Philippines Trip

Manila

Our plane to the Philippines left on Tuesday morning at 1 AM, the only good thing about leaving then was that we got to the airport in 10 minutes. I have never been out that late here and it was great not having to battle the traffic. The flight was only 2 hours and 15 minutes and actually left early. We took a taxi to a hotel that a friend had booked for us. It was run by Christians. There were verses posted on the walls and christian music playing and they even gave you a verse for the day. The workers were so friendly. It made for a wonderful stay. We went to check out the bible college that the Foursquare Church has there and we were even able to attend a retreat in a mountain city. The grounds were beautiful and they had three swimming pools. It reminded me of our college retreat days, games, competitions etc. We had to take the MRT from our hotel to the church and other areas and they all seem to be connected to malls. There were four malls within a 5 mile radius of our hotel. We actually saw at least 10 different malls as we rode the MRT. I got to go into several and one was a woman's paradise. They had one whole floor devoted to women's shoes and purses, it had to be at least a 1/2 mile long. I could only walk through it as we had to get back to our hotel to catch our flight home. Maybe next time. We also got to ride in their version of taxi's called jitney's, they remind me of large hummers and they put all kinds of advertising on them. Some even said, God Bless or Jesus saves. They were very cheap to ride in but the fumes and pollution were bad, even worse than Thailand. They also had every kind of restaurant that you see in the US, Outback, Tony Roma's even a new Spaghetti Factory. We did try some Philippino food which is similar to but different than the Vietnamese. Our friend likes to say, same, same but different. The best part of the trip for me was to reconnect with some friends that we had been through training with in the US and catch up on their lives. We also attended a cell group. I really miss these things in Vietnam.

Vung Tau

Vung Tau Province

On Sat we left our home for a 3 hour van ride to the beach. I should have known that 3 hours is never really three hours. We arrived 9 hours later. In order to have the van paid for our friends, girlfriend did some business on the way. These people love to save money. We did not mind as we got to see some very beautiful towns. It was not like HCMC at all. It was country and very well kept up roads and beautiful flowers and landscaping. Our friend kept saying I sure wish HCMC looked like this. We did too!! We arrived and checked into a very quaint and rustic cabin type hotel near the beach. Rooms were only $35.00 a night and we had TV and Air con. Mark and I took a walk along the beach. It reminded us of Cambria. Many rocks and tide pools. The beaches here have a ton of shells and they are all different colors and most are in tact. I have a good collection going from our two beach trips. We were able to watch the youth group, college age, play a tug of war game and later in the evening they had a bon fire and skits and music. We left around 9 as company arrived !!! Mark did not get his chance to speak. Oh well we go with the flow. On Sunday we had a great western breakfast, omelet and bread. Then we were entertained by a parrot that was speaking Vietnamese. That was too much fun. Then as we were waiting to check out I saw a family of four also leaving. It was the typical way to travel for Vietnamese. The father had one motor bike with a large Styrofoam container, probably of fish on the back and then he put a suitcase in the front. He then proceeded to plop his 3 yr old daughter on top of the suitcase. See my picture. Mom had her motor bike with their son on in back of her. No car, no problem !! After leaving the hotel we headed to another beach area and had a great seafood lunch. They had all kinds of live seafood that you choose and they take it in the back and cook. I wanted lobster but at $40.00 a kilo I opted for salmon. It was good. This city reminded me of Catalina Island. Again all landscaped and modern hotels and shopping areas. The tour buses came in by the groves. Oh, did I mention that on the way up and back we stopped at a place that Mark and I call dairy land. This area has tons of dairy cows. They sold everything having to do with milk, low fat, skim, whole, yogurt, ice cream, pancakes made with their milk, candy and then on course there were the miniature cows that when you pull there sting there utters move like you are milking them. That gave us a good laugh. We arrived home around six pm and today I am trying to get the kinks out of my back and get my legs circulating again. Tonight we head for the Philippines. Will write more about that later.

Grand Opening

Celebration Day

They closed a restaurant in our building last Nov, I don't think it did much business. They began working in that room two weeks ago and on Sat they had a grand opening. We only know this because we were leaving for our beach trip at 8 AM and the driveway was packed. We were told that it is a Chinese restaurant. They had dragons and drums and all kinds of activity going on, also beautiful flowers. I got some pictures. They began beating the drums at 8 AM, not sure how long this went on. I am glad we were headed out of town. Now we will see if they have a menu in English and how the food is.

The North