Friday, Jan 27, 2006

Woke up kind of early this morning and took a quick shower to get ready for my trip to Manila with Jack and Ate Pie. Remy who works for Jack and Pap (our driver) were with us. Jack however drove to Manila. Pap was the back up on the drive home. At around 8:30 we left for Manila. At Bocaue exit we picked up Ate Pie’s friend and we proceeded to Makati where Jack had a business appointment at 11:00. I’ve sent text messages to Didi, Nasty and Mergine the night before so they’re aware that I’m coming. Sherwin responded to my messages saying to send them to him instead since his Dad doesn’t read/respond to text messages and he’s going to be the one to pick me up anyway. Jack took the EDSA route thinking the other way may be packed since they’re going to have a ticker tape parade for Manny Pacquiao. We got to Landmark at around 10:30 and literally a few seconds after I got off the car, here comes Sherwin in his Dad’s Pajero. Bane (I was to find out later was short for Giovanni) their driver is behind the wheel. After the initial hello’s and stuff, he asked, “Where to?” I told him to look for a restaurant since I haven’t had breakfast and it turned out neither did he. He took me to this breakfast place called Heaven ‘n Eggs. I guess it’s the IHOP counterpart here. I ordered a crab meat and asparagus omelette which turned out to be a fairly big serving with real crab meat (bits of shells and all) pan cakes and fries, the latter are actually fried big slices of potato with skin. Bunny had most of my pan cakes and fries. Since Didi and Pareng Nasty were still at work, we went ahead and looked for the office from where to get Indo’s permit to come over. Sherwin thought it should be the Department of Wildlife or something like that but when we asked the guard, he pointed us to the Bureau of Animal Industry. We went there and sure enough we got to the right place. We had to wait a few minutes because the guy at the counter was out to lunch. When he showed up he gave us the form to apply for the permit. I noticed there’s a date when the pet will arrive. Since I didn’t know when that is, I told the gentleman the situation. He said it should be OK because once released the permit is good for two months which may still be not good for us. So I just took the application with me along with the list of requirements (see enclosed pictures). The permit application fee is only Php 100, by the way. Then we went and picked up Sherwin’s girlfriend Pam from Ateneo. We went to a nearby Starbucks because Sherwin wanted to see Indo’s pictures in my laptop. We stayed there for quite a bit while Pam was writing some application for OJT training at Procter and Gamble. She’s majoring in Information Systems at Ateneo. All along we were sending/receiving text messages to/from Mergine and that’s how I found out that she went home because she started feeling ill due to her high blood pressure. This was still mid afternoon and I mentioned earlier that we’re on the lookout for a vehicle to use here. So Sherwin took me to a Toyota dealership and we test drove the new Innova, the newer model of Revo. Pretty impressive, nice ride and the new car smell is evident here as well! I took some pictures of it since they didn’t have a brochure for it. The sales lady gave me a price list instead. Next is the Isuzu dealership where we were shown the Crosswind and Strada. I got some brochures and a price list. These models are a little more expensive than the Toyota’s. After dropping off Pam, we picked up Sherwin’s little sister Chick-chick who’s a junior in a local high school. Then we picked up Didi who got off work at about the time we picked up Chick-chick. We went home to their place in Valenzuela and a few minutes later Pareng Nasty came home. We watched some basketball, interviews of Manny Pacquiao while waiting for dinner to be cooked. Finally we heard Mareng Didi yell out, “Dinner’s ready!!” She laid it out in their yard: grilled bangus and fresh tilapia, mussels, nilagang talong. Did I say it was pouring rain while we were eating outside? After dinner we went inside and watched some more TV. Mergine called and I had a fairly long conversation with her. She said she’ll try to make it tomorrow just as soon as her BP goes down. I kicked Chick-chick out of her bedroom with the AC. The shower was super cold for some reason which helps in a way since I’ve been away from Donna for quite a while now. Anyway…..

The Baguio trip in my next blog…