It’s David’s fourth visit here in the Philippines. we spent the first few days malling in the city. He didn’t like it. Finally we decided to get out of town on thursday morning. We were thinking Siargao, Samar or Palawan. We didnt have to think too much coz there were no more available plane going to any of those places on that day. It’s summer in the PI. My friend, Blue, told me about this place called Hundred Islands in Alaminos, Pangasinan so I thought why not. We run out of choices anyway. So Blue gave me her contact person from there. To me, it’s easier to call someone and arrange stuff over the phone before going there since it’s our first time to be in that place.
As I was talking to Blue’s contact person, her name is Jennifer, I noticed she’s charging too much for a vacation place not as nice and popular as Boracay. Is it because my last name is foreign? or is it just coz it’s summer and ofcourse it’s peak season? I will find out later I guess, I said to myself. Imagine for 3 nights and 3 days she is charging us P11,500.oo pesos, thats around $220. That includes our room and the activities we’re gonna do the whole time we’re there. If you’ve never been to the Philippines you’d think it’s a good price for a 3days/3nights vacation. It’s not if youre only taking a bus ride going to the place. However long the bus ride is going to the province you wanna go to, in the Philippines (5 hours in our case), It’s not gonna cost anymore than $150 for a weekend summer vacation. That’s if you’re smart enough to know their style. Actually no, I take that back. That’s if you’re from Manila. Anyway, so I made the call and asked Jennifer to send us a package proposal that will breakdown down the total so we can think about it. Although David said we should just take the rooms for now and talk about the other activities later. Which was a smart decision.
We said we were gonna take the 4:30 bus to Alaminos so we can be there at around 8pm. It was still early at that time, like around 1pm. So we decided to go to the mall first and buy some things we need. David bought a pair of slippers ($4) which only took him 5 minutes to find. I, on the other hand, had to buy a lot of things because I have this big surprise for him. I bought an aroma oil lamp (60¢), fragrance oil and candle [Jasmine scent]($2.50 for both), oil based perfume ($1), Body Massage Oil ($2) and 12 pcs. of unscented candles ($1). You think you know exactly what my surprise is, so did David. After that we had to buy food and bring it home so we can eat before we go to the bus station. We got back home around 3pm. All the things I need for my surprise wasn’t totally complete so when I got home I setup my PC and plugged in my iPod. I needed some nice songs for my playlist. I told David that We have to leave at 4pm if we wanna make it to the 4:30 schedule. David is always on time so it’s not too hard for him to follow that time frame. It was for me, though. So while we were eating, I was preparing my bag and transferring songs to my iPod almost at the same time. It was five minutes to 4 and my songs arent done uploading yet. David was ready to leave. He was furious that Im still sitting around. He knew we wont make it on time. I wasn’t leaving my PC and I kept saying “five minutes”. He got tired of it and finally went into my room, grabbed my iPod and he tried to pull it off my PC. He tried. He didnt realize there’s a lock on the cable and he cant just pull it out that simple. Finally my songs were done uploading and we rushed to the car and drove to the bus stop.
We did not make it. It was 4:35pm when we got there. And when we did, I asked a guy who works there where the 430pm Alaminos bus is. He pointed to the bus that already started moving…far away from us. David was raging mad. I was just quiet the whole time. I went to another guy to ask when the next bus will leave. He said pretty soon. I asked if I had to wait for another hour, he said no. So I run back to David and told him hoping he’d be less agitated. Then we went to the ticket booth to buy our bus tickets. He now started to talk and told me my mistakes. To me if he can talk about it then he’s not too mad. But Also, I know that If said one wrong thing he’d get back to being furious in seconds. So I was very careful with my words also because I didn’t want to ruin my surprise. But he won’t stop ranting and there’s a lot of people around us.I was getting embarrassed. He was like ” You have enough songs on your iPod and we’re late because you wanted more…for what? and you call me selfish!” So I finally told him. I said ” See I wasn’t supposed to tell you this because it will just ruin everything…” Then I started getting teary-eyed. I said ” those songs aren’t for me, I planned something really special for you and I needed those songs.” He shut up and started hugging me and ofcourse, I cried. He said he’s sorry. He shouldn’t be, though. I just think it’s a waste of energy and emotion to get mad over something we couldn’t do anything about. Well, I could’ve chosen to be a selfish bitch and not talk to him while on the bus. But then again, no. I can’t be selfish. I can’t be a bitch and I can’t take not talking to him for a long time, not even 15 minutes. Especially not when I have a sweet-sour-salty surprise.
So we bought the tickets. We were looking for our bus coz we were planning to stay there til it’s full and ready to leave. I learned two things from that scenario. One, the bus didn’t have to be full to leave, it leaves on time. Two, yes it leaves right on time, and the time is 6pm. I was talking to different people asking where our bus is and finally someone shouted “the bus isn’t here yet and it leaves at 6″. Remember I said It only takes seconds for David to start fuming? It’s true. The Lord of Darkness is back. Mr. Darth Vader. Well I know I didnt lie. He was there, he heard it. I wasn’t lying when I said this guy told me it wasn’t gonna take an hour for another bus to leave for Alaminos. He did say that. I didn’t realize he meant to say It wasn’t gonna take an hour, it’s gonna take an hour and a half. So we were arguing again but I said to myself it’s a waste of time and we should just do what we can at that point. So we went to 7-11 to cool down. He was still mad I guess until I bought him ice cream. Or maybe when I bought him the insect repellent and apply some on his legs. Or when I kneeled infront of him begging him to stop getting mad already. Or….maybe… when he asked me to buy him beer. I was like ” yeah i guess you can drink the beer here while we’re waiting” he was still an ass when he said ” no i cant” and I was like “Who said so?!” Then he started reading this sign to me that basically says we can’t drink Alcohol bev inside 7-11. I started laughing but I didn’t know if he found that funny. So whichever cooled him down was great. I guess I will never know but who cares. He was talking to me on our way out of 7-11. We went back to the bus station. We saw our bus. We ran to it and asked the slam faggoty driver to open the door and he wont. What a stupid piece of fag shit! David was pissed with the driver and was pretending to be him and said “Oh I dont want to open the door, walk 8 steps and wait for the bus to get there” like one full turn of the bus wheel. Anyway, We got to the bus and tried to rest. We were friends again. The whole time we were talking. We were the only ones talking in the bus. We didn’t care.
Finally, after five ass numbing hours, we got to the Alaminos bus station. I text messaged Jennifer and asked her to come pick us up. We waited there for 15 minutes. She arrived, finally. It was already 1130pm and we were very tired and ready to sleep. When we got to her Apartelle, I dont know if she’s insensitive or just plain stupid but she had to let us sign a friggin’ contract and talk to us about our plans for the next coming days. Then, finally we saw our room. It’s big. It has a loft. It has everything we didnt need. The a/c is small and i bet only had 1HP. David said 1 hamster power. The room was too big for the a/c obviously. I’m not sure why she didnt realize that. In the room there are 2 beds; one double deck and one queen sized bed. Why do we need two beds? Why??? That was 12am, you know how it feels. Ok so we said, whatever I just want to sleep. We couldn’t. It was too hot. We lied down, got up, lied down got up.. to move the beds right where the a/c is. We finally got the best match. A/c-double deck-2nd floor bed. We lied down and literally the cieling was 5 inches from our body, not to mention there’s a beam right across our stomach. The light bulb was right to David’s face. So If one of us had nightmares that time and we had to sit up really fast we would either be electricuted or have a big bump on our forehead. We know already that night that we’re checking out the next day. I dont remember being able to sleep. I was paranoid about the beam and the light bulb.
The next day we got up and hurried out of the apartelle, actually just to eat breakfast so we can think of our battle plan. We went to the busiest area downtown. I asked a guy if he knows a restaurant that’s open at 6am. McDonald’s and all others were closed. So we walked around and found nothing. We went back to that same place where the guy I asked was. He went to us with his little tricycle. He said he’ll just bring us to some resto by the beach to see if it’s open. That was the best thing that ever happened to us after the apartelle incident. We had the best breakfast. The place is called Maxine by the Sea. The room rent per night is only P1000.00 ($20). We took the key right away and went back to that hideous apartelle. David saw Jennifer right when he got out and he said “Jennifer, Im checking out”. She was convincing us to stay or to convert the payment to other services. Hell no! We took off but Jennifer still had our money. But we agreed that she’ll give it back to us as soon as she gets the money from wherever she needs to get it. We checked in at Maxine’s and started our vacation.
The whole time the tricycle driver was there helping us with whatever we needed. His name is Carlo. We became friends with him right away. He had breakfast with us and stuff. We rested for a little while and then in the afternoon, I text messaged Carlo so he can help us get great deals with some boatmen. We went snorkeling and island hopping and it only cost us P800 total; boat, snorkeling stuff and everything else. We went back to the hotel and had our lunch. We had fried chicken, rice and spicy pork Afritada. We were pretty “happy” when we got back to our room. Until this girl Jennifer text messaged us with a pretty dumb cancellation policy BS. David got mad and called her, Actually, “journalized” her (It’s an inside term, ask me about it). At the end of their conversation they agreed, again, that David is getting back the rest of the money. Coz in Jennifer’s cancellation policy, it says she will take 50% from the full payment if we cancelled. Well who cancelled you dumb biatch?! So that day was over. We slept the whole night.. Great a/c great bed great everything.
The next day was one of the most promising days in my life. April 21st. We both woke up at 7am. Again, we had the best breakfast ever. I ate Alaminos Longganisa, the best longganisa in town. We called Carlo again to help us with the “bill deal”. We were going fishing (yey!). It’s my first time. I cought three different kinds of (aquarium) fishes. Really cute ones. First, I caught a lion fish which was probably the biggest fish in that part of the ocean. David said it weighed about a pound. He didnt catch anything, by the way. Next, I caught a Phil Grouper. We call it Lapu-lapu in tagalog. David=0. Lastly before we left, I caught a smaller fish. I think it was too small it didnt have a name. But, David=none. He was really happy for me, though, and I was so excited. I dont know, I just cant believe I caught three fishes. David is used to real fishes. Like a 30 40 50 pounder fish. The fishes I caught were the ones he would throw back to the sea. Anyways for the whole fishing trip we only paid ($20) total inlcuding the rods and the baits. Jennifer was gonna charge us ($60). I wonder what kind of boat, rods and baits she has, hhmmm. Speaking of Jennifer, she text messaged me again and said 20% cancellation fee was fair enough. Like making a deal. First of all, We are an unsatisfied customer. The least she could’ve done is give us back the money that we paid in advance. If we were rude and aggressive, we wouldve asked for a full refund. P2500 a night for nothing. That’s like 2 nights at Maxine’s and a breakfast. David got tired of her trying to make these deals. She’s trying to get most of the money. We went there and talked to her in person. David was mostly the one talking. To the point that he’s already threatening her. It didn’t sound good to me. So I felt like I had to butt in and talk as a 3rd party person. Explained to her what we think. Basically telling her that If she is talking about business then thats a two-way thing. You want to get money, you have to please the customers. After that, David calmed down and she finally gave the rest of the money back to David. We were a good team, Dave and I. We were successful in getting that money back. That can’t be bad. We were happy.
We realized it’s gonna be our last night at Alaminos. So he planned a nice romantic dinner. He said it’s is our 1st wedding anniversary celebration. Since he cant be here on May 11th. He bought a pink summery haltertop dress for me and a blue hawiian polo shirt for himself. We went back to our room and planned the rest of the day. I said we’ll have dinner at 7ish. then we’ll go to a videoke bar (coz he wanted to sing) and then we have to go back to our hotel by 9 so I can get the surprise thing started. I asked him to take care of the dinner stuff while I get ready. I went to that province with not alot of stuff with me. I wasn’t expecting a romantic dinner. I didnt bring any nice shoes or make up or whatever with me. So I cant accessorize my pink halter dress. I went to the gift shop to buy a pair of earings and a bracelet. Thats the best I can do. It costs P130.00. I told the seller I only had 100 on me. I asked her to just sell it to me for 100 because I have to look beautiful on our most important night. I’m from Manila alright. She said ok and I went back to my room and changed. I put powder on my face. I didnt have any special make up. I wore the earing and the bracelet. I tied my hair and put it to the side to show my back. Im only wearing my pink slippers no nice sandals or anything. I wore a little bit of my oil perfume and thats it. It was almost 730pm. I went out of the room and walked to where David was seated. I felt like it was the longest walk I’ve ever done. Coz people were looking at me crazy. I wanted to run back to the room. David saw me walking then he stood up and walked towards me. He kissed me and said I looked beautiful. Thats all I needed to hear coz I was so paranoid walking down that lane to our table. As soon as I sat down they started serving our dinner. Like it was perfectly timed and well practiced. I saw him taking out a flower from a small plant. He put it to my left ear but I took it off and put it on the table. I told him that people were staring at me and I felt uneasy. Anyway, they first served our soup. By the way, we brought in the lion fish i caught and asked them to cook it with Tamarind soup or sour soup. Here we call it Sinigang. David loved it. Then they served the Lobsters…actually everything else. So he took some lobster meat and dip it into the butter bowl and fed me some. It was heavenly. mmm. Also we had Sizzling Gambas which I expected to be spicy but not too much bcoz it will ruin everything else. The spicy taste was just right. Perfecto! And ofcourse, rice for me. It was the most glorious food I’ve ever had in my life.
I’m so happy because I’m sharing it with my husband. After that we didnt feel like going to the videoke bar anymore. So I asked him to stay out while I get our room ready for my surprise. I cleaned the room, Actually I just hid those things that I can’t throw and threw out those that I can. So it was pretty fast. hehehe. I set up the candles right infront of the mirror. I got the massage oil ready and my perfume. So basically I wanted him to realize that Im gonna use those things he’s seeing. I got the incense oil ready. I went out when I was ready and then escorted him to our room. He saw the room was clean. I said “actually, that was my surprise”. he was laughing coz he knows I couldn’t clean. I played some music. Im thinking he’s kinda getting the idea. We smoked. Then I went to the bathroom and I changed into my night gown. My friends at work gave me a really naughty night gown as a wedding gift. I never got to use it until that night. It’s a black silky tanktop. The bra part had leopard print matching the g-strings. the rest of it is see-through. The tanktop is cut in the middle both front and back. So it’s basically just covering my busts since he could see through the cloth. I put the oil based perfume onto every part of my body. Just so he can smell it on every part of me. Then I wore his jacket and went back out. I played Toni Braxton’s “You’re making me high” (and “Closer” by NIN after). I went infront of him and asked him to not come near. Then I started dancing.
April 21, 2007, Saturday. The Perfect Day.
No Comments Yet
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
