Monday, November 17
At some point we passed the International Dateline and said 'hello' to Monday.
As the day wore on, the windows of the Dreamliner were darkened to a cool bluish-green shade to simulate nightime even though it was light outside. We napped off and on but nothing too serious. I watched a lot of movies, "Guardians of the Galazy" (not as cool as my daughters made it out to be), "Saving Mr. Banks" (I liked that one), and "Girls Night Out." Kristen and I played a game of Yahtzee on the tvs and she tried to master a strategy game.
I started working on my note-keeping.
We were about a half hour late leaving Denver on the non-stop flight to Norita, Japan where we only had one hour to make our next flight. Chris was a little concerned that we might not make the connection. It didn't seem to be too much of a challenge though as our next flight to the Philippines wasn't too far from where we disembarked at the airport, and the pilots were able to make up extra time.
Our five-hour flight to Manila, Philippines seemed short compared to the 11.5 hr flight we just finished. Chris had tried to encourage us all to stay awake in order to make the change over to Philippine time (13 hours ahead), but Amy and Misha sprawled out on one set of three seats, Kristen laid on my lap for awhile and promptly fell asleep on another row. I moved back to Chris' set of three seats and dozed there for a bit. We had another meal, but ate very little, and the girls not at all.
Our long day of flying finallly ended as we descended in to Manila. Definitely not my favorite airport. We walked past the health screeners who were looking for people with a fever on their sensors. First stop, Immigration. We stood in line for about twenty minutes before being processed with a stamp in our passports.
We had nothing to declare at Customs and just walked on through to Baggage Claim. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven bags. Yay, they all arrived. Chris stopped for a minute to withdraw money from an ATM. He checked on a SIM card but decided to wait and find a cheaper one. And into the Manila sauna we walked. Oh, the smell and the heat and the noise. Coming from -2 degrees to 80 plus was a bit of a shock and we were sweating in no time. No worries, it wouldn't end for the next two plus weeks.
We first stood in line for a taxi, but they were just the sedan type that were quite too small for the five of us and all of our luggage. We were directed back toward the mini-vans where we were quickly loaded in to a van. Our driver was friendly enough, and he and Chris chatted throughout the drive. My husband loves to speak Tagalog with the locals. He especially loves the surprised looks on their faces. They always ask how he knows their language and if he married a Philipina lady.
It took a little effort to find our Best Western hotel, we rounded the block at least twice before spotting the Best Western logo tucked in between buildings. We shuffled in to the lobby with all of our luggage in tow around 11:30 local time. We had two rooms for the night but unfortunately, they were on different floors. Misha and I stayed together in room 307 while Chris, Amy, and Kristen headed up to 605. We had to get used to the routine of not flushing toilet paper and using only bottled water to brush our teeth. I sent a quick email to my brother to let him know we made it while Misha texted with a few of her friends. It was early Monday morning for them.