“Mabuhay” Philippines

Our flight out of Sydney was a bit of a pain. We had travelled from Brisbane to Sydney in order to connect with our departing flight, after having heard from our carrier that it didn’t make sense to adjust our itinerary such that we depart Australia from Brisbane directly. Only as we were doing our online check-in did we look closer at our itinerary and discover that our flight actually connected via Brisbane, and we could probably have skipped the second trip to Sydney altogether. Live and learn. During the stop in Brisbane we had to change aircrafts, which involved some delay, after we had already been delayed leaving Sydney, which put us about an hour behind schedule. In the end, they made up about half that time in the air, and got us in only a half-hour late. Seated behind us was a pair, one Australian and one American who chatted quite energetically. The Aussie overindulged in the complimentary bar service, and broke out in song somewhere over Paupa New Guinea before mercifully passing out on his neighbour. Both Christina and I just turned up our headphones and managed to ignore him. Snack, Lunch, Snack, couple of gin and tonics, then we were down.

Tito (Uncle) Lito was waiting for us at the airport, and conveyed us back to the family condo in the Bonifacio Global community of Metro Manila. Instead of the usual white-knuckle plunge into the sea of Manila traffic, our drive was quite sedate and the roads were empty. The Philippines, a Catholic country much less pansy-assed about religious political correctness than Canada, takes Easter Holy Week very seriously.

Christina and I had stayed in this condo during our last visit. Though it is currently occupied by Ate Rashel, Kuya Roy, and our new nephew Rafael, they are staying with family during Easter, and have generously allowed us to use it in their absence. Tito Lito took us out for dinner to Seafood Island, where we enjoyed some dishes of fish, eggplant, shrimps, and of course, rice. By the time we finished eating and had returned to the condo it was past ten o’clock, which in the Australian time put us past midnight, and both of us were quite tired. We slept like innocents, and woke late.

Since it is Holy Week here in celebration of Easter, nearly all shops are closed, and from our 35th floor apartment the streets appeared deserted. We spent the morning of our Good Friday reading the Easter portion of the book of John, and chatting about faith, religion, politics, and all manner of other serious things. We then left the condo and walked along the pedestrian mall of High Street. Excepting only a couple of restaurants, the mall was closed, but a church group had set up the walkway with Stations of the Cross that included readings and activities for each Station. We braved the +35° heat, and participated in the walk, which Christina was quite familiar with, but it was my first time.

Later, Ate Rashel was making fun of us for not having the smarts to wait until evening for the walk – saying that the heat was our pennance. After completing the walk we refreshed ourselves with some slush fruit drinks, then had lunch at a chinese restaurant. The rest of the day was spent in the apartment, relaxing and planning our stay here.