Bad Me.

I have been very, very bad at updating. For this I appologize. I need to get in the habit of doing it on certain days. I have a feeling that Wednesdays and Sundays will work best. I will aim for that.

Suffice it to say that we have been out doing things and having fun. I really, really like it here, except when I don't. But for the most part, I really, really like it here. It has it's perks and it's pitfalls. And some of it's perks have turned into pitfalls, but we're working through those. On the whole, though, it has been a pleasant adventure thus far.

We have had our first houseguest even. One of A's friends came out to visit us for two weeks. He is still here until Saturday, and it's been nice to have a friend from home around the place.

Progress is being made on the school room. Monday is a National Holiday, I guess, so we're going to aim to start on Tuesday. There was just a National Holiday to commemorate Aquino's martydom last week. And earlier this month there was one for his wife's burial. I don't remember what the one coming up is for. There aren't normally so many all together like this, but it's been nice, I won't lie!

Ok, I will aim for a proper update in a couple of days. In the meantime, we are all alive and doing well.

Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!

This morning, we went to Immigration to get our status extended. It was very crowded, but didn't take all that long. We got the forms, filled them out, A went and paid, and then we took off. It takes an hour to process, plus they take an hour off for lunch, so we couldn't get our passports back until 2pm.

So we went to Ocean Park, which was just a kilometer or so away. We had lunch at a little place across from the aquarium. It was an authentically Filipino take on American food. The youngest's hotdog had been dipped in banana ketchup and covered with shredded cheese. K ordered a cheeseburger, thinking she was ordering a cheese sandwich, so she was already determined not to eat it when it arrived, but when it showed up with a thick layer of banana ketchup between the patty and melted cheese, there was no way she was going to try it. A was smart and got skewered meat with rice. Had I know what that was on the menu, I would have ordered it, too, but instead I opted for beef stroganoff, which turned out to be a beef stir-fry over noodles with a drizzle of cream across the top. It was still good; just not what I was expecting.

The youngest announced that she had to use the potty. Fun fact: restaurants here are not required to have restrooms. The nearest was about 100 yards down the road. I grabbed some tissues from my bag and walked her over to them, only to see as we got there that we needed 2 pisos each in order to get into them. Not having brought my money with me, we went back to the restaurant to get some, but as I was pulling out my wallet, the food came, and the youngest was distracted enough that she forgot she needed to "go" in the first place.

When we finished eating, we went over to the Manila Ocean Aquarium. It cost 400 pisos each, if I remember correctly. (About $8 for adults. I think the kids were $7.) When you start through the aquarium, it actually kicks you outside for a bit, where you see some tanks of GIANT fish from the Amazon and some alligators (crocodiles?) from the Philippines. There is a touch-tank for the kids with star fish and sea cucumbers.
Then you head back inside and wander through a large room of smaller tanks spotlighting different species of ocean life.

There are eels that bury the bottom half of themselves in the sand and stick the top half out to feed on plankton. They look like bendy straws poked into the floor. There was a HUGE and beautiful Pacific lobster and all sorts of tropical fish.

(Shark eggs in various stages of development.)
Apparently, I didn't get photos of anything I talked about above, but you got pictures of other things and they are each worth a thousand words, right?

The next area had larger, wall-sized tanks with much bigger fish like grooper. Then you are lead through a tunnel where the fish are on both sides and above you. It was amazing! There were "Dory" fish and rays and all sorts of things.
(YAR! I'm an angry ray!)

After that was a shark tank, a kids play area, and a learning center about protecting the oceans.

Then that was it. It kicked us out there. I was totally bummed! I wanted more!

Well, I got it! You leave by going up stairs to the second floor, and that's where they have the activities. The first one we saw was a "fish spa." These special little fish made headlines a few years ago in the States when a spa owner in Virginia imported some of the special toothless fish that eat dead skin off your body and started selling fish pedicure sessions for $35 for 15 minutes. They were charging about $2.50 for 20 minutes here, so we gave it a go.

I remember reading about these fishies and thinking there was no way I could ever have a fishie pedicure, because I am so ticklish on my feet that it is almost a disability. And sure enough, as soon as I stuck my feet into the large, wading-pool sized tank and they rushed over and got to work, I started laughing. And I couldn't stop. It was almost torture! But I so wanted to try it that I grit my teeth through the laughter and kept my feet in the tank. I laughed for a solid 5 minutes, which was a little embarassing since we were sharing the tank with another family, but after that, I think my brain just stopped processing the tickle sensation (for the most part) and I could deal.

Let me tell you, my feet feel like baby butts right now. I could still go for a little more fishy time, especially on my heels, but man my feet feel cool! The girls were a little skittish about it, so we gave up after about 25 minutes, but the woman at the booth wasn't keeping track of time, and I think if we went back without the kids, we could hang out there for an hour and let those fishies really work!

When I got home, I was curious about how much they charge in the States for this pedicure (Some places are $45 for 15 minutes!), and found out that the practice is actually banned in 14 states so far, because you can't sterilize fish. It's a pity. You all are missing out in those states! Apparently, you can buy your own fishies for about $3 a pop and have your own at-home fish-spa experience if you live somewhere where The Man is keepin' you down. Or you can just come visit me, and I'll hook you up!

Public Service Announcement

If you happen to see an American woman at the mall with two young children who are jumping around uncontrollably, whining nonstop, and periodically flailing around into bookshelves/racks of clothes/passers-by, please do not judge. Not all American children are like that. Nor are those particular American children like that all the time. They have little to occupy them at home and are starting to lose their mind. This is what I tell myself, anyway, to keep myself from offering them to strangers in exchange for a gift certificate to the spa.

Have I mentioned that I will be very happy when our boxes finally arrive?

Picture pages, picture pages!

Everyone has the plague, so we've not been doing much over the last few days.

Ok, it's not the plague. I've been told not engage in hyperbole while living where we are, because people believe me. It's the flu. It might be swine flu, but as the doctor said, "If it is, it doesn't really matter." I am the last hold out. K and A are getting better. The youngest just started being sick last night.

So, yeah. We've been stuck in the house for the last few days. Just been reading and watching videos and that's about it. Perfect time to get caught up on photo posting!

The other day, the girls and I went up to Makati and met A at his office. So first, some photos from the highway:



The billboards here are giant (like 4-8 times the size of the billboards in the states) and are made of printed tarps stretched over scaffolding.



One of several skylines visable from the highway. I'm not sure which one this is. It might be Manila itself. I don't think it's Makati or Alabang.



This is a church that is built right up by the highway. The other side of the church is the same way. It's trippy coming up to it.



This is one of the lunch carts in Makati. The packs of cigarettes there are sold as singles. You don't want to park anywhere near one of these, because the people who get their food there use any available surface, including your car, to eat off of.



This is a statue of Benigno Aquino in Makati. You can't actually see him in the picture. (Sorry for the bad angle.) The two men you can see were his body guards. Aquino was killed coming back into the country from the US. He was coming to try to talk Marcos into stepping down and was well aware he could be assassinated. Sure enough, as he stepped off the plane, he was assassinated. However, because of this statue, and the way the guards are holding him, there is a rumor that he was actually killed on the plane itself, and the bodyguards were propping him up to make it look like he was still alive for the assassin to kill him for the benefit of the cameras. When our driver told us that, I could see how one could draw that conclusion from just looking at the statue, but there is footage of him on the place getting up and walking off, so the theory of being already dead doesn't quite work.


Ve have spies everyvere...


We went to a toystore while we were in town. There were plenty of US-type toys, but there are also lots of knock-offs, some better than others. I had to get a picture of this one. The hair styles are pretty sweet.

The rest of the photos are from our drive up to Tagaytay.


Yes. That is an open air urinal on the sidewalk. This is progress, my friends. Normally, when a dude needs to take care of business here, he just steps to the side of the sidewalk and does his thing. There are roads here that are now lined with these stalls for guys to step into to pee in semi-private. It's still peeing on the sidewalk, but at least now it's in a specific area.


Yar! We will take over, one giant coke can at a time!


A strip of stores as we get off the highway.


A strip of tricycles. You would be amazed at how many people they can fit into one of these.


This is a giant statue over the gate of a cemetary. We were going by to fast. I should have made A pull over. It's, like, 3 stories tall.


Ridin' in a tricycle. (This is only half capacity. I saw one with 8 people the other day.)


Welcome to Laguna Belair! We have McDonalds! And 7-11! And lots of scary powerlines.


They are trying to make this area into a bedroom community, so there is a really nice, straight, paved road going through it with the beginnings of housing developments on either side. Apparently, the road is too straight and too well paved, though, because now they have a problem with drag racing.


Roadside woodcarver/furniture maker shop.


Roadside corn stall. The thing on the left is full of roasting corn. There was a strip of road with, like, 15 stalls on either side, just one after another.


Roadside pottery stand. This one had the "nicer" stuff. Most of the ones in this area were unglazed. I wasn't quick enough with the camera.


Green field with no buildings, crops, or animals! Waste!


Pineapples.



Jeepneys!


See the volcano? Yeah, me either. We're going back again soon...

It's happened...

Today is the day when I woke up and it just wasn't fun anymore. I'm over it now, but the first half of the morning, I was ready to pack my bags and get on a plane. Nothing had changed. I just was done for a little bit.

K and A are sick. They are off to see the doctor at the moment. K, I think, just has a cold that is going around. A appears to have something more serious. It's possible he has a strain of dengue. Ahhh, dengue... Apparently, there are 4 strains that you can catch, but once you have them, you are immune. There is a 5th strain that is potentially deadly, but I'm sure that's not what he's dealing with. The symptoms for that strain are mind boggling. He's just got flu-like symptoms. We'll see what the doctor says. In the meantime, we have gotten bug spray and will be diligent with it's application.

Saturday, we went up to Tagaytay. It was so nice to get out of the city for a while. But at the same time, it was rainy and cloudy, and the view of the volcano was completely blocked off with clouds. We didn't even bother to get out of the car, but that's ok, because we have plans to go back this weekend.

There are tons of roadside stands on the way up. And there are clusters of them where they are all selling the same thing. There was one strip of furniture makers, a couple of areas of people selling roasted corn, and lots and lots of people with fruit stalls. We stopped at one fruit stall so A could get this fruit he's been hankering for. It looks like a spiky golf ball, but you twist the rind and the fruit inside is snowy white. You eat it off of the giant seed and voila, yumminess.

This trip was our first encounter with White Tax, too. The lady quoted us a price of 20 pisos per kilo, and after she'd bagged it all, she insisted they were 50 pisos a kilo. So, we halved the order. We should have just driven off, I guess, but there you go. The difference in price was about 75 cents per 2 pounds and the people are living in corrugated steal homes, so yeah. I'll pay the tax now and then.

There are a lot of people here who sell candy and treats. A won't let us get any of those, because there is no way for us to know the conditions they were prepared in. There was a beautiful little boy selling some at a gas station the other day, and K was almost in tears, because A wouldn't let her buy something from him. Thankfully, a car on the other side of the island bought 5 or 6 packets of whatever it was, and K was ok with that. At the fruit stand in Tagaytay, there were two women trying to force some peanut brittle into my hands while we were talking to the fruit lady. The thing is, I probably would have bought some just to buy it if there had just been one, but I didn't want to buy from one and not the other and I didn't have enough pisos on me to buy two packets. They need to coordinate their attacks better. K rolled her window down at one point and they started trying to convince her to buy. K just wanted to be friendly. She wasn't prepared for the onslaught.

This is another reason why we didn't get out of the car when we got to the top of the mountain. I didn't want the kids to be mobbed. Next weekend, we're going up with some Philippino friends, and I'm hoping that our kids will blend in with the herd a bit.

The youngest and I just got in from a swim. It started raining, so we got out of the pool. I know that makes no sense, since we're soaked anyway, but there you have it. It was the strangest rain storm I've ever seen. It would absolutely downpour for about a half a second, and then completely stop for a second. Repeat about 15 times. The youngest was trippin' out.