JOURNEY TO SAN FERNANDO CITY

The flight was OK except for a delay of about an hour and when we got to Manila the taxi we had arranged was waiting. The journey through manila was very slow but at least the traffic is well behaved, unlike Dhaka . Maybe 2 hours to get through the city and just over 5 more hours got us to San Fernando , Donna’s home town, by 3:40am . Her Mom was waiting up for us and had food prepared. Soon after she went to church to play the organ at the pre-dawn mass. Donna and me ate, met her sister Maya and then slept until about 9am .

Christmas Eve was spent unpacking, chatting and some final Christmas shopping. We also went to the nearby beach and watched the sun go down.

Later we showered changed and went to the church. There were so many people that half the congregation was outside. After it was finished we went home and the main Christmas celebrations began. There was lots of food, lots of family visiting, karaoke and giving of gifts. We went on until about 3am before things got quiet.

Christmas Day was less of an event than the day before but still there were various family visiting and plenty of food going round. Midnight at Christmas Eve is the big event though.

Me and Donna were planning to leave on a bus late on Christmas night and travel overnight to Los Banos (where IRRI is). We would visit some friends and see a few nice places around there. We planned to come back for the christening of Donna's niece on 28th.

However, we felt tired and decided to stay. Instead of Los Banos we went to Baguio City in the morning. That is less than 2 hours by bus. Donna's Mom, aunt and baby niece and a helper came too. And we met some others while we were there. Only Donna and me would stay overnight; for everyone else it was a day trip.