17 September

My alarm clock went off way to soon today; at the exact time I had set it for, Again 6:30. I think I might try to make that a habit while on vacation, we shall see. It is kind of nice to wake up and go to bed at approximately the same time for more than 2 days in a row, not to mention having a steady diet of sorts. Well at least three meals a day instead of two, or one, or none however the day happens to go. I seem to need to eat noticeably less during each meal. Of course the experts have been saying that for years now, and well I can verify what they have been saying, at least for my part. Ok so on to what I actually did today. We (Jim LetLet, Eva Jean, and myself) started out the day by going to the SM mall again, I needed a plug adapter for my laptop power supply, and LetLet needed to exchange a shirt she had gotten a few days earlier. We split the fair, they paid for the trip to the mall and I paid for the trip back. It came to about 70 pesos one way, tip included which is about $1.40, the plug adapter that I needed was 40 pesos or about 80 cents. You almost wish the thing would cost more so it would justify the cost of going to the mall. We didn’t spend much time at the mall none of us really had anything we wanted besides what we had already gotten so we headed back to the hotel. We stayed there for a little, and then me and Jim went out to get something to eat for lunch. We split after lunch and I went and walked around the area surrounding our hotel. I ended up picking up a map of the Philippine islands for 50 pesos. I don’t know how good of a map it is but it looks fine, and says copyright 2005, so maybe just maybe I didn’t get ripped off to badly. Shortly after that I came back to my room and showered in preparation for attending a wedding for one of Jims close friends. Jim had previously asked if I could be invited and so I tagged along with the grooms invitation. The wedding was starting later in the day about 3:30pm and so we left our hotel at 2:30. that way Jim could find out what his role in the ceremony would be and get dressed as he didn’t own the proper attire for a Filipino wedding. Now knowing before I left Diego Garcia that I would be attending this wedding I wished that I had had the proper attire myself. I have hanging in my closet back at D.G. several nice slacks, long sleeve and short sleeve collared shirts, and even a rather nice suite. However as I bought all of these just prior to me getting out of the army and weighing 155 at the time with a 32 or 33 waist, none of them fit me now weighing in at a hefty 195 and carrying around a 36 or 37 inch spare tire. So I was muchly underdressed for the event, wearing dark blue nearly black corduroy pants and a dark green button up shirt that I had just purchased at the mall. Well I suppose I could have looked worse. The wedding area was very nicely set up. It was on the same mountain ridge as the Tops restraint that I had visited on the 16th. This location offered a much more beautiful view of the mountain ridge though, as there were mountains both above and below us, with a valley leading away down to the city of Cebu below. The wedding was held outside under hardwood trees decorated with lights, and plants and flowers tied to them. The back drop the bride and groom stood in front of for the ceremony was a small manmade hill that was nearly vertical and completely covered in flours and other colorful tropical plants, set directly beneath two trees that provided a nice cover and formed a sort of stage. There had been a long red carpet laid that lead from the nearby stone resort to the “staged” area. Along this carpet are large flower and plant bouquets set with brightly colored decorative umbrellas. All these bright reds, and oranges, and yellows, and other colors, with the dark green grass and trees contrasted very nicely with the grey overcast sky, set by a backdrop of a slightly hazy mountain ridge. All in all it was a most beautiful place and time for a wedding. I don’t think any inside wedding could compare to the natural beauty of this setting. There were tables set with white linen cloths and chairs covered similarly. The tables were accented with red napkins that matched the bride’s maid’s dresses and other decorations as well, all of this was set outside. The caterers had set up before the wedding and there serving trays and other wares were all silver in color and polished reflecting nicely the soft light that came through the clouds. I have no pictures of this event, and I know my description is lacking greatly to express how beautiful I found this setting. But being an outsider, and knowing that The groom would have hired professional photographers, I decided that it would be rather rude of me, being more or less a complete stranger to the bride, the groom, and the family, and merely being the guest of a guest, to snap picture throughout the whole wedding as though I belonged there doing just that. Instead I just tried to stay out of the way and be an observer, for which I was grateful to be allowed. Jim and LetLet didn’t want to stay for long after the ceremony, for a couple of reasons. First keeping Eva Jean happy that long is quite a task, secondly the only persons that Jim and LetLet knew were the bride and groom, so they had no need to mingle and talk, and thirdly the taxi we hired to take us up to the wedding location was waiting on us, and the longer he waited, the more we paid. So we stayed until all the portraits and group pictures had been taken, and just a few more minutes just to be polite, gave the bride and groom our congratulations, and made out way back to the taxi, and then back to out hotel. Not a very active day, but a nice day all the same. Perhaps as it 21 past midnight now I shouldn’t hope for days that are much more active or I may never get any sleep. After eating dinner at an open air restraint across the street from the hotel, we made our separate ways back to our hotel rooms. I twiddled my thumbs for a little in my room before I decided to head up to the roof deck of our hotel and take some pictures of the city of Cebu from the roof of our hotel. It was about 8:30 when I headed up there and probably 9:30 or :45 when I came back down. I didn’t take very many pictures, I really should have tried to catch the sunset when there was just enough light to show all the buildings yet still see the lights, but alas that is not what happened. Well it is now 12:29 and I have been working on this and the previous days since I came back into my room and took a shower, so I suppose its time I get going as I would like to get up at 6:30 again. For now that is all I can think to add to this day.