Hostel 1632 Manila

... apparantly on their own.<br><br><br>I woke up around 4am and heard the wind howling outside so I got up to take a look. Yup, it was a typhoon. I went back to bed and woke up at 8am, looked at my blackberry and saw voicemail from my parents and Russ checking on me. I got up to call them back. I checked the local news which was all in Tagalog so I still had no idea what was really happening. But the storm was obviously over and things looked pretty normal ...

It's now Wednesday and 4 days after the flooding. We spent most of Monday trying to contact everyobody to make sure they are ok. By the end of Monday many were still not accounted for including some of the people I work with directly. Our floor of the office was pretty vacant. But the hope was that many were without cell service or their batteries had died and there was no power to charge them. The other offices were doing the same thing and the ...

... heading off to Tibet in September which should ...

... the process. Back at window 14, the computers are still "offline" and besides, it's almost 12 which here in the Philippines means the lunch hour and sure enough before I even had a chance to ask, they put up the "out to lunch" sign. who knows if and when the computers would be "online" so we decide to call it a day; at least hopefully I have all the paperwork I need. Two days later we give it another try, leave the apartment at 8:30, drop Jane ...

... he had noticed something but no one else had felt anything. Last night we're sleeping when at 2 in the morning we both wake up with the bed shaking, our second quake, again a very small one far away and very cool but just a little unsettling, they do call it terra firma after all. It felt more like a gentle rolling instead of a shake but we figured it had to have been a quake. Today Jane found a site that ...

Our car was delivered this morning. It's a blaze red Toyota Innova. I wasn't too keen on having a "mini van". It conjures up images of soccer mom's with loads of kids in the back. Not the image we're looking for. Luckily they call it an MPV here instead of a mini van which makes it totally different :-) We wanted an MPV because we will only have one car so it has to serve mulitple purposes. We need to have a car that can haul our dive gear and ...

... also very diverse, but in a very different manner. As far as physical appearance goes, most exhibit similar tanned skin tone and even though I'm not considered tall back home, I pretty much tower over everyone here. The differences here are tied to economic status. There are so many people occupying every scrap of concrete and dirt, living such incredibly different lives, that's it's a complete mind overload. Every step and head turn ...

... anesthetic (Josephine was listed as the patient). When Chico he'd do it with local anesthesia, I bought three ampules of Lidocaine, a syringe, and materials for the plaster cast. Spent almost P500.00 plus money for snacks for 5 people because the doctor and his wife were hungry. The local anesthesia wasn't strong enough to keep Cleo from struggling, however. There were times when Chico was already starting to wrap the leg in the wadding before the plaster cast was to be applied ...

... street were money changers. <br><br> I saw my first jeepney. Which many people told me not to travel on. I was always going to ignore this. I ended up seeing a college parade. And a few other locals doing different things.<br><br> I bought a local simcard and a cheap Nokia. I left my phone back at home purposely. they're are so many companies to choose from. I ended up choosing Talk n Text for my simcard. I knew I would have a rather large collection of simcards once my 2 years ...