Dad Visits the Philippines

For the picture gallery of the trip, click here!
Months of waiting and my dad finally arrived; two short weeks and he is now back in Phoenix. Needless to say we had a very fun, meaningful time together, traveling throughout the central Visayas.
He arrived in Tacloban where he met me on a very raining morning at 7:10. After getting the baggage sorted out, we jumped onto a jeepney and realized we were, in fact, sitting next to each other for the first time in 17 months.
We met up with a friend for a day in the city, seeing Imelda Marcos' infamous Santo Nino Shrine wherein she kept the Marcos' many gifts from Asia and beyond, including this very fancy chair made of 100% silver than our tour guide encouraged dad to sit in. The museum also includes collections of ivory given by Mao Zedong, tiled Gucci leather walls imported from Italy, Austrian crystal chandeliers, a fountain made of local corals and a chair used by the Pope. Unfortunately, her legendary shoe collection is kept in Manila.
After the museum, we went for a pretty fancy Italian dinner, the likes of which are quite uncommon for Peace Corps volunteers, and we gorged ourselves on fine pastas and delicious wine.
After our Tacloban excursion, we headed down to San Juan to join the teachers in celebrating their Christmas party and to partake in a celebration of our own:
Interesting side story, dad had taken so many photos since I had last recharged the camera that the battery had been dead all day. After lighting the candles for the last evening of Hanukkah, I tried turning the camera back on, hoping we could capture this moment. The camera turned on, took one photo and then died again. This, my friends and family, was our own little Hanukkah miracle in the Philippines. Please appreciate how the last picture was of our Hanukkah celebration and the next is of the Pig roast we dove into that same week.
The Christmas party provided a few firsts for dad: his first time meeting my counterpart, Sir Erwin, my supervisor, Ma'am Rachel and my old friend, Mr. Lechon (roast pig)!
After leaving my site the day after the Christmas party, we embarked on a 16 hour excursion through Cebu City to Dumaguete so Dad could meet my tita, my host-auntie who took such great care of me throughout my pre-service training. Dad was enchanted with Dumaguete. On our way back to my site, we stopped for a night in Cebu City so dad could get a truly "urban" experience.
We spent Christmas eve with my host family, joining them for the midnight mass and returning home for the noche buena, or meal at midnight. Waking on Christmas, we immediately started eating and didn't really finish until we passed out later in the night. The one break from feasting and drinking we had was going to the celebratory Christmas day cock fights. Dad said he had more fun watching the people than the actual fights.
For the sake of relevance, as this is my blog and not my father's, I will spare the rest of the itinerary and details.
It meant the world to me that dad came all the way to the Philippines to see me, my family and my projects. I cannot express the pride and validation I felt when I gave him a tour of the school and the computer lab especially. Dad and I have never needed a preoccupation to spend time together. We have become adept at both deep and shallow conversation with nothing but time on our hands; I believe it has to do with the hours upon hours we have spent in the car together during road trips.
I can't express my gratitude to the time, money and sheer willpower this trip required; it single-handedly legitimated my efforts here and made me feel as though I had not been living in a vacuum for the last 17 months.