Arrival

After a long and tiring flight, we finally landed in Manila. I must admit, that the whole flight went smoother than anticipated, with the exception of dad, who took some medication to sleep throughout the flight…so he was pretty much out of it, and I’m not used to having to deal with him in that capacity, or in this case, lack thereof. Our wait in line to get through Immigration wasn’t that bad, it was interesting to see ‘health monitors’ standing there with heat sensing temperature guns, to make sure arriving visitors weren’t coming in with high fevers and stuff like that. It was crowded and  packed with hot sweaty people just coming off the plane… but we made it through with no hassle. Mom showed her Filipino passport and said she was Balikbayan traveling with her family, and they waved her through with no issues. We had brought a bunch of small bottles of whiskey and such to give away to family as gifts, and had packed as many cigarettes as we could, so there was a little concern about going through customs… but yet again, we were shown how a little cash can get you through, they didn’t inspect any of our luggage… including the bag where my brothers hair gel leaked all over! I forgot to mention, when we were in baggage claim, I was trying to take a bag off the conveyor belt, and it was so heavy, I couldn’t lift it and it drug me half way down the conveyor belt! That was a laugh. Anyways, from there we went outside, where waiting families are lined up in their vehicles according to the last name of the person you’re picking up… they had a sign that said “Welcome Laurel Smith and family to the Philippines” – which was really cute, except we were looking for the name ‘Percelita’ and so didn’t see the sign. Lol. Sure enough though, someone came up to us and asked if we were the children of Percelita… so we were saved from waiting forever. Mom slipped the police officer some cash again, and it helped a bit, because they allowed the vans to come a little closer. We had two vans, one for passengers and one for the 15 pieces of luggage… it was quite a sight. The drive into Olongapo was pretty uneventful, with only one pit stop at this little fast food joint. It was kinda like going to McDonalds, except there were like whole chickens and lumpia and palabok on the menu… Yes, I’d like to get the number 2, and supersize the palabok please. Anyways, after that, we hopped back in and continued the drive (which I pretty much slept through). We made it into New Cabalon around 4:30am and by then, none of us were tired, so we just stayed awake chatting and talking. Kuya Minoy and the rest of them were waiting for us, and basically it wasn’t until around noon, that I finally gave up the ghost and went to bed for about a 3 hour nap.