Destination Unknown

May 25, 2007

Dawn
Flights. Yeah, tell me about how gruesome such experiences can be.
The schedule, the ear-shattering noise, and the food. Our company had
planned a four-day, three-night trip to Boracay, and today was our
departure date to such place. Apparently, this was the umpteenth time
I had to ride on a plane, and after not being on a flight for over a
year, today I was reminded again of how unpleasant the experience can
be.

Waking up early proved to be the most irritating. Our plane was
scheduled to fly on 6 A.M. I had to force myself awake at 4; no small
feat, considering I had slept later than midnight. The schedule by
itself was enough to make me dread the whole idea of the trip; it
didn’t help that after all the efforts, the flight was eventually
delayed, which caused me to feel grumpy about all the troubles I had
gone through. Oh well, at least I finished reading Charlotte’s Web
while I waited for boarding time.

---

Ian getting a beauty sleep.

Current mood: Cranky
Current
song: Come Fly With Me – Frank Sinatra. 

Once
I get you up there, where the air is rarefied
We’ll just glide,
starry eyed…

---

Morning
In case you wondered, we didn’t take a direct flight to Boracay, but
rather, we went to its nearby island, Caticlan. We reached Caticlan’s
airport at approximately 8:30 AM. Then we took the bus, the boat, and
then the jeep, to Patio Pacific, the resort in Boracay where we
booked. I suppose this was probably the cheaper way, if not the only
way, to reach our place. Whatever the case may be, it’s not really as
terrible as it sounded, as the entire trip from Caticlan to Boracay
only took around 15-30 minutes.

The funny thing was that until now, I still was feeling quite
indifferent about the whole trip. Here, let me explain. I have a
certain notoriety in the office of being quite a recluse. I don’t
often interact with much of my other colleagues and I hardly ever
open up to people who don’t belong to my team. I fancy traveling to
a place that I’ve never been to before, and I’ve never been to
Boracay; however, I probably would’ve preferred a crowd that I’m much
closer to, such as my siblings, or my friends from college and/or
high school.

Anyway, our first activity was snorkeling. I like seeing what’s under
the sea, but sadly the last time I did any snorkeling was 10 or so
years ago when the world was quieter and people didn’t entertain
themselves by talking loudly on the cellular phone while watching
movies. This had, of course, been an activity that I looked forward
to for the longest time, and I was ecstatic of being able to immerse
with the sights of the corals, the schools of fish and the barnacles
(Ok, the last one was a joke).

I don’t know if the rest of my companions were as thrilled. What I do
know was that a lot of them can’t swim, so they could only snorkel
for a limited time wherein I could do it the whole day.

Or could I? While the rest wore life-vests, I was threading the
territories of bravery and foolishness by not wearing any flotation
devices. Little did I know that my lack of snorkeling experiences
eventually took their toll, for I spent a very long time trying to
get used to breathing on a tube. So hard was my struggle to stay
afloat and to keep my breathing intact that at one point I thought I
was going to drown. I was quite scared.

Eventually, I overcame all my fears, got used to all snorkeling
devices and was ready to see the sights of the underwater.
Unfortunately, time was up and everyone was about to leave. And there
was no camera that could take underwater pictures, so I was really
bummed about the brevity of the whole activity. Oh well, maybe being
short-lived was what makes each experiences of underwater
explorations so special for me.

---

Look at me hanging so tightly to the rope

Current mood: Bummed
Current
song: Seven Nation Army – White Stripes

I’m
gonna fight ‘em off
A seven nation army couldn’t hold me back

They’re
gonna rip it off
Taking
their time right behind my back

---

Noon
The boat that had taken us to the snorkeling spot also took us to
lunch, by going to a restaurant by another beach. Puka beach. I’m not
even sure if it’s part of Boracay. Anyway, being a vegetarian meant
that eating would be quite inconvenient, but thankfully this small
restaurant served generous amount of herbivorous foods. And they
actually didn’t taste like cardboard that I actually felt half-sorry
for not remembering the name of the restaurant.

While a few of my colleagues busied with looking at a few souvenir
stalls, a dog approached me. And, well, none of us knew this, but my
uncle had a dog that looked exactly like that. You know how sometimes
when you see someone that resembles your close friends, you kind of
want to treat the lookalike as your kin too? That’s probably what
propelled me to be friendly to this dog. I massaged his ears and I
let him lick my hands, which thankfully wasn’t overly gross like the
last time I let a Central Park Zoo’s cow lick my fingers (now THAT’S
disgusting). The dog seemed to grow so fond of me that he followed
all of us as we were leaving Puka beach. And then I get flashbacks of
my younger years when my uncle’s dog would play with me and accompany
me when I went out to Taiwan’s night market.

Gee, I feel quite sad about saying goodbye to the dog. Had it been
more convenient I would’ve taken him as my own pet.

And now we’re back to Patio Pacific — or the resort where we stayed,
for readers who don’t remember. It was finally free time, which for
me meant rest time. I needed to restore some energy after being
sleep-deprived on the day before.

---

The dog

Staring into the horizon.

Current mood: Sleepy
Current
song: Visions  – Stevie Wonder

People
hand in hand
Have I lived to see the milk and honey land?
Where
hates a dream and love forever stands
Or is this a vision in my
mind?

---

Night
There were probably others who have slept the whole afternoon. It
seemed that way to me since some people came to Garden Cafe — our
assembly area — while rubbing their eyes. I had rested well enough
by then, so I now had enough energy to comprehend anything. Or so I
thought.

What happened next got me so dumbfounded.

Our entire group was introduced to the event planner who was
responsible for a few of our itineraries and activities. This was a
company outing after all, and the entire purpose was for
team-building (a phrase with which the true meaning/s merits argument
of semantics, but whatever). Her name is Joana. She looked like that
lady in diaphanous draperies writers/artists dream of, and she had a
smile that could make warring nations consider signing truce and
peace treaties. If only George W. Bush had met her. The way your
smile just beams… the way you haunt my dreams… (gee, I’m
singing.)

Joana was the goddess of goddesses, and to many, goddess of goddesses
meant that it’s someone with whom you fool around with by
objectifying. Grr. All I am saying is that I didn’t like the way she
was introduced: as someone with whom you can score for a “room
service”. Of course this was followed by streams of nasty comments
(or stares to some nether regions) from far too many origins:

“I want her number!”
“Let’s date.”
“Awoo!!!”
“Yeehaw!”
“Yeah baby!”

Puerile. Can’t there be more class to the way good-looking people get
introduced in a corporate environment? It’s like deja vu all over
again.

We had supper at Garden Cafe. Well, it certainly sounded fancy but it
was actually just the name of the restaurant from our own resort.
Foods here were edible but they’re not exactly the kind that would
make me go “Hey, did you know that [that restaurant] actually serve
awesome vegetarian foods? What say you we try it?” At least I’m
thankful that they actually have something I can eat.

Everyone has their own definition of nighttime. To some it meant
quiet time and to others, it meant acting like an epileptic monkey.
Me, I’m a teetotaler; and while I can be quite a social animal at
times, I still feel rather bored with what’s happened in the trip so
far. Not to mention, I was aloof from most of the crowd.

I wished my brother was with me. Being an intrepid traveler who would
spend every waking minute hopping from one place to another, he would
scold me until I have acquiesced to go out with him. He’s definitely
what I need now because if I didn’t have motivation then coercion
might be key.

Everyone got stoned on the room next to mine and, from the pictures
that I saw, a lot of them did a lot of crazy things. Frankly, I don’t
like the sight of drunks, but that’s just me. But have you wondered
why I don’t like getting drunk? Well, to me it just seems rather
pointless. I don’t need alcoholic drink to have fun. I want to have
my mental faculties on a lot of things that I do, one of which
includes chronicling accounts of my travels. Drinking could dull my
mind and I don’t want that, however momentarily. Also, I think that
recreational drinking is an activity that I could do anyway at the
local bar and that I do not need to do it on foreign lands unless if
I’m consuming an indigenous drink, which does not include bottles of
San Mig, the last time I checked.

Of course, I too did a silly thing I might as well do at home. I read
Philip K. Dick’s Ubik until I was sleepy. Ha, the irony!

---

Dinner at Garden’s Cafe

Stoned under orange haze

Current mood: Sober
Current
song: Our Love Is Here To Stay – Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

The way your smile just beams,
The way you sing off key,
The way you haunt my dreams,
They can’t take that away from me…

---

(CONTINUED HERE)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.