our plane landed in tapei, where drug-trafficking is punishable by death. during our two-hour long stopover, we watched Elf on my ibook. a little boy laughed and cackled over our shoulders as we watched even though he couldn't hear any of the movie.
the leg from tapei to manila was a short two hours. we made it through customs without any incident. we exchanged some dollars for pesos at the airport bank then tried to call our uncle's house to let them know we'd arrived.
our mom and two aunts greeted us on the crowded curb. we piled into the delica which was driven by our uncle's driver sophie. we stopped at a nearby school where my aunt used to be the headmaster. they told us we could shower there and get ready for the first of three weddings. i started applying my avon deetless bug spray and began sweating profusely from the heat of the manila climate. the combination of my perspiration and bug repellant gave me super shiny skin that made it look like i was sweating buckets, according to my sister.
my mom, sis and i chowed down a quick meal then we were off to my uncle richard's wedding. the delica crawled through manila traffic, which became a thematic mainstay during our trip, and we eventually arrived at the church. my cousin ivy greeted us with a big smile carrying her one-year-old daughter valerie in her arms. i hugged and kissed the cheeks of an unending amount of relatives on my dad's side before the wedding began.
the reception was at the shangri-la, a fancy hotel near the hub of many malls and restaurants. the food was delicious but our jet-lag closed in on us quickly. after eating, my sister and i crashed on a couch in the lobby while the wedding party moved on to dancing. not sure how much time passed before we were loaded into another big van, which our uncle tony drove us in to our final stop of the night -- ayala alabang, my uncle shorie's house where we would be staying for the whole trip.
my sister and i got to the international terminal at lax with plenty of time to spare. i stood in line with our two carts worth of luggage while she went to park the car using my dad's airport employee pass. some official-looking guy came up to me and asked if i was on EVA air . i said yes, and he asked for my passports and itineraries. the next thing i know, he'd taken them and walked away. right about then, my sis came back from parking the car. she noticed my pale complexion and asked what was up. i told her that i gave our passports to some random guy and he walked away with them. what? she screamed. so i told her to wait with the bags and i went to look for the guy. but all asians look alike to me and i wasn't paying that much attention. i frantically searched the ticket counters and breathed a sigh of relief when i saw him there checking us in. he handed the passports and itinerary back to me with a piece of paper and pointed us to the heavy duty x-ray line.
we flew out of lax via the never-before-heard-of EVA airlines. armed with my fuzzy white blanket, which was a christmas gift from charlene a couple of years ago, and matching Föm Furee eye and neck pillows, i was ready for the 16-hour flight. the other key ingredient for survival was one dramamine pill -- the drowsy kind.