Saturday, December 16, 2006

Today is Day 1 of Randy's fourth visit in Manila.

I arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Centennial Terminal 2 (NAIACT2) at 5:30 a.m. to pick up Randy. Philippine Airlines Flight PR103 (from Los Angeles) arrived Manila on time but, unfortunately, Randy spent two hours inside the terminal waiting for his delayed baggage at Carousel No. 5, while I was impatiently waiting outside for him.

Alas! When he went out of the terminal, he saw me right away waiting for him. As we loaded his luggage into the service van, he excitedly told me what took him so long. It's really nice to have him back, after almost four months of voice chatting with each other on Skype, after his last August visit.

As we mutually agreed upon earlier, we checked in at Imperial Palace Suites, Room 702, as our celebration of knowing each other (in person) for a year now! We stayed at Room 1005 in the same hotel last year between December 23rd and 31st.

Randy spent about 26 hours flying/transit/transfer from San Diego to Manila and we rested for couple of hours, right after we had an American breakfast. We didn't sleep that much though because I want Randy to adjust himself to Philippine time.

As we got up, showered, and prayed the rosary, he gave me a Bulova Swiss wristwatch and showed me his new one, too, as our Christmas presents. Then, he showed me all the kitchen stuffs he brought for us, including our favorite TV Series in DVD he wanted me to watch: CSI, NCIS, HOUSE, DEAD LIKE ME, MEDIUM, and PASSION OF CHRIST.

Using his GateWay Duo Centrino Laptop, we watched CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Episodes 201, 202, and 203: Burked, Chaos Theory, and Overload. Then, we heard some noise outside from rallyists who gathered in the Timog Circle shouting "PGMA being a liar." We're watching those people from the room's Balcony and we have noticed that there's a Chow King restaurant just opposite the Hotel.

We went down and crossed the street. We had Pancit Bijon and Lauriat Sweet 'n' Sour for dinner at Chow King. We had a closer view of what's going on with the rallyists. I even planned to take photo of Randy along with the protesters but, I have seen in the news in the past that foreigners are not allowed to participate in any political rally so, we scratched that idea and had a peaceful dinner instead. Before we could finish our dinner, the rallyists marched away and after couple of minutes, a van of ABS-CBN TV Network parked right there in front of us but, they're too late to cover the rallyists' activities.

Nothing unusual has happened with the protesters and as we had finished eating, we went back to the hotel and watched episodes 204 (Disc 1) and 205 (Disc 2) of CSI: "Bully For You" and "Scuba Doobie-Doo". We barely finished the last one as we both had fallen asleep.

So far, we had great time together: away from our kids, PC, and internet... WELCOME BACK, RANDY!