Sit Back and Relax

So anyway, back to my vacation. After being in the city for a few days, we headed to Plantation Bay in Cebu. It's resort that is just incredible. If you're ever in the Phils and you need a nice, relaxing place to go, check it out. It was so nice but unfortunately, the kids liked to go to bed at 7-ish so our evenings were spent in the room. Not so bad because the room was really nice and room service wasn't too shabby. One of the things I really liked about this place was the phone had a button on it labelled "Butler". When you pressed this, someone would answer and you could get them to do anything for you. Sterilize the baby bottles, pick up our laundry, shoot the neighbours, ... anything.

The wedding was in Cebu as well and it was really nice. Because it was officiated by the archbishop and it was on a sunday, everyone from the mass just before stayed to see if the wedding was a celebrity. So my soon-to-be-sister-in-law was a Celebrity for the day.

Busy

We're busy. I don't mean the-house-is-a-mess-and-the-kids-are-fussy-and-won't-sleep-and-we-don't-have-time-to-cook kind of busy, I mean in the next 4 months we're putting our house back on the market and we have to find a new home, we're planning our kids' first birthday in March, and our wedding is in April. Just to give you a little perspective of the stress I'm currently experiencing: we just got back from the most expensive vacation of my life, Celia is still not back to work, we bought a new van last summer, I took 2 months of parental leave at half my usual income, and we all know how much baby supplies cost. And damnit, have you seen Celia's ring? I seem to think I'm rich. My secret is that I sell my body fluids to various banks around the Lower Mainland. I use different names so I can donate twice without anyone knowing.

Back in the PI

When we finally arrived in the Philippines, I was quickly reminded of the extreme poverty there. As we drove from the airport to the house where we were staying, I pointed out to Celia all the homes that looked like they were made with scrap pieces of wood and metal sheets, the garbage on the the streets and the pollution in the air. I guess I've been there a few times now so I've gotten used to seeing it and I know what to expect when we drive through the city but pointing it out to Celia made me notice how bad it is. It almost made me feel guilty for living in a clean city with clean water and for having money to go on vacation and staying at 5-star resorts. Almost. I'm glad my parents decided to take the chance and move to Canada 30+ years ago.

Anyway, the city was... the city. We visited with some family and went shopping for fabric for the bridesmaids dresses. The fabric was ridiculously cheap - like less than half of what we would pay here. Then we bought fresh popped chicharon and now Celia is addicted to it and wants someone to import it so she can get it fresh again. I can feel my arteries hardening already.

Depart Vancouver, Arrive Taipei

I'm not entirely sure how we even managed to organize this trip. We were packing right up until the last minute and we somehow did it while trying to watch out for the twins. Amelia was crawling around and climbing into the suitcases and Lucas was just crying because he was bored. We left the house at around 9pm and when we got to the airport to check in, Celia realized that we had forgotten the kids' passports in the filing cabinet. My dad and I drove home to pick up the passports and then back to the airport. Finally, at about 0030hrs, our plane took off and we were headed for Taipei.

If you've never been there, Taipei is a lot like Vancouver except with more chinese people. Seriously, even more. It's very nice and very clean. When I saw the tower, Taipei 101, the first thing I thought was "I thought it would be taller." It's kind of a cool looking building though - like a bunch of take out boxes all stacked together. While we were in Taipei, we met up with a few of Celia's old friends. The funny thing is that when I met some of her old friends in Vancouver, they didn't speak english, but the friends that I met in Taipei all spoke english. Anyway, we just hung out and shopped a bit (didn't buy anything), visited relatives, etc etc.

Home At Last!

There's so much I could say about our trip. So many stories, so many people, so much fun. I have to say though, that this trip was the most tiring and the busiest trip I've ever had. We had 3 times the usual amount of luggage and the twins have gotten quite heavy to carry around.

I don't know where to start. This will definitely come up as several different posts but here was our itinerary so you get an idea of my "vacation".

Dec 24 - depart Vancouver
Dec 25 - arrive Taipei
Dec 26 - high-speed train to Pingtung (about an hour on this train. Did I tell you this is the fastest fucking train I've ever seen?)
Dec 29 - 2 hour car ride to Taichung
Dec 30 - 2 hour car ride to Taipei
Jan 1 - depart Taipei, arrive Manila/Marikina
Jan 4 - Cebu
Jan 6 - Eva's Wedding @ Shangri-La Mactan
Jan 7 - Boracay (we took a little turboprop plane to Caticlan - the smallest plane I've ever been in. scary if you don't like to fly. I don't like to fly)
Jan 10 - back to Marikina
Jan 11 - 2 hours Manila-Taipei, 4hr layover, 10 hours Taipei-Vancouver

Whew! For almost the entire trip, we carried the twins (no carseats, no strollers) and we had a lot of luggage for their stuff.

Details to come...