Late to bed, early to rise, off to see the Hundred Isles. (Acutally it was the subterranean caves, but that didn't rhyme.)
After almost being
欺骗ed at the local Chicken Inato on our breakfast bill (to the staff: don't present a menu w/ "in-house" prices then later attempt to charge us extra for not being hotel guests), we shuttle-vanned to our motorized boats and headed for the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. Once ashore (note: Crocs sandals w/ Velcro straps and seawater don't mix) we had a brief trek before reaching the entrance to the cave, even encountering monkeys and small Komodo dragons along the way. Luckily we made it just before the boatmen were off to take their lunch break.
After donning the hardhats and smelly life-vests, we hopped on the boats --8 at a time-- to be paddled into the "Bat Cave" by
Kuya Jun-Jun. Manol sat port bow to handle our big flashlight while I sat aft for picture-taking duties. I'm guessing having indivual lamps attached to the hats would've proved expensive and impractical, as every time you turned your head you risk blinding your companions. As such the inside of the cave was enveloped in blackness, and the only natural sounds were made by birds and water droplets from the ceiling. At least you
hope it was water and not bats or birds crapping on you.
Kuya Jun Jun's eloquence in describing scientific and historical data on the cave wasn't so much marred by broken English as it was by his heavy accent. Just his luck the one foreign language he didn't have any familiar phrases to throw at us was Thai. On our way into the cave he shouted to his fellow boatman (who was exciting the cave w/ his charges) that his group was
Ong Baks. At least the movie reference wasn't bad.
Everything inside felt damp (as opposed to humid), and the air had a strange odor, but it wasn't
guano, thankfully. One interesting fact I learned was the
krrtt rtt sounds often heard in the caves were actually being made by swallows for echolocation, not bats, as the latter would do it w/ ultrasonics, w/c humans can't hear. Almost every picture I took of the cave ceiling crevices had lots of small bats staring back at me, their
guano streaming the walls like chocolate ripple on a marbled icing cake. (Mmm, digustingly tasty...)
Many of the rock formations were left
to the imagination as to how to describe them, be it the "Dinosaur," the Mama Mary, or even a somewhat prerequisite "Jesus Face." (At least it wasn't on a piece of toast this time.) We also saw a snake or two. The whole trip took 45 minutes, and you don't get to see the other end of the cave, at that would drag the boat into much stronger currents that head straight to the South China Sea. After we walked back to shore we had sandwiches for lunch, where I had peanut butter before finding (and missed out on) they brought cheeseburgers, too.
A bunch of us headed back to the city, while the group I was with decided to stay a little longer and hang out at the beach. Sand wasn't Boracay quality, but nice, nonetheless. The Thai group ordered beer and noodles, and even befriended a labrador that decided to hang out and sleep by our table. On our way back to the van I spotted a "hermaphrodog" Manol said he saw earlier, w/c made for a definitely weird endcap to My Day On the Beach.
Once we got back to the city we had less than an hour to freshen up before we were again whisked away for our big seafood dinner at the restaurant by the shore. Despite our rush we missed seeing the sunset by a hair. We had to fill up on the food as the Thai group were preparing to take us out for drinks afterwards, and we needed something to absorb all that alcohol.
At the bar/restaurant ((where Tan siblings Tiffany, Tammy and Earl joined us afterwards) I had my first taste of SanMig Premium, w/c differentiates itself from the original Pale Pilsen by the extra ingredient of hop (whatever that is). The Thais brought the Patron and a bottle of Johnny Walker, of which I also took my one (and only) shot. It was like drinking liquid plastic. Aside from billiards, drinking games and eating what looked (and tasted like) squid guts, a portion of the evening was also spent discussing Jazz's "lifestyle," w/ the big distinction between being gay and a "woman trapped in a man's body" being laid out (he/she's the latter).
As the drinking winded down some of us went to Tiffany's "family disco," w/c was located on the top floor of the Ram Tan building. The green laser light setup really spruced things up, but the real "highlight" were some of the dancing patrons, including an old lady that could give pre-Idol Paula Abdul a run for her money, and a skinny dude that danced in front of the wall-mounted electric fan in some weird attempt to keep himself from sweating up a storm. All of us managed to cut the rug as well, w/ brief Gatorade breaks for recharging. If honor of the late MJ Manol had the DJ play Billy Jean and Thriller. And just when I thought we were finally ready to call it a night (at least Manol did), the Tan sisters brought us to a local diner for some Pho noodles. They tasted sweet, almost as if these rice noodles were in mid-transformation from starch to sugar while drowning in pork stock. Some of their friends joined up halfway, where one of them traded sexual come-ons (and put downs) and did the David Blaine cigarette ash trick w/ Jazz. The former she "won," while the latter "got" her. Guess she didn't watch that "Street Magician's Secrets Revealed" TV special a few years back.
Last week was better, when Lola and I caught District 9. It's up there w/ Star Trek in terms of great sci-fi films, only the shaky camera movements in D9 had me wishing that I took some Bonamine beforehand. By comparison Cloverfield looked like it was shot w/ a tripod.
Aug. 26: Met up w/ Lyndon for one last hurrah dinner at Arya in Greenhills, where we were joined by his old officemate Amie, and later on David Lee and 'Orie Tong. Dennis Choi caught up in time for dessert of complimentary sliced watermelon. Robin Padilla (accompanied by Claire de la Fuente and friends) was also eating there when we arrived. Since David knew Arya's owner Shin Karami, he asked him to ask Robin (after we all finished eating, of course) to humor some of us starstruck (read: Amie) patrons for some pictures w/ him. Cool dude that he is he obliged. The picture on the upper left is dedicated to the Beijinoy Spice Boys.
Aug. 27: Met up w/ Dee at MoA to catch a screening of UP in 3D. After watching it I was convinced that my only hope in seeing 3D put to good use as a storytelling tool lay in Coraline, because as w/ Disney's previous CGI movie Bolt, it added nothing to this movie. I should've trusted Pixar to just deliver the goods as always and tell an entertaining story w/ memorable characters, w/o having to ask the audience to wear special glasses to enjoy them. So far the current 3D selection leaves much to be desired... like a good movie, period. We finished the evening w/ Subway melt sandwiches.
Aug. 28: Carpooled w/ Di, Tin and Pei in heavy rain and traffic until we reached Aubergine Restaurant in Bonifacio Global City for the First birthday party/dinner of Dada and Derwin's son Daeron. When we finally got there my lower back felt like it was compressed by 3 discs. Don't think that back-support thingie is working right, and it doesn't even have moving parts.
Aug. 29: We had a mini-reunion for the Palawan Wedding Group (not a real group) at Angel's Kitchen restaurant in Greenhills. Di went w/ me and when we arrived Pei, Tin, Jazz and Kurt were already having complimentary bread and flavored butter. The house water was placed in intricate glass bottles, so I checked to make sure they weren't serving us gin. Mira and Bong joined us midway though the main course. Last night's heavy rains made a repeat performance, forcing me to cancel my last-full-show movie plans w/ Lola.
But it was just as well, because after dinner we carpooled (boy, that GM Tahoe was spacious) to Moksha Bar on Wilson Street, where I had my first taste of Sangria (suggested by Pei, and it had a slushy, fruity ice flavor). At first I ordered a Nutty Irishman (suggested by Kurt), but it never came. The guys were convinced that the bartender didn't really know how to make it and the bar just came up w/ the names using random words written on strips of paper and stuck them on a dartboard.
As almost everyone else is taking a morning PAL flight back to Manila, Yours Cheaply is flying out the same way he flew in via ZestAir, albeit on a 5:15PM flight. With one whole morning and mid-afternoon to kill, I was invited to join some of the remaining guests (all from Pei's side) for some scuba diving or snorkeling at Honda Bay. While I'm out of the city TinTin's dad was kind enough to get my plane ticket and check in my luggage, since Legend Hotel discontinued that courtesy for some reason.
This was probably the wedding where I hung out the longest w/ the bride while she (and everyone else) was having their hair and makeup done. (Hell, I never loitered this long for my sister's wedding.) I think it was because the thought of staying in my tiny hotel room to wait out the next several hours (w/ next-to-no lunch options) until the church wedding had significantly less appeal. Good thing I went along w/ Diana when I did, otherwise I never would've met cool guests like Pei's co-workers Mira and Marie, nor taste Chicken Inato for the first time.
So the day was spent in the Asturias Hotel, where 3 rooms were rented out: one for the ladies, one for the gents and one for the guests, period. I was surprised to see Achi's SJCS classmate Rowena Tan (and made a major faux pas of asking her about her sister, whom I thought was BoiT's old classmate Kimmy, but turns out wasn't, and real sister passed away some time ago). Turns out her family's related to Tin's. Her two youngest daughters were in tow as flower girls, and they were grateful for me helping alleviate their boredom, as their cable tv was one the fritz and I just happened to bring along my portable DVD player and my Season 1 (and 5 eps of Season 2) DVD of Chowder, whom Mommy Wena did not know from Schnitzel.
I mentioned the weather earlier because Manol and I were fortunate enough to have brought our Barong Tagalogs, while everyone else in the wedding entourage had to wear a suit and tie. It didn't help that the church we went to either was running on weak generators or all those blue-tinted windows it had didn't provide adequate ventilation. All in all it was HOT, as if we were attending a wedding while being microwaved. Earlier we made it a point to sit near the doors where a cool breeze was blowing in, or cheat like Marie when readjusted the electric fan's swivel so it'd blow on their pew instead of ours.
Other memorable moments included Tiffany Tan trying not to cry while taking pix of her cousin walking down the aisle, the bridesmaids having trouble kneeling because of the way their dresses were made, and the priest getting away w/ not having to pronounce Pei's last name and just introduced Pei and Tin to the church audience as "The newly wedded couple."
As for the evening reception back at the Asturias, well, it definitely could have gone better, logistics-wise. But when your wedding coordinator's last job was as an assistant(?) coach to the local high school's basketball team, my confidence level on her performance should have been as low as my expectations. Thankfully Manol's turn on the emcee mike proved that you don't need flashy games nor long-winding speeches for wedding AVPs. Just be entertaining, and any material will seem like gold. Am taking lessons from this man.
Wena's kids pestered me all evening about catching the doves the newlyweds released. Eventually I relented, but as with all things you ought to be careful wishing for, once I caught one and gave it to elder sister she really didn't know what to do with it. Ah well, best for her to experience this now w/ a free bird, rather than wait 'til they get back to Manila and one day find themselves in front of the display window at Bio-Research looking at cute and pitiful dogs yearning to breathe free and pee on their carpeting.
I call it as such because it's almost one year to the day since I last had Beijinoy friends (and/or otherwise) over to my house for dinner while the 'rents are in HK.
Diana took an morning PAL flight, while I opted for the cheaper mid-afternoon ZestAir ride. Despite all those horror stories concerning the latter airline, NO, I did not have to endure riding a cramped, twin-propeller engine plane. The plane was actually fairly new, spacious and not fully booked. Some seat-trays were missing, but since this was only a 1-hour flight I doubt they'd be needed. Best of all, unlike Cebu Pacific's no-frills-nor-thrills budget flights, I didn't have to endure the inanity of the flight attendants' parlor games in lieu of feeding the passengers snacks free of charge. They gave us Zesto on ZestAir, 'natch.
Met up w/ Diana, Tin's wedding dressmaker (and former Project: Runway Philippines contestant) Jaz, and Tin's uncles --both blood-related and otherwise-- at the hotel lobby. Pei picked us up and we headed for Tin's flat for dinner. The evening was spent dining, checking out Surf's Up on Blu-Ray (puts my 720p download copy to shame), thinking up quiz questions for the wedding reception and generally having a good time. A late-nite nightcap was had at the bar on the top floor of Pads (whose name escapes me at the moment), where I was introduced to Tin's cousins Tiffany and Tammy Tan.
Went to Puerto Prinsesa last Friday (flying ZestAir is fine, the heck w/ the horror stories) to attend TinTin (Palawan)'s wedding. Came back yesterday. Will get to more detail when I have time. :)
