Papa Kits

I've officially failed in my goal to document the trip to Philippines before my 1 year period was over. A year ago, I was back in the states. Whoops. You don't mind, right?

We'll pretend you don't mind.

Anyways, when I left off, I'd just gotten back to Cebu Marriot for rest. We woke up, met downstairs, and I had Starbucks in the mall for Breakfast.  The Starbucks employees knew who I was and knew we were traveling with other Americans. It was kind of cool--and the nice thing is that Starbucks tastes the same the whole world over. I still felt weird from lack of sleep, but was determined to get through it. The vendor van picked us up and then I met.....EVERYONE FROM CEBU. It was another crazy moment where I tried to remember everyone's name after just reading a list of them from the past year and also catch the Cebuanos up on the Minnesotans who visited the year before. The Cebuanos had started dating the other people in their class, so it was  also confusing to remember who was dating who, but I did.  There are a few power couples--they met in training, still date now, and just had the cutest baby in the world, named Kobe. Wish I could go visit and see him, but I am sure I'd be jealous b/c I really want to have an Asian baby and it's just not going to happen.

The van circled and we talked about work and who was who back home and which person I liked and how they related. It turned out that none of the leaders from my team could make it, so it was just the reps and me, in a little fishing hut. We fished in a tiny stocked pond and everyone ate them later. The food for the day was rice and boiled squid. I ate mine after psyching myself up for it big time and taking one gulp of sprite. It seems like a miracle--Anthony Bourdain I am not. (though I thought I was an adventourous eater, I am really not, in the end)

It was hard to convince everyone that I didn't have the special talent of Andrew or the humor of Pete, the people who had visited the year before. I can't play guitar and I am really too somber for many occassions.

So we went fishing and then walked around Papa Kits. They have horseback riding, swimming and....ZIPLINING OVER THE OCEAN. We looked at the horses, but they looked sick and sad and definitely not ready to ride by our standards. I tried to spend some time with the horse and pet it-and it whinnied after me for awhile when I walked away. There were also wild chickens running around for awhile and I saw a chicken eating chicken, really. Someone dropped a piece of fried chicken on the ground and a live chicken ate it. Cannibalism!

We decided to go ziplining. I'd never done that before and ended up using my last few pesos to pay for everyone's ride. We put on our helmets and attached to the line after climbing to the top and getting buckeled into our harness by the safety people. And then....WOOOSH. Out over the ocean, to a tower across from us on a little sandbar. If you look down, you can see starfish and real fish swimming in the coral reefs. I squealed and laughed and took a few photos. My coworker, Al, went across with me and I was so heavy compared to him. Yes, Americans are fat and Filipinos are skinny.
We ziplined back and I tried to count the starfish, but it was too fast for me.

We ate dinner somehow ( I think everyone else ate the fish, but me) and went over by van to the mall and took our photos in front of TGI Fridays. It was tempting to eat there, but the lines are long and it's expensive. Instead we walked the mall and played arcade games. Some weirdo was creeping on me, so we left and went to a movie. It's the one where Zoe Saldana is an assassain getting revenge on her murdered parents...
And then it was time to say goodbye. They bought me an I heart Cebu Tshirt and I tried to say goodbye to people that I'd only be lucky to see one more time but would still talk to a bunch of times via phone. I promised to visit Cebu again. Everyone was way helpful and kind and wonderful.