Gravol = Bad for my kids
Friday, May 20, 2005
Hello to all!
The Philippines consists of 7101 Islands. We left Baguio and traveled north to Vigan City in Illocos(the Province). We crossed 2 Islands to get there. It was amazing. The Pacific ocean stretched out on the side. We crossed over bridges to get across rivers in order to get to the other island.
The roads are crazy here and it is very bumpy. I am hanging on to the HOLY SH*T bars for dear life. It’s a wild ride, because they all drive like a bat out of hell here. There are no real traffic rules and the speed limit is only determined by how fast your vehicle can go. As we were driving Josh threw up in the vehicle so when we stopped in San Fernando to clean up, have lunch and buy some Gravol.
We checked out my Aunt’s Silver Store locations she had in the mall. My brother in law purchased some Gravol for my kids so they wouldn’t throw up again… well…before we left Canada I went to see the Dr and asked him about giving the kids Gravol. He said I need to test it out first because it will either have a calming effect on them or else make them go crazy hyper… well, we tried it on Brandon( who is 2) before we left and he was normal to calm… so I thought Laura(7 years old) and Josh(4 years old) would be the same… Not so…They were flying high and crazy!!!. Yikes!!! They were HIGH!!! Flying high as kites. They were so hyper and laughing like crazy. Any word you said they were killing themselves laughing. It was just nuts. I couldn’t even control Laura. I was able to distract them by singing songs, but they just were crazy for 2 hours until the stuff slowly wore off… HOLY!!! No gravol for them, 2 hours with 2 crazy hyper kids in the back of a Nissan Patrol is not my idea of fun. It was funny for a while until they started to attack each other like rabid dogs…
Their cemeteries are interesting. They don’t bury the dead, they just put the dead in cement coffins that are all in a row or they stack the dead in cement coffins in their graveyard with headstones… so I was teasing my aunt saying, “so what they don’t bury them so they can go over and remove the cover and chat with the decomposing corpse if they want?!” And she said, YES!!!!! She was serious! She said that after a year or more once the corpse has fully decomposed they will place another body in there if another family member dies!!!!!!!!!!! Talk about recycling!!! Some of the coffins have houses built over top of them. I didn’t take a picture, but I’ll take one. I guess it’s the same all over the Philippines. Interesting…. Brings to light the horror movies of dead people coming to life and coming out of their graves a whole new meaning now! Yikes!
Vigan City is HOT because it is down from the mountain. It is so very very hot. +40C. We were sweating to death!
Well, while we were there we toured some Catholic museum or old cathedral. they had mannequins of their old Bishops and Cardinals. After we took a Kalesa ride which is a carriage pulled by a horse. It was awesome! Amazing! I loved it and so did the kids. The driver took us to a clay making place where they made a couple of clay pots in front of us. The pots were gorgeous, but the ones I wanted to bring home were of course the most expensive ones with the beautiful engraving on the side and they were huge! So I don’t know how I would fit it on the plane or take it home from Vigan city even. There would be no room in the patrol.
Oh… hey a side note. Here are some Filipino words that I think are amusing… I think earlier I mentioned Asso was a DOG.. well, I found out that the Filipino word for CAT is : Pussa… So in a sentence you could say..
The Asso chased the pussa… …. ya.. you can go where ever you want with that but you know what I’m thinking……. anyway.. on with my story..
So then we went to this zoo… it’s the home of the Governor of Illocos. He is corrupt and does all kinds of back handed and illegal gambling and all kinds of blah blah blah that I don’t really care about, but anyway the point is the dude is crooked rich. He has his own petting zoo that he opens up to the public. This was the most amazing zoo I have been to in my entire life. If all zoos could be like this I would be so happy. Then I’d go to the zoo all the time. The tigers were in their cages, but the cages were not that big so you could really get a good view of them. They were close enough to the edge that you could pet one if you stuck your hand into the cage. I didn’t. I’m just not that brave.
I was able to hold a 6 month old baby orangutan monkey. It was amazing! I have never held a monkey before. She was so sweet. She clung onto me for dear life and didn’t want to let go. I felt so bad for the monkeys because they looked so sad. There were little black monkeys that were so small. They reached up and grabbed Laura’s camera. It was so cute! We saw parrots, wild boars and lizards. They were all in their cages. The ostriches were out of their cages and you could pet them. They also gave free horse and carriage rides. The kids went on a ride two times. It was so much fun. We got to pet the horses and the goats. The zoo keeper was saying that the Governor just purchased a couple of elephants from Thailand for $120,000 US. Since he only makes 100,000 to 200,000 pesos a year ya you can totally tell the guy is doing side deals.
We also saw Kaa the Boa Constrictor snake. The snake had a huge bulge in this tummy so they must have just fed him something. I pointed it out to Josh and told him that’s what happens to little kids who don’t obey their mother. ha-ha… ya, I was trying to scare the kid into listening to me, but I’m not sure he believed me since I always tease him. … but maybe….hopefully….
After we left and rode the horse and buggy back to our vehicle it only took us 10 minutes to get back, but Josh and Brandon both fell asleep. We went back the same night and were not able to stay unfortunately. Next time we come back here I want to go there because they have white sandy beaches and I love hanging out by the ocean.
So that was our day. It was lots of fun. My mom bought rice cake that was cooked in bamboo. It was interesting.
Well, I hope you have a wonderful day! Hugs and kisses to all!
Love, jo