due to size alone. It was built for long term trips to america and since he may have packed two of everything it was extra heavy. He got himself a cart and it was fine… until we got to the part where the carts werent allowed anymore. Fortunately we bumped into this dude who was driving one of those cart things that could have passengers sitting on them, so he loaded up our luggage and the rest of us and we made it through the second half of the journey – including a really, really long tunnel – without too much effort.
I don’t think we wouldve made it otherwise. As it was, John was starving by the end and ran off to grab a hamburger while the rest of us waited for the japanese food at a sitdown restaurant. Donna & I had yummy chocolate drinks while Oliv & Jason pondered the strangeness of their dry teriyaki. We finished the meal, took pictures as usual and headed off to check in. We spent the waiting period discussing the merits of hanging out in Phi Phi or Pha Nga (Phi Phi won) and since it was first come first serve seating, rushed to get to the head of the line. We got pretty good seats and then off we were to Phuket, for the real start of our adventure.
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