Day Three

Day three, even the late night and alcohol abuse didnt seem to help Pinky sleep throught the morning, we were up around 6am again.

Pinky paying her respects

Today we have to go and pay our respects at the cemetery as it is the anniversary of one of their passing. I was all prepared for a somber morning and just let them do their thing but it started to feel like I was a photographer for National Geographic. First we went to the private cemetary which had many tombs, even an airconditioned one, doors, windows, the whole nine yards.
Next we go to the public cemetary next door, an old, overgrown gravel track leads us there and upon entrance there is a pile of bones just lying there. Gave me the shivers. Then as we begin to walk to the family tomb, I'm seeing vertical graves everywhere, reminds me of catacombs. Next there is a family sitting on the side of the path selling candles and such, turns out they live here, in the cemetary, they sleep in the tombs, this is their home.
The kids are running around me smiling, looking at me like its the first time they have seen a white guy, turns out it probably is.

the catacombs

these are real bones from family graves

I came out of there feeling very strange, I cant explain it, just I felt different, the poverty of this place is really starting to hit me.

After the cemetary we head off to another shopping mall, SM, this one is much bigger and I have to say it leaves ours for dead, 5,6 storeys high and full of quality shops. I went to a shop similar to Dick Smiths, called CD-R Kings, it had everything, and so cheap, I bought heaps of stuff I didnt even go there for. The main difference was it was a tiny shop and we had to line up outside the shop for nearlly an hour. They have just so much to see in SM that you could easily spend a full day just looking at what they had.
As we were going out for dinner tonight, we thought we would buy some wine to take, so we found some nice Australian wine to get them to try and there was quite a line, 6 people or so. We line up and the checkout girl sees me, a white guy, in line, so she comes over and takes me stright to the front of the line and serves us straight away, Pinky said she could see the looks from the other people in the line, they were pissed but its good to be white, hahahah.

At night we went up into one of the hills here in Minglanilla to Uncle Sandy's house. He is having a celebration dinner for the anniversay of the passing of the relatives. Great party, heaps of people, Pinky's head was spinning with all the friends and relatives coming up to her that she hasnt seen in over 10 years. Such a large family who still stay in touch and celebrate things like this on a regular occurance. So much food, and delicious food at that, unfortunatley as soon as the food came out, the food was gone as you can see by some of these photos.

There was a band which was such a nice touch and later on I found out that there was a couple of celebrities at the party. The first was an actor from TV who also could sing, and he did, great voice, the funny thing was he had been informed that we were visiting so he made mention of us speaking directly to us and appologising that the song he was about to sing wasnt in english. Later on I was introduced to him and he invited me to sit and talk, he was a really great guy, kind, thoughtful, and funny too. Turns out that he was one of the main people to instigate the tourism of Cebu and has setup a factory for making the tourist items that get sold in the shops. He insisted that we come visit the factory while we are here on our trip and he will take care of us.
Second there was a well known comedian arrive, he got up and did a nice little comedy set too bad I couldnt understand a single word, and having it translated didnt really carry across.

Another late night, maybe we can sleep in tomorrow, oh no, thats right tomorrow is Fiesta I think that is going to be a long day...

the band

my new friend and tv star

the gent on the left in the blue
is the comedian Dennis Padilla

a lovely duet