Getting up at the crack of dawn, and even earlier than the crack of dawn sometimes, has become a regular occurrence while in the Philippines. The commute is quicker and cooler with earlier departures. Yesterday morning was no exception though the rationale for the 5:30 a.m. departure was a little different. You see, because of the insane number of vehicles traveling the roads at any given moment, cars in Manila are "coded". On your "coded" day, their are rules about when you can and cannot travel in the city. Yesterday, Rowena's car was "coded" which wouldn't allow us to drive it in Manila after 7 a.m. until 10 a.m. but then only until 3 p.m. So, we were all packed up and ready to leave Robert's parents' house in Malolos by 5:30 a.m. Once again, we were loaded into 2 cars with all of our bags plus people in one and the "Manila Monday" bags in the other car with us. The plan was to head into the city to the F1 Hotel where our Ninong Vic (one of the godparents in our wedding and the man who first hired Robert to work in the Shangri-La Hotel in spite of his lack of English skills) generously reserved us a couple of rooms and was treating Robert, the kids and I to dinner. We figured that even though we'd be unlikely to check in at 7 a.m., we could likely leave our luggage and park the car and then tour around for the day. As we approached Quezon City, however, we were forced to stop at a service station as there was a problem with Rowena's car. Of course, the mechanic didn't start until 7 a.m. so we left Robert's dad with the car and the rest of us piled into Vher's car and headed to the Quezon Memorial Circle, a lovely park, where we ate our breakfast. It was fun to see the "aerobics" classes as well as the "gym equipment". Danica actually commented, "Mommy, this is a playground for adults". We took pictures which I will attach to a different post.
At 10 a.m. with the car all fixed and the "coding" period being over, Vher and Robert's dad returned to the park to pick us up and we headed into the city. Upon arrival at the hotel, Robert was promptly allowed to check into some very lovely rooms. We all went for a swim in the hotel's 3 pools before heading out for lunch. The kids were quite excited to see the "rides" at the Market!Market! mall were actually driveable instead of the lame up and down rides in our malls.
Later, after a nap and a freshen up, we met Ninong Vic at the hotel's restaurant for dinner. We had a delicious meal, prepared by an old friend/colleague of Robert's who is the head chef, and a nice visit. We realized it had been 8 years, at our wedding actually, that we last saw Vic as when we were in the Philippines 5 years ago, he was in Vancouver.
And bright and early this morning, we headed to the airport in the Philippines for a tearful goodbye with Robert's family. I got about 15 hugs from Aira; it actually made Danica jealous and she began to block Aira's hugs. We were slightly worried when the kids began fighting before we even departed Manila but the flight to Tokyo was fairly uneventful and now we wait to board the longest leg of the flight. Duncan was excited to find some unique Pokemon items in the stores here at the airport though so is trying to decide what he wants to purchase for himself as well as his friend, Lucas, who has a birthday party a few days after we return home.
I'm hoping the person in front of me refrains from reclining his/her seat on this next leg as the leg room is limited enough without someone in my lap like it was most of the way between Manila and Tokyo.... Photos will follow in another post. We will miss those of you we left this morning but are looking forward to seeing our friends and family back home too. See you soon.....
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