Buses and Jeepneys

I know, the song is Buses and Trains, but since I don’t normally take the “train”, I changed it to jeepney. If you’re from the Philippines, I’m sure you already know what it is. But if you’re not, here’s an example of one:

Anyway, I wanted to write about commuting today. You see, here’s the thing. I can’t drive. And when I say can’t, I mean, I can’t. It’s not that I don’t, or won’t. It’s that I can’t. I’m very uncoordinated, I’m bad at directions, I easily panic, and when people shout profanities at me or honk their horns, I tend to take it very seriously and I cry. Hence, I don’t think I’ll ever learn how to, or actually drive. And so, I have learned to love public transportation. And I guess it’s not that bad if you’re in a developed country and the buses come on time and traffic isn’t a big problem, but in the Philippines, well, public transportation is a bit difficult.

The signs are unclear, the routes strange, there are no specific times or stops for buses and jeepneys, and the capacity of the vehicles are questionable. But like I said, I’ve learned to love it. I guess one reason would be because, there are many different things to see/discover when you’re commuting. Really, it’s quite entertaining.

I already wrote about a time that I sat next to a box with a rooster in it. Now, I get to show you a picture of a man who was holding an actual rooster inside a jeepney. He was sitting next to me, and I just had to take a picture. Unfortunately, I had to be very discreet, and I used my cellphone, so it’s not a very clear picture. But anyway, here it is:

And then later that afternoon, I got to ride a bus which used, get this, my grade school/high school uniform as its curtains! I know, it’s so degrading, right?! That they used our school uniform as their curtains. So, in a way I’m thankful that our school has changed its uniform around 4 years ago. But still, I do have fond memories of this red checkered pattern.

Oh well. Like I said, at least it was an interesting experience.

“Awesome packing!”

said the lady behind the check-in counter at the Wellington International Airport. I nearly said “Glad somebody finally noticed!” but my sister beat me to it, saying “That’s the best compliment you can give her!”

She was referring to my mom, whose packing skills are considered legendary, at least to the people she travels with (mostly us). I guess traveling a lot, you pick up these kinds of skills that you can later turn into an expertise — packing a lot that your luggage just hits the mark of your baggage weight limit. Ours, for this particular flight, was 23kg. And one piece of luggage, I kid you not, was weighed at 22.9kg. The other two were 22.6 and 22.7. Honestly, I think the airport personnel was secretly hoping to see one luggage be overweight. I guess she didn’t count on us having a friend who has a weighing scale in her house, specifically for the purpose of weighing luggage.

It really is a skill, I think. I have an aunt who lives in New York, who is an expert at packing Balikbayan Boxes. Honestly, she can look at a pile of stuff and tell you which ones would fit but would make the box too heavy, which one can still be broken despite padding it with towels, and which ones you can force in the little spaces so the box wouldn’t get all deformed when they’re being handled at the airport.

I guess we acquire these skills because situations call for it. It’s really not that easy to travel, as I’m sure you know. And one of the most difficult parts of it, in my opinion, is packing. And I think it’s a bit harder for us Filipinos because we have the pasalubong custom, which is the practice of bringing back a souvenir for almost everyone you know. You know that everyone’s expecting something and will be disappointed if you don’t bring back even small trinkets for them, so you’ll have to find a way to make everything fit into the limit you’re given. And in the case of my mom, she’ll move heaven and earth to be able to do it.

image courtesy of my sister

Packing is underrated. I have seen and read a lot of travel books and magazines, but very few of them ever discuss packing. For that matter, for all the times that our luggage weight has almost just missed the mark, the woman at Wellington airport was the first one to notice it. I guess that’s why we were all very pleased when she did, because it’s always been a big deal to us when we’re packing. We even include it in our itineraries. It felt really nice to have it acknowledged.

If Only I Had All the Time and Money in the World…

I would do this every weekend:

1. Get on a bus (or any mode of transportation).
2. Spend the day somewhere I don’t usually go to, doing something fun,  and preferably with good company.

Last Saturday was one of the days I got to do that, and I enjoyed it immensely. We didn’t have any plans that went beyond the date and the place — August 15, Saturday; UPLB (University of the Philippines, Los Baños). And guess what, it was all we needed.

So we had a little bit of difficulty finding out how to get there. For me, the easiest option was to take a bus from Alabang. But I found out that the buses that you could take from the terminal in Alabang were all non-airconditioned. Normally there’s nothing wrong with that, but if the trip would take at least two hours, I think it doesn’t make me hoity toity if I say that I would rather take an airconditioned bus. I was told that I could take a bus that passes Edsa, but to be safe, we decided to take the bus from the official bus terminal at Taft Ave. We had to ask around to find out exactly where the buses were, that went to Los Baños, but as soon as we found it, it was pretty easy.

We took a Green Star bus that was going to Sta. Cruz. We paid Php99.00 each, and then we got off in front of Olivares Plaza. We took a jeepney with a label “UP College” from there. We got off just before the college’s entrance, but didn’t go in yet, because first, we needed to buy some cake.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: MerNel’s Chocolate Cake is the best choclate cake in the world. And yes, the main reason I wanted to go to Los Baños was to get to eat that cake. We just walked to where it was, it’s pretty near the campus, and after buying one, and having my friend’s name written on it, we went and bought more food from the establishments that were just outside the campus–Bugong Roasted Chicken and some drinks and chips from the Mini Stop convenient store. And after we were all set with our supplies, we went off in search of the park where we would be having our “picnic”*.

*And I put “picnic” in quotation marks because we didn’t exactly have picnic food with us.

None of us were familiar with the campus grounds. We didn’t go there for college, and weren’t close to anyone who did. We had been walking for quite some time when we decided to ask a random passerby directions. He was nice enough to give us correct ones, and pretty soon, we were placing our mat, yes, we actually brought a mat, under a pretty large tree. We sat down, played some music via my cellphone, and started eating.

That’s pretty much all there was to it. We didn’t go anywhere else inside the campus, nor around the town. But actually, just sitting there, we were already able to see a lot. Oh sure, nothing really dramatic happened; there were no fights that broke out or people making big scenes, but it was interesting to see what people did on a Saturday afternoon.

A lot of people were there walking their dogs. Some were playing games like tug-of-war. Some were jogging. And there were some people (mostly couples) who were out for a walk. We saw one man who sat underneath the same tree, on the other side, and he was sketching. It was such a great break from the usual boring malls with blaring music and big crowds. I mean, I love living in the city, but I really wouldn’t mind having a place like that to retreat to whenever things got too busy. And best of all, staying there was free. I mean, we only had to pay for transportation and the food. And that was great.

I really wish I could spend more days like that. Just hanging out with friends, feeling a cool breeze, chatting about non-important fun stuff, watching a nice view, listening to happy music… If only I had all the time and money in the world…