Exploits of a City Dweller

I booked the plane tickets for the recent Bohol trip in January. Being that it was a first for me, I earned a few nuggets of wisdom in this toe-stubbing process:

a) A credit card can work to your advantage as long as it is kept on a very tight leash. For years I adamantly refused to get one but I now concede to its utility in one  respect: online booking. This does not change the fact that they are insidious tools used by banking institutions to lure people into the swirling abyss that is financial debt. The trick is to get one with the lowest credit limit, just enough to book domestic flights. It will save you energy while safely avoiding accumulated debt monstrosities, the kind capable of swallowing poor defenseless paychecks in one bite. Plus you can take advantage of those P1.00 flight promos.
  
b) Online booking saves you the long wait at a travel agency and paying extra fees. I am now a PhD holder in maneuvering the websites of PAL and Cebu Pacific. You get an email confirmation within seconds, all you need to do is print it out and you have a ticket. Very snazzy. Remember to take note of PAL’s policy on E-tickets though: you have to present the credit card used for purchase at the check-in counter. I don’t understand the logic behind it seeing as the tickets have been bought and paid for but what can we do?

c) Paranoid early booking does not equate to cheap air fare. Airlines have an arbitrary pricing system that can turn a P288 flight to P2688 and vice versa within hours. And I’m talking about the exact same destination and the exact same flight schedule. It pays to keep an eye out for a while before making a purchase. 

I’m back from the longest out-of-town vacation I’ve had since college. I’ve forgotten how it felt like to be “away”. Even my own bathroom feels strange. Do you ever get that namamahay feeling in your own house?  Anyway, I am up to my neck with material, I don’t know where to start. 

Here’s a quick preview. In the past few days, the things I’ve encountered are as follows: long airport waiting, heavy luggage, loud Korean neighbors, more seafood than one should be allowed to consume, churches, hills, forests, sun, sea, dolphins, islands, bridges, an insanely large snake, a transvestite lipsynching to karaoke songs next to the aforementioned reptile, tarsiers, rivers, waterfalls, watchtowers, the “drop-off”, fish, caves, birds, flying lemurs, and bright red sun-kissed skin. Wait….Make that sun-slapped. Fifty times over. I’m all sunned out.

I’m thinking about doing a blow-by-blow write-up of the trip.

Let me start with the most important tip I can give anyone with an epidermis: Do not be coy with the sunblock. When snorkeling, I suggest you dedicate a generous palm-full to the back of your legs. I’m not of the high maintenance, get-up-at-dawn-to-put-on-myself variety but the sensation of being burned is enough to compel me to shove this unsolicited advice down everyones throat.

In the meantime, I’m going to take a few days to heave.

I’m off to Bohol for the weekend. Will be back with more stories.

I would normally think of a less insipid title for this post but I would like for as many people to read this as possible. I want this to go beyond my readership circle and thus I chose one that is search engine friendly. And you guessed right, I allowed myself to be part of the horde that descended upon the Manila Ocean Park last Sunday.

First order of business. If you’re having qualms about spending Php400.00 just on the entrance fee (excluding the additional expenses on transpo, meals, souvenirs, etc.),  don’t flock over there just yet. It’s half done and so it is much smaller than the brochures say it is. The lines are long enough to make you grow an extra limb. Plus, you will have to tackle with and get pushed around by a whole throng of little people who can’t seem to get over the fact that they’re seeing Nemo in the flesh (But who can blame them for their rambunctiousness really? They’re children afterall, it’s what they do). I strongly advise you to wait until maybe the end of the year when the entire structure has been completed and if you have no patience with kids, I suggest you schedule your visit first thing Monday morning sometime in the middle of the school year.

Now on to what I really have to say.

What bothered me was not so much the little people but the ones who are of legal age and yet can’t seem to follow the simplest, most idiot-proof instructions known to man. Here’s a tip: if you are too brain-dead to understand the multitude of signs plastered all over the walls and the repeated reminders blasted from the PA system to NOT USE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY,  please stay away. A fifty mile radius would be nice. If only for the fishes’ sake. Or better yet, please don’t buy a freakin’ camera you don’t know how to use.

Since it’s already been brought up, remember that scene from Finding Nemo where the scuba diver scoops up Nemo with a plastic bag at the drop-off? Remember he took a picture of Marlin and how the sudden burst of light momentarily disoriented the clownfish? (If you’re not familiar with this, the youngsters of your household will be happy to enlighten you). That is precisely the logic behind this simple rule, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not rocket science.

Imagine being enclosed in glass and getting stunned 600 times a day. Wouldn’t that be an enchanting life at the aquarium?  If for anything else, I really hope this would be a foreshadow of your posthumous fate.

But wait! There’s more! Everytime a staff member confronted the nitwits to repeat the instructions for the Nth time, they always managed to say something equally moronic like, “Ay may flash ba? Wala naman e.”

There are no words.

Shameful how the Philippines has a 95% literacy rate and yet it is rarely put to use when needed.

**Note: I promise to write a less acerbic review once I’ve let off enough steam.

This is how far removed I am from non-Discovery Channel mainstream TV: I have successfully eluded (and vice versa) this popular fast food chain commercial that compels everyone to chant “Buger! Burger!” at the slightest mention of good fortune. It is sweeping the country and yet I have never seen it.

Case in point. A sample conversation I overhear at work on a regular basis:

Colleague #1: Mareregular na si (insert Colleague #2’s name here) next month!

Everyone else in the room: Talaga? Pacheeseburger ka naman!

Colleague #1: Burger! Burger! Burger!

Colleague #2: Tse! Wala pa akong pera!!!

Can I just say that to an outsider, this will sound completely absurd. But who the heck cares? People seem to think it’s a funny way of coaxing a free meal out of anyone who’s had a recent run-in with luck. Just your average Pinoy humor I guess. It never occured to me how odd our sense of humor is until I took a shot at translating this joke to a Brazilian friend:

Bebentahan kita ng original Rolex. Brand new! Three hundred pesos lang… Pero Motolite yung battery.

I thought it was funny. She didn’t even wince. Something obviously got blown up in translation there, I don’t know. Anyway, I stopped trying.