Arrival in Puerto Princesa

Wow what a day!! Or couple of days, I have lost track of everything and feel like we are spinning out of control. Luckily Ryan is a person that has it all together this time and our hotel is wonderful!! We landed in Manila this morning at 1am. Customs went great and we took a shuttle over to the other airport. We got in line before the counter even opened and were waiting in the terminal at 2am. We sat there for just over 5 hours. We read, walked around and talked. We haven't slept in forever because last night's flight was very turbulant. We haven't eaten either, but enough of me complaining.

Well, we landed in Puerto Princesa at 9:30am and we had to do the outside jetway thing, which was cool because I've never done that. They had a military band playing for us as we got off the plane also. It was very crowded and hot getting our lugguge, but orderly and we still have all our pieces (we were hoping nothing would get lost changing so many planes). Our hotel Jeepney was there waiting for us and the two men that drove it. When we came out of the airport we were bombarded with people that were giving us flyers for things in town and there were a ton of hotel people holding signs looking for their guests. I walked up to our the guy holding our name and he grabbed our bags and led us away. We drove for about 15 minutes through town to get here, wow it was so incredible to see the people and the businesses. We want to go back and look and take pictures. It is something we have only seen on tv and it is so different for us. We finally got to our hotel (by the way it is hot here!) We stink, we are hungry and tired. They met us at the front desk with a form to fill out and 2 drinks to get our day started. I started to slam it down because I was thirsty and it was good, then I noticed that I was getting drunk,haha. I stopped drinking it because I would like to stay awake the rest of the day.

Here's the good part. We got our computer set up right away and skyped the boys. It was good to talk to them and see them. We miss you guys!! Next phone call was ICAB. We didn't even know our social worker's name when we called, but the lady that answered the phone took all our information. She said our social worker was at the conference and we should call back on Monday. Well, we are leaving on Monday for Manila. We were told by our adoption agency to call ICAB to find out when they scheduled our meeting with Shella May. We decided we needed to take some action here, so we called her orphanage. We talked with the orphanage director's husband and he was really nice. He said that ICAB called them last week asking if we were here. Once again lack of communication. When Ryan told him that we were in town, he said they would run right over today to get us. We asked him if tomorrow would be okay because we are tired, hungry, stinky. So they are coming tomorrow at 9am to get us!!!

And Ryan asked what her name is....they call her Marie. Don't know exactly why. A woman that adopted from our orphanage last year put a video of all the kids on line. At the end the kids say their names, Shella is too shy to say hers and someone says "Marie" for her. That is her! So tomorrow will be a big day!

We just ordered room service, well the guy brought our food to us. We have now eaten and Ryan is working on the showering part. He said that if I smelled that bad, he must be awful. Thanks, Hon, for telling me I smell bad. Here are a few pictures of our hotel.

The bed in our room

Outside our room

The restaurant in the center of the hotel grounds

The pool

The "Arrival" Drink

Trike we passed on the way to the hotel

Ryan sitting in the Jeepney that picked us up at the airport.

He had to crouch down so his head didn't hit the ceiling

The military band that greeted our flight's arrival in Puerto Princesa

The moveable ramp used to let us off the airplane