I'm at Tacloban!!
Hi everyone,
Thanks to y’all for your prayers, especially those who came at the unearthly hours of 5+ a.m. to send me off. =) Well I’m safe and sound, basically, but today alone already gives me many things to thank God for. In a nutshell:
1. Reached Manila and was as blur as a sotong. Never been there before, and had to ask people all over how to get to places. Immediate objective: to get to the Phil. Airlines office and get a ticket to Tacloban, which I had not booked.
2. Of course, my not booking the ticket was intentional in the sense that we saw no reason to do a booking since there were so many flights to Tacloban (well, from what we saw on the net). So after collecting my atrocious THREE guitar cases (which made my total baggage pieces a staggering FIVE pieces), and loading them onto TWO atrocious trolleys, I pushed the whole load of rubbish luggage out from the terminal to find for my PAL office.
3. (Oh, by the way, you really should try pushing two FULL trolleys at the same time. To my wuxia-crazy pals who are reading this, you will be interested to know that you can actually develop some gongfu from perpetually saving luggage from falling off the trolleys in random directions. It’s called “Zuo You Hu Bo Zi Shu” (the well-respected “Dual Focus” stunt of the Xiao Long Nu fame, for those more Mandarinly challenged). Or, if you like, you can call it “No Focus” or even “No Use”. Especially when dealing with falling luggage.)
4. So while focusing in a dual manner upon my beloved luggage, upon asking around I realized that the PAL office is in Terminal 2. Now unlike a certain garden City I hail from, there’s no concept of a “Skytrain” in Manila. So, how? Take cab lor. 1 km away ok. Dun pway pway.
5. Now halfway while taking the cab a highly intelligent me saw that beside Terminal 2, there was also a “Domestic Airport”. So we decided to go there to see if we could get the tix instead. Among the three airlines offering flights, 2 of them had totally no space. So PAL was the only one who could give me a “standby” ticket (meaning if no one cancelled on them, suck thumb and stay in Manila a night). And that happens to be a VERY BAD idea for a sotong like me in a galaxy far far away, I mean, in a city far far away.
But 1 thing must really thank God. As I was boarding the cab to finally direct him back to Terminal 2, out came a security guard from the ticketing office to stop us. Apparently I had left my passport at the ticketing office (shock shock horror horror)! Me had taken the ticket, and left the passport! Really thank God siah.
6. So reached Terminal 2 and still was blur as ever. Guess what? God sent one lady who was traveling from Canada to Tacloban to meet me exactly at that time (she had been in the ticketing office and boy, with that kind of fiasco, did she recognize MUAH). So she started nagging at me to keep my passport and to never lose it, it’s so dangerous blah blah blah etc etc etc you should always look at this first blah how could you have done that etc, you know, the kind of encouragement everyone desires. But hey, I’m not complaining. Me almost did it a second time, after she nagged and nagged, and she was the one who this time saved my pouch.
7. I bet you guys who’re reading this are horrified. Haha. Trust me, I’m horrified too. I blame my sleepiness, my 5 extraordinary luggage, and my brain and common sense that decided to take a nap during this trip.
8. Anyway after that God just brought people after people to come help me and guide me around. It’s quite amazing. Something like 5 divine encounters in 1 day. And the thing that takes the cake is that when I reached Tacloban, guess who was waiting for me? Ps Steven. He didn’t receive my attempts to correspond with him, but somehow he approximated that it would be around that time. Praise God.
So anyway, in a large nutshell, I’m fine. =) And I miss you guys. Haha. Take care and feel free to email me. I should be able to read your mails and reply quite…regularly. :P
Love,
Dan
Thanks to y’all for your prayers, especially those who came at the unearthly hours of 5+ a.m. to send me off. =) Well I’m safe and sound, basically, but today alone already gives me many things to thank God for. In a nutshell:
1. Reached Manila and was as blur as a sotong. Never been there before, and had to ask people all over how to get to places. Immediate objective: to get to the Phil. Airlines office and get a ticket to Tacloban, which I had not booked.
2. Of course, my not booking the ticket was intentional in the sense that we saw no reason to do a booking since there were so many flights to Tacloban (well, from what we saw on the net). So after collecting my atrocious THREE guitar cases (which made my total baggage pieces a staggering FIVE pieces), and loading them onto TWO atrocious trolleys, I pushed the whole load of rubbish luggage out from the terminal to find for my PAL office.
3. (Oh, by the way, you really should try pushing two FULL trolleys at the same time. To my wuxia-crazy pals who are reading this, you will be interested to know that you can actually develop some gongfu from perpetually saving luggage from falling off the trolleys in random directions. It’s called “Zuo You Hu Bo Zi Shu” (the well-respected “Dual Focus” stunt of the Xiao Long Nu fame, for those more Mandarinly challenged). Or, if you like, you can call it “No Focus” or even “No Use”. Especially when dealing with falling luggage.)
4. So while focusing in a dual manner upon my beloved luggage, upon asking around I realized that the PAL office is in Terminal 2. Now unlike a certain garden City I hail from, there’s no concept of a “Skytrain” in Manila. So, how? Take cab lor. 1 km away ok. Dun pway pway.
5. Now halfway while taking the cab a highly intelligent me saw that beside Terminal 2, there was also a “Domestic Airport”. So we decided to go there to see if we could get the tix instead. Among the three airlines offering flights, 2 of them had totally no space. So PAL was the only one who could give me a “standby” ticket (meaning if no one cancelled on them, suck thumb and stay in Manila a night). And that happens to be a VERY BAD idea for a sotong like me in a galaxy far far away, I mean, in a city far far away.
But 1 thing must really thank God. As I was boarding the cab to finally direct him back to Terminal 2, out came a security guard from the ticketing office to stop us. Apparently I had left my passport at the ticketing office (shock shock horror horror)! Me had taken the ticket, and left the passport! Really thank God siah.
6. So reached Terminal 2 and still was blur as ever. Guess what? God sent one lady who was traveling from Canada to Tacloban to meet me exactly at that time (she had been in the ticketing office and boy, with that kind of fiasco, did she recognize MUAH). So she started nagging at me to keep my passport and to never lose it, it’s so dangerous blah blah blah etc etc etc you should always look at this first blah how could you have done that etc, you know, the kind of encouragement everyone desires. But hey, I’m not complaining. Me almost did it a second time, after she nagged and nagged, and she was the one who this time saved my pouch.
7. I bet you guys who’re reading this are horrified. Haha. Trust me, I’m horrified too. I blame my sleepiness, my 5 extraordinary luggage, and my brain and common sense that decided to take a nap during this trip.
8. Anyway after that God just brought people after people to come help me and guide me around. It’s quite amazing. Something like 5 divine encounters in 1 day. And the thing that takes the cake is that when I reached Tacloban, guess who was waiting for me? Ps Steven. He didn’t receive my attempts to correspond with him, but somehow he approximated that it would be around that time. Praise God.
So anyway, in a large nutshell, I’m fine. =) And I miss you guys. Haha. Take care and feel free to email me. I should be able to read your mails and reply quite…regularly. :P
Love,
Dan
posted by theChosenCan at 6/19/2005 11:23:00 pm
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