Well, first of all, before we get to the question asked in the title of this post, we have some important news. We have the Philippines-equivalent of a Costco/Sam’s club membership!! I know!! It’s so exciting!! The S&R membership card. I’m pretty sure this means we have arrived. Plus it was only $12 or so. #worthit
This place was mentioned to us by some members of the ward as a reliable place to get good meat and also cheaper cereal. We decided with those things alone that it would be worth it. Because the meat situation in most grocery stores is a little sketchy. Ok. Or a lot sketchy. And for a box of Cheerios, it’s $10!!! For one box. But, we’ve been shelling it out because we figure we’ve rocked our children enough as it is, we don’t want to take away something that is so familiar. We’ll ease them into things…
The nice thing is that the S&R is only a mile or two from our apartment, so it isn’t too expensive to get a taxi or an Uber. (We did one of each). Honestly, this place feels like a direct transplant from the States, down to the little eatery that serves pizza (you know how you get the equivalent of two slices of pizza?) and hot dogs and smoothies. We felt like we would just walk out into the parking lot and see our van waiting for us.
Anyway, we had lunch there, came home, Jonathan went to the well (ie, he bought water at the mini mart downstairs) and we put the two little boys to bed…. Pause.
If you are squeamish…. stop reading here. (We’re not talking blood and guts squeamish, just fyi) No seriously. Now. If you are squeamish and you keep reading anyway, despite my warning and you get all creeped out, it isn’t my fault!! I warned you! It’s safe to resume reading after you see this again:
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Jonathan was going to go to bed for the day (and he’d wake up around 7 pm to go to work). And my stomach was bothering me, so I was just going to lay down for a minute. So, we let Clara watch a documentary on the couch. We’d been laying down for about 5 minutes and we heard a blood curdling scream from the front room and the sound of the iPad hitting the floor. My immediate reaction was “Oh my gosh, she really hurt herself” but then I realized that was highly unlikely seeing as she was just sitting on the couch. My next thought was “I bet she saw a cockroach….” All this was going through my head as we ran into the other room as fast as we could. Now. Brace yourself. Not only had she seen a cockroach, it had fallen onto the iPad that she had in her lap. It had been crawling around on the ceiling and had fallen right into her lap. I tell you, I would’ve curdled something too if it had happened to me. Serious freakout! Poor little thing. She was shaking and just wigged out.
So, I comforted her. I tried at least. Jonathan (bless that wonderful man) crushed that stupid cockroach with his shoe. Clara was still wigged out, so Jonathan said she could come hang out with us. So, she was sitting in our room. And she saw another cockroach walking around in our bedroom. Jonathan killed it too (I adore him).
Now, we knew that cockroaches were a thing here. We have found a bunch of dead ones over the time that we have been there. We just figured that’s the cost of living in the Philippines. But that’s different from live ones….Over the entire time that Jonathan has been here (over 2 months) he has only seen one that was alive. And it was just barely alive, like it was on its way out. And so, he went to the front desk and asked someone to come spray the apartment. And then he came back upstairs
And then Clara saw ANOTHER one. And another. In a 15 minute span, we saw 8 LIVE, Skittering cockroaches just in our room. Jonathan managed to kill most of them, but a couple got away. I hate them SOOOO MUCH!!!! One of them was crawling on the wall, when it fell, and it flew and landed on the desk. That sucker FLEW! Both Clara and Jonathan screamed when that happened. I wasn’t in the room or I would’ve shrieked too. At this point, we were freaking out a little bit. Our skin was crawling. We huddled together far from any walls, and just looked up in fear.
We were so incredibly creeped out that we decided to get out of there as fast as we could. So, we packed up a suitcase, let the fella in to start spraying and we checked into a hotel. Perhaps you think that is a little over the top. At first, I did too. But, as I’ve thought about it…. I ‘m so incredibly glad that we did!! Honestly, I don’t think I would’ve slept a wink if we’d stayed there. I would’ve just felt like there were cockroaches lurking everywhere….about to fall on my face. Or on my babies’ faces!!! GUH!!!! I’m getting the creeps just thinking about it.
Plus, the guy who came to spray, made it clear that we should get our babies out of there while he was spraying. And we should stay out of the house for a while…. Well, if he says so….
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IT IS NOW SAFE FOR ALL AUDIENCES TO READ…..
So, because of our… ahem…*plumbing* problem, we are in the Crown Plaza hotel. And it is a nice place!! This is where Jonathan has stayed when he has come to Manila in the past. And he stayed here for nearly 2 weeks before they found our apartment. He said its a five-star place. I feel so fancy! Business class and five star hotels. I am no longer a mere mortal!
We checked in about 2:30. And Jonathan ran to the grocery store to get food so Logan won’t starve (we had neglected to pack for his food needs in our haste to get out of the apartment quickly). And the kids and I decided to go check out the pool. It’s a lovely pool.
The kiddie pool is only 2 feet deep, so both kids were able to play in it with no problems whatsoever. Juju originally didn’t want to swim. Which I thought was unusual. He loves to swim at our apartment. But as soon as he saw that Clara could stand up on her own, he was all in. So, I think the issue was that he was scared to get in without his life jacket. So, once he realized it wasn’t necessary, he was fine. And he had a great time. He literally spent the entire time climbing in and out of the pool. Just by pulling himself up and then lowering himself down. No stairs for him. Oh, no. That would not do. Clara learned how to open her eyes under water. She was pretty proud of this. They were in heaven.
We stayed for about 2.5 hours, in the hopes that Jonathan would be able to sleep. I don’t know how well that worked, but we tried to give him a good shot anyway.
Logan eventually fell asleep in the stroller. And it was nice, because I just sat in a beach chair and watched them swim. And it was so relaxing and just nice.
I sure do like these little critters.
Anyway. Those were our adventures for today. The good, the bad and ugly and revolting and the relaxing….
