Happy New Year from Bora!

The sandcastle makers were out in force tonight: wishing everyone a Happy New Year ...



And an amazing New Year's Eve it was! After a great dinner on the beach (yup, pretty much all of the dining is on the beach here ... but pretty classy!!) we walked over to this huge NYE party, where musicians on a stage gave way to semi-submerged dance floor, which went up and down with the tide ...



It was one heck of a party! They had some guy doing fire dancing type stuff ...



And INCREDIBLE amounts of fireworks. There were 2 or 3 fireworks stations nearby, and they just kept spiting out fireworks all night - and from 11:30pm to 12:30am, it was non-stop, the sky was always full of fire!



As for the poor musicians? They just kept playing non stop FOR HOURS. Whoa.

Happy New Year from the Phillipines! =)

Beautiful Borachay ...

... Well, we finally got here. And, what an amazing place!

The best I can do is compare Borachay to VEGAS. It's an island, of about 3-4 miles in length. 90% of the action occurs on one strip of the beach - this long, 3 mile stretch. Basically, the whole way, it is beautiful beach - but the cool thing is that the shops are about 15-20 metres (at high tide) from the water. So, it's like a big non-stop shopping mall but with no road - just a sand foot path ...



Here's another angle. You can see it's pretty nice!



Everyone just walks on the beach to get to everywhere. Though you can take these cute little mopeds on the road out the back too ... pretty cool - from once side of the island to the other for $1!



One of our first events was to have lunch with one of the owners of an expensive resort there. Here's the view from their dining hall - the northernmost part of the beach.



Not bad. And with massages on the beach at about $6.50 US an hour, you can see why they call this place paradise! =)

A visit to the mangroves en route to Borachay

One of the great things this community has done is plant some 170 hectares of mangroves in the local area, in order to encourage some more natural regrowth and stuff (after a lot of it was destroyed by war and stealing and the like). So, on our way from Kalibo to Borachay, we stopped to walk through some of the mangroves across this gorgeous path they had created out of bamboo ...



There was plenty to keep me amused!



After all this, we were escorted by those marching guys in costume again, along with a lot of the gorgeous kids from town, to our bus, which would take us to our boat to get to Borachay. Here's some more of those village kids:



Whilst our initial boat to Borachay appeared to be grand ...



... we ended up getting this little one ...



... driven by this little guy ...



... which EVENTUALLY, with a few splashes, got us to Borachay - though the last 30 metres we had to do in knee high water in the darkness! Which was kind of cool, in retrospect.

Ah, Borachay ... it's great to finally be here! =)

A rather grand introduction to Kalibo!

So after 2 days of moving around metro Manila, it was time to move to our second phase of the journey - Kalibo and Borachay. These cities are on a different island to the Philippines (which is an archipelago - I think that's how you spell it!), so we had to take a plane flight over. Here's the view of the island we went to - the great thing about having so many islands is the abundance of beaches ...



We arrived to an incredible reception. Literally the entire town and its leaders came to greet us, complete with 10 drummers and 9 dancers in festive dress (this sounds like some kind of Christmas carol?!) ...



We were then treated to a beautiful lunch ...



... followed by a performance by the local youth of how this place started up - in particular, intial colonisation by the Malays and then meeting the Chinese, then being taken over by the Spaniards.



Here are some of the other performers, in costume ...



... it was quite a treat! I'm not exactly sure why they put on such a great hello for us (maybe it was our good looks?!), though I think we donated some books and computers or something. Hmmm ...!

A tour of old Manila

So as part of our cultural grounding, we thought it would be cool to get a guided tour around old Manila. For those of you who might not by aware, the Phillipines was (apparently) originally inhabited by Malays aaaaaages ago (yes, even then the Malays were all around here!!! =), then by the Spanish for about 300 years after being discovered by Ferdinand Magellan, then finally by the US for much of this century. Well, all of this according to our tour guide, who wore thies weird little speaker phone thing and a funny nut hat ...



We got to see lots of the old Spanish architecture, which had (obviously) pretty strong European roots. Though much of it was blown up (by friendly fire?) during 1945, here is a nice building that still stands ...



... and inside ...



We then checked out the Chinese-Filipino museums. That's right, even though the Chinese never "ran" Phillipines, they were there for much of the time. Go Asia! =)

We weren't allowed to take photos in the museum, even though they had some great-looking exhibits. Here's proof, honest! =) Well, I thought I'd take a photo, just to show them ... =)



Now some 80-90% of Filos are Catholic, so there are cathedrals EVERYWHERE. We then went on a tour of some of the bigger, more impressive ones ...



... and naturally there were lots of people getting married there - every hour, even though it was a weekday?! They kept getting in the way of my pictures!



Overall, an enjoyable tour. And here's a picture of the tour group! Cool bunch of guys (well, so far anyway ... just kiddin)

More Filo antics

Lunch at a scenic location inside the crater of an active volcano (I don't know how wise a move this was?!) ... this is my friend Felix - NOT me!!!



Some guy singing Filo love songs to us, for no particular reason, over dinner?! At least they had some kind of Filo version of ice kachang there, so I was a happy, contented man.



The days have been full on - getting up at 5:30am for a 6am start (it's almost 1:30am now the next morning .. yikes!), a big deal considering the nights have been late (by choice!). Here's a group shot so you can see the team!



blessings
john

First night: eat and dance-a-thon

The Filos (abbreviation not to be confused with filo pastry) LOVE to dance and play music. On our first night, we had a cultural treat: going to a restaurant with lots of both (as well as food of course!).

There were dancing women and guys with poles ...



... then the women had to jump through and over and around the poles ... which made me nervous someone was going to hurt their ankle!



Then more dancing girls ... though I'm sure by this time it was becoming more Hawaiian than Filo ...?!



Eventually they got the crowd - and my friend Felix (pictured below) - into the act!



My Filo friend said that this was some kind of traditional dance to show the courtship of the woman, the woman choosin the best man amongst three alternatives, and the wedding ceremony. Which still didn't explain a lot of things ...



ps the reason I'm using the word "Filo" is (i) it's more efficient, but more importantly (ii) I keep getting the number of Ps and Ls in "Phillipines" mixed up ...

Mabhuay Manila!

(translation: "Welcome to Manila!")

Well, after a great 10 days in Australia, we are finally here in the Phillipines. I've been here for about 30 minutes anyway (and people say I'm addicted to email/the net?!) ...!

Just wanted to share some fotos - internet is scarce here so I thought I'd pop them up while the going is good.

So, just to give you a bit more context, I'm here for a "study trip". Over the next 10ish days, we're meeting with lots of important people and hanging out at cool spots to learn more about culture, business, and stuff.

So, here's the Manila city harbour as you come in ... pretty advanced, huh?



Upon closer inspection, there is a mix of the old, the new ... and the religious - a nice white cathedral it looks like. Phillipines is something like 90% Catholic.



And here's the view from our hotel room! Manila skyline by evening ...



I'm psyched for a great trip.

Blessings
john

Goodbye Christmas, hello Phillipines

Christmas Day always starts with church at Wesley, complete with some carols and performances by the little ones ...



... then continues with Christmas dinner ...



For some reason we open presents on Boxing Day (I figured that's when you un-box things?!) ...



... the Foong family photo for 2005!



After 10 good days at home though, it's time to go to the Phillipines for two weeks! Sydney, it's been fun. See you in August!

Christmas shopping at 3am in the morning

Westfield, for the past few years, have started opening NON-STOP from the morning of 23rd December all the way through to the evening on Christmas Eve, allowing for shopping at all strange hours of the morning on the 24th.

Me, Trent and Jacqui decided to test this out. We had hear they had hourly raffles and stuff like that, so it probably wasn't very crowded ...

... how wrong we were. The place was PACKED at 1am when we got there, and even at 2am it was pretty hard to get around, lots of queues and crowding ...



A few hundred dollars later, just before 3am, it was time to get home! Phew!



Christmas blessings
john

Crazy Christmas lights

In a somewhat-American tradition that has found its way to Sydney, it's become customary for houses in some regions to go absolutely CRAZY with Christmas lights ... so, when I found myself down south (at Warren's house) we decided to go check out what some of the locals had been up to ...

... Some had just adopted some nice hanging lights ...



... Some had some fairly nice sets of combinations; this one had "Santa stop here" lollipops complemented by signage ...



This mulit-storey house was a bit weird - with just a raindeer looking like it was considering suicide ...



... but of course, biggest is best! check out this collection:



Of course, that wasn't the best in the submurb (only the best in Rainbow Parade, where we walked). Apparently some guy in Lugarno had spent 6-8 months setting up his?!!! Whoa.

I'm baaaaaack!

Well, having survived multiple delays, I made it back to Sydney at NOON on Sunday, December 18th. It's great to be back!

I'm flying off on the morning of December 28th, so it's only going to be a 10 day whirlwind stop, but one well worth making!

My contact details:

• email = the same (jfoong@gmail.com) ... obviously
• phone = the same - 0424-555-279 ... thanks Vodafone (and Warren), if you lose your SIM card they'll replace it free of charge! I'd take two, but then I'd have to lose it twice ... =)
• address = the same; living back with Granny and Angie again. Just like old times! =)
  

Hope to catch you before I jet off again for the Phillipines II: The return

Blessings
john



(the view of Sydney's beaches on the way back in on the plane)

An unexpectedly good stopover: 12 hours in the 'Pines

Thanks to booking late via Phillipine Airlines, it was supposed to be a fairly horrendously-scheduled flight back:

• San Fran to Hawaii - 5 hours
• Layover in Hawaii - 1 hour
• Hawaii to Manila - 10 hours
• Layover in Manila - 13 hours
• Manila to Melbourne - 8 hours
• Layover in Melbourne - 1 hour
• Melbourne to Sydney - 1 hour
• Layover in Sydney - 10 days (just kidding)

Add in some unexpected delays of about 3 hours all up and you'd think it was the journey back from the states from hell - especially considering the Qantas/United flight back can be done in 13 hours straight.

Instead it ended up being fine. I got an exit row for the trip to Manila, which was a big relief (even though I was between two, um, big guys and the in-flight entertainment didn't work in colour), then the stopover in Manila - where I will spend nearly two weeks after Christmas (From 28th December to 9th January) was actually a lot of fun ... instead of the initial (dumb) idea of just waiting at the airport, I decided it would make the most sense to plonk myself at Makati shopping mall, about 20 minutes away!

... whilst initially the taxis that greeted me were a little scary:



I found Manila's shopping malls (where I spent most of the day) to be pretty similar to malls back at home ... (see this big concert thing)



... with lots of Australian stuff to comfort me:



... interestingly titled night clubs ...



... and Spanish-style chicken! (reminds me of Mozambique!)



... all at, of course, unbelievably cheap prices; especially considering my tolerance for price has been inflated due to my time in expensive San Francisco!

Which meant that, to "recover" inbetween my 10+ hour flights both ways I spent a few pence getting:

• A back massage
• A footspa massage
• Lots and lots of food
• A "lip facial" at this beauty parlour
• A haircut
• When the plane was delayed an hour: Another 90 minute massage at a massage parlour conveniently located in the departures lounge ... ah, it was the best flight delay ever! =)