To Davao City

By jingfrey73

Got the tickets, and the "IDs" from ACI for the convention in Davao last Tuesday. Five of the delegates, two of them actually brought a son each, were already in Davao since yesterday, which was Labor day holiday. The remaining three, including myself, followed today.

Rhoda went directly to the airport from her house, while Boss Danny and I would be coming from the office. The bank car was scheduled to take us to the airport 11:30 am since we were on the 1:45 pm flight.

OPICS had an unscheduled break-down, which IT would prefer to call maintenance, so we weren't able to start loading deals till 11:15 am. It was around 12:00 noon when we finally got into the car that was going to take us to the NAIA airport.

We landed at the Davao airport as scheduled and it was raining heavily. Got wet even before I was able to hop into the Marco Polo hotel shuttle service ... and it must have been an old van for rain to drip slowly through the roof and onto my seat. Good thing I was wearing a jacket with a hood. Nestled between mountains, storms almost never hit Davao City, but it is not spared from heavy rains.

At the hotel, we were told to go to the Mindanao Borneo room near the lobby where the ACI secretariat and hotel staff are handling registration. For some strange reason, the lists posted on the board do not have Boss Dan's or my name on it, and neither does it list more than half of the remaining PNB delegates. Since the two lines for actual registration is long, we first lined up to get our food stubs and freebies from the secretariat.

The freebie bag, made of batik cloth, included:

• a "Welcome" pamphlet that lists the events scheduled for the convention as well as the tourist spots in and around Davao City
• a pair of beach sandals from Bloomberg
• a baseball cap from Tullett Prebon
• a small bag from Amstel
• a summer kit from ICAP containing lip balm, sun block spray, and after-sun spray by Watson's... it also had a small pamphlet listing Davao City's "places to go"

We got in line at both registration lines before the hotel staff found our names on their lists ... those lists were not alphabetical nor were the delegates grouped by bank. We already know our room numbers even before the staff told us, since Boss Dan's roommate Ted and my roommate Rhoda arrived at the hotel earlier than we did and had already checked in.

Rhoda was already in the room when I arrived and she told me of our little problem of only having one queen-size bed. We requested to be either transfered to a room with two beds, or have an extra bed brought into the current room.

Julpha from our Bankerohan branch came over to the room to talk to Rhoda and plan their shopping tomorrow.

She brought along boiled white corn on the cob, large guavas, and a box of pomelos.

The three of us left the room around 6:30 pm, Julpha headed home while Rhoda and I proceeded to the Marco Polo Ballroom for the Dinner and Convention Proper.