This is my first time to travel outside the country! I am excited because it will all be my first time. First to ride an airplane (that I just see flying above our roof) first to set foot in another country, first to enter the NAIA, first to everything. As Madonna said, "like a virgin, touched for the very first time..."
PREPARING FOR THE FLIGHT
Before leaving, we managed to just get the most important things that will make our trip as light as possible: few clothes, toiletries and some documents are the the few things in our list. Since Donna will just be there for a job interview, I am not contemplating of splurging all that I have because, we are actually on a tight budget. And I mean, air-tight budget. We barely have 200US dollars to spend for a 2 to 3 days stay. We have to include everything like: food, accommodation, transportation and other costs (as they may arise).
Before leaving, we managed to just get the most important things that will make our trip as light as possible: few clothes, toiletries and some documents are the the few things in our list. Since Donna will just be there for a job interview, I am not contemplating of splurging all that I have because, we are actually on a tight budget. And I mean, air-tight budget. We barely have 200US dollars to spend for a 2 to 3 days stay. We have to include everything like: food, accommodation, transportation and other costs (as they may arise).
Actually, I am not supposed to join Donna in her trip to Singapore. I have a hectic schedule back home, and the funds won't just easily permit us to take the (before) elusive trip. Singapore came in because one business school in SG, offered her a teaching stint. At first, we were adamant to go because, we do not have any money to spare, as in nothing, not even to afford us to travel to Tagaytay. I for myself have no nothing to spend, even for a bus ride, just imagine! So, the thought is quite impossible.
But God provides in mysterious ways, like what He did almost 2,000 years when he split the Dead Sea into two. Miraculously, help came pouring in, with or lesser intervention from us. I am sure, it is better to pray to God than to go to Bombays (Indians), who can lend their money in 5-6 scheme. Later, we managed to get the bulk amount of 20,000 from somewhere, somehow (thanks to our benefactors), and the rest from our own pockets we never thought we had, from savings we have put for a future life together---everything wrung dry to the last drop. There on, I hurriedly bought a ticket for two bound to Singapore the next day. So, the trip is now a biting reality.
Earlier said, I managed to get additional 10,000 pesos from our mutual savings and payment for my services as a writer to exchange the whole amount to dollars. Actually, I just bought dollars for the amount of 9K+ only because, I would have to deduct some expenses, like phone calls for the trip taking it from the amount we have saved. So, I told myself, "where the hell are we going for just barely 200 dollars!?". So I went to the money changer and had my money change its color. It pains me to let my multi-colored pesos turned so valueless against the green dollar. Those monies were hard earned. It is extremely difficult to let them go. Tens of Philippine papers against two green bills. Pitiful!
THE AIRPORT---and everything on it.
I was suprised how dirty, old and unorganized our airport was. Before, whenever we drop people off at the NAIA, I always think how does it look like from the inside. For many of us, leaving the country is like an achievement. I wonder what, where and how, my father, my brother or many of my relatives take queue in the airline counters, pass immigration officials, board airplane and transfer flights. I never had any slight idea how one can go and manage himself to board a flight. So, being cramped with people (to add, that our flight is midnight, less people are coming in the airport), NAIA is somewhat the total opposite of what I expected. Is this the place where our "bagong bayani" are welcomed? Is this the place where we receive foreign guests and tourists? They would surely be dissapointed, I mumbled.
At first, I am afraid of immigration officials both the Philippine immigration and the Singapore immigration. I wildly conjured, what if they won't allow us to depart, or won't allow us to enter? What are we going to do, definitely, Donna and I are going to Singapore as a transit visitor. We have funds (though it may not be necessarily sufficient), we have confirmed roundtrip ticket. But what if they deny us? It terrifies me. I don't want to be in shame and in shabbles, crying my way out at NAIA, or being denied at the port of entry...good thing, my travel agent, gave us a fictitious (actually it can be used, but warned me not to, because I did not pay her anything), travel voucher. Actually, it is usable, but since we never paid for the travel voucher, if we use it there, the travel agent will be liable to any expenses we shall incur. So, the travel voucher is just a show-up. But, actually it is not necessary.
I saw, a lot of foreign nationals departing the country, from British subjects, to Chinese citizens to Middle-East people, the nationalities mix the building with all skin colors. I was about to sing, "Jesus, loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white..."
Now, its our time to pass through the chubby lady at the immigration booth. They only asked Donna, what is her work and where does she work, after that, they stamped our passports "Pilipinas, date: xxxxx" WOW. Stamp pad!
Now, how does one get around NAIA, for the first time? The first thing to do stepping inside the NAIA, is to deposit your luggage and bags to the x-ray machines found immediately after the entrance doors. Dare not bring any prohibited material, or exceed any limit and for sure, its the end of you. One would realize that being a light traveller would be the most ideal scenario for a first timer (like me). Thereafter, the passenger must take a queue to the airline counter inside the airport, another long line would be hurdled by the passenger this time. That night, airline checking-in is not difficult, the line is short, there we just few of us leaving the country that same night, perhaps around 500 approximately. Upon leaving the airline counter, we were given boarding passes and our tickets checked, we proceeded to the immigration booth. But there is a magic pass, like Open Sesame, before you can be checked at the immigration, no less than the 750Php terminal fee. I think it is only NAIA and Philippine airports that collects 750 terminal fees to all departing passengers. And I further asked myself, what the hell, is this 750 for? With all the money that they collect this airport should have had prime airport facilities!
THE painful, foodless FLIGHT
Aboarding the plane, I realized that its size and structure is no different from the luxury buses on land. In fact, on budget airlines, the room leg is crampier than a bus going to Nasugbu. But at least, the ambiance is different. And to add, no free meal onboard a short budget flight. Inside, you can see smoke coming out from the side panels of the plane releasing oxygen perhaps to stabilize the pressure inside the plane. We were greeted by the charming stewardess and find our seats near the wings of the aircraft. Nervousness and excitement fills my system this time. Donna was with me along the way. Since, she has already taken a domestic flight, more or less she knows what airplane things is all about, unlike an ignoramus like I am.
I was excited to feel the motion of the plane taking off, and how it feels while its flying above the clouds. I was a bit nervous, but the plane experience did not fail me, for the first time, I felt the feeling of surging upwards while the Cebu Pacific soars up to the air and fly across the thick and vast clouds of our territory. But, my excitement was changed to pain, when I realized that my left ear (which was damaged also by a trip in highlands and almost popped and damaged my eardrums) was aching. It was not a feeling of having pressure inside. It feels that my eardrum is pierced and stabbed by a sharp knife! My ear is nearly exploding! But the thought of being up in the air excites me. Yet, despite my quaky feeling, the pain in my left ear did not subside until we were stabilized around hundreds of feet above the sea level. I almost break Donna's hand into pieces when I clenched her fist with my shaking hands to ease the pain in my ear.
It's so nice to know that Donna is right beside me, holding my hands and saying "relax" yes, while I gnaw myself in relentless pain. Hahaha.
THE SINGAPORE AT NIGHT TIME- now arriving
More or less 3 and half hour from mid-air doing nothing but to stare the leather seat in front of you and see nothing from the blackness outside, the captain announced we will be landing Changi Terminal 3, in few minutes. In jiffy, we saw the whole City of Singapore in glistening, glittering lights. It looks like Manila from the up way sky, but I know, it will be different down there. Again, my ears are starting to ache like numbing my whole body nothing but pain on my head. I can't control my stress while landing off. The ear is as if exploding and the pressure stabs the inner ear as if bitten by hundred of ants. For grueling 15 minutes the pain did not subside, until we reached a tolerable level in the atmosphere almost near the ground. Oh my, I suddenly thought, "I still have a flight back home...does this mean, another pain? Oh my!" I just gulped and breathed-in.
But the pain I felt, slowly decreased when we set foot on the concrete floors of the airport, at long last. The first foreign soil, I set foot (feet) in. I was excited to know more about Singapore, and to see (as I expect) how different it is from my home sweet home, Philippines.
When we passed through the long corridors of Budget Terminal in Singapore, I told myself, "is this a budget terminal?", though it looks like budget, because the building does not look like a hotel looby, but the Budget Terminal is so spacious, clean and organized. Now, I do have a comparison. Upon having our luggage checked at the x-ray machines, (if bags are just humans, they will be exposed to too much radiation), we were received by poker-faced Singaporean immigration officials. We were neither questioned nor interrogated. They just stamped our passports with "ENTRY" and voila, my first foreign country passport stamp!
We passed through the routine checks and stepped to get our bags at the rotating boards. We step immediately in a forex counter just beside the exit doors and exhanged our US dollars with Singapore dollars. The exchange rate is dramatically different from Peso. It is not even 1:2 but 1 USD equivalent to 1.71 (even lower) SG$. To regulate our spending, Donna and I exchanged the 150 dollars first. At least, we still have 50 dollars just in case, the 150 goes right in the bin. The 150USD was exchanged for at least 300SG&. Prior to our coming, we already carefully budgeted the cost of accomodation, taxis and food. To avoid, ending up as beggars, we bought 4 cup noodles to spare us from hunger just in case, we can no longer afford to buy anything.
After exchanging, I held the few hundred SG$ in my hands...and proceeded right outside the exit. We felt relieved. I told Donna, "I love you dear..." (and I wish we can come back home, with some coins in our pockets). What makes it memorable is that we fulfilled our dream to make our first out of the country trip together and God made it possible. We held hands, as we stepped to walk and take our first Singaporean cab experience, and get to see the REAL Singapore outside the airport. It's already past midnight, around 1 a.m. I know, we shall have grand time together (we totally forgot we are there for a business).
Again, Donna held my hand, like she is a girl excited to take her first carnival caterpillar ride. Breathing the air of Singapore, I just thought, I love this girl who is holding my hand.
(to be continued).
