Koi No Yokan

Haneul Appa's Hometown

Minju's POV:

We are now in Subic and have been staying at our Subic hotel. We've tried all the famous dishes of Subic and I found out that the Tofu Sisig was a variant of a similarly named pork dish. Pork Sisig, that was served on a sizzling plate, the charcoal barbecued pork face and ears were chopped into little pieces and similarly seasoned with the same sour fruit juice called Calamansi Juice. Everytime we ordered lunch, these little lemons were given alongside the dishes to create your own dipping sauce. It was a perfect compliment to the noodles and congee as well as the barbecued pork we always ordered. Filipinos are big on their dipping sauces. We've had fun discovering the dishes from the Philippines. The Philippines had big shopping malls at the central, which we vowed to go to someday when we are not in a hurry. We had a tight and busy schedule coming into the Philippines that we barely had any time at all to explore the Capital Region, we flew in and landed at the Province of Subic.

Partly because according to the research we've done, the flight to Ninoy Aquino International Airport then going to Subic would take us a day of travel, not because the province was far from the said Manila airport, but because of the unbelievable traffic along the main road called EDSA. We had to travel in a straight line going North as the Manila airport was located South of Manila and where Haneul Appa now laid to rest was located to the North. It would be so much traffic to get to the province so we unilaterally decided to just catch a direct flight to Subic. Subic required us to travel down to Pampanga for forty minutes tops. The hotel we stayed at right now in Subic was far away from San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines. It was a secluded White Sand Beach, the clear waters were a treat to us.

I went in for a dip at the sea, swam with the whole team today before finally packing our clothes for tomorrow's celebration of life event that we organized ourselves. We are spending a day and a night in Pampanga before going back to our hotel and then finally flying back to Korea for Seri Eomma. I brought along my dress for tomorrow. Then my sandals and some sanitary pads, just in case I get my time of the month. We made our way to the bus stop with our big gym bags. The bags were our Merch from our website. It was uniform for everyone, but we had our favorite jersey numbers stitched outside and our stage initials on the other side of the bag. I debuted as Kang Minjoo, so my initials KM was stitched on the side. Hyewon similarly debuted as Kim Hyewon. Our group's official color was Stardust Pink, Galaxy Purple and Black Blackhole. IZ*ONME was stitched in the group's color along the Black Canvas Duffle Bag. I packed light, because I was going to get some treats for myself at Pampanga to give to my colleagues at MBC.

I was beginning to sneak in some shopping through out the last two days for keepsakes and snacks. I bought some coconut jelly candies, some keychains and other snacks I could grab. It was six in the evening when we left Subic and ten more minutes we will be in San Fernando. I sat with Mong Oppa on the bus. The driver seemed to not care about safety of his passengers as he drove. Several times that he ran like unbelievably fast only to hit the brakes all of a sudden. A young lady must've been same age as me said 'Para po sa Tabi' or Stop to the side in English, the driver stopped briefly and then went ahead pushed his accelerator causing the bus to go and the young woman luckily had her feet  already planted to the ground. God bless that woman and this driver, he really had no regards for safety whatsoever.

Mong Oppa was looking out the window and the several plant fields we passed by the huts made out of trash I suppose because the huts looked like a pile of trash. It was calm in Pampanga and Subic, but you can see the resilience of the Filipino People. Those huts were made out of trash for them to have roof over their heads, otherwise you see some of them living in a small hut made out of Bamboo and Capiz. That was the original design of the huts here in the olden days of the Philippines. Now, these huts were called 'Barong-Barong' which meant houses made out of scrap materials. The roof of these makeshift houses could be made from a Tarpaulin then weighed down by a rubber tire and big chunks of stones or gravel or perhaps dried cement formed in either a hollow block or a spherical thing. I'm not at all sure, but judging by the way it looked, that was what the materials were.