New Years Eve

Maite in her  backyard christmas tree

We spent new years at Maite and Santy's home.

 Anna's family on her Dad's side.

Everyone was so gracious, delicious food and fab french wine, bottles and bottles of McCallams 18.

Santy, Maite, Patrick, Eric

festive backyard

fireworks all around us, better than Chrissy Field.

pearls,churches and viva the revolution

shopping in the "tchangget"

The marketplace for pearls is huge, all the traders are muslims from the southern province of Mindanao. This also happens to be where they find the pearls!

Anna finds another sister in the world

ready for a wedding

The oldest Church , San Augustin, founded
early 1500's , the only building in the entire city spared by the Japanese bombers because of its red cross designation.

We visited the Intramuros, built by the Spanish to keep the pirates out, inside is Ft.Santiago, which was originally a Sultan, Rajah Sulayman, personal digs.
Did you know that the Philippines were named for King Philip of Spain? The original Tagalog natives were so lucky that someone came a long to give them a name.

 We were lucky to find Lorenzo, a very knowledgable young man who gave us a great tour in a "Kalesa"

The horse's name was Antonio.

The Katipuneros were the rebels who fought for independence  from Spain.
The father of the Philippines struggle is Dr. Jose Rizal who besides being an incredibly educated and talented man, inspired his people thru the power of the pen. We just happened to visit his monument on the 150th anniversary of his execution by firing squad.

Jeepneys are everywhere, they are colorful,cheap,noisy and always packed to the brim.

long flight and a long day

afternoon tea

14hrs to taipai, 3 movies,2 meals, and an ambian induced sleep. My how time can fly.
Taipai airport is well stocked with every fancy store you can imagine, they even have the ubiquitous "hello kitty" store. After 3 hrs of zombie marching and following Anna around these stores, a quick 2 more hrs to Manila.

in our lobby

 Our hotel, the Makati Shangrila, is pretty nice. After unpacking we came down to the lobby for aft. tea and had a small orchestra almost to ourselves. The group was divided into the blue dress violins and the black dress violins, led by a piano and bass with two flutists thrown in for good measure.

xmas fantasy

i'm trying to get in the spirit

The nearby shopping centers provided incredible displays for the Christmas season and the night lighting  was spectacular. I've already eaten way too much for one man and will be in the gym first thing tomorrow.

whats in your trunk?

And there are guards everywhere, who basically open the door for you and wand scan your backback as you walk by. They are everywhere in the Malls so they double as your personal "where is the restroom" concierge. They also have dogs at the hotels to check your trunk/luggage just in case you were crazily thinking about bringing your crack pipe or molotov cocktail into the lobby. Its actually a good thing for tourists and other swells but a sad state of affairs for many countries. 


thanks for reading, I take any and all suggestions.


Anna and a little xmas decoration.

Numero UNO

Haven't packed yet, still thinking about whether I need to bring my tango shoes! Nah....