Batanes. I.

A few days into January, we received via fax an invitation from Epson Philippines about some photo printing event which was later handed to me so I can confirm my attendance. I looked at the particulars and almost jumped off my seat, it says "Batanes." I was a little excited because (1) the farthest tourist spot I’ve been to was Puerto Galera and I absolutely loved the idea of having the chance to see more of the country, (2) this is going to be my first time aboard a plane, (3) I get to spend a couple of days away from my office PC and (4) it’s free.

So here’s my post about Day 1 of the tour. Warning though, this is one freaking long post with too many browser-crashing picture.

The flight was to be at 5am that day but I was told to come around 3am.  I’m most likely one of the first few people at the airport because I didn’t know how much traffic I’d have to endure just to get there. And because in Rizal, I’m used to leaving the house two to three hours before call time so I left at midnight…and got to the airport an hour and a half later! But since I don’t have my ticket just yet (I was to meet Anika, from Epson’s PR company Geiser Maclang, who has them) I stayed out side the Asian Spirit airport and waited.

Waited. Waited. 

Waited until this bus pulled over and load of Koreans piled out and queued. Now I was feeling a hell lot more lonely. Seriously, despite all my excitement, I was a little sad that none of my media friends were coming and I just couldn’t shake "I know none of these people. I’ll probably end up being alone most of the expidition." off my head. But I also had doses of Verns’ "You don’t need to be a loner." and Cielo’s "E di make new friends." the day before so I was still keeping my hopes up on the possibility that someone I know would end up in the tour.

So finally, I got this text message from Anika telling me to meet her at the door, where I got my ticket and headed for the waiting area.  More waiting. I looked at my sea number that declared 5A, which is awesome because it’s a window seat!

I waited with the people who were also invited by Epson. I looked around and had to supress a disappointed frown. "I really don’t know them! Where’s Grace? Riza?" it was getting hard to shake it off my head. Even more now that I noticed that they all  seem to know each other. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not tattered by human interaction- hinged psychoses. It’s just that I haven’t met new people for so long it’s gotten unfomfortably awkward for me to stay in one room with people I barely know. This trip is definitely going to be a challenge. I kept buzzing in Aoitenshi’s "Have fun!" in my head to keep me at bay.

So finally we boarded the plane. I put on my earbuds and pushed PLAY to drown out the slight panic and joy that I’m finally inside a plane. After a few minutes the plane taxied and then took off. After a few more minutes, I looked out the window and saw nothing but clouds and the overhead PA system declared that we were flying at 29,000 feet above ground.Then I started getting even more nervous because the first MP3 that played was Matt Willis‘ remake of "Crash" and then after hitting NEXT I was sort of relaxed with a Dave Matthews Band intro but it hit me, it was "Crash into Me." After Soundgarden’s "Black Hole Sun" I had to switch my iPod off. So I slept.

I woke up a good 20 minutes before we our 8:00am estimated time of arrival. Being constantly on the road on various modes of transportation, I realized that the flight was almost no different from being on a bus except that it felt more cramped, they served juice and that it I ended up mildly freaked out everytime I looked out the window.  

I looked out the window and hour later and saw first Batanes foliage.

Then it was time to get off the plane. I was still groggy and didn’t want to leave my seat (mild annoyance as shown in the above picture– Butch Abad and Katrina Legarda was also in the plane with us).

The wind was freaking strong and cold. Seriously.