Day Four: Sleepy Soldiers

The following excerpt was written by Team Dragonfruit

Today the team was headed for Corregidor Island – an island with a strategically advantageous position according to the military. It has a history of being invaded because of this, sometimes by the Spanish, sometimes by the Japanese and sometimes by the Americans. Yet, it has been occupied by Filipino people for the last few decades and it looks like it will stay that way for a long time.

The entire team was woken up this morning at 4am, so as you could imagine, everyone was in a great mood. With groggy eyes and spongey brains, the band of adventurers trudged out the door and into the bus. Breakfast: an apple, a banana and some raisin bread, all eaten on the bus. Jon was especially tired.

The bus quickly became full of sleeping students (or ‘sleeping soldiers’ if you will). Everyone was woken up when they got to the ferry port. Again, with groggy eyes and cobwebbed brains, the travelling crew piled onto the ferry. Corregidor Island was just over the water. And Jon was really tired.

The TV on the ferry provided the team with some crackin’ entertainment in the form of some really weird rock song music videos. The team speculates that the ferry employees realised just how weird these songs were, so the TV was turned off…  and in its place… the pause screen. Now, the truly special thing about the pause screen is the little bouncing logo that changes colour every time it hits the edges of the screen; and if someone happens to see that logo hit the exact corner then that person is counted among the greats, for that is an incredibly rare occurrence. And today, Mitchell became great.

Also, Jon was super tired.

The team arrived at Corregidor Island and piled on board an open air tour bus where they were immediately welcomed by an enthusiastic Filippino tour guide named Eduard Gurion with an amazing memory for the history of the Island, as he has been running tours for 20 years. The bus took our adventurers through the jungle and all around the coast, revealing breathtaking views of the ocean, terrain and military tunnels. The team was shown the mortars used in defence of the island, as well as the bunkers used to shelter from the constant bombings. A rather strange attraction was the statue of a Japanese goddess – the goddess of fertilisation. Enoch decided to touch it and he was not the same for the rest of the day. The day consisted of many photo-taking and walking around. By the time the team was back on the ferry, our adventurers were ten times more exhausted. Jon was more so.

Our afternoon activity was going to The Mall of Asia – the largest mall in the entire Southern Hemisphere. We explored for a couple hours, witnessed a fantabulous Christmas parade, handed out random hi-fives to excited strangers, and discovered many obscure shops... Jon was still very tired.

The company then met up for dinner at Gerry’s Grill to try some traditional Filipino food. Or more specifically, Sisig, a meal consisting of ground up pig’s face. Some of the soldiers struggled through the battle of digestion and disgust. Although, other soldiers indulged in digesting that pig face. Also, tired was Jon.

While waiting for the bus to take them home, the team was joyfully entertained by two marvellous performers: The Marvellous Nelly Niewkierk and Mrs Van Wyk who is the triple threat of teacher, dancer and magician. Nelson showed his fellow soldiers how to shove a pencil in your ear, make a ticket disappear and even levitate! While Mrs Van Wyk strutted her dance moves to the cover band blasting music for all to hear. Jon was tired throughout it all.