Annie's (and my) Island Adventure

I took my little sister, Annie, on a trip to the Philippines last week.  Although I was really too exhausted to make the overnight journey on my own, Annie, being only 10, was eagerly anticipating a week of play and discovery, and a couple of plane rides, boat rides, and tricycle rides sounded like something she could not only handle, but actually enjoy.  Myself?  I was looking forward to a change of scenery, plus good nap every day--after sleeping in good and late and going to bed good and early.  And perhaps a little shopping.  That's something that both of us enjoy.  With this in mind, I let her energy rub off on me and get me through the loooooong night of travel.

Gene and Amy weren't too worried about bringing a kid along on the vacation.  They've been around her plenty and see how well I take care of her.  They knew she wouldn't be any trouble, and besides, she often provides all of us stiff adults with a little bit of comic relief.  Don't worry--I always pull her out of any situations she's not quite old enough for before they get too crazy.  By that point, both of us are usually ready for bed, anyways.  We really like sleep in my family.

After two plane flights and a boat ride, a tricycle (like a tuk tuk) took us from the beach to our hotel.

Unfortunately, it was surrounded by a moat.

Or, well, not exactly a moat--but a recent typhoon had left quite a murky lake right in the middle of the walkway.  Thank goodness my little sister was there.  Her fearlessness never ceases to amaze me.  I, being big, clumsy, and awkward, was terrified of falling off the tiny ledge into the filthy AIDS water below.  Little Annie, on the other hand, saw her fun island adventure already beginning to get good, and took my hand, coaxing me the whole way along the balance beam-sized curb.  Carrying my 8 kg bag over one shoulder, I precariously scooted along the skinny path, hanging on to the flimsy, rusty fence for dear life.  Annie, on the other hand, was as happy as a little kid could be while taking on such an exhilarating endeavor, and flashed Gene the peace sign as she took her picture from the other side of the puddle.

"Please don't tell me we have to do that every day," Amy pleaded with the universe.  I was with her on that one.  I silently hoped for the same.  Luckily, our wish came true...the beach (and everywhere else we needed to go) was in the opposite direction.

When we reached the other side, Annie saw something she's always thought was really cool.

"Frogs!!!" she exclaimed.  Sure enough, I looked down and noticed hundreds of tiny black frogs hopping from the bank of the pond.  I was terribly worried I might step on one in jumping down from the balance beam.  Annie, of course, asked if she could catch some and bring them home with her to keep as pets.

"You know we can't take that sort of thing on the plane," I reminded her.  She remembered, and decided she was content to leave them in their natural, typhoon-puddle habitat.

The whole time, Amy kept talking about her friend Carrie, who was meeting us on the island, and how she would be faring on this journey.  "If you think I'm posh, wait til you meet Carrie," she explained.

With that being said, I couldn't wait to meet her.  Yay, another Amy!  Would she make the same faces?  Would she be equally as easy to hilariously offend and gross out?  I couldn't wait...

FYI...Day 2 Carrie and I get naked together and get the first of our pretty much daily massages...

Around the corner was our hotel--thank GOD!  I could already feel the nice shower and cool bedsheets, and couldn't wait to finally be horizontal for the first time in over 24 hours.  Annie, on the other hand, barely seemed phased by the lengthy travel.  She was just excited to see the place was painted in rainbow colors...and wondered if there'd be any awesome lizard friends inside.  We don't see lizards, or any wildlife, for that matter (unless you count ferrel cats and pigeons), in Seoul.  It would be quite a treat--part of the appeal of being on a tropical island.

My sister and I were the first inside our purple cottage.  The first thing we noticed were two double beds downstairs, and a TV.  Then Annie spotted the small iron spiral staircase and of course had to immediately run up them to see what was in the loft.  I followed, being curious myself.  Up the stairs was one large, queen-sized bed...and more importantly, the air-conditioner.  I wasn't too "keen on" (a phrase I've learned from spending months and months with the South Africans) traversing the narrow, metal stairs every time I had to go to the bathroom in the night, but Annie quite liked them, and anyways, it made sense to put us early-to-bed-ers up and out of the way of the late-night party-goers.  It's really hard to go up and down stairs like that after a full night of partying, believe me.

"We're staying up here!" I bellowed down to my friends below.  "You'll want to be by the television, won't you?" I asked Gene.  She was looking forward to watching the Olympics.

"Yes, let's do that, rather," said Gene to Amy.  I tossed my bag on the bed and got ready for my shower.  Annie found a gecko behind the shades.  I passed out.

The next thing I knew, I was drinking tropical fruit smoothies at a bar on the beach shaped like a ship with huge mermaid sculptures, with not two, but three South Africans.  This was Amy's 30th birthday celebration week and she had invited friends from back home to come.  Nick, straight off the plane from Singapore, was eager to get the party started.  His sister, Carrie, who lives in London, was also there, but still asleep after 24+ hours of traveling.  Nick had also traveled quite a bit, I believe, but he had a more "I'll sleep when I'm dead"-type attitude.

Nick's appearance struck me as being welcomely odd.  He had quite a serious look, with wide-set, piercingly blue eyes.

"Nick looks like a fish!" Annie whispered to me quietly.  I knew that what she was saying was not coming from a place of harsh judgement, but was simply an innocent, childlike observation.  But the rest of the world doesn't necessarily understand that.

"Shhh!  That's not a very nice thing to say," I whispered back.

Nick cracked me up.  He reminded me of a certain political-minded, debate-oriented, drug-abusing, entrepreneur friend of mine I used to have back home.  Since I have such a sick sense of humor, I get a real kick out of people like this.  Perfectly nice people end up getting offended by them, but that doesn't usually apply to me, who finds it impossible to ever take people like that seriously.  Everything they say is like hearing a good new joke.  I sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed the conversation of the three homies, like I was watching a weird South African reality TV show.

We were at that bar for hours that day.  I ate vegetables and hummus and ordered smoothie after smoothie for little Annie and I.  At some point, however, my sister began to get antsy, and asked my friends to send her out on a mission.

"Find me a Magnum!" Gene offered.  She wasn't talking about the large-sized condom, however.  As far as I know, those don't exist in Asia.  She was talking about an ice cream bar.

Good as done.  Annie and I set forth to comb the beach for Magnums, and see what all was out there for us to discover.

The wind was blowing super hard, due to the tail-end of a typhoon headed towards Taiwan.  But it didn't matter.  We found shops to look at, and perhaps more importantly, Gene's Magnum.

Gene's "Happy Place"

Two hundred years later, that night, we ate at a restaurant called Alchemy but me and Annie were the only ones to remember.  Except maybe Carrie, who joined us after her much-needed sleep.  Nick actually fell asleep at dinner, right at the table.  Annie laughed.  I just thought, "Ooo...sleep!  Good idea!"

The next day it was typhooning on and off.  Actually, it was like that every day.  I didn't mind though...I'm not one to lay by the beach and get burnt.  I had absolutely no problem getting a massage every day.  They were like $8 for an hour.  My favorite was a stone massage.  For like $12, they massaged me for 2 hours using smooth, hot stones.  I was upstairs in an open-air building with light tapestries for walls, blowing in the cool breeze, and allowing a gentle mist from the torrential downpour outside to fall on me.

"How was your massage?" Gene would ask.

"Amazeballs," I'd reply, using a term I'd picked up from my Pennsylvanian friend, Meredith.

Gene tried to use the word herself, later.  "Amazebowls," she said.

The rest of the week went delightfully in about the same direction.  I know we ate sushi, because I remember Annie liking the stray cats hanging out under the table, and almost feeling sad that we didn't eat fish, and had nothing of interest to give them.

"Oh, siss," Amy said when she saw them, making her hilariously offended-looking face.  I really love Amy.

"What does "siss" mean?" I had to ask.

"It's like 'gross,'" she told me.

I also remember it raining a lot.

Downpour in "D'Mall" shopping area, or, as the South Africans say it, "D'Mole"

Everywhere we'd go we seemed to be followed by a man selling DVD's.  "DVD's?" he'd ask.

"No thanks!" we'd reply.  How archaic, DVDs.  Everybody over here just downloads stuff, out of complete and utter necessity.

Then a little while later..."DVD's?"

"No thanks!!!"

Walking down the beach, wind blowing so hard the sand is stinging our legs..."DVDs?"

"No thank you!"

In the tattoo parlor...."DVD's?"

That was when it became a joke.  Mid-tattoo, and the guy pops in, like a cartoon character, to ask us again if we wanted DVD's.  At that point, he became sort of like our friend who we'd wave to and laugh at whenever he popped up.

DVDs?

In a clothing shop...."DVD's?"

"Hahahaha!  DVD's!  Hi!!!"

At a restaurant..."DVD's?"  And then to Carrie, who had earlier told him to "Vok off," he said, "DVDs...again?" and laughed.  We all died.

"Hey!!!" said Gene.  "What DVD's do you have?"

Gene doesn't even own a DVD player.  She has a netbook.  But at this point, she knew she had to buy one from this guy.  Annie clapped with delight.  She really loves Gene.

Gene finally buying a DVD from this guy

Ted!!!

 One night, after dinner, my sister and I accompanied the South Africans to a really really loud bar/dance club on the beach.  I'm not really sure why we did it, except that I wasn't ready for bed yet, and didn't want to bail out on our hilarious friends quite so early.  We found nice couches to sit on anyways, and I went to the bar to get a smoothie while Annie egged on my friends in their drinking game they had just invented--whenever one of the staff members danced to the music--DRINK!

Annie watched those bartenders and waiters like a hawk.  "THEY'RE DANCING!"  she'd scream at the top of her lungs.  "DRINK!!!"  

Focusing on the increasingly besotted exploits of our friends helped both of us enjoy ourselves despite the permanent hearing loss that was taking place.

But I was bummed.  My smoothie had been poisoned by grenadine syrup.  It was so loud, I hadn't felt like I could explain to the bartender what he had done wrong, so I took the poisoned drink back to the table.  He had sort of lined the glass with grenadine, then floated a bit on top.

"I bet I can just get a sip out of the middle," Annie said.  She tried it, but I was scared.  Then Gene saw the look on my face.  She wasn't gonna have it.

She took the drink and slammed it down on the bar.  "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE?" she demanded of the bartender at the top of her lungs.  Of course, no sort of volume could possibly be obnoxious in this place, keep in mind.  "My friend will DIE from this.  You have to fix it!!!"

She came back with a fixed drink.

"THANK YOU!!!" I exclaimed.  It was such a nice thing of her to do.

Unfortunately, it was too late to prevent the overwhelming nervousness a little girl feels in a place like this.  Sometimes I forget how sensitive she is.

"I wanna leave," cried Annie.  The place just suddenly seemed so loud, and so...poison.

"Listen...I know.  I do, too.  But look at all the trouble they just went to to fix your smoothie.  Let's just finish it, and then we'll go," I said.

Then they brought out something for Amy's birthday.  It was a bottle of champagne--with a lit sparkler attached.

This is where Annie's apparent fearlessness comes to a screeching halt.  Fireworks.  Especially fireworks mixed with alcohol.  She's old enough to know that's not a safe combo.

SCARED

After a bit of screaming, I slurped up the rest of the smoothie and my sister and I took off.  I felt really bad and had to calm her down on the way back to the hotel.

"See?  We're okay.  We're okay," I told her over and over.  I really shouldn't take her to those places.

The next day was fun.  We went out on a boat island-hopping and snorkeling.  I listened to my South African friends, speaking in very British-sounding accents, talk about strange things, like which side of London was more suitable to live in, or the definition of so-and-so's ankles.  It was like watching a TV channel I had never heard of before, and I loved it!  Snorkeling, we saw some rainbow fish, purple starfish, a huge hermit crab, a fish with a long nose Annie called "Mr. Nosey," and a bunch of other stuff we'd never seen before.  We saw clown fish living in their anemones, and some sort of weird looking lion fish, different than what my brother used to have in his aquariums growing up.

I also got another massage later, and ate some homemade calamansi muffins, which is a fruit sort of like a lemon or a lime.  And I drank more smoothies.

Then the next day, Gene went diving, and the rest of us hung out on the boat and snorkeled again.  Afterward, the boat had to let us out really far from shore, since the water was so shallow.  Luckily, we were on the calm side of the island, where the wind wasn't hyperventilating and the waves were nonexistent.

The other side of the island

Gene and Amy on the boat

However, the bottom of the ocean here was covered in mucky, slimy seaweed.  "Oh, vok man!" said Amy.  I love the way they say "f***."

It felt just like the bottom of the lake, which some might argue is a Tennessee beach.  In other words, it didn't phase Annie, or me, a bit.

This made Amy and Gene laugh, to see me effortlessly forge ahead.  We delight in each others' cultures.  Now I have my friends thinking I'm from the swamps..."what's that word again?  The Bayou!!!" 

"This is just like them lakes!" I exclaimed in my biggest, most exaggerated Southern accent.  I turned around to take their picture struggling to move forth with grime creeping between their bare toes.

After that, which was about our last day there, I probably got another massage, but I'm not really sure.  I try to do lots of nice things for myself these days.

For Annie, too.  I take her everywhere I go.  I have to!  After all, I'd be really...I don't know...unimaginably weird without her.