1. Packing. As in, "PACK YOU NA NGA!"
2. Seeing this sight at the airport.
3. Having to party with the whole barangay the minute you arrive.
4. When all you really wanna do is get back on local time.
5. UNPACKING.
6. Sifting through all the pasalubong that you brought on the trip over.
7. Forgetting a pasalubong for even just one pamangkin and letting the guilt wash over you.
8. All the titas insisting that you eat more food because "napakapayat mo."
9. Being guilted by said titas to add them on Paysbuk.
10. Being made to go through a million rounds of karaoke hangang paos ka na.
11. Involuntarily responding to every "hoy!" and "psst!" you hear in a public place when, really, you should know better.
12. When speaking in Filipino, you can't help but trip over your words.
13. But give it a week, wika'ng bonga na!
14. Needing to catch up on the latest television love team.
15. And a new break-up to obsess over, so you contemplate just getting TFC already.
16. Finding out that, like, 11 new malls have opened since you were last here.
17. And that there are tons of new restaurants to try.
18. But you've missed all your old favorites that you hardly go anywhere else.
19. Then again, going anywhere takes anywhere between two to four hours. One way.
20. And trying to navigate the side-streets and shortcuts is its own special kind of torture.
21. Then you realize there are certain joys that'll only taste the same in the Philippines.
22. Like hanging out at the beach, buko in hand, smelling the sisig from a nearby carinderia, and wondering why you had been away for so long.
