The Boates in Manila Bay

Culture etc

There seems to be no shortage of things to do here - in past couple of months, we've gone to two ballets (Swan Lake and La Fille Mal Guarde), a play (Frozen), an evening of opera selections by a group called OperaNow  and will soon be going to see Aspects of Love, Man of La Mancha and The Emperor's New Clothes.  We also attended a great evening at a club seeing a wonderful local singing group called The CompanY.  These kinds of activites don't seem terribly popular here as they are not all that well attended.  But it does make it easy to pick up good tickets at the last minute so you don't have to plan months in advance to make sure you get seats.

Ticket prices are also quite cheap - the most expensive event I've attended is to see Lea Salonga's Christmas show last year - that was over $100 $Can but she's a "big star" and there were lots of other well known local artists performing as well.  Most of the other plays we've seen have been in the 500 to 800 peso price range (about $12 to $18).  So I'm actually amazed and grateful that these performers forge on and continue to offer a variety of high quality productions despite an often not-full audience. 

More recently, a couple of films from the Spanish Film Festival.  This is the 4th annual film festival that they've had here in Manila featuring films from Spain and I wish I'd had the chance to see more of them as the offerings sounded quite interesting and varied.   Last week we saw Todo Sobre mi Madre, a 1999 film with a young Penelope Cruz before she met Tom Cruise, which won the 2000 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.  Last night it was Crimen Ferpecta, which seems to perhaps be the most popular film since the main actor in that film is featured in all the marketing posters for the event.   This is a much more recent (2004) film, a very funny black comedy.

Weather

It's rainy season here - stretches from July to November - but it's really not very unmanageable at all - maybe both 2004 and 2005 have been "light" rainy seasons - not really sure - but there has not been a direct typoon hit on Manila either year so maybe I've gotten lucky.

There are three seasons in the Philippines: rainy from July to November; winter from December to March; summer for April and May.  The Philippine schools are out for summer break during April and May.  It's HOT during those months.  December to March is glorious with blue skies every day and almost a guarantee of no rain and lower humidity. 

The temperature seems to vary year round in a narrow range between 28 and 36 degrees celsius - that's just my best guess after following weatherunderground.com for 15 months now.  What seems to dictate "comfort level" is the humidity.  Today is a nice day so far - 30 degrees C and 79% humidity at 10 a.m.  So 30 degrees and 80% humidity is ok but 30 degrees and 90% humidity is uncomfortable.  Like yesterday - blue sky day, 32 degrees but closer to 90% humidity - felt very hot.  So humidity under 75% (or lower) feels better regardless of the temperature number.

But I think I like rainy season - it  doesn't actually rain all that much and it's overcast a lot.  And when it's overcast, the UV index is very low - the scale here is "out of 16" and on overcast days, it's often 0 or 1 or 2.  Don't get a sunburn just walking around and it's not so hot as when the sun is beating down.   

But back to rainy season.  Today is a typical day.  Clear and sunny but it's now mid morning and it's started to cloud over.  Around 2:30 it will probably rain - it always rains around 2:30 because that's when Zeny picks up Lucy from school and they walk, so of course, that's when it must rain.  But it doesn't rain for long.  Then it clears up and might rain again in the early evening, and if it does, it must rain at precisely at 6 p.m., because that's when I'm walking home from work.  Then it might rain again late at night, with some thunder and lightning. 

I always check weatherunderground for the typhoons too - there are lots of them but they seem cross over north of the Philippines and we just get residual rain, sometimes a lot, and there is often flooding in the provinces and in lower parts of Manila.  But seems to me that the two countries that get really hammered by typhoons are Taiwan and Japan - there are lots of direct hits - the typhoons that cross over the north of the Philippines usually then head for Taiwan.

We're tired (or, a short history of Philippine politics in the last half of the twentieth century)

There was another rally outside the building yesterday - once again calling for the resignation of the current president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  This particular corner is a favorite spot for rallies, partly because the mayor of Makati, the area where the building is located, is no fan of the president and partly because this happens to be a wide open area at the intersection of two broad streets, marked by a large statue of Benigno Aquino, the one-time popular leader of the opposition, who was gunned down and killed upon arriving back in Manila from a self-imposed exile in the United States in 1983 - it was this assassination, widely suspected to have been arrange by former President Marcos, but never proved, that eventually led to Marcos being ousted in 1986.  The rallies are loud affairs and glass windows in the buildings are boarded up, roads closed and the underground passageways that allow you to cross the busy streets are also closed.  So a work colleague and I eventually gave up, and went to see a movie at a local theatre (The Constant Gardener - very interesting and beautifully filmed movie - set in Africa - about as far away from the Philippines as you can get - another great Manila movie experience - see earlier post re film-going in the Philippines).  When we returned, the rally was still in full gear.   But not a huge one - maybe 20,000 people.

Yesterday was September 21, 2005.  More importantly, here it was the 33rd anniversary of the day that Marcos declared martial law on the Philippines in 1972.  The local papers gave a bit of history and noted that it was declared a day after a high ranking official's car was bulleted by communists, but that turned out to be a lie - it was staged in order to create a reason to declare martial law.  So what better day to hold a rally?

But first some background.

Marcos was eventually overthrown in 1986 in a people power act referred to here as EDSA I - EDSA is actually the name of one of the main north south roads running through Manila -Epifanio de los Santos Avenue - the people power action mostly took place along this road as thousands gathered along the full length of the road for four days, eventually leading to the overthow of the 20 year dictatorship.  Corazon Aquino, widow of the slain Benigno Aquino, became president after Marcos, who exiled to Hawaii where he later died.  Then Fidel Ramos, a former general in the armed forces and who was actually one of the driving forces behind EDSA I, and who I've actually seen on a couple of occasions because his wife is one of the longest-serving employees at the International School Manila, where Sophie attends school, became president in 1992.

Meanwhile, Imelda Marcos resurfaced in Manila at some point, along with her shoes, many of which are displayed in a small but nice shoe museum in Marikina  (a suburb of Manila),  the shoe capital of the Philippines.  Imelda has been known to defend her addiction to shoes by saying that she was simply promoting the Philippine shoe industry - this despite the fact that many of the shoes are European imports.  Imelda and her family still live here and many of her relatives have actually held political positions (including Imelda herself, I think).  Anyhow, we've also run into Imelda here too - at a ballet - where she was treated like royalty. 

Then in 1998, Joseph Estrada, erstwhile movie action hero, was elected president.  But his excesses became his undoing and he was linked to an illegal numbers game called jueteng, which seems to be the albatross around the neck of so many politicians here since as far back as the 1920s.   So, this brought on EDSA II, another trip up the road to the Our Lady of Peace shrine, and he was replaced by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, his vice-president, affectionately known as GMA, who promised not to run in the next election, in 2004, because her presence was seen as so divisive to the country.  Well, she did run, and "won" by a narrow margin over another movie actor, Fernando Poe, Jr., who was a buddy of Joseph Estrada.  It's worth noting that Gloria's own father was once president of the Philippines, before the Marcos' era.  Estrada, meanwhile, has been essentially under house arrest for years, as his various legal troubles muddle through the court system. 

In 2005, scandals over the legitimacy of GMA's election victory erupted, as well as rumours of her immediate family benefitting from the proceeds of the dreaded jueteng, which was the undoing of her former President.  Fernando Poe Jr. died in December, 2004 of a massive heart attack but his widow, Susan Roces, has become quite vocal in the anti-GMA camp.  It's been a long drawn out series of he said- she said-they said half rumours/half truths with many calling once again for an EDSA style people power to oust her.  Problem this time is that people are tired - have people power fatigue - nobody seems terribly interested in rising up once again - maybe because it has really done no good in the past - maybe because they fear what is behind door No 2 more than they fear what they already have - maybe it's because there is no obvious saviour this time who appears to be able to turn things around - don't quite know - but there just does not seem to be a huge interest among the general populace to rise up once again.

So this all leads to yesterday's rally, and the various other rallys that have been held in recent weeks and are sure to be held again in future.  Not sure where this is all leading unfortunately - maybe nowhere.  You never know - things can change quickly or they can go on like this for years.  GMA is in power until 2010. 

So there you have it - a short history of Philippine politics in 28 lines.

Special Non-Working Holidays

The way that holidays are declared still mystifies me after more than a year here.  It's never clear or guaranteed that if a national holiday falls on a weekend that the preceding Friday or the following Monday will be a day off work or school.  It only becomes so if the President declares it to be so - and such declaration usually happens at the last minute, if at all. 

Last year, we arrived here in July and there were no days off work until November - all of the national holidays fell on a weekend and no other day was declared to be the off day instead.  And then in November, we had three long weekends to cover three holidays:  All Saint's Day, Eid, and Bonifacio Day. 

And so it happened again: today is National Heros Day - August 28 - and I just found out that tomorrow is a non-working public holiday.   The President did the declaration on Saturday sometime.  But just to be clear - this is a non-working public holiday - not a non-working special holiday.  The former means that goverment offices and schools are closed; the latter means private offices are also closed.  I suppose a private office could also choose to close on a public holiday but is not required to.

So as you can imagine, the last minutedness of all this causes a whole set of wheels to be set in motion all across the country.  In my case,  the school bus has to call each and every family who takes the bus to advise them that there is no school bus tomorrow, the classroom "telephone tree" is activated (you know - a main room parent calls the parents of four students and those parents each call one other, who then calls the next person down the tree until each family has been contacted), and work contacts me to make sure I know that it's NOT a holiday for me.

Now, this is irritating for us mostly only in one way: if I knew a particular day was going to be a holiday and we'd have a long weekend, then we'd probably plan to go away for the weekend somewhere.  But if you don't know this until the last minute, then you have to "guess" whether you think the day will be declared.  Some days are more obvious, such as Labour Day (May 1) which you can pretty much guess will be shifted if it falls on a weekend, but National Heroes Day is a gamble.   So..... tomorrow I'm a work and Sophie and Lucy get to sleep in.

The postal system

So today in the mail, I received a parcel in the mail from Mei Mei Hu.  Mei Mei creates singing and dancing videos to teach young children Mandarin.  I've sort of been "her man in Canada" for the past few years, helping her sell the videos to other adoptive families.   In one of the videos, the little singing, dancing girls are wearing a cute electric blue costume, two piece costume and Mei Mei had told me ages ago that she'd send one for Lucy.   It never turned up so I figured it just slipped her mind and at some point I'd order one off her web site  (see the costume here).

Well, a couple of days ago I got a notice from the post office that there was a package for me and we picked it up and lo and behold, the electric blue dance costume.  I thought, great! she remembered to send it!  I opened the note inside from Mei Mei and she was wishing us a Happy New Year.   What???  I looked at the post mark - it left Rhode Island, where Mei Mei lives, on January 15, 2005.  Who knows where it's been the last 8 months?  There's a lesson to anyone who wants to mail me anything here - "don't" would be my recommendation -  it's notoriously bad. 

Movies

Went to the movies last night – saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – thought Johnny Depp was great, but he’s great in everything he does.

There’s nothing unusual, of course, about going to the movies – I’ve done plenty of that in my lifetime.  The movies don’t always open at the same time in this part of the world as they do in North America – I think Charlie had already opened in Canada.  Often, by the time a movie opens up here, you could already have bought and viewed the pirated version from your favorite local bootlegger, at a cost lower than the admission price to the theatre.  The theatre, of course, has the big advantage of good air conditioning.

But going to the movies in Manila is such a delight.  Don’t know why Canadian cinemas are not set up this way.  In many of the theatres you can get reserved seating, meaning when you purchase your ticket, you are buying a ticket for a particular seat in the theatre.  No worrying about getting into the cinema on time to get enough seats together.  You can even go onto the internet ( www.sureseats.com) and sign up for the movie of your choice, view the seating arrangement of the cinema you want, and reserve your seats.  Then you simply show up and pick up and pay for your tickets.  It’s all so very civilized.  No worrying about whether the movie will be sold out by the time you arrive.

At some of the cinemas, it goes a step further – you can order food to be delivered right to your seat – so if the popcorn line is too long or you want something like a hamburger that needs to be prepared, just order it and they’ll bring it to your seat (which they know because you have a reserved seat).

And all of this great service is at a ridiculously low cost – the cost for the three of us to go to a movie and get popcorn and drinks, is about the price of one adult admission in Canada.

But, the one downside is that the movies don’t stick around very long – if there’s a movie you want to see, you have to go to see it right away – many of the films are only here for a couple of weeks.  But if you miss something, you can always get a copy from your bootlegger.

Gone on Vacation

We've gone to China again for a vacation, from July 1 to 13, 2005.  This time we're visiting Chengdu, Sichuan province to see the giant panda reserves and then going to Lhasa, Tibet.

Check out the alternate blog here.

Rainy Season 2005

Rainy season began today at precisely 6:30 p.m. with a huge thunderstorm and tons of rain.  It really hasn't rained here any significant amount since probably last December.  But that's all over now.  We happened to be out and about and so we had to make our way home in the storm, through all the flooded streets.   Rainy season will continue until October or November.

Day Old Chickens

Ok, so I’m way behind on the blog – but finally something happened to spark me into posting again – a new street food that I’m surprised I haven’t seen before and even more surprised that my work colleagues didn’t tell me about: deep fried one day old baby chickens.  We were at a wedding in one of the provinces and a guy had a small food stall outside the church – as I walked by, he proudly pointed to the chickens stating “one day old” and I don’t think he meant that they had been sitting there since yesterday.  They look to maybe have been dipped in flour before deep frying brightened up with some food colouring.  Hmmm.  Needless to say, I didn’t try them at all.  In fact, in a casual poll of office mates and others, I couldn’t find anyone who actually HAD tried them – even among the folks who will eat balut (see earlier).

Cockroach and a rat

Had a run-in with the local vermin tonight.  As I was walking home from work, I saw my first live rat here since moving here – a good sized fellow who ran across the street, back and forth along the street a bit and then disappeared into the gardens in front of an office  building.  Had a tail twice as long as his body.

Then at home later tonight, went into the cutlery drawer to get a spoon and who was in there sitting on the rice paddle, staring back at me but a big cockroach.  The roaches here are large and crunchy – easily an inch or more in length.  This guy also had quite long antennae.  I’m never sure what to do with them.  It’s not the first time I’ve seen them in the apartment.  If they’re small, I can grab them with a Kleenex but the big guys, too creepy to do that.  So as I was pondering what to do, he disappeared off back down the back of the drawer, into the pots and pans drawer, but I couldn’t find him in there.  The next day, Zeny, our helper, took one sniff in the drawer and could smell that roaches had been in there, so she washed out all the cutlery and the drawer too.

The only good thing that can be said about the roaches here is that they seem to travel alone.  I usually only see them one at a time.  So it’s not the nightmare you might imagine where you turn on the light at night and dozens of the oversized bugs scatter to all corners. 

First Post of 2005

So, it’s been a while since there has been a posting to the blog, so here's a big, boring update all at once.

At Christmas, we went back to Canada for 2 ½ weeks to visit friends and family in Toronto and London and to experience the Canadian winter in one short, compressed period.  When we arrived in the third week of December, it was freezing cold, minus 20 temperatures.  Then it warmed up a bit and there was close to a foot of snow.  Then it warmed up more and the snow started turning to slush.  Eventually there was freezing rain and slippery road conditions.  Then it warmed up and everything melted again.  We were able to experience the full glory of the Canadian winter in 2 ½ weeks.

My father came with us on the return trip to Manila.  He lives in the interior of British Columbia but was visiting my sister in London over Christmas and then came to the Philippines to stay with us for what turned out to be three months. 

He quite enjoyed his time here, despite slipping into the water at one of the beach resorts and thus destroying his digital camera in the flash of an eye.  Interestingly, the memory stick was just fine but the camera itself was history.  He got to upgrade, though, from a 3.1 MP to a 5.1 MP camera so in the end he probably wasn’t all that heartbroken.

This “incident” happened on an island called Boracay, where what many believe to be one of the nicest beaches in the world is located.  Boracay is located about an hour south of Manila by air.  It’s a smallish island but seriously overdeveloped now so crowded and lots and lots of resorts and hotels of various quality.

I think my father had a good time when he was here - spent a lot of time wandering around Manila, visiting all the touristy places, wandering around the city, shopping, and enjoying walking Lucy over to her pre-school and spending time with both Sophie and Lucy.    Plus he escaped the dreaded Canadian winter.

Since my father was here, it was finally a good excuse to see some of the other beach places here in the Philippines.  We spent one weekend at a place called Lago-de-Oro which is about 3 hours from Manila by car.  Although it’s right on the South China Sea, there isn’t a beach, per se.  This place has a sea wall along the edge and with the tide coming in and out, there’s either water up to the sea wall, or a very muddy beach.  But there were interesting tidal pools as a result with lots of star fish and hermit crabs and other sea critters.  If you walked far enough out in the shallow waters, taking care not to step on any coral or other things, there was a great sand bar and beautiful clear waters beyond that.  The other claim to fame of this resort is that it has para-water-skiing – that’s right – you’d grab onto a water skiing line that was attached to an overhead cable that dragged you around an oval shaped water skiing “course” compete with ski jumps.  We didn’t try it but it looked like fun if you knew what you were doing.

We also spent at weekend at another island resort, Bohol, also about an hour by plane.  Much quieter and quainter than Boracay but the beach is kind of so-so and there was seaweed and jellyfish in the water.  But lots of sightseeing.

If you’re interested in photos, check out our Bohol photos.

The last trip that we took with my father was to Hong Kong at the end of March.   Great time was had by all.  Need I say more?. 

Photos at Hong Kong photos.

After that, we headed back to Manila and my father headed back home to Kimberley, British Columbia.  Unfortunately, now I've got the beach bug - unlike in Canada where a beach vacation is a "big deal" involving a long flight and a week of your time, here you can pop off on a Friday night for a one hour flight to paradise.   There's over 7,000 islands in the Philippines - that's a lot of beaches.

Nevertheless, had a great time.  To get there, you have to take a short boat ride on a banca (basically a big wooden narrow boat with bamboo outriggers for stability) and then you're dropped off close to the shore near your hotel so you end up wading in.  Perfect weather, fun to wander around or just sit on the beach in the shade, where if you sat long enough in one spot, the vendors found you to sell you all manner of things (bought sunglasses and a hat, got Sophie and Lucy’s hair braided, bought a fake Rolex and recruited someone to take us island-hopping).  But then, once you’re finished “shopping” you have to fend off all the other vendors wanting to sell you the same stuff.  It is busy and overcrowded, but it's sunny, relaxing and what's not to enjoy?  My only major complaint was the roosters living somewhere near the resort we stayed at (and I use the term “resort” loosely – it was really more of a storefront inn wedged in between a restaurant and a dive shop, but it was still beachfront).  These roosters crowed ALL NIGHT LONG.  I didn’t think roosters did that – whatever happened to crowing at sun up?

We decided somewhat last minute to visit and as a result, had a terrible time finding a resort with rooms for us.  We had to sort of take what we could get, which was Sand Castles Inn at Boat Station 2.  It's the kind of resort island where you're judged by the resort you stay at.  If you tell people you went to Boracay, their next question is usually "where'd you stay?".  I've since learned that the correct answer to this question is "Fridays" or if you're not staying at Fridays, at least answer "Boat Station 1".   So ok, we weren’t at the part of the beach that I’m sure is just fabulous (next time we go, I’m staying at Fridays just so I can find out what the big deal is all about - and I'll make sure I book far ahead). 

Philippine Time

There's an interesting chronological phenomenon here referred to as "Philippine time" - that's the tendancy for nothing to start on time and for nobody to be particularly worried about it - to, in fact, actually count on things starting late so not rushing to particularly be on time.  We hit this dead on last night - we attended a concert by Lea Salonga at Araneta Colisseum.  Lea is the performer who first played Kim in Miss Saigon in London.  As well she was the voice of Jasmine in the animated Aladdin and was also in the soundtrack to Mulan, in addition to many other Broadway productions (such as Les Miserables).  She is greatly loved by Filipinos and she seems to put on an annual Christmas show, together with other local artists (this year, Christian Bautista, Erik Santos, The Company and a very funny guy named Augie whose last name I can't remember). 

My friend and I were grabbing dinner at a nearby Japanese restaurant prior to the 8 p.m. concert.  Dinner was taking a VERY long time to arrive and after fretting a bit, we decided to not worry, we might miss a bit of one of the beginning acts but no sweat.  So we arrived at the Colisseum at about 8:15 thinking we had missed, at most, 15 minutes of the production.  Well, they were no where near starting as the Colisseum was still filling with people.  So we found our seats and we sat and we sat and we sat and FINALLY the production began at 8:45.  That's Philippine time.

Birthdays

Birthdays are big here - not as big as Christmas but you definitely can't run and hide from them.  My birthday was today and my work colleagues decorated my office with a banner, balloons and little triangular flag banners that are used at Philippine fiesta time.  Very festive.  Everyone came by to wish me happy birthday.  Then for merienda (the traditional mid-afternoon snack - one of the five daily meals of the average filipino), they surprised me with spicy glass noodles and three different types of desert for us to all share.  Then, when I got home from the office I stopped off to pay my monthly apartment fees (telephone, water, internet etc) and they just "happened" to have a cake for me all ready and I got happy birthday sung to me all over again.   And if that's not enough, the tradition is for the birthday person to take everyone out to lunch or dinner and treat them.  So we're doing that in a couple of days.  I've received enough free lunches/dinners this way that it's now time to reciprocate.   So the whole birthday thing is kind of overwhelming - I've reached an age where I'm quite content for people to forget about my birthday altogether but as I was reminded again and again, that's just not possible here.

We're back

So we're back from our wonderful trip to China - hope you had a chance to check us out at China Blog .

So we've sort of been back on the theatre circuit - Sophie and I attended the ballet Pinocchio at the Aliw Theatre and stayed later for a wonderful half ballet - half circus production called Princess of the Moon.  Lucy didn't come along - I didn't think she would sit through the ballet but she would have sure loved Princess of the Moon.  Then another day, my work colleagues and I went to a production of Caberet and a theatre called the Music Museum.  It was a dark and interesting version of the musical - but I must admit, for a day afterwards, I couldn't get the song Willcomen out of my mind.  Something I still can't get used to is eating in the theatres - this theatre actually had waiters who would come to your seat, take your order and then deliver drinks and appetizers right to you (or even pasta if you want) so you can make it through the production without starving to death. 

So where have I been lately?

The blog has been pretty quiet lately, I must admit.  I've been busy over the past month with my other offshore project - as newsletter editor for the FCC (Familes with Children from China) - Toronto quarterly newsletter.  That's out of the way now until the next issue but then I got busy preparing for our visit to China - we're going there the first week of November on a "roots" visit - to visit Sophie and Lucy's home towns.

You can follow our trip on my other blog cboates.blogs.com/china or click here China Blog to be redirected .  See you when we're back!

Halloween and other holidays

They do celebrate halloween in Manila but they don't really trick or treat in the same sense that we do - a lot of people live in apartments/condos and those that live in houses I don't think they feel it's save enough to be going up to strangers' houses.  But we did have a trick or treat at work for the kids and also at the apartment building so they're all candied out and we won't actually be there for October 31 anyhow (because we're going to be in China!).  November 1 is the big day here - all saint's day - when everyone goes to the cemetaries to give their regards to the dead - my work colleagues say that they would stay at least an hour at each cemetary that they visit.  Some would even take along food to eat.  I'm actually sort of sorry I'll be missing that.  They have to redesiginate some traffic patterns due to the additional traffic on the road that day.  Needless to say, it's a national holiday.  The first one I've had since getting here in July.  But when it rains, it pours - there will be two more national holidays in November for a total of three long weekends.  Nov 15 is Eid, the end of Ramadan and Nov 29 is in honour of Rizal Day (if I remember correctly), their national hero.

Lunar Eclipse

There was a complete lunar eclipse on October 27 - but viewable only in north america. Here's a photo taken by my brother in Ft. McMurray, Alberta.

Another Earthquake!

There was another earthquake this evening (Friday, Oct 8) and no question about it, this time I felt it. I started to feel dizzy, sort of as if I were drunk. Then I realized the apartment was moving and the building was swaying. So as any good mother should, I went down to the bedroom where the kids were sleeping so I'd be with them in case something happened. The walls were creaking and the door was swinging and walking down the hall was sort of like walking in one of those amusement park rides where the sidewalk is moving from side to side. Very weird feelings. It all seemed to last about a minute. Within a half hour, it was posted on the U.S. Geological web site (see left - click on the image if you want to read it) and by the time I checked CNN about 15 minutes after that, it was already posted there. Talk about fast! And now, a couple of hours later, here it is on my blog. It was a 6.6 earthquake centred about 55 south west of Manila.

Meanwhile back in Canada...

Here's a couple of nice photos as a diversion. The first of my sister and her daughter who were visiting my father in British Columbia in August. The second of Lake Louise, Alberta, which they all visited after visiting the Tyrell Museum (the dinosaur museum) in Alberta. Lovely shots. These arrived on a CD sent by my father by mail to me here, which meant another ride to the post office in a jeepney.

Sunset over the Bay

Some days you can hardly see the bay from my office window but other days, the sunset is stunning.

I understand that people go down to the bay just to watch the sun set on a clear day and I can see why - it's amazingly beautiful.

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Tagaytay Highlands

Last weekend, we got invited to a club at Tagaytay. Tagaytay is about 2 hours south of Manila and is where you find Taal Volcano, billed as the world's smallest and most deadly volcano. The volcano itself is on a small island in the middle of a lake and the highlands are the area surrounding the lake. In the distant past, the lake itself was the original crater of a much bigger volcano that is now long gone and all that remains is the crater in the island in the lake. It's a very nice area to visit and aside from the view of the volcano, there's lots of fresh fruit stands lining the road, selling mangoes, pineapples and bananas fresh out of the fields. So here's a group photo of Sophie and I along with work colleagues and other family. Lucy was, at this precise moment, asleep on one of the lounge chairs. Had she been awake, she wouldn't have missed the photo-op for anything.

Delivery Vans

Nearly all the fast food places deliver food. So when you order out food from places such as McDonald's or Pizza Hut, if they're not delivering on foot, the delivery guy shows up in vehichles like this. Given the traffic here, these motorcycles are probably a much quicker bet.

Pinocchio

Sophie and I attended the REP Children's Theatre production of Pinocchio. It was amazing with fabulous costumes, great singing and dancing and creative sets. Lots of fun once again. Afterwards, the performers came out onto the stage, only to be mobbed by the young fans. Sophie managed to get the autographs of Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy. We're looking forward to the next production, the Wizard of Oz, later this year.

Brush with fame.... or infamy

At La Bayadere, who should show up sitting three rows ahead of us, but former Miss Manila and former first lady of the Philippines and erstwhile shoe fancier - Imelda Marcos. She still lives here in the Philippines and incredibly was actually elected as a legislative representative in one of the provinces several years back and some of her children have done the same. Much of her footware is displayed in the Marikina City Footware Museum, an area in Manila known as the shoe capital of the Philippines.

La Bayadere

Last night, we went to a completely different, but equally wonderful ballet, La Bayadere, set in India with Ballet Manila at the Aliw Theatre across the street from the Cultural Centre of the Phlippines. There seems to be no shortage of cultural events here, from ballet to Peking Opera to movies to all kinds of Filipino musical performers.

Finally!!

Our stuff finally arrived from Canada - all 30 boxes full of books, DVDs, clothes, shoes, games, toys, clothes, cat food, diapers and a lifetime supply of various medicines and other toiletries and more clothes. I don't know what I was thinking by bringing all this stuff. Somehow, I think I figured we'd have so much time on our hands that we'd need lots of things to keep us amused, like movies and books. In reality, we've gotten ourselves very busy over the past 2 1/2 months and actually weren't missing much of these items (except I was getting tired of wearing the same four outfits to work!). Sophie and Lucy both wear uniforms to school so we have so much clothing that they won't wear it all. Lucy is now daytime toilet trained so not so much need for diapers. Oh well, we quickly unpacked it all and it doesn't amount to all that much in the end (except for all those clothes!)

Madame Butterfly

We went to the ballet last night at the Cultural Centre of the Philippines. Not just any ballet, but the ballet version of Madame Butterfly, complete with a full orchestra and four opera singers for the beautiful arias from the operatic version. It was beautifully done. I went with an Australian friend and three other Australian friends of hers. Somehow, since we were "from the Australian embassy", we ended up in complimentary box seats for a perfect view of the ballet. The CCP is located close to Manila Bay and is a big, boxy, concrete structure but inside is quite opulent complete with huge chandeliers made of capiz shells and crystal.

Earthquake!

There was an earthquake here last night in the early morning hours, measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. None of us deep sleepers (Sophie and I that is) felt it but Zeny, our yaya, sleeping two bedrooms away was awakened here on the 27th floor. A friend on the 38th floor of another condo was awakened by it. It was centered in Balanga in Bataan province at the red star on the map - really not that far away from here. A second smaller quake occurred about 35 minutes later in the far south of the county. The last "big" quake in the Philippines was in 1990 in Bagiuo, 6 or so hours north of here. It was of magnitude 7.7 earthquake and killed nearly 2000 people.

The "ber" months

The Christmas season starts here right after September 1. They kid that Christmas season extends during all the "ber" months - September, October, November and December. I didn't believe it, but here's the proof - the decorations department at one of the big department stores is all ready to go.

Ice Cream Dots

There's a very cool ice cream treat here called Dipping Dots (I think that's what it's called). It's tiny little balls of super cold ice cream in a variety of flavours - very yummy. The picture shows Sophie's feet and her large size bowl of rainbow, chocolate, strawberry and bubble gum dipping dots.