Flying Over the Kukus Nest

Saturday, March 29^th, 2008

Our travel plan for today was plain and simple:

Taipei - Manila; Manila - Cebu.

We chatted with the woman sitting next to us on the plane from Taipei to Manila. She’s an overseas Taiwanese who’s now a permanent resident in the Philippines. She went back to Taiwan a week earlier to take part in the Presidential Election. After we told her where we were heading, she offered us a ride to the domestic airport and gave us her cell phone number “in case you run into any problems in Cebu”. We were grateful for her generosity, but we wanted to see what happened with our flight transfer.

We ended up taking the shuttle bus from the international airport to the domestic one. The bus was cramped and dark. After a bumpy ride in a stuffy bus, some of the passengers were getting a bit short-tempered and annoyed at the driver for not announcing the stops. Bill and I got off the bus feeling proud that we remained cool and relaxed. Our daily commute in Taipei was proven useful in dealing with stressful situations.

The flight from Manila to Cebu wasn’t as short and sweet as we expected. First of all, the girl at the check-in counter printed two tickets under my name, so we had to go back to have one changed. Then the flight was delayed for half an hour, so we hung out in the boarding lounge watching cheesy Filipino soap opera about a woman who was determined to win a beauty pageant.

We were tired and hungry when we finally got to our hotel around 9:30pm. Though our room wasn’t new and modern, it had a colonial feel to it and it had an AC (a very loud one). After dropping our backpacks off, we went to the bar to get some dinner. There was no seat outside in the yard, so we ended up sharing a heavy solid wooden table in the living room with a middle-aged European dude and his “companion”. He looked about 50 something, and she looked about 12… okay, maybe 16. They didn’t have much to talk about with each other (surprise, surprise). The man did most of the talking, which was pretty much lame jokes followed by some nervous chuckle. At the end of their meal, she asked if she could doggy-bag her curry chicken and he replied, “You’re gonna bring this home to your mom? I hope this isn’t her dinner ‘cause it’s kinda late. (chuckle)” She didn’t laugh. In fact, I don’t think she understood everything he had said. She reconfirmed, “May I?” when the waitress put the packed food on the table. “Oh sure. Go ahead,” he said, “It’s not like I’m bringing it home to my family, you know?! (chuckle)” Once again, he was the only one laughing.

After the grody man and the girl left, a young blond Swiss guy came in to pick up his bags from behind the bamboo dividers next to our table. When he was struggling to squeeze those two duffel bags through the narrow space between the bar and the bamboo dividers, he stopped for a brief second but still decided to force them through. Sure enough, the bamboo dividers came falling down right above my head. In an instant, my Chinese ancestry kicked in and I caught a corner of the bamboo dividers in mid air with only my right hand. It was like in those kung fu movies: the moment we heard the smack in my hand, the Swiss guy and I both froze in our moves. In that seemingly prolonged second, I indulged in pride and self-love whereas he was overcome with shame and embarrassment. He apologized and helped lift the bamboo dividers out of my hand. I decided to spare his life as oppose to sticking chopsticks up his nostrils. As soon as he tumbled over the threshold, we heard a loud grunt of frustration. Bill and I burst out laughing.

Like all kung fu masters, I took a swig out of my yummy mango rum after the commotion. As soon as the liquid touched my upper lip, I paused and carefully tilted the glass upright. There was a tiny green bug floating on the yellow pool. I spooned it out and put it on a napkin. “Look,” I said to Bill, “this little guy got drunk in my drink.”

5 minutes later, I detected in my peripheral vision small movements on the napkin. That little bugger woke up and was trying to stand on its shaky feet. For the following half an hour, I watched in fascination and amazement as my little green alchy friend wobbled around the napkin and tried to open its wings. It was like my own Animal Planet. I laughed as it waved only one leg at a time in front of its face as if to make sure that it was his. I cheered it on when it was trying to walk a straight line across the napkin. Though it felt a bit ridiculous to keep an eye on a tiny bus on the napkin, I waited patiently for it to fly away on its own terms. He never left on its own terms. He was blown away when a waitress turned on the fan next to us. I was a bit sad but I wasn’t worried. I think he was sober enough to stay out of harm's way.