Amy and Terri's Travel Blog

We've Come Full Circle

December 30, 2008 (Salt Lake City, UT): On December 13, 2008 Amy and I left for a 2 1/2 week vacation to the Philippines. We weren't sad to leave the newly fallen snow behind. Our flight was delayed two hours while the runway was plowed and the plane was de-iced.

Leaving for the Philippines

Plane being de-iced

We spent two weeks in the Philippines enjoying the warmth and beautiful scenery.

We had two layovers in Hawaii!

Forty hours after we left Naga, Philippines, we arrived in Salt Lake City! We were happy to be on the ground but not very excited about the all the SNOW!

Hello Hawaii

December 29, 2008: (Honolulu, HI) Wow! Our Monday seemed to go on and on forever! We packed a lot into our 40 hour day!

We arrived in Honolulu about noon and once we collected our luggage and made it though customs and immigration, we headed to the nearest airport courtesy phone and started calling car rental agencies. See, we didn't want to torture ourselves by hanging out at the airport for our 10 hour layover in Hawaii. We thought we would be smart and rent a car. After calling four or five rental agencies only to discover they were all sold out for the day, we jumped on our chance to rent a car for less than 10 hours at the rate of $139.00. To give you a comparison, the car we rented on our flight over, which we used for over 20 hours, only cost us $34.00. But it was totally worth every penny!

After visiting Pearl Harbor (see Terri's post about Remembering The Sacrifice) we headed to Waikiki for some food, shopping, and one last chance to dip our toes in the ocean! Guess where we had dinner? We opted for good old American food at The Cheesecake Factory. No more Lechon thank you very much! Although I was tempted to order a Mango smoothie!

Here' are a few photos of us (looking rather haggard, tired, and travel-worn) at Waikiki beach.

The sunset was amazing!

And yes, it started to rain! (As you can tell from the water drops showing up on Terri's photo below.) For crying out loud...

It was fun to see a Christmas Tree and decorated palm trees too.

And finally, our last picture in Hawaii as we waited in the Airport gardens for our flight home to begin boarding. Please note...this was our last chance to wear short sleeves. Goodbye tropics as we head home to cold and snow!

Hurry Up and Wait!

December 29, 2008 (Manila International Airport, PI): Our flight out of Manila was at 7:50 pm. We had arrived in Manila at 8:30 am. That makes for an 11 hour layover!!! We would have been happy to play in Manila, see the sites, and spend our last pesos on cool Filipino artifacts! But we had one major problem...our luggage!!! They wouldn't let us check our luggage in at the airport more than three hours before our flight.

We tried to kill some time by visiting the Manila LDS Temple and the American Cemetery. We had to pay the taxi driver 200 pesos/hr (okay, so that's only $4/hr) to wait for us at the sites (with our luggage). From what we had been told, traffic in Manila would be awful and it could take as long as an hour to get to and from the sites we wanted to visit. Well, that was not our experience, we were back at the airport by noon. We pulled our luggage into a small restaurant and sat down on the MOST uncomfortable chairs I've ever sat on! The next 5-6 hours were going to be very LONG!

We ordered our last mango shakes and then ordered another!

I borrowed Amy's ipod and watched Transformers while Amy read (though I caught her sleeping). The hours crawled by!!! And the chairs were still very uncomfortable!

Waiting, waiting, and more waiting.

Finally the time came to check in and guess what we did....we WAITED!!! It was an awfully long line! We had our passports checked at least seven times and had 100 stickers put on our luggage. On the other side of security there were stores to shop at and things to look at. Why couldn't we have done our waiting on THAT side of security? At least we weren't sitting any more. About 30 minutes to boarding time we headed to the gate. We bought dried mangoes with our last few pesos and (after having our bags scanned and our passports checked AGAIN) sat down to WAIT to board the plane. And we waited, and waited, and waited. Our flight was delayed nearly an hour.

It's amazing how tired out can get from doing nothing. As soon as the plane took off we were out cold! Fortunately, we got some sleep on the flight to Honolulu!

Remembering The Sacrifice

December 29, 2008 (Manila, PI): This trip has stirred up a great sense of gratitude for all that we have! Those feelings were stirred again as we paid a visit to the American Cemetery in Manila. I have to admit, I don't know a lot about World War II. But what I do know is a lot of people sacrificed their lives for freedom!

The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial is located in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City in Metro Manila, Philippines. The cemetery is 152 acres and has a total of 17,206 graves, it is the largest cemetery in the Pacific for U.S. personnel killed during World War II, and also holds war dead from the Philippines and other allied nations. Many of the personnel whose remains are interred or represented were killed in New Guinea, or during the Battle of the Philippines (1941-42) or the Allied recapture of the islands. The headstones are made of marble which are aligned in eleven plots forming a generally circular pattern. On rectangular limestone walls are inscribed the names of 36,282 of the Missing who gave their lives in the service of America and who rest in unknown graves. Carved in the floors are the seals of the American states and its territories. (Wikipedia)

Liberation of the Philippines

Names of the missing

Rows of marble crosses

The grounds are meticulously kept

"Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God" (inscription on the cross).

I was fascinated with how perfectly straight the rows were.

December 29, 2008 (Honolulu, HI): After a LONG wait in the airport and a LONG flight to Hawaii we weren't about to sit in the Honolulu airport for 10 hours!!! We rented a car (see Amy's post "Hello Hawaii") and headed to Pearl Harbor. Arriving at Pearl Harbor at 2:00 pm made it too late to get tickets for the boat ride over to the USS Arizona Memorial. We were disappointed but figured there was still a lot to see. As we stood there trying to decided what to look at first, a worker approached us and asked if we had just arrived. We said we had. She then confirmed our situation, "You're too late, the tickets for the boat are were gone early this morning." She then continued, "You'd like to go, wouldn't you?" We said yes and she pulled two tickets out of her pocket and gave them to us. We paid $5.00 for the Audio tour, which walked us through the museum and gave us details about the attack on Pearl Harbor.

USS Arizona Mural

USS Arizona Model

Model of the USS Arizona Memorial

USS Arizona Memorial in the background

Our first glimpse of the Memorial from the boat

At the boat dock

Names of those who are entombed in the USS Arizona and their shipmates who gave their lives in action on December 7, 1941.

Attack on Pearl Harbor

USS Arizona Remains

Battle Ship

USS Arizona Marker

USS Arizona flying the flag

Hello Manila

December 29, 2008: (Manila, PI) We arrived in Manila at about 8:30 a.m. Below is a great photo from Terri's window seat of our approach to the city. Notice how blue the sky is? No rain! Why does it rain almost every day of our vacation, except the day we leave?

Anyway, we took our time getting to baggage claim--we weren't in any big rush since our flight to Hawaii didn't leave until 7:50 p.m. When we arrived at the baggage carousel, all our fellow passengers and their luggage was gone! Only our three bags were left--looking a little forlorn and forgotten! We wish we had a photo to show you, 'cause we had a good laugh about it.

So, what do you do with over 10 hours to spend in Manila? Unfortunately, not a whole lot while you're dragging around three huge and densely packed suitcases! From the airport, we hired a taxi to take us to a few sites around Manila. FYI-It cost us 1300 pesos to have our taxi driver take us to the Manila Temple and the American Cemetery, wait for 1 hour at both sites, and then drive us back to the airport. That's about $28.00! Not bad, eh?

The next few pictures were taken at our first stop--the Manila temple. We had also wanted to do some souvenir shopping at the CTR store across the street, but like the temple, it was closed on Monday! RATS!

The two gentlemen in the bottom left corner of this next picture are Brother Peter & Dr. Alexander. Brother Peter is the temple gate guard who accompanied us as we checked out the temple. Bro. Peter has hiked to the top of Mt. Everest. How many people can you say you've met who have hiked to the top of Everest? .And Dr. Alexander is the doctor and missionary assigned to help with health issues for all the missions in the Philippines. We had been in the car a couple of times when my parents talked to Dr. Alexander about health concerns with their missionaries. It was fun to put a face and name together.

Here's one last photo of us at the temple. The grounds were beautiful, the weather perfect, and the visit well worth it! I was disappointed our timing was off and we couldn't go in to do a session. We would have had plenty of time! But it was fun to visit this temple with Terri--my temple buddy!

Goodbye Naga

December 29, 2008: (Naga, PI) Okay, it's really January 8th. Today was the first time since Terri and I got home that we've been able to get together and finish our blog. We have a few more blog postings to finish out the last day or so of our trip. Aren't you glad you checked back?

Before I get to the part of leaving Naga, let me share one of the Smith family Christmas traditions. We always set out a puzzle and work on it through the holidays. My mom made sure we kept up the tradition, even half way around the world in the Philippines. I'm amazed she had the forethought to ship over (last June) a puzzle I'd given her a while ago...1,000 pieces of Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night painting. Let me tell you, it was NOT any easy puzzle. And we couldn't leave the Philippines until the puzzle was done! Hmmm...I'm suprised my mom didn't hide a few pieces. Anyway, between Terri, my mom, and I, we finished up the puzzle on Sunday night.

Sssshhh! Don't tell my mom, but I'm going to have this picture of sea shells we gathered at the beach made into a 1,000 piece puzzle for Christmas next year!

So, we left Naga early Monday morning. For the last time I closed and locked the gate at the mission home and had one last glimpse of the Christmas stars above the driveway. I have fond memories of being with my dad at the Naga Market when he bought these for my mom.

At the airport, we said our (tearful) goodbyes and took pictures like out-going missionaries--under the departure sign.

And then took one last picture of my parents from the window of the terminal. I get the feeling my folks have posed for this kind of photo many times--and will do it for 16 more transfers.

I know it's a blurry picture, but I loved the last blown kiss goodbye. Yes, I will admit, I cried! So, maybe this blurry picture is appropriate, because my vision was a bit like this through watery tears! After all, this kiss goodbye has to last me 18 more months!