Day 1 - Leaving on a Jet Plane

Date: 15 May 06

woke up 0530. yawnz.

morning: went to changi airport via mrt wih nx.. reached there at 0715 to find ms nagging at us again. yeah.. need to tag the luggage but dun need to nag right?? sigh.

caught akanksha's and shaila's bfs, as well as ew's "new" gf. very sweet of all of them to send their respective lovers off. haha. saw some family members like jw's and zy's mums too.

check in, dilly-dally here and there and soon it was 0940.. time to fly off to manila! quite nice, i'd always love the GREAT check-in area of CA!!! Wowee. too bad open to transit passengers only, and we have only about 30 minutes to zip to our Gate.

Sat on philippine airlines PR502, with sisters YuTing and wenyi (wengz?) looking at some queen latifah movie. service was good, but no cards - why?

1320 hrs: touched down on manila - ninoy aquino airport. must say that while the airport is quite clean, their customs services isn't too efficient. lots of guards around, checks, and signs saying philippines is bird flu free, no bomb jokes, and quarantine your animals. oh yes they have this "footbath" thingy which is supposed to ward off bird flu but i dun see any pools of water around so i guess this sign must have been around for years and nobody bothered. or we were also speculating that the yucky carpets that welcomed us down into the customs areas IS the footbath. but well...

a slight pause at the transit area of the airport. quite sucky.. we explored the stores, mainly nothing.. janus got ripped off by a toilet cleaner for a tip of S$5 = 150 pesos!! tried their foot-long sausage, some donuts from chien hao and a enormous pao. was feeling quite sated after the entire feast..

took some pics too.. go see in my gallery. blogger doesn't really approve of uploading pics...

took a pic with grace and xiao ji ji...

SO CUTE RIGHT!! no, not grace. not the xiao ji ji. me. ahahhahhahahhahahah. i looked like i just booked out..

me, grace and janus' xiao ji ji. so cute right!!

touched down at bacalod about 1800-1900 hours.. flight was delayed. domestic flight so no airway bridge, u gotta use leg power on the tarmac. bacolod airport is quite pathetic, a one-storey building with a 2-3 storey control tower and a arrival area that looked like a cockfighting pit. collected our luggage while trying to fend off the porters.

went outside the building and welcoming us was this matronly woman, (Mama) Reima. (pronounced as re-mier). sat in 3 cars and we sped to bago city under cover of night.

the way to bago city was quite desolate by singaporean standards, like somewhere along old changi village road, only that we were going at 80-100 kmh. there were no lights around, no street lamps and our driver just blared the horn with all his might. seem like they drive like bats around here. it feels like those "which part of malaysia am i in" feeling.

reached bago city at about 2030 hours. the mayor and all the big shots of bago city were already there. so paiseh to walk in and found out that they've been waiting for us all along. after the formalities (speech, etc) we ate.. quite a feast. they had roast suckling pig and alot of other stuff (which i can't eat very much cos i was too full from my internal transit feast.. sigh) yeah ate a pittance only.

after the feast and all.. drove about short distance to TLDC (technology learning and development center) where it will be our quarters for the next 3 days.

tried to sleep in the 21-bed dormitory (with fans) but found it too hot and too many mozzies flying around, and i didn't have any DEET (mozzie repellent), so just retreated like gavin, wengz, yt, and Our Dear Leader did to the comfort of the aircon room. end of day 1.