On Saturday 5/3/08, we got up super early (4-5am) so we could get a head start on the drive to Mindoro, and be by there by late morning. Jun's neice, Ritz, works night shift at a telemarketing company, so we picked her up in downtown Manila, and then we were on our way. To get to Mindoro from Manila you must drive for about 2-2.5 hours to Batangas City, take a 2 hour ferry from Batangas City to Calapan City on the island of Mindoro. Once you get to Calapan City, we had about a 30-45 minute drive to get to Jun's brother Bo's house.
I was pretty excited about attending the family reunion because I heard there would be at least 100 people (6-7 families), and attending a reunion in the Philippines I knew would be new cultural experience for me. Jun had prepared me, because he said Mindoro is largely farm country, so a lot of people there aren't used to seeing fair skin people, and that they might stare. Also, many people aren't used to speaking English, so he warned me about that to. Fortunately, his family all speaks English, so they tried to speak it when I was around.
Reunion Activities
Each family wore a different color
Jun's Family
I had a great time at the reunion minus the extreme humidity. I understood then why everyone loves Baguio, because there is no humidity being in the mountains. Nevertheless, the reunion was a blast, and I got to experience new food, new traditions, karoake, new places, and meet new people. I was really glad I got that opporunity, and hope to visit Mindoro again, because it was very beautiful.
The only disappointment from the trip was that we were hoping to take a caribou ride, which I thought would be a once in a lifetime experience for me, but unfortunately we couldn't get it arranged...next time :) The good news was I did get to witness the buying/selling of palay (rice). One of Jun's sisters, Lisa, sells palay for a living, which is harvested from the family farm, and she was doing her business during the reunion.
Palay Drying
Loading the Buyers Truck
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