that was perhaps one of my longer weekends with the parentals and the siblings. by the grace of my boss's leave-granting powers (hehe) i found myself with four straight days off from work, which began on friday and ended yesterday. and yes, were those four jampacked days or what.
destination: iloilo
we left manila onboard a philippine airlines (PAL) flight that left around 4:30 on friday and arrived around an hour later in iloilo's new airport.
i've never really been to iloilo via plane in recent memory, much less ride planes and be in airports that often; in fact, the last time i was in iloilo was four years ago and we took the pick-up truck all the way from cavite to guimaras via the nautical highway (read: ro-ro). and i think that was the year i also last used an airport haha (in a flight to cebu and from tacloban). go figure, that was the year i also graduated, and let's just say it was one of those blissful (unemployed) in-betweens. hahaha.
so imagine my glee to find the airport relatively not congested and those trolleys really nifty. haha. and also, a(h1n1) what? i expected more people to don masks, and yet there were none. i also looked for a thermal scanner btw... also none. but i guess depende sa airport? anyway i think that was the centennial airport. i was lugging along my all-purpose backpack that contained this laptop and it was effin heavy, btw.
note: the airport has free wifi for 30 minutes. other than that, you have to load something. and oh, i saw CHR chair leila de lima, i think she was boarding a plane to cagayan de oro. and at the risk of inappropriateness, she was *hot*.
anyway (clears throat)
auntie had a reservation in a small inn in downtown iloilo called city corporate inn. the place was nice and clean, nothing too fancy, though it had tv and hot water (a must if you're traveling with my dad) and there's wifi in the lobby, which the siblings took advantage of to keep their mafia wars activities in check even during the vacation (DORKY I KNOW).
we had difficulty finding something that was still open for dinner at past 8; it was a friday night and yet the streets were unbelievably empty (i'd find out why the following night). anyway we settled for jollibee -- oo nagpunta ng iloilo para mag-jollibee hahahah.
we checked out the following morning to have breakfast in nearby mang inasal (oo nag-iloilo din para mag-mang inasal HAHAHA) and then headed off to delgado st. where my auntie digay, my dad's cousin, lives. (a wifi hotspot too, since her husband uncle nonong is practically the tech-savviest person i know hahaha) and they have CATS! TWO OF THEM! hihi.
then hied off by cousins to walk through downtown. at 2 effin pm hahahah oh sun i missed you! have i mentioned how the weather was lovely and how it was so unexpected since originally we were expecting the weekend to be rather rainy? anyway, thanks universe!
so the cousins and us siblings with auntie headed to the provincial capitol by foot, then entered museo iloilo.
and then we rode public transport to gaisano to have (drumroll) la paz batchoy in, well, la paz. HAHAHAHA we are such cliches.
which was, really, awesome. Deco's = awesome. and if the photos are awesome too, it's because they were taken by kuya arnel, ate tintin's husband. his cam is awesome and so is he heheheh :)
anyway.
we checked into nearby Four Seasons hotel right behind their house on Delgado for the night. a bit more flourish here, if i may say, with really heavy curtains and fluffy colourful comforter and a nice spacious bathroom which sadly did not have hot water come morning BOOOOO i swear it was 5 a.m. and auntie was furious AND freezing.
but before that, that night, while i was taking advantage of the awesome wifi at the Deco's branch at the ground floor of the hotel (i think i saw more Deco's branches than jollibee and mcdo combined), we received word that the espanolas were coming right over in full force to take us out on a "night out" - wy included. hahaha.
we headed to a place they called "Smallville", which really reminded me of Eastwood, even larger than, i think. and i was like, So this is why the streets are empty at night - everybody's here! :) we had coffee and cakes at Coffee Break, which is cheaper than Starbucks by a mile, which does make it more awesome. actually, i didn't see starbucks anywhere, and needless to say, i did not really miss it with coffee break around hehehe.
this one was on ate lala (espanola, the same one behind the calayan rail? awesome birdwatcher, the girl is) and the conversation = awesome. just how much? to wit: there's that's entertainment talk c/o ate tintin, short wave talk c/o ate lala, scorpio nights 2 interviews c/o indaycel, whose brand new hubby kuya ronnie looks like yul servo but more gwapo, and banats from ninya and kuya pabs and everyone else. nyahahaha. oh wylo's poor innocent twelve-year-old ears. (scanning database hahaha)
anyway, we turned ourselves in at past 11, anticipating a loooong day ahead - and it was a REALLY long day, mingling with about a hundred people who share, at one point or another, a surname. seriously.
to wit:
i'm telling you, that really old man in the foreground is 97 years old. in three years, we're having a centennial and it would be AWESOME. anyway.
for more camwhorage, see:
we headed to auntie gingging and uncle cyrus in tigbauan that night, 19 people in four families aboard a rented jeep, and everybody went for a swim in a nearby beach while we got lost hahahah anyway. le fam and i spent the night at le mer mar (i have no idea how to spell this) and we went for a swim very early the following morning. as in 6 a.m. early hahaha compliments of my father, who all woke us up at 5:30. the sun was gorgeous and the water was so still. we were planning to go to guimaras, but then, collective tanders-ing commenced and we stayed put instead.
our flight back to manila was due at 8 pm and so we headed out to iloilo city early from tigbauan, detouring for a bit to uncle glenn's for dinner before going to the airport. when we got there, we were informed by a PAL official that the flight we had booked had been rescheduled to two hours earlier and that they had sent an email last April 15 to inform us about it.
wtf.
you don't go changing people's itineraries via email, for crying out loud.
we explained that it must have been a mistake, that it was our manila-iloilo flight on friday that had been rescheduled to two hours earlier - someone called home on May 7 to tell us that our manila to iloilo flight the following day had been rescheduled from 6 pm to 4 pm. it was krista who got that phone call. curiously, the person from PAL also told her to check dad's email because they had sent word re: resched of manila-iloilo flight.
the email never came. so good thing then that someone had bothered to call, right?
so anyway, out of prudence, auntie had checked and double checked for a possible resked of the return flight as well - this was a day before the flight out of manila, four days before the flight out of iloilo and MORE THAN 20 DAYS AFTER THEY HAD REPORTEDLY SENT THE EMAIL NOTICE. so yeah no info provided, everything was in its right course, ho-yay yada-yada...
up until that moment we were supposed to check in the luggage, which was when they told us, "Ah, we sent an email. Didn't you get it?"
HELLO. I SENT AN EMAIL DIDN'T YOU GET IT. that's professional and efficient.
but yeah, all things taken into consideration, the PAL guys found us five seats on the 8 pm flight, which was the last flight out of iloilo, btw. we sat in separate seats, but it was okay. thank universe for small mercies.
so anyway i'm back in one piece and returning to the real world in 3...2...
(scouring for more photos in a bit.)
