Days 3 and 4 - Family Time

So far everything has been great, but we always go out in big groups. And there is no age limit for anything. In fact, I do not know if there are any laws out here period. Driving laws are non-existent. People laugh at me everytimg I get in a car and start to put my seat belt on. It's a force of habit, but I'm starting to get it down now. I don't reach for it anymore. This could be bad when I get back to the states.

We spent a few hours in the Mega Mall and Alex bought some sunglasses, but I didn't find anything worth picking up. Everything is pretty much the same price as it is in the states, but when it comes to shoes they do have some cooler designs that we don't have. The mall was ginormous though. It had 5 stories and we spent 3 or 4 hours just walking around the thing. And they have everything there. You can buy your furniture there, clothes, back to school supplies (which is huge right now, because the kids go back to school on June 10th), cooking supplies, car supplies, etc.

We got home around 6:00 p.m. and it was time for dinner. This was the first meal we did not have home cooked since we've been here. Alex, 4 of his cousins and I all walked down to the local Jollibee and picked up some dinner. We spent 750 pesos for dinner for about 6 people. That is about 15 dollars U.S. You can barely feed two people at McDonalds for that much and Jollibee is pretty much the Pinoy Mickey D's. There are actually a few of them in the states now if you didn't already know this.

After some resting it was time to go out. This time it was Alex and I along with his girl cousins. I am starting to think that Alex doesn't have many girl cousins because when ever we visit his family whether in the Philippines or San Diego we only hang out with female cousins. Not that I'm complaining ... I just find it interesting. Anyway, we we're getting ready to go out, but I was confused why Alex's 13 year old cousin C.J. was getting all dressed up. Apparently the drinking age out here is only 18, but they don't really follow that, especially if you're out with Americans. Of the 4 girls we were out with only one of them was older then 18 and only by a year. His other cousin and her friend are 17 and the youngest is 13 and never once did we have a hard time walking into a place or ordering drinks. Although the 13 year old was the most under control one, but still seemed to be having the best time. The night ended with us getting kicked out of Starbucks at 4 a.m. because they were closing. This is also where we encountered our first females with enlarged Adam's apples. And by that I mean they were men.

For some reason everyone wakes up really early in the Philippines. By really early I'm talking about 5 a.m. That's too ridiculous for me even if I go to sleep before 4:30. This morning was the first time I wanted to punch Alex since we've been here, which isn't bad considering we've been together non-stop for a little over 4 days now. Coffee was a bad decision before coming home after the bars because he would not shut up and let the rest of us sleep. We ended up getting out of bed and eating breakfast around 7:00 and then we all went back to sleep until about 10:00 when we had to get up to drive to Tagaytay. Alex's parents have built a retirement house in a country club out there that's almost done being built. We went to check it out for the day. The area is really nice and the weather is a little cooler since it's up in the hills, but just as humid. Unfortunately there was a ton of traffic so what should have been 2 1/2 - 3 hours total drive time ended up taking us around 6. And today my sinus infection started getting pretty bad, so the drive was absolute hell for me. We slept some during the van ride, but none of it was very good sleep. We got home and I passed out on the couch. I didn't even eat dinner because I felt so poopy. Hopefully I can get some good medicine to clear up all this congestion or I going to be in trouble when we go out. Everyone is so paranoid about swine flu here that if you even sneeze a little bit everyone runs away from you haha. Maybe I can find out a way to use this to my advantage. I will definitely write about it if I do.