A Busy Weekend

Man... it's been a crazy weekend...

So I've joined the Metro Davao Christian Church. It's affiliated with the church I go to in Lancaster. I'm officially part of the campus ministry. It's lead by this guy named Kaloi and his fiancee Leah. They pretty much rock my socks.

Ok so Friday, I took this really interesting personality test in my Organizational Behavior class. I'll post more about that later.

Friday night I pretty much spent a lot of time online, doing email, checking message boards, and etc... but no BLOG. I was at Kaloi's internet cafe and we were also working on deciding on specifications for a new computer that I'm building. I got home about 11pm or so. I was so wiped out.

Saturday morning I woke up at 6AM(!) for a quiet-time/prayer thing that was going on with the church. That was cool. We ate breakfast afterwards and I got back home around 9AM. I was so tired still, so I took a nap.

I woke up at 12PM, took a shower and got ready for a wedding I was invited to. Kaloi picked me up at 12:30PM, we picked up Leah soonafter, then we all had lunch at his parents' eatery. After that, we hung out at his internet cafe again.

at 3:15PM we left for the wedding. It was at a clubhouse in this really up-scale neighborhood called "Woodridge". A lot of wealthy people live here.

The wedding was really nice and fairly different from the traditional American wedding. Before the wedding even started I could tell it was different. At the front or the "stage" there were a bunch of chairs. Apparently the whole wedding party, the groom, bride, groomsmen, and bridesmaids all sit during the ceremony. The processional was pretty long... as each person was announced as they walked down the aisle. There were also different parts in the wedding that aren't in our American weddings... for instance... here they put a veil over the couple. It goes over the groom's shoulders and over the bride's head. This symbolizes that the woman is under the authority of the man. They also have a chord made of pearls or beads or something that they place around the couple. It symbolizes that they are bound together in marriage. They also give them a little purse filled with pesos. It represents God's future blessings in their lives.

Interesting eh?

We didn't stay for the reception after the wedding because it was an invitation only kinda thing. They didn't have a lot of space for extra people. So Kaloi, Leah, another woman in the church named Joy, and I went to go watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was OK I guess... I mean I'm not really into the Harry Potter series... but I guess that's because I haven't read any of the books nor have I seen any of the first three movies.

The movie was at 10pm and we got to the mall where the movies are at like 8pm. So we had two hours to pass. The girls went to the department store to browse while Kaloi and I hit up the arcade. We played a lot of Time Crisis 4. I am now convinced that I rock at that game. I died like only 2 times and got pretty far.

The movie theaters here are pretty nice... and different. haha. All their theaters are pretty large. The odd thing though is that they play the national anthem before the movie starts. Everyone has to stand during the anthem. Kaloi told me that someone was arrested one time for not standing. That's pretty extreme.

The movie finished about 12:30 or something and I got home around 1am. Man, we were tired.

The next morning I woke up for 9AM church at 8AM. My dad was at the gym so he couldn't give me and my cousin a ride, so we took a Jeepney (click the word jeepney to see a picture of a typical one). Jeepneys are the main mode of transportation in the Philippines as most people can't afford their own cars. It costs 7 pesos for most trips. The roads here are jam packed with jeepneys. All the jeepneys have different routes that will take you different places. Kinda like Metro Bus Lines.

So my cousin and I took a jeepney at about 8:50am and arrived at the church at 9:40. It was a looonnngg ride. Typically by taxi or by car, we can make the same trip in 15 minutes. But jeepneys stop quite frequently to pick up and drop off passengers. There's no "jeepney stop" so it's pretty much drop off/pick up anywhere.

After church we hung out at Kaloi's again. at 4pm I had a double date with some people in the church. My date was this sister named Maricel. I think she's 23 and she's a Certified Public Accountant (or a CPA as I've come to learn in my accounting class). The date was pretty chill. We were at the other girl's house. We had dinner, sang Videoke (Kareoke with Video.) and then shared a little bit of our spiritual walk, encouraged each other, then prayed with each other. It was pretty cool.

On the subject of Videoke... In the Philippines, Videoke is like gold to these people. They love it, they cherish it, it's the coolest thing to do. Almost all Filipinos LOVE to sing regardless of whether they have the ability to or not.

So our date ended around 7:15pm. We took a taxi back to Kaloi's cafe. I browsed around for a couple hours, then went home at 9:30pm. I promptly went to sleep. I was so exhausted.

So here I am now at school... well between classes. So I hope you enjoyed that update. There should be some pictures coming soon. I promise.

And that personality test too.

Peace out.
Cy