Blogs from Luzon, Philippines, Asia - page 10

Zambales famous for its Mangoes situated 90 miles north of Manila by aircon Victory Liner buses. Olongapo City, where the old US Naval base is at Subic Bay a nice place to visit for duty free shopping and good eating restaurants.... read more

Christmas day in the Philippines is so different to the UK. Shops and malls are open, and it really seems to be business as usual. The obvious difference is that almost everyone seems to have the Noche Buena celebration when Christmas Eve turns into Christmas day. The Noche Buena is when families get together - many of them balikbayans and give presents out to their immediate and sometime extended families. If you are family oriented it's a nice get together. My experience was with Apple and some of her immediate family, but also cousins from the US of A and Japan. It was nice to meet them all - they made me feel really welcome - and now we've now got open invites to USA and Japan! The ice was broken by the younger adult family ... read more

A very long day Phill made eggs with mackerel over rice for breakfast. I'm getting tired of "things on rice" for every meal. We all got ready to go to the temple. Phill looked so good in his suit. We went over to Chona's and she was still getting ready so she scurried upstairs. The man we hired with the van was late but we got to the temple alright. They all went in and I waited. I walked around a bit but didn't really feel well. I think the food finally caught up to me. I waited in the temple annex. It is a building next to the temple with a large waiting room, offices, bathrooms, and an eating area. I was still tired so I took a bitty nap. When they were done ... read more

With Christmas getting closer traffic is getting worse I forgot = Last night when we were watching TV a random chubby little girl without a shirt on appeared out of no where. She saw that they had visitors and was suddenly embarrassed about being half naked and covered her little chest with her hands. When one of the little boys came down she flashed them and laughed. She was really cute and funny and didn't listen to a word anyone said. She had to have been four or five years old. This morning we had pancakes and bananas for breakfast. Phill bought the bananas from a street vendor. Phill speaks a language called Illongo but is pretty good at picking up Tagolog. The bananas here have a much more complex flavor and are more yellow. It ... read more

Day Two "Change yourself, change your fortune." I woke up to my noisy father sighing and making wierd old man noises. He is a strange man. Chona and her mother brought over breakfast. It was fried eggs, fried rice and a sort of hot dog thing. We also had bread. It ws really great. I think it is like camping, anything tastes better when you are hungry. The shower felt so good. It took some configuring to make sure didin't get my clothes wet but it was fine. Chona got us a taxi to get to church which is pretty normal here. Not a lot of people have cars, but we've noticed the ones who do usually have pretty nice ones. Chona's sister has one but there wasn't enough room for all of us in ... read more