Breakfast with Mary (September 19, 2005)

    We got up Monday morning and began the task of packing.  Mary was to pick us up at 9:00 a.m. for breakfast.  We got up at 6:00 a.m. (as usual), so time was not a factor.  We’ve got a lot of stuff to pack home.  I love the little travel zip lock bags that Joji provided to us.  They are really cool.  You put the clothes in them, squeeze all the air out, zip them up, and it looks like freeze dried clothes.  It is intended to provide more room for packing.  I don’t know if it actually works or not, but it looks cool.  We discovered over the weekend that not only would the Holiday Inn not cash travelers checks, but we could not find a bank anywhere in Angeles City to cash them.  (Thank you American Express!)  We would eventually cash them at the Holiday Inn in Manila, but I had no idea it would be so hard to cash travelers checks.  Thanks to Joji, we brought cash with us too.  (Joji, what would we do without you?)

    Mary picked us up at the hotel with her personal driver.  She is a very sophisticated Chinese woman who speaks English, Tagalog, Kampampangan, and Chinese.  Mary is married and has three children (two daughters ages 9 and 6, and a newborn son of two months).  She takes her children to China for two months a year to visit family, and is very intent on having them fluently speak Chinese, as well as Tagalog and English.  “Chinese is very important,” she said.  Mary will be sending her oldest daughter to a boarding school in China (near Shanghi) to study Chinese.  We had a nice breakfast at the Oasis with Mary. 

Brad and Mary Chen - Angeles City

Brad, Maralea and I got the breakfast buffet, something we had almost every morning at the restaurant where we were staying.  At our hotel, all the help was incredibly nice, helpful, friendly, and loved talking to Brad.  At the Oasis Hotel buffet on this morning, we met someone akin to the “Soup Nazi” on Seinfeld - only we’ll call him the “Omelet Nazi.”  Whew, he was an angry chef that was only too unhappy to make you an omelet.  Brad spoke to him in Tagalog, and he just glared at him.  I was afraid to ask for anything, expecting I might mess up and have him say: “No omelet for you.  Go sit down.”  He did tell me to “sit down,” after I ordered my omelet.  I obeyed.  Anyway, we enjoyed getting to know Mary.  She is very intelligent, nice and clearly thinks a lot of Brad.  After breakfast, Mary took us to her home to see her newborn son.  She has several Filipinos who look after her home and children.  It was nice to meet everyone, and to see her son.  We got some pictures, and Mary gave us some thoughtful gifts.  She made an offering for us on a kind of altar (Chinese tradition) and had us burn incense and say something like a wish (i.e. wishing for a safe trip home).  It was not until Maralea and I had already finished that Mary told Brad: “You have to whisper [so no one can hear you].”  There were no “do overs,” so I was hoping that Brad wished for the same thing we did.  (We’ll just keep him close to us throughout the trip home.)

With Mary Chen at her home in Angeles City  (Oh I see (I must have fixed the camera date stamp between the point of our arrival at Mary's and our departure - good, timely catch- ha)

    We returned to the hotel with Mary at about 11:00 a.m., leaving us an hour to finish packing.  Mission accomplished.  Edward arrived at about 12:45 p.m. and we were off to Manila.  It was sad driving through Angeles City for the last time.  As we did so, I kept looking around for some of our friends (just in case), hoping for one last wave goodbye - but those moments had already passed and it was not to be.  It rained hard on our trip to Manila, and it was quiet inside the car as we traveled.  Brad said: “I’m going to miss the green country.”  That is for sure - and there are fewer places on earth to make one miss the greenery, the rain, than Las Vegas.  We arrived in Manila and drove by the temple - marking the first time that Brad has seen it.  We drove through Quezon City and got a good look at part of the mission where Brad’s friend Gian Molina will be spending his next two years (leaving the MTC on October 3rd).  It is a very densely populated place, with lots of traffic everywhere.  We arrived at the Holiday Inn at Manila, which is connected to a large shopping mall - where we hung out for the remainder of the day.  We had lunch at . . . “Kenny Rogers Roasters” and followed that up with “Dairy Queen.”  The U.S. dollar, for the most part, goes a long way here.  I got a banana split at Dairy Queen for 64 pesos (or about $1.20).  It’s not the same kind of banana split that you would get at a Dairy Queen in Las Vegas (i.e. no whip cream or nuts, and no pretty clear plastic bowl) - but it was good enough.  The time spent at the mall was good in that it kind of got us all anxious to get home. 

Brad, wishing for good luck for the trip back - Mary's home, Angeles City

    We called home to talk with the kids.  David reported that Jordan had the football game of his life in the absence of Coach Royal (indicating that I may have to be away more often on game days), and that our team bounced back from its second week loss (the day Maralea and I left for the Philippines).  Kelli was not present when we called.  David said: “She’s at Katie Jo’s making posters and signs for the airport on Tuesday.”  Good to know.  David got a report from school about his grades that was very favorable, so he was excited about that.  Everything seems to have gone well in our absence, thanks to a combination of things - no small part of which is the great family we have there who helped out and probably made the lives of our children more exciting and fun than ever before.  (Sorry kids, all the dullness will sadly return when Mom and Dad get home.)

    It was interesting to watch some of the local television stations here - which are mostly in Tagalog.  There are stations with other languages, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and even Arabic, with a few in English.  We got to bed early and prepared for our final day, which would begin with a visit to the temple.