“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.

I Belong to the Zoo

For my birthday this year, I went to visit my sister who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. Actually, that’s just an excuse. I wanted to visit her before Christmas, and my birthday was the only occasion we could think of. So I went there, and we did lots of stuff– visit Auckland, Lord of the Rings tour, but for my birthday itself, because she had work, she suggested I go to the zoo. There’s not many attractions in Wellington, after all, and especially if you’re already going on the Lord of the Rings tour, there wouldn’t be a lot left. So I followed her suggestion and went to the zoo last September 17th of this year. (Notice how I subtly let you know that that’s my birthday? )

Before going, I stopped by a convenient store to buy a bottle of water and a big cookie. My sister had already left for work, and I’m not crazy about doing the dishes so that was my breakfast (and lunch, actually) for that day. I left my sister’s apartment around 12 noon, stood at the bus stop for a few minutes and was at the zoo by 12:30PM.

The bus cost me 5NZD, and it was already roundtrip. I found out later on that that’s actually a bus Day Pass in Wellington. You can ride the bus unlimited times for the day for 5NZD. Isn’t that cool? Anyway, if I hadn’t gotten the day pass, the ticket would’ve cost me 3.5NZD per trip.

Newtown is one of those small towns on the outskirts of the Central Business District of Wellington. One of the tour guides I encountered said that houses in that area were cheap, and so was the rent, so its population was mostly young married couples. The neighborhood looked nice.

Entrance to the zoo was 15NZD. It comes with a map and a schedule of the talks/feeding times of the animals. I felt bad because I missed the talk about the tiger (that happened 12nn), but I made it just in time for the talk about the sun bears. OK no, I actually had to run a somewhat uphill path to get to the sun bears in time, but it was all worth it.

The sun bear is apparently the smallest bear in the world, the tallest grows only up to 5 feet. And it can climb trees, and has a long tongue because it eats insects and plants, unlike “meat eating” bears. They’re pretty cute, too. They have a yellow ring on their chests, which is why they’re called sun bears.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about all the animals I saw. You can just research about animals on the internet anyway, but the zoo was nice because it was very natural, in the sense that the animals don’t look like they’re caged. Some of them only have low fences to keep them from going towards people. And I found out something else from looking at the “Old Elephant House”.

I know that name’s misleading. You don’t actually see an old elephant in there, but instead some bats and a few species of reptiles. But it’s called that way because apparently, back in the day (the 1960′s, I think), Wellington Zoo became famous for having an elephant in it. There was a parade and everything when they brought in the elephant to the city, and lots of people went to the zoo to see it. When it died, the zoo administration talked about getting another one. However, by that time, the concept of the “zoo” was more about preserving animals, and not anymore just for people to see exotic stuff (because animals have rights now). And because elephants survive longer when they’re in a group, and the Wellington Zoo couldn’t afford to keep a group of elephants, they decided not to put elephants in the zoo anymore. Still, because of its reputation, they kept the old elephant house.

It was just beside the kiosk, which sold food, but I didn’t look anymore at how much the food was. I already had my cookie.

I stopped by the picnic area to eat it. And because it was winter, and a weekday, there wasn’t anybody at all in the picnic area. I was alone. So I ate my cookie alone. And the whole time I was eating it, only about three or four people passed by. One of them was a zookeeper, so there were actually only two other tourists that passed by. I guess the place is busier in the summer.

Actually, during all the talks that I attended (sun bear, giraffe, pelican, kiwi), there were less than 10 of us who showed up. Definitely not their peak season. And I guess it’s not exactly one of those “must see” place in Wellington. Still, I like animals the appropriate amount and didn’t regret that I went.

I left around 5PM. I wanted to buy a penguin from the souvenir shop, but remembered that there weren’t even any penguins on display in the zoo, so that was pretty pointless. Plus, I didn’t have enough money. So I just went out, and waited for the bus, which wouldn’t come until another 20 minutes.

The Newtown Park was just beside the zoo and I got to see a part of it. I wasn’t able to go too far, but I think it’s like Central Park in New York. There were a few joggers that passed by, and some people walking their dogs, and some kids in the playground. Across the zoo was a convenient store, and I spent some time in there, too. It was mostly to get inside somewhere, because the wind was really strong and it was really cold. And the jacket I brought was, well, let’s just say I wasn’t prepared for that kind of weather.

The bus finally came after several gusts of wind and another cookie (I bought in the convenient store across the zoo). I got off at the middle of Lambton Quay where my sister said we should meet.

On the way back, I told her about all the animals I saw and she asked me, “Did the animals perform?”

I realized then that what I read from the Old Elephant House was right. We did used to think that the zoo was where you could see animals do stunts and stuff. It’s strange how this change happened in the world, and I didn’t even notice it. Then again, I haven’t been to a zoo since I was a kid, so I guess it was just right that I went to one this year. Though I think what makes it most memorable was because I went there alone. I’ve never gone anywhere alone, not really. And it was certainly a different experience. The area around the zoo, and even in the zoo itself was very quiet. At times it was even creepy. Or peaceful. I still haven’t decided yet.

For more pictures, see my Multiply: I Belong to the Zoo
I made a video, too: Wellington Zoo, 17-Sept-08

Y’alla Ayala

It’s inevitable. When you spend a few days in another country (or any other place that has a different language/dialect), you get used to hearing another language being spoken. At first it’s real annoying since you can’t understand anything everybody says, but after a while, you pick up a few words yourself, and at least in my case, I get interested enough to learn more and more words in that language. I am far from a language expert, I can only speak two languages fluently (and those are the very boring English and Filipino, which are both languages spoken in my country anyway), but I’d definitely learn another language if the opportunity arose.

My Mom and I spent a good 8 days in Egypt (or was it 9 days? I really can’t remember), and during that time, although the tour guides we spoke to and the friends we were with all spoke English (and Filipino), we still heard a lot of Egyptian Arabic being spoken around us. One such word that kept being said was “Y’alla”, which according to our tour guide meant “Let’s Go” in Egyptian. It’s usually said many times continuously, so as to make it sound more urgent, i.e. “Y’alla Y’alla!”.

A lot of people said it, tour guides mostly (and there were a LOT of tour guides scattered around), for obvious reasons. It’s probably one of the words that most tourists understand, and there’s even a travel agency there called “Y’alla Tours”. I saw that name painted on a van.

Anyway, while we were there, it was almost automatic for us to move whenever we heard it. It was quite fun, really. And it’s the only Egyptian word I really remembered. I got so used to it that the day after we got back to the Philippines and I took the bus to go to work, when it stopped at the station I was supposed to get off at, and the bus driver announced the station, I thought I heard it again.

“Y’alla! Y’alla!”

I turned my head sharply to look at the person who said it, expecting to see someone in a turban and a long-sleeved shirt, thinking for a moment that I was still in Egypt and the people around me were speaking Egyptian. But it turned out to be a very Filipino-looking bus driver in a white polo barong and black slacks. And I realized that what he said was not Egyptian, but in fact the name of the place we had stopped at:

“Ayala! Ayala!”

I laughed at myself as I got off the bus and was laughing the whole time (I know I probably looked crazy to the other people around) I walked to the next place that had another bus to take me to my workplace (yes, sadly, the Philippines is still full of buses and not enough trains). How funny language is.