Old Blog Entry from 1998

Posted on September 15, 2007 by Ching under Life, Travel.

These are two of the blog entries I wrote about my last trip to the Philippines. It’s hard to believe it has been almost ten years. I think once we find good homes for the animals, Brian and I will have more freedom to travel. I would love to go back. I’d love to bring Brian. He’s never been so it will be really exciting and fascinating to him. I want to show him my home town and introduce him to friends and relatives. Someday we will go. For now, at least I have old journal entries to relive memories.

July 17, 1998: Fat Tuesday

we had a lot of fun last night. sheryll came over and found me and she went and fetched eloisa and maricel. the five of us (counting my sister) all went out to dinner at fat tuesday. i had quite a bit to drink… one mudslide, a gulp of jen’s blitz and several screw drivers. in a way you could say that i made a fool of myself — but was too drunk to realize it at the time. i felt i was entitled to it, though. i suppose i was just way too ecstatic to finally see everyone (after five long years of exile here in kansas)…

speaking of ecstatic, the band that played last night was called “ecstacy” or “X2C” or something that sounded like that. they were pretty cool about everything, despite my obvious intoxication. i suppose i was pretty funny to watch. everyone was probably laughing at me. my sister says whenever i went up to dance with/alongside the band my big gut kept peeping out from under my spaghetti-strapped top. she says it’s not that i look stupid dancing — it’s not like i CAN’T dance. she says i looked pretty cool (i was a little relieved to hear this), but my drunken state was pretty apparent to everyone in the room.

i went to see benjie today. he looks much better now than he used to. he’s still very nice. still kind and generous, but he has this girlfriend. it’s not like i continue to pine after him or anything — i mean, i’m over that (i think). mostly i’m just holding on to old, decrepid memories that don’t even exist outside of my own imagination.

July 20, 1998: Tabuc

today is our first morning here in tabuc… i haven’t written in a while as we were kind of busy. things have been quite hectic the past few days.

my friends and jen and i went to MARS last friday. it was packed. it felt pretty cool to be lost in a crowd of beautiful people. after a few minutes there, we took off to do a little drinking next door at the cable car.

would you believe a bottle of cuervo gold costs a couple thousand? sounds like a lot — but it’s in pesos (philippine currency). they just tack on way too many zeros at the end of everything. if converted to our currency here, it should be about the same if not cheaper.

we did (body) shots… we did a lot of sitting around, catching up and bullshitting. i wanted to return to MARS and do some serious dancing. however, after the tequila shots, a few sips of HIV and the complimentary mudslides (offered by the owner) which we didn’t even finish — i don’t think — i couldn’t even walk, let alone dance. they said that jen and i were sooo drunk we were puking our brains out. i guess we both went a little bit overboard. i mean, wouldn’t you? from so many drinking restrictions here, to total freedom.

it’s funny i noticed an odd similarity… here in kansas they stop serving alcohol after midnight. over there, at fat tuesday’s the other day, they stop serving water after midnight. you can drink as much booze as you want, but if you need water: tough. funny, huh?

jen and i got home around eight am the following day. mom was a bit furious for we had to leave for the airport by ten… everything was blur. jen was still pretty much the vegetable, to the extent of puking at the end of our flight to cebu where we were met by my dad’s brother cyrus.

tito cy still hasn’t changed. he still looks pretty much the same, only chunkier now. we stayed at their house in dumaguete overnight, because jen and i were still pretty exhausted from all the exertion.

then we went to opao, across from the elementary school, to visit with my paternal grandparents. finally, we get to tabuc. i saw a lot of familiar faces from the days gone by. my heart teeming with joy —

it feels good to be back.