Mass in the Philippines

The mass at the Good Shepherd Church was very different from the masses I’ve had in Australia. First most of the prayers and songs were in Tagalog, only a few were in English. But just like here in our school, the songs and prayers were projected on the wall for everyone to see. They had an excellent pianist, though the singers weren’t so good. When we were there, the Church was decorated with the Nativity scene, complete with little statues of the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the Three Kings, and the farm animals.

One of the bonuses of going to Mass is the ride in a tricycle, which is a motorcycle with a side car. For short trips, people here take the tricycle for convenience. I love it when we go fast, when we zig and zag, and when it hits humps on the road which make us all jump, and when the wind blows into my face. The fare for the three of us was 40 Australian cents one way.

Visiting Aunt Mercy (my grandma’s sister)

My dad and I visited Aunt Mercy and my cousins at Ayala Alabang. It was not the first time I went there, but it was such a long time ago (2001) that I couldn’t remember anymore. I met my cousins Ashley, Jacob who is about my age, and another cousin whose name I can’t remember. I had the most fun playing video games like Kao the Kangaroo and Dragon Ball Z. The second time I went (after New Year’s Day), we played Marvel vs Capcom, SD Gundam Force, SIMS 2, and a racing game.

Flying the helicopter with Rap-rap

The day after the party, my mum got a call from Rap-rap’s mum asking if I wanted to come over to their house to play with Rap-rap. She said we were going over to the University of the Philippines grounds to fly the helicopters. So, later that day, Rap-rap came over to pick me up, I got into their car, and we zoomed off, towards UP. When we arrived, Rap-rap and I got our helicopters out and started flying them. Both our helicopters crashed and broke. Then we used a remote-control aeroplane but it ran out of battery. We all got back into the car and drove away.

We arrived at his house and watched TV. Then, Rap-rap had to study with a tutor so I got all his toys and moved them to another room to play with. He had lots of transformers and MegaZords but they were all disassembled. Rap-rap’s mom and I built most of the toys and when Rap-rap finished studying, he joined us and helped us. We built most of them, but some we didn’t fix. Rap-rap and I had a MegaZord battle. I was the stag beetle megazord and Rap was the T-rex dinosaur megazord. I won when I knocked his megazord’s head off. I had to go by then, so I said goodbye to Rap-rap. He dropped me off at my house. Goodnight!

This was not my last visit to Rap-rap’s house. I went back twice, where we played more games on his Playstation 2.

Party at Uncle Edgar’s House

On Saturday, my Uncle Edgar (my mum’s cousin) gave a big party. Aunts Myrna and Nancy, my mom, and I took the car over to Uncle Edgar’s place. It was a big house and had two floors, quite a few rooms. I met Rap-Rap, my cousin, who is 6 years old. I also met my Uncle Elmer’s daughter, Celine.

Rap-Rap had brought a lot of Gameboy games and we played for a while. Then we took a break and ate some barbecue and spring rolls and drank soda. Uncle Joey, Aunt Cecil and JC (another cousin) were there too and so were lots of other relatives. I went upstairs with Rap-Rap and Celine and played X-men on the Playstation 2. I made Rap- Rap and Celine laugh a lot. We advanced through levels pretty quickly. We kept attacking the mushrooms. Finally, we got tired of the game, so we saved our progress and went downstairs. Uncle Edgar said he had a surprise for me and Rap-rap. It turned out to be a helicopter. We chose which helicopter we were going to keep and we opened the boxes and looked at the instruction manual. We figured out how to use the helicopter, but we each needed eight batteries or more! So, instead we had a lightsaber duel. I was winning but we stopped dueling because I almost knocked a vase over. It was now 1:00 in the morning and I had to go home. I said goodbye to Rap-rap and Celine.

Dinner at Chateau Verde

On Friday night, we decided to go out for dinner. We went to a restaurant called the Chateau Verde, located in the grounds of the University of the Philippines. When we arrived at the restaurant, I couldn’t see any building nearby. But when we were shown the way to the restaurant, I realized the walls were covered all over with beautiful plants. Inside, there were several small lakes with goldfish and water plants. The wooden tables were lit by candlelight.

Chateau Verde is best known for its pasta dishes. So Dad ordered the seafood pasta, Mom and Aunt Nancy had angel hair pasta with Spanish sausage, Pia ordered cannelloni while I ordered the carbonara. It was delicious! Isa was the only one who didn’t get pasta, she had salmon with vegetables.

After we finished our meals, my cousins and I got up and strolled around the restaurant. We spied on the security guard and I tried to sneak up on him, but he noticed me. Then we went back in and threw pebbles into the small lake. Pia and I went to the bathroom and created a secret base. We wouldn’t let Isa in. I got in trouble with my dad after that. He said I couldn’t make the toilet a secret base because people use it. He also told us not to throw pebbles in the pond because we were getting the pebbles from the path and if we didn’t stop, soon all the pebbles would be gone.

Our trip across the sea.

An ABC Taxi came to pick us up at 8:30 am. We loaded our suitcases into the taxi, got in and then zoomed off. It was a beautiful day. It was sunny and the sky was blue. When we got to the airport, we unloaded our luggage. My mom grabbed a cart, we put our bags onto it and walked through the revolving doors of the airport. There was a long queue leading to the check-in counter of Qantas. We had our luggages taken to be put on the plane, and then we had breakfast. I had a Hashbrown and a Bacon and Egg Roll. My mom had a chicken fillet Subway sandwich and a Diet Coke and my dad just had some coffee. Then I bought a book called Eragon and I also got a free book mark. Then we went to the imigration queue and had our passports inspected. We entered the security inspection room and put our stuff on the conveyor belt and walked through a metal detector. Then we collected our stuff, went through a mini shopping mall (duty-free) and bought some Australian wine. After that, we went into a waiting room where we waited in a long queue and had our passoorts inspected again. We then walked down a long hallway into the airplane and found our seats. We sat down, fastened our seat-belts and waited. A powerful little cart pulled us onto the runway. Then it stopped towing us and zoomed away. Suddenly, the engines roared into life. It was just a low rumble at first, but it slowly became louder. We started moving down the runway fairly quickly, and then, without warning, the wheels retracted and we took off.

The plane started rising in a turn. We tightened our seat-belts. We climbed higher in the air and soon we were really high up. We could see Australia far below us as we rose higher. Once we reached 38,0000 feet we stopped rising. We flew over Australia for 4 hours. For lunch I had Chicken with vegetables and tomato pesto. Both my mum and dad ate Pork with potatoes, mushrooms, pasta and vegetables. I stole the pasta from my mum and dad. With each meal there was also bread, butter, yogurt, milk, salad, dressing, fruit, cheese and crackers. I stole my mum and dad's bread, butter and milk. I ate my yogurt and fruit. I ate almost everything I had and the food that I got from my parents. I didn't eat the the salad and dressing beause my stomach was too full. We also had drinks. My dad had a Victoria Bitter which is a kind of beer. I had orange juice and my mum had a Diet Coke.

Later, I ordered a little macaroni snack but didn’t finish it. Then suddenly I felt a sensation in my stomach and I thought I was going to vomit, but I didn’t. A few hours later, the plane started descending. We were going to land. I could see the Philippines down below the plane. After a few more bumps and tilts and some slight shaking, we landed. Guess what? It was then I threw up into a barf bag.

We got off the plane and walked into the Philippine airport. It was kind of shiny because it was so sunny outside. We waited in an immigration queue, then went to a conveyor belt to get our luggage and put them in a cart and wheeled it across a street, then down a ramp to where I saw my aunts Nancy and Myrna (my mum’s sisters) across the street waiting for us. We waved to them and they waved back. They got their car from the parking lot, drove over to us, and helped us load our luggage into the boot. We then got into the car and rode off. It was a long car trip and I felt tired after 8 hours on the plane. We arrived home and I greeted everyone. I saw my girl cousins Pia and Isa. Pia was 7 and Isa was 11. Uncle Alex and Uncle Raul were there too. I didn’t have dinner because I wasn’t hungry but me and my cousins played together until 9:00 pm Philippine time (12 midnight Australia time). Good Night!