and in my case, it came in a torrent! Last week I have experienced a series of very unfortunate events.
It all started on Monday, Nov. 27 when Paul lost his phone and the finder decided to keep it. Come Wednesday, I learned that super typhoon Reming is bound to hit Manila over the weekend - and may affect the trip that Paul and I have planned several months ago. I was hopeful Reming will change course. Besides, it's only Wednesday night and Manila was already in signal #2. I was thinking that maybe by Friday the typhoon will be out of the country already. Of course we all know that that didn't happen. By early thursday, the typhoon was forecasted to hit Manila 5-8am friday morning, our flight to Tagbilaran was scheduled at 6:20am Friday! I kept praying for some good news and was so desperate that I even sent out a chain text message that promises a miracle will come the next day! haha! I have planned this vacation for 3 months, I would be very disappointed if this will not push through. By Thursday afternoon, the typhoon has changed course and will not directly hit Manila. I thought I got the miracle I was hoping for. I was wrong. By 1am Friday morning, I called Cebu Pacific to check if our flight was cancelled...it was. I asked if I could rebook a later flight, the customer service discouraged me as they weren't sure which flights will be cancelled on Friday. I almost cried in disappointment! But still the optimistic me ruled, I slept at 2am still hoping for a miracle when I wake up.
At 5am friday, I called the customer service again only the find out that all morning flights were cancelled. I asked if we could reroute to Cebu but was informed that only the six pm flight was open, if we want, we may go to the airport to take chances on the early afternoon flights. Still hopeful, we went to the airport. On the Cebu Pacific ticket counter, I was given a queue number of 597 and they're currently serving 044! It was 8am. Those with lower queue numbers have been there since 6am! Paul and I decided to just rebook through phone and we got the next day flight to Tagbilaran. So we left our baggage in Paul's office and spent our Friday in Makati...watched Borat and Casino Royale, and later spent the night at VC.
Skies were clear on Saturday morning, so I didn't expect any problems concerning our flight. But I guess, we were really so unfortunate because by 5:45am, we were advised that our 6:20am flight will be delayed by more than 2 hours due to aircraft servicing! Pissed off, Paul and I decided to have breakfast at Dulcinea. They say bad luck comes in three's - paul lost his phone, our flight cancelled, our new flight delayed- so I thought that would be that last of it.... I was wrong. After eating, we decided to go back to our seats and I turned on my mp3 player only to find out that the battery is empty and my extra battery was in the bag that we had already checked-in! Good thing Paul was busy reading a magazine that I was able to borrow the battery for his mp3 player. By 7am, the airport personnel announced that they'll be distributing meals to affected passengers! Great! Free meals when we've already paid for one! I wasn't in the mood to eat, and Paul said he was still full so he'll just eat later. By 7:40, Paul decided to eat the free tapsilog...after taking a few bites, the airline personnel announced that passengers can now board the aircraft! Hah! What a timing...well. at least we won't be delayed any longer.
Everything went smoothly the rest of the morning...we were enjoying our countryside trip of Bohol. By 1pm we went to the floating restaurant to have our late lunch while cruising the Loboc River. For the nth unfortunate time, the assigned boatman wasn't very good in maneuvering the boat that it took him more than 20 minutes just to park the boat properly! Lunch was served at 2pm! You should have seen the faces of the other passengers. One guy even said to the server, "Doblehin mo na yung serving spoon, para mabilis, umiikot na paningin ko eh!" haha! Good thing, the river cruise was great...very calming...just what we needed.
The rest of the afternoon went well, too. I'll write about beautiful Bohol in a separate post. By 4:30pm, after we've been to our last tour spot, Paul asked me "dala mo ba charger ng cam? one bar na lang battery". What?! One bar and we still haven't gone to the highlight of our trip. No, I didn't bring the charger, because I wasn't expecting the fully charged battery would be consumed that easily. Oh well, there's nothing we can do. Anyway, we have a disposable underwater cam, which we won't be able to use anyway as we wouldn't have time to snorkel in Balicasag anymore, since we lost 1 day from our itinerary when the flight was cancelled. Before 5pm we were on our way to Panglao Island. We were hoping we'll catch the sunset. But since we were very unfortunate, we didn't. We weren't sure if we arrived late or there wasn't much to see because of cloudy skies.
After checking in, we were escorted to our room. Just when the resort personnel has left, we discovered the flush wasn't working! So i had to go back to the reception and requested for us to be transferred to another room. Fortunately, there was one more available. So they transferred our things. The rest of the night was spent well, a massage for Paul, a good dinner at Trudis, a walk and good talk at the beach. By 9 pm, we went back to our room. I was arranging our things when we realized, we're missing our bag of pasalubongs! I can only shake my head in disbelief that we can be this unlucky! And so we requested the resort personnel to check the other cottage if we left it there. The new occupants were hesitant to allow us in, he said his wife is already sleeping, we can just check tomorrow. But apologetically, we requested to check on it that night because we're leaving early morning for Cebu. Thank God he gave in and the bag was there. Before retiring for the night, all i can hope for was that that would be the last of our misfortunes...it wasn't! I set the alarm on my phone to 4:00 am so we can at least catch sunrise at the beach before we leave Panglao at 6am to catch the 7am ferry to Cebu. Early dawn, I woke up to check the time on my phone...it's dead. Strangely, I didn't get any low batt alerts the night before. I got up to charge the phone, it was 4:20am. By 5:00am, we were ready to take pictures..the sun's not up yet and the beach was so dark. I was so disappointed thinking that i would leave Panglao without a single picture. For the second time, I almost cried. I have tried to contain my emotions for more than 48 hours as I didn't want our vacation to be affected by these things that are out of our control. I guess I was so focused on making the vacation a happy one that I was able to keep myself from crying. We decided to just take a shower, prepare our things, go to the beach then run back to the resort to check out, besides I have already settled the bill the night before. We'll just have breakfast at the ferry. By 5:30 we were ready and the sun is starting to rise, we were able to get a few good shots at the beach. :)
Did we catch the ferry on time?
Yes, we did. We've allotted ample travel time from Panglao to the pier that I would have snapped if we missed the ferry! On board, Paul ordered 2 instant cup noodles and was told they'll just be served in our seats. More than 30 minutes have past, no noodles yet. I noticed one passenger get up and returned a few minutes later carrying his cup noodles. I requested Paul to follow-up on our orders...and true enough, nalimutan ng server...All I can say at that time was, hindi pa tapos, then Paul and I thought of the worse things that could happen...mawala ang cam, walang daytour sa Shang, maglibot kami ng Cebu na may bitbit na gamit...buti naman walang nangyari sa isa sa mga yun.
We were able to arrive at Shangri-la Mactan Island without any more misfortunes. At Shang, Paul and I had a little misunderstanding about something and for the third time, I almost cried. Paul and I seldom quarrel, and this is certainly not the time that I would want to have an argument with him. Again, I was able to control my emotions and I am so happy with myself that I have done that. Of course as expected, our digital cam's battery run out and we've consumed all of the disposable cam's shots. But even without much pictures, we had a great time at Shangri-la..I'll write about it in a separate post.
By 7:30pm we have checked-in for our 9:30pm flight back to Manila. Boarding time was 9pm, so we still had time to have dinner. By 9:15 we still haven't boarded yet. We boarded the aircraft at 9:20, and after about 20 minutes and the fastest instructions I've heard from a flight attendant, we were airborne. We arrived in Manila before 11pm and was happy to be home few minutes before midnight.
And so the misfortunes were over...not!
Yesterday, was Yuan's last exam day. Instead of waiting for him outside of his classroom, I decided to go to a nearby bank. The queue was quite long and I overheard the teller saying the bank's connection goes on and off. By 10:50, I was next on the queue, then bank's connection went totally offline! We were given queue numbers as the bank personnel wasn't sure how long it will take before they go online again. My queue number was "1" but I have to give it back to the guard coz I have to run back to fetch Yuan from school.
And today I had the pictures from the disposable cam developed. There were less than 10 good shots! I guess that wasn't misfortune anymore...it's just that it's been a while since we last used a non-digital camera.
And so that was it...well, I hope that was it!:) Our experience has been a test of patience, and I guess, we passed, with flying colors, hehe! In spite of everything, we still enjoyed our vacation very much! Sure, it could have been better, but hey, it could have been worse, too. :)
One of these days, I'll share pics and write about our 3-day 5th wedding anniversary celebration...from Makati to Tagbilaran to Panglao Island to Cebu City and finally to Mactan Island. :)
First stop...the Blood Compact Site. It's just a statue of Sikatuna having blood compact with Legaspi, plus ilang miron. From here you can see Panglao Island and Pamicalan Island where you can see some migratory whales around May. We spent a couple of minutes taking pictures then left.
After choco hills we went to the Loboc Cave. It's a newly opened cave, I think last October lang yata sila nag-open. It was a far cry from the underground river in Palawan, but what's good here is that you are so close to the formations that you could almost touch them, yun nga lang bawal kasi masisira sila.
From Loboc Cave, we went to a floating restaurant to have lunch while cruising the Loboc River. This to me was the best part of the tour. The buffet was okay but it was really the cruise in the river that got me. Ang gandang view at very serene ang river. Yung mga bata sa river, aakyat ng puno tapos magswiswing bago tuluyang magdive sa river. Amazing...wow! Habang nagcruicruise merong nagseserenade ... minsan mali-mali lyrics, pero pwede na..hehe
After Clarin ancestral house, we visited 2 old churches in Bohol, one was the Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Parish Church in Baclayon and the other one was the Santa Monica Parish Church in Alburquerque. Then we bought pasalubongs and headed for Panglao Island.
