Day 1 - Manila
We have arrived in Manila. Liz went off with her nan & pop whilst the 3 of us – Cat, Jen & I were greeted by a middle aged man - a staff of Manila airport hotel, where we were booked to stay the night. He requested for a nice van to pick us up and take us to the hotel as he had
“beautiful women” with him LOL. How flattering and hilarious.
The hotel was OK...I guess... for an overnight stay if you have an early flight the next day, which was exactly our case.
Cat’s auntie and uncle then picked us up and took us to Mall of Asia for a lovely dinner at Gerry’s Grill. I must say that their pork barbecue is to die for!
After dinner, we went shopping around the mall where Jen and I went crazy at the Guess shop. As usual, the staff were so friendly and attentive. The dude who assisted me was actually pretty cute although I wouldn’t be surprised if he was gay since he seemed to know which style suited me the most! Haha
The 3 of us didn’t get back to the hotel until around midnight. We decided that we needed to be up and ready to go by 3am as we had a 5am flight to Tacloban the next day...well let’s just say that didn’t actually go according to plan.
As soon as we got back to the hotel we fixed our luggage which took quite a bit of time. We then decided to put our face masks on courtesy of Watsons. The chemicals in the masks must have seriously gotten to our brains as we could not stop laughing for 30 minutes straight. We were having so much fun that we didn’t realise that we only had an hours sleep at the most before we had to leave for the airport, so we decided to call it a night. Cat set her alarm for 2am whilst I set mine for 3.30am. In my sleep deprived state, I totally forgot the consensus of leaving the hotel at 3am.
An hour later Cat’s alarm went off but we all slept through it, my 3.30am alarm then went off and that’s when we all jumped out of our beds and started hurriedly getting ready. It took us just under half an hour to leave the hotel.
Seeing as we were only a minute away from the airport we got there really early and waited for our flight. Meanwhile, we tried looking for my cousin Anya from Canada whom I was meeting for the very first time. We didn’t spot her until 10minutes before boarding time. She was really lovely and had a cool Canadian accent .
Day 2 - Catbalogan
When we touched down in Tacloban my uncle Ernie picked us up. It was a long 2.5 hour bumpy ride to Catbalogan which would be our destination for the next two nights.
Once we arrived in Catbalogan we, or I didn’t at least, have much time to rest as my auntie’s silver wedding anniversary was commencing within the next 2 hours. I was a bridesmaid and I had yet to try my dress on which was especially tailored for me. Unfortunately, the dress ended up being too big for me, which wasn’t all that surprising considering I had recently lost 4kgs. My auntie quickly grabbed me and we went to the nearest tailors. Unfortunately they were back to back with alterations so couldn’t attend to my dress urgently. Fortunately, we found a tailor who obliged to alter the dress for me.
A short while later, my auntie took my friends & I to the beauty salon so we could get our hair, makeup and mani & pedi done.
As there were only two staff available we had to alternate. I was first up in the makeup & hair department whilst Jen got her mani and pedi done. Once my makeup was completed I then got my mani and pedi, and Cat got her hair & makeup done, and so fourth. I should probably stop here and mention that I specifically asked for “soft curls” for my hair, so once I was getting my mani and pedi done the curlers stayed in my hair. 45 minutes later I started getting restless as I realised we only had 15minutes left before the ceremony was to begin. I then started tugging on the curlers and one by one unveiled extremely thick curly curls. Once all the curlers were out I looked at myself in the mirror and tried hard to hold back the tears. I looked like a member of the desperate housewives! The hairdresser must have sense d my distress as he stopped working on Jen’s hair and quickly attended to mine. The owner then came out and started tending to my hair as well, trying in vain to flatten out the ridiculous curls. By the end of it I gave up and left abruptly. Yes I was pissed and naturally I didn’t have to fork out a peso for the hair. Hah! This was just as well as I was so close to murdering the bakla who did my hair!
Back at the hotel we were staying at, my auntie gave me the altered bridesmaid dress which she had picked up while we were at the beauty salon. I tried on the dress and my initial reaction was SH*T! I got it altered to fit me better and it ended up being unbreathable tight! I had no choice and dealt with it. The solution being not zipping the dress all the way up. Thank goodness I had long hair!
Once we arrived at the church I was hauled over to the rest of the entourage congregating near the entrance of the church, ready to walk down the aisle.
Let me just stop here by saying that the church was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking! One of the things I love about the Philippines is that it has amazing and grandiose churches!
I was quickly introduced to my long lost relatives and was just as quick to forget their names. It was then time for us to walk down the aisle when it was suddenly realised that my Partner was missing! Grrr! Oh the humiliation at the prospect of having to walk down the aisle all by myself without anyone linked in my arms! LOL. Fortunately he appeared a second before the walk and all was going smoothly until we got to the very end of the pews and didn’t exactly know what to do. Turns out we both weren’t present for the rehearsal. Luckily my cousin pantomimed what we had to do and where we had to stand.
The ceremony went on for an excruciating 1.5 hours. If it didn’t in real life it certainly felt like it. To make it worse the church wasn’t air conditioned so not only was I dying of heat exhaustion, but add lack of oxygen from my too tight dress, sleep deprivation and not to mention boredom to the mix and you have a seriously bad kebab combination. So I guess I could be forgiven for falling asleep for much of the service. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t purposely being rude. I mean it was so sweet and all, the couple renewing their vows and still madly in love 25 years later. The fact that the couple was also family certainly added that fuzziness feeling to the whole celebration, but who can honestly admit that the best part about weddings is the ceremony? Moreover, whether it’s Catholicism or just the filo culture, I don’t understand how wedding ceremonies or renewal of vows could take that long? Surely a question of “do you or don’t you” is enough to bind a man and woman in marriage? Do we really need all that hoopla of what God said about how a man and woman should live as a married couple? Now I’m probably sounding so sacrilege right now (or some would say cynical) but does anyone seriously listen? Well, it didn’t come as a surprise when the bride suddenly fainted. That brought me (and possibly everyone else) out of my sleep reverie as there was a sudden hustle and bustle by the altar. Seriousness aside, the hilarity of the situation was this happened during the communion. All the while, the priest continued giving communion completely oblivious to the commotion happening behind him.
Now all jokes aside, thank the heavens the bride recovered from her dizzy spells with such elegance and grace that when the priest handing out the communal bread finally turned around there was no hint of what transpired behind him.
The ceremony ended with the wonderful couple giving each other “the kiss” and the whole church erupting with cheers and applauding.
At that moment, the atmosphere of the church was somewhat different, it was compounded with love and tears of joy as we witnessed and celebrated the 25year union of two amazing people with their 3 beautiful children. Even though I hardly took any of the ceremony in, I couldn’t help but smile and be extremely happy for the blissful couple. As I walked out of the church, I couldn’t help but think that when the time comes, I hope that I too, would still be madly in love and happily married to my future husband 25 years on...and ever after :-)
