Continuing our story about our journey to Jonalyn one year ago…

We arrived in Tokyo sometime in the afternoon of the 17th, Japan time. I was glad that long flight was over. The pilot had said to be prepared for some pretty rough turbulence as we came into the airport, because other pilots reported it. I prayed and prayed so hard. A bumpy ride only makes me more nervous than I already am when I fly. The Lord was gracious and we didn’t have a single bump on our descent or landng. After we disembarked, we walked around for a while, found the play room – which turned out to be too “babyish” for Alyssa – and took turns washing up in the bathrooms. Our flight for Manila was late leaving. The line to board was very long, but I was glad to NOT be in the situation of the family in front of us – they couldn’t find their passports! They finally had to step out of line and I’ll never know if they found them or not. Doug had ours tucked safely away in the pocket of his cargo pants. The flight to Manila was fine. Of course, the pilot warned us of bad turbulence as we left Tokyo, but I didn’t worry about it because I knew better! I did manage to sleep a good part of the flight and Alyssa and Brian were out for the entire flight. We force fed them their dinner while they were more than half asleep!

We landed in Manila about 10:30 p.m. local time – more than 24 hours after we left home. My first impressions of the country – HOT, HOT, and HUMID! Bethany’s directions were perfect and we made our way through customs and immigration and found our driver with little trouble. He had a Toyota SUV, a model we don’t have in the States. Bummer, because we really liked that car. I was prepared for a lot of traffic, having been warned about it, but it wasn’t too bad at that time on a Saturday night. I was surprised at all of the people still out shopping, etc. The mall was still opened and still busy. And there were parols everywhere (lighted, star-shaped Christmas ornaments). Mang Ramon, our driver, told us they start decorating in August. We thought it was bad here! But the parols were so elaborate. It looked like each one was trying to outdo the other. The drive through the city took about half an hour before we arrived at the neighborhood where our guest house was located. It is gated at night, so Ramon had to have someone let him in. Once he found the guest house, we encountered another gate and another guard. It made me feel very safe and I was able to relax for the first time since I had left home. The guard was expecting us and showed us to our room on the second floor in a building a little bit behind the main building. He and Ramon and Doug brought our bags up. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a very long time. Ramon mentioned sightseeing on Sunday and told us he would pick us up at [9:30] in the morning. When I objected, saying I wanted to take the day to recover from jet lag, he said it would be the best day to tour the city because traffic during the week was crazy. We relented and reluctantly set our alarm before falling into bed. By this time it was the wee early hours of Sunday, November 18th, so I will end here. Stay tuned for another episode tomorrow!