Next Stop, The Philippines! Part 1 of Many!
- Timothy J. Thompson
- Jan 18, 2017
- 3 min read
Welcome back everyone.
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My experience in the Philippines was so enjoyable and had such a profound impact on me as a person and my life. It is only fitting that I share it in multiple parts. Anything shorter than this, would simply not do it justice. This experience left me with so many memories & life lessons, that it would be a disservice to not share as many of them as possible.
When we left off, we were finally coming to an end of our flights from Boston to Chicago to Japan and lastly Manila. As we descended upon Manila (Population, 1.6 million) the density of houses were staggering.
For Cate this was a homecoming two years in the making. You could tell how excited she was to see her family and friends. I shared in this excitement as well as the other Filipinos that would soon reunite with their families. As we descended, the conversations on the plane took a considerable uptick.
Once we cleared customs and got our luggage, we were met by family & friends waiting to take us to Cavite. To be more precise, Calumpang Lejos, Cavite Province which was roughly two hours away by car. The first things I noticed as we made our way down Cavitex (Cavite Expressway), there is plenty of vehicles and the rules of the road are liberal!
For anyone that lives or drives in a Metropolitan location & scoffs I say, this was on another level! Speed limits are a mere suggestion and overtaking only require you to honk the horn before going around someone. I would like to think that after 20 years of driving in & out of Boston, that I had seen it all. Well, suffice to say, nope. If you had 3-6 inches to cut someone off, it was fair game and nobody would flip you off for it.
It was roughly around midnight by the time we entered the Barangay (Filipino for village). Regardless of the time, it seemed like everyone in the area was still awake. The first hour or so is still a blur to me because of all the people I met. If I could describe the feeling, it was warm & welcoming. Everywhere I looked was a smiling face welcoming me and an immediate sense of family all around.
Nonetheless, I was happy that we finally made it and our month long vacation in the Philippines had begun. From there into the early morning hours, we enjoyed the conversations accompanied with some ice cold San Miguel's.
My mind was already drifting towards the next day. In the morning the processions for the festival of St. James the Greater would take place. For those that do not know, the Philippines has the 3rd largest Catholic population in the entire world (84 million people, 82.9% of the population).
Each Barangay has their own patron saint and celebrate observations with parades/processions. I was fortunate enough to participate in this one, but we will get to that in the next part of this journey. For now, we made the 8,000 mile trip and it was time to finally sleep!
Please join us again as our adventures continue in the Philippines!
Happy Travels,
Timothy
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