Philippines Adventure - Day 2. I'm not jet-lagged, just really sleepy.

This morning we woke up and had some breakfast of soup, chicken, some sort of porridge with a consistency of snotty oatmeal, and sardines. Though I do like to try new foods while in foreign lands, the granola and banana made my tummy quite happy.

Interestingly, the security at Narita Airport was not that intense - I didn’t even have to take off my shoes!! (say what?!) Yup, crazy business. Also, I was able to take advantage of a 'Japanese style' toilet (a hole in the floor) which was quite an experience. The flight from Tokyo to Manila was 4 hours on a double decker jumbo jet. The airline obviously lost money on that specific flight, as it was quite empty but ended up being nice for us to get good service and have some peace and quiet.

After standing in line at immigration and talking to a cute 7-year-old in front of me who was trying to speak English, we got our bags which happily arrived, and found our way to our driver. It was like we were in the movies – a man with our last name on a sign was there to pick us up. :) We drove 1.5 hours through the city and south to our hotel in Tagaytay. I'll talk more about pineapples later.

Dad is famous. In this Microbiology community, he is the absolute rock star! Immediately after we arrived, at least 4 people came scurrying up to dad to gleefully take their picture with him. They were so excited to meet the author of their Microbiology textbook! It's so cute. Unfortunately, there was a lack of communication on the conference side which, in combination of our long flight delay, resulted in us actually missing the entire first day of conference. This was upsetting but not the end of the world. Dad’s speech was switched with another speaker and he will give his talk tomorrow.

We ate some food and I started to work on school and promptly took a nap, followed shortly by the guys. We joined a ‘fellowship’ for the conference – which is basically a social event – ate a little more food and Jeremy and I moved our laptops over to the neighboring Starbucks and here I am writing. Achem, I mean, ‘here I am doing schoolwork’.

It’s 9am in Dallas while it’s 10pm on the same day here in Tagaytay. I’m not jetlagged… not in the least. I’m just really, really sleepy.

~Elizabeth 


"A person's a person, no matter how small." ~Dr. Seuss

The sardine for breakfast with udon noodle soup and a good ol' banana.

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