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| My brother on a plane. Better than the Samuel L. Jackson film. |
So I decided
to try out a travel blog for this three week trip I'm having in the
Philippines, I hope it works out! Perhaps I provide some context to this: my
brother was accepted to Med school in the Philippines, so my family decided to
take a vacation there. The beginning of the day was pretty hectic, since we
were packing all night. By the time we arrived at the airport, we were all
pretty exhausted. The plane ride gave us some much needed rest (but
unfortunately I didn't get too much sleep with my brother and mom poking me
from behind my seats.) It's been my first plane ride in five years, and my
first trip back to my homeland (well my primary one, as you can tell from the
blog I was born in Canada) in fifteen years. I wondered how everything would
change as I was on the plane.
Unfortunately, a fourteen hour
plane ride can get a bit dry, so I was restricted to reading my books and using
whatever I had brought in my backpack, which was almost exclusively books and
graphic novels. I ended up getting through a couple of them before trying to
doze off and listening to the music channels they had: I was excited to hear
that there was a station Delta had that had nothing but Chinese and Japanese
pop, so I jammed out to that for a couple of hours. However, I came to the sad
realization that it was the same 30 or so songs looped on repeat, so after the
third rotation I was forced to switch. On the other hand, there was an artist
spotlight that had Andy Grammer as its subject, so I thoroughly enjoyed that.
Plus, I began reading "A Beginner's Guide to Crossing Cultures", a
book about trying to reach out to multicultural audiences. I thought it was a
pretty good read from the material I finished, but I thought I could learn
firsthand from this trip.
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| Airplane food, what's up with that? |
So by the time we reached the
Japan airport (our stopover before heading to the Philippines), I was itching
to get out; however, the next flight was in an hour, and customs were a bit
long, so I didn't have time to explore the terminal. We went on the plane and
headed to Manila. When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was a bit of sweat
from my forehead; it was humid even inside the Manila terminal! When we went
out, it was a crowded and busy walk, with people everywhere and vendors with
their doors open, selling food on the streets. We saw our relatives outside the
terminal, tito (the Filipino term for uncle, which I will hereon use) Endong
and Boga, as well as our tita (aunt) Edith. Our cousins, Grace and Paolo
(related to tita Edith), were waiting as well, and when we came to their house,
Gian was there as well. Before we went to the house, we decided to eat at a
pretty awesome local restaurant: Chow King is a chain of Filipino noodle houses
that serves noodle soup as well as a variety of other things. I was ecstatic to
eat some beef ramen after getting off the plane.
Of course, it isn't the
Philippines without one trip to one of the most famous Filipino stores, Jolibee
(which is the Filipino equivalent to McDonalds)! And of course, it isn't a
signature Elisha Deogracias day without an awkward moment! If you know me, I'm
Filipino, but I was born in Canada; this has a side-effect of me not knowing
the native language of Tagalog. Yes, I can understand the language now, but I
have monumental difficulty speaking it. So while we were getting some food for
Gian (he was away), my dad told me to order him a float. Normally I wouldn't
mind, but I didn't know what to say. It got off to a bad start since a couple
of people cut me off in line because I didn't really say anything, and when I
got to the counter I froze. I just said what I wanted ("chocolate
float") and kept saying "opo" (yes, sir/ma'am) to whatever the
cashier said, only to find out that there was no ice cream available... and
after I paid. I went back to the table a bit embarrassed.
Anyways, we unpacked our stuff
and caught up with our cousins until the wee hours of the nighttime. I decided
to talk with my friend David on Facebook and headed to bed at around 3:30.
Hopefully I would be well rested for tomorrow...
