The only positive that came from not having school on Thursday was I got to watch game 1 of the world series. I also got to see game 2 Friday morning before we left for our trip to Iloilo. Me, four of the other missionaries, and three of the missionary kids went to Iloilo for the weekend. When you live on the number one island destination in the world where do you go for vacation? Well, we tried Iloilo. It's a big city on Panay which is the island right next to us. Iloilo has a population of close to 500,000 so it was definitely a little change from Boracay. We took our 5 minute boat ride over to the other island and then looked for a van to take us to across the island to Iloilo. Our 2 choices were a van or a bus. It was $10 a person to take a 4 and a half hour drive in our own van, or $7.50 to take a 6 hour bus ride in a bus full of loud and smelly things like chickens and babies. So we took the van. It was a great choice and it went very fast because we were either playing games or sleeping the whole way there. When we got in the van and the driver started it up he was playing Taylor Swift on his stereo, I immediately knew it was going to be a good trip.
I was able to see a lot of the island as we drove through and it was cool to be able to see more of what is around me and how people are living. As we got close to some bigger cities we started to see cars no the road and it was the weirdest feeling because it actually seemed odd to me. I've been on Boracay where there are like 2 cars on the whole island for so long that it was weird to see cars driving on the road. That was a pretty weird feeling. When we got to Iloilo we started going through the city and I felt like such a tourist because I was almost in awe of the big buildings and just the bigness of everything. It literally didn't look any different than Stockton but its amazing how being away from it for 4 months can totally make it seem so amazing. We got to our hotel (which was about 16 dollars a night incredibly because it was a really nice hotel) and put our stuff in our rooms. Then we left right away to go to the mall. It was like paradise in the mall there was so much food to eat. There was pizza, pretzels, donuts, Mcdonalds, KFC, and so much more. We immediately went to Mcdonalds because there just really isn't such a thing as a cheeseburger in Boracay. It was so amazing just having a cheeseburger and fries. I didn't even really like Mcdonalds back in the US, and the one here definitely wasn't as good as back home but it was literally the most delicious thing I've eaten in almost 4 months. Our next stop was at Dunkin Donuts. We ordered a lot of donuts and went in to the theater to watch Taken 2. It was just over $3 to see a movie in the theater their. It wasn't as amazing as back home but it was still a nice theater (I've been in worse). After the movie we left the mall and went to a coffee shop that is owned by some missionaries that my friend knew. They opened up a coffee shop and are using it as part of their outreach to high school and young adults in the area. It was an incredible ministry and I was blown away by all the things that they are doing and how they are using something as simple as a coffee shop to be able to make such an incredible difference in that community. It happened to be social justice week at the coffee shop and the whole place was decorated with signs and facts about things that were going on and how people can make a difference and speak for people who didn't have the ability to speak for themselves. We also lucked out that Friday nights are open floor nights, which is basically like open mic night except with dancing. We got to enjoy all sorts of dancers who had themed dances for social justice week. There were ballerinas, modern dancers, break dancers, crumpers, and even more that I'm not sure what they were. It was amazing seeing them all dance and how much talent they had and how many people the place was bringing in. There were also some people who did some poetry and songs that were themed for social justice week and they also all included Bible verses and the message of Jesus. I realized this place was for real. These people were for real and this wasn't just a fun place that happened to have christian owners but that this was a christian place that was reaching out to everyone around.
After the actual dancers danced they had everyone who wasn't a dancer get up and one of the dancers taught us a routine with some pretty simple moves and things and we all did that. When that was done they said they were going to have a dance off and they needed some volunteers. So no body was going up there so they said they needed a volunteer from the Boracay team and nobody was going up so I decided to be crazy and go up there. After I went up another one of our missionaries went up and then the owner was the third person. So then the guy said that we would do the routine all together and then we would take turns going one at a time doing the routine and then having 15 seconds to do whatever we wanted. So that wasn't what I was expecting and I was a little worried because I didn't know the routine very well at all. So we all went though the routine together and I kind of stumbled through it watching everyone else. Then the owner went and did it by himself and then did his own thing. So it was my turn and I paused for a second and decided there was no way I was doing the routine so I just freestyled it doing my own thing and pulled out about every move that I knew. Then the other missionary went and actually did the routine and then didn't really do much freestyle at the end. So then came the voting and after the first round it was a three way tie basically of people cheering for all of us. So apparently after the second time people cheered the loudest for me so I was named the winner. I'm not sure exactly how I ended up winning but it was a sweet victory none the less. I won a free snow cone. It was such a fun night and was really awesome to see such an amzing ministry at work.
The next morning we went back to the mall for lunch, shopping, and another movie. The only sad part of the weekend was that on our way to the mall I lost my camera in our taxi. As I was walking into the mall I realized it wasn't in my pocket and I turned around and ran back out but he was already gone. I went to the other entrance to see f he was over there but he wasn't. After a couple hours of trying to get in contact with the taxi service and having them find the driver and bringing him in they told me that they didn't find anything. Which means either the driver took it or someone who hopped in after us took it. So that was a major bummer but I tried to not let it ruin the rest of my trip. (and yes I had a lot of pictures and videos from the trip that I obviously cant post now, sorry.)
So we ate lunch, and most of us ate at Mcdonalds again. Something I thought was funny about the Mcdonalds was that it was really easy to see why a third of the US is obese and the huge majority of the rest of the world isn't. The meals had 2 sizes you could get, small or regular. That was it. There was no such thing as a large or extra large or super size. You got the amount of food you needed and that was it, there was no purpose in getting anything bigger than that. I ordered a mcflurry also and there was 2 sizes regular or overload. I ordered the overload size and they gave me a size that is literally smaller than what you would get in a happy meal. It was like an extra small in the US. There is definitely a big difference in portion sizes between the 2 countries.
After lunch we went and saw Argo at the theater which was an interesting but good movie. After the movie we went through the mall looking and shopping for some different things we might not be able to get in Boracay. I mostly just looked around but I bought a gift for my partner teacher and some vocabulary and writing workbooks which I am pretty stoked about being able to use for my 5th graders so they have actual worksheets to be able to do so I don't have to make up so many questions and write them on the board all the time. They will definitely be a lot of help.
After the mall we hung out for a while and relaxed before we went out to dinner at a Greek restaurant. It was amazing how cheap the food was. The food is cheap in Boracay compared to the US but then when you go eat at a nice restaurant in Iloilo you realize how much more expensive it is in Boracay. After dinner we headed to the bowling alley for some duckpin bowling. Duckpin bowling is basically like bowling except that the ball is about the size of a softball, but heavier, and the pins are smaller, but they're spaced out the same as in regular bowling. So it's a lot harder to hit all of the pins, but you get three throws instead of two. It was pretty hard to figure out at first because you definitely have to put spin on the ball to be able to do anything because there is so much space between the pins and the ball is so small that if the throw it straight it doesn't knock other pins down like in regular bowling. It took awhile to get the spin down with such a small ball but I started to get it down pretty well in our second game. We had a lot of fun bowling and I had the high score for the night with a 77. Which I'm sure isn't a great score but oh well. For the 2 games of bowling it cost a total of about 73 cents. I was amazed by how cheap it was. If it was that cheap in the US I'd be there all the time. I really wish they had one in Boracay to go to. You could play a lot of games for 36.5 cents a game.
After bowling we went back to our hotel to hang out and play some games. We played a lot of shrades and catch phrase and then as the night got later we switched to some other games like sardines. We played sardines in the hotel and it was actually a ton of fun because the hotel was really big. It had 3 floors, a car garage, a big area outside and our own three rooms to hide in. It was our last night so we were ok with staying up pretty late. We ended up making a human pyramid at 3 in the morning and did all sorts of other fun things until about 4. We woke up the next morning and headed out. We stopped for lunch at, take a guess, Mcdonalds. We knew it was going to be our last mcdonalds for a long time so most of us got a whole lot of food. I don't know if I have ever felt more American than being surrounded by Filipinos and ordering about three times as much food as them. It was worth it though. I'm already looking forward to our next trip to Iloilo.
Here are some pictures that I borrowed from one of the other missionaries since I don't have my camera.
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