Jake has been planning our trip to Siquijor for MONTHS and Thursday night we gathered at Rabang’s house for his birthday celebration and to kick off our vacation. We met Annie, Julius’ special friend, for the first time. At the beginning she was afraid that we might not like her. Perish the thought. Within minutes we were all gabbing like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time.
Rabang’s Birthday
Now my friends (aside from Pia) are all in different occupations with hectic schedules. We have doctors, bankers, non-linear editors and we rarely have the opportunity to get together. So this trip was a welcome diversion to spend time and catch up. That evening at Rabang’s place was great – we had good food (Rabang had prepared lasagna, potato salad, barbecue, spring rolls and of course desert from Calea)
By 11, it was time to head back to Jake’s place to get our stuff and wait for our ride to the bus station. Our bus was due to depart before 3 am and we had a couple of hours to kill which we did by watching tv – We had a running commentary on ABS-CBN’s SOCO (Scene of the Crime Operatives – a RIP-OFF of CSI) and were dying with laughter while watching Borat on The Conan O’Brien Show. “Hi-Five” which such a Pinoy thing became our regular expression too!
DAY 1: Ratsada
Jake’s dad dropped us off at the Ceres terminal where we waited for about an hour for our bus to arrive. While waiting, Anne and Jake introduced our trademark phrase complete with choreographed movements…”I’m a flower, swaying in the wind”, a mantra for Type-A personalities (aka everyone in our group), who hate waiting, absolutely hate waiting.
Also Julius kept on singing “We’re All In This Together” from the High School Musical movie which we all thought was funny and became a running joke for our entire stay in Siquijor.
Since our trip was early in the morning, our bus was non-airconditioned. At first we thought this wouldn’t be a problem because –
a) it’s early morning so it’s not going to be hot
b) nobody travels that early in the morning so the bus won’t be crowded.
We were half right.