Time flies by so quickly these days I can hardly be live its almost a month since the last entry. been spending far too much time on facebook and neglecting my blog. Well the rains finally arrived with a vengeance. We have had two typhoons pass us by. Whilst neither made landfall they drew in monsoon rains which meant we had torrential rain for about a week. Parts of Manila flooded and the schools were closed on both occasions something Gianna thought was rather fun! Marc ,not so, being stuck at home with the two kids for days on end. The only possibility for entertainment is to dash to the Mall in between downpours but that's not always feasible.
I was in Tagatay for the first soaking with the VSO staff team for work planning. Tagatay is on the ridge of a volcano, overlooking another volcano, in a lake which is also in a volcano. U sort of have to see it to get the picture, which I can't supply at the moment as visibility was nil due to the weather. U can trek up the volcano, but seemed rather pointless when I was there. The planning stuff was all interesting and spending a week with my colleagues helped my Tagalog especially as there was no cable TV and watched the soaps and Deal no Deal" in Tagalog every night!"
At the end of the week there was a joint staff Day with Bahaginan one of the VSO's federated offices here in the Philippines. There was lots of team building games and karaoke, the weather improved and we got to do some sight seeing.
For the second typhoon I was in Manila. Marc and I decided that we wouldn't be hampered by such a minor climatic event and took off to Malate to see a PINIKPIKAN again on the Friday night. The band played, the water rose and nobody seemed to care! At the end of the night I'm sure the taxi sailed home, there was just too much water to drive - Philam were we live doesn't usually flood so we are Ok - the malls keep open whatever, so we can get to the shops even if it means getting wet! Actually being inside a mall is probably a good survival tactic if a bad storm hits as once inside are oblivious to it all. Luckily we had Ratatouille and the Simpons movies on during the bad weather ................
In between the downpours we get good weather- very hot and dry in day although it does tend to still rain at night. We've had 2 bank holiday weekends in august so took off for the second. We caught a ferry over to Mindoro the island next to Luzon (Manila is on Luzon)) and went to Puerto Galera. We had been before, our first trip away for my birthday, but this time we headed off to White Beach and stayed at funky place called Coco Aroma. Nice beach, not exactly white sand but clean and clear water. Coco was at the quieter end of beach so could ignore the packs of young Koreans on holiday. We had a Nipa hut right on beach for p1200 (12 quid) and live music in bar at night.
Not long after we arrived got text to say that two different friends were also heading down to PG for the weekend although staying at yet another beach. We decided this was a good opportunity to try out a 3rd place in the area so headed by tricycle off to Laguna the next morning after a beach massage.
Here we found an even cheaper place, overlooking the small bay, for P800 and hooked up with our friends at their fancy resort ($60, 50 yards further up the beach) for happy hour cocktails. Had a lovely time hanging out on the beach - kids playing on the bancas with the buddies they met. A few sports bars at Sabang next to Laguna kept Marc happy watching football and rugby with one of his golfing buddies. We stayed another 2 nights before Angelica and I headed back via public transport whilst Gianna and Marc stayed on an extra day, as no school, and got a lift back from port straight to Manila with our friends.
One of the strangest coincidences has been us meeting a lovely English/Filipino couple who also have girls aged 3 and 9 as well as a new baby which arrived 2 weeks ago. We found each other via MSM - They live in Brighton but have moved here for Helen's 1 year maternity leave. Theres an amazing number of coincidences such as Paul growing up a stones throw from where we now live, Helen studying Archeology and Paul being into property development. Once Helen's back on her feet we hope to get out on the town! The girls got on so well. It'll be lovely for Angelica to have an English friend her own age, Gianna has Amy, but more importantly a relief for us to have some like minded brits with kids the same age, to hang out with. Everyone we have met so far has kids a lot older.
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