Malayan Plaza Hotel Manila

... anything except yucky ice cream. I thought it might have come from the sea but it didn’t.

We then took a taxi back to Richmonde Hotel and walked to our main mall, SM mega mall. We ate at Pizza Hut for dinner. We had garlic bread, onion rings, a family sized super supreme pizza, salad and angle hair spaghetti. It was yummy and cheap.

Then we went back home and I fell asleep quite quickly because I was exhausted.

... a seal in my passport", I said to myself. I'm still hesitant to reveal my full amount (which is more than $500), but I said, "I do have $250". The IM officer, you're going for a vacation with that money, that's impossible for you. I said, "I am traveling with my group, I have some money with them anyway, if you can check it with them, you can confirm it; but I think they're already inside the gate." He said, "if you're traveling with them, you should tell them to ...

... br>
We celebrated by returning to the street bar for a few more beverages (PhP 60 / $1.20 for 2 beers) and became engaged in conversation with Jean, a charismatic 61 year old Frenchman visiting Manila from another province with his 27 year old Filipina girlfriend. He was a great story teller and was very philosophical about his life; a bridge engineer by profession he had been retired for a few years and we assumed he was either divorced or a widower. He moved to ...

... relationships and you immediately make a judgement about the situation.

‘He’s a dirty old man’

‘She’s a tart”



And maybe you’re right.

That being said though, it’s all well and good to sit back in our relative western opulence and judge women for selling their bodies and men for buying them but we have to also remember that the majority of the girls are uneducated, unemployed and from poor ...

... dumb American" and being very open to the new experience. As I thought American travelers have this image of being spoiled and self-centered, thinking that the universe revolves around the US (and there is certainly truth to that image). Naively I was surprised to discover that people were extremely closed-minded toward me. Which lead me to realize that narrow-mindedness is quite probably a more prevalent ...

... better than they have. The plumber did come take his pictures and the issue goes to the hands of the builder. How long will it be before we see the sink fixed is anybody's guess. When I asked about our shipment from the US I was told there was a problem. Because it took so long for the shipment to arrive in Manila (it's now been 3 ½ months since it was first packed up), we exceeded the time window on the permits to bring it into the country ...

... have really stepped out of a time machine. In far off Guimaras island in Iloilo, we visited an ultra serene monastery where I interviewed brother Sibayan, spokesman to the silent trappist monks. My first question was what exactly is a monk? When he replied: "A monk is a person who searches for God," I was moved. It was my most fulfilling interview. There are moments that you simply want to capture and freeze. And I'm not talking here about Kodak memories where poses are ...

... folks living very basic lives, the second composed of better off Philippinos who travel down the same streets in cars and live more modern lives. I spent most of my time in the latter world, but that is not to say that the people living here consider themselves better than the poor, simply luckier. They cannot help them as they are themselves struggling to get by, which in turns is probably what contributes to the minimal ...

... breakfast. I'll continue teaching him to come and to sit until he gets this then maybe I'll teach him to stay. Nov. 5, 2007 Josephine is the most worried about Cleo and is thinking of putting Cleo inside a cage with Zafi AKA Trouble (another Jack Russel). They seem to be friends, anyway. If the wounds get worse, we might have to bring Cleo to the vet. Shobe is at the Vet's clinic because she couldn't stand and Papa thought something was wrong with her legs. The veterinarian found a ...