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Published: July 17th 2008
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Vics house
Uncle Vic's house, Quezon City, Manila Ok so i have been able to do this blog since i got to the Philippines as we have been to so many places and moving around so much, well a fair bit did'nt really move so much in Boracay, i deserved a rest on the white sand 😊
Anyway back to the story ......so we arrived in Manila 3weeks ago and was very warmly greeted by Aines dad and her uncle Vic. At the airport they have a genius but funny pick up point system, its arranged by the the first letter of surname, so zones through the alphabet a-z. Works well as even fools such as us figured it straight away .....Long story short for Manila, we stayed with uncle Vic and went shopping in the mall of asia, largest mall in asia they love to shop and it is massive, greenhills all fakes millions of dvd's with up to 40 films on 1 disc new to me but they work well enough. Manila itself is ok but nothing to spend to much time on. The traffic is mental and there is no road rules, official rules anyway, that can be made out, just drive. Commonwealth road in Quezon city is 7 lanes wide with no road markings and buses, cars, 4x4's, jeepneys (military trucks left from the americans turned into buses) peds, bikes just drive anywhere where they see space, its crazy ........but no accidents happened or was seen which was nice! On the one day we didnt shop we went to lake Taal which is a volcano inside a vilcano inside a lake inside a lake .......cool place but not quite what i was expecting as we only saw it from the posh hotel with a view, i dont think our guides were up for the trekking to get a closer look, but worth the visit anyway and a huge lunch ......which is another point about the Pinoy/pinay boys and girls they love to eat but are so tiny. This lunch was a buffet and the three guys Tony (Aines dad), Vic, and Mior (a cousin of Tonys and a taxi driver so a perfect guide) had 7 helpings, yes 7! We had 2 maybe 3 and this was only four hours after a full breakfast. Every meal is a full meal here as we gradually came to realise.
After 3 days in Manila we headed to visit Tonys mum in Arangay a little village/town just past Agoo which maybe has seen a few tourists passing through to Baguio. So after a 6 hour drive we arrived in Arangay. Now this place is not a tourist destination so when we arrived in the village everybody, friend, family, neighbour was there to see us. It was class just a mass of bright beedy eyes and big smiles, it was mainly kids, saying hello and waving. Almost ike being famous for a while, well sort of .........and the frist thing we did aftyer the welcome hellos sit down for a massive spread of food and drink, lovely jubbly!!
Lola, Tonys mum is 93 soon to be 94 and the oldest member of the village so seemed very important to the community. She has lived there all her life and have a fairly large farm and did have a fish farm until the tsunami rain washed it out. Out back was a nipper hut which was to be our accomodation during our in/out visit and it was cool.
Il be back to this place soon so i know your reading feeling slightly dissapointed that im about to move on and on and on and on and on ......Ha ha sorry i got lots to say!
Baguio - after a short stop and a massive feast we moved on. Tonys brother has a house in Baguio which was our place of rest for the night. Baguio is in the clouds as Tony repeated a million times .....look we're going into the clouds and yes we were, Tony became a bit of a legend to me and Derek after our initial doubts. See Tony like most fathers (sorry dad!) has a snoring issue, it is crazy the loudest fastest snorer i have ever heard. And was our roomy for almost the entire time he was here, not so good! Also i think he was very excited to show us his home turf so ghave a constant running commentary on, everything!
Anyhow Baguio was cool literally a nice cool climate which was a nice change.
After Baguio we headed back to Arangay and then up north to Vegan which is a small but cool old spanish colonial town. Not much happening there to be honest so we spent the night eating, walking, and drinking .......actually met a couple of guys in a bar which we was the only people in except these two local guys, one took an extreme liking for Avril which was funny. But they were cool and worked in media for the local tv station recording and editing programmes so had an interesting chat with them. Oh almost forgot the interview for korean tv advertising the region of Luzon i think very funny had to talk on camera so some unlucky tv watchers are going to see our mugs on tv in Korea, crazy! After one night in Vegan it was back on the bus down to Arangay again, passing through St Juan which is a surf spot so i was gutted not to be able to stop for some expert falling from board to sea but nevermind another day i say ........We spent the next few days in Bagui and Arangay said are thankyous and goodbyes which was nice then came back to Manila to head down to the good stuff, the island of Borocay 😊 lovely jubbly ................
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