[enter triumphant trumpets] And finally, after much anticipation,
we begin the posts of my perspective of the sisters trip to the Philippines from earlier this summer.
It was Memorial Day weekend 2010, and what seemed like years of waiting (about 6 years to be exact...I still love you Marc Hardy), it was finally time for Kari and I to make our sisters trip to the Philippines. On that Sunday evening, after a few delays, I boarded my Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong, the first leg (and a long one of that) of the trip. After about 20 hours and with a short layover in Vancouver in the middle of a very long "night," I arrived in Hong Kong and was greeted by my sister at the gate (she had arrived there hours earlier on her flight from LA). It was a quick reunion as we hurried to get to the gate for our flight to Cebu.
On our flight, where I proceeded to have my second breakfast of the day (yes, like a hobbit), Kari and I made friends with the guy in the seat next to us. We learned that he was native to the Philippines, but has been living in Australia for the last several years. He was going to spend a couple of weeks with his family in Negros (another island that we would actually be visiting during our trip) and in our talking with him he gave us some good advise and tips. This act of friendliness ended up leading to one of the first of many small blessings on our trip. As we arrived in the Cebu airport, after going through customs and gathering our luggage, we had to try and figure out how we were going to get a taxi to our hotel. We weren't quite sure how much it was going cost as Kari didn't know the area where we would be staying that well and we didn't want to get taken advantage of, when all of a sudden the man we had been talking came up to us with his wife and sister and asked us if they could give us a lift to our hotel. This was indeed such a nice act of kindness and Kari and I were so grateful, and it really started our trip off on a positive note.
After getting settled into the hotel, when needed to decide what to do with our afternoon. Being tired from all our traveling, but also wanting to make sure that we got accustomed to the time changed (a 12 hour difference for me and 15 hours for Kari), we determined that we should go to the temple open house.
A short taxi ride later, we were at the temple and surrounding grounds.
What a sight to see, especially for Kari!
When we got there, we soon learned that one of the Talisay branches, the one that Kari served in during her mission, was in charge of hosting the open house that day. This would turn out to be the second blessing of the day. After touring through the temple (which is gorgeous by the way), we were hanging around the reception area (enjoying some carrot cake cupcakes and mango juice) when Kari came across members that she knew and also remembered her.
This is Kari with Sister Buchie and her daughter Sharlene, who we would see again the next day.
And this is Glen, one of Kari's converts. In visiting with him he offered to show us around Talisay the next day so that Kari could meet with some of the members there. Glen really was a blessing to us throughout our trip.
Kari and I in front of the temple. We were getting pretty tired by that point.
After making our final arrangements for the next day, it was time to find some dinner (this would be our first meal at Jolibee's) and then get back to the hotel and hit the hay.
Speaking our our hotel, here are some pictures of it:
Our beds...
...and the rest of the room (with Kari...and me in the mirror).
And the view from our room.
And that was our first day in the Philippines.
Stay tuned for more!
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