The Philippines

Day 3

We had a great history lesson when we took an hour long ferry ride to Corregidor, which is a small island at the mouth of Manila Bay. Because of the islands position in the bay it served as Allied headquarters in the Philippines during WWII. Shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor they attacked the Philippines. The US already had a Military Reservation set up on Corregidor, which proved to be key in holding off the Japanese in taking over Australia and the Philippines. Corregidor and Bataan were major battle grounds during WWII and the Japanese did eventually take them both. But 2 years later Gen. Douglas MacArthur returned (as he had promised) and Allied forces once again took control of Corregidor. I don't want to give a huge WWII History lesson, but it was extremely interesting and sobering to spend the day here.

Mile long barracks (not quite a mile, but very long).

Looking down the barrel of huge gun.

Before the capture of Corregidor the Allied soldiers pushed the gun off the base so it would be unusable to the Japanese.

More of Mile long barracks.

The US and Filipino soldiers bravely fought side by side.

A huge crater from the bombing from the Japanese.

A huge tunnel system was built on Corregidor. Read the description in the picture 2 down. It was amazing.

We learned so much from our visit to Corregidor. I started reading a book a few years ago called "We Band of Angels". It is true life stories of the nurses stationed on Corregidor during WWII. I had a hard time getting into the book and never finished. But now that I've been there I definitely want to read that book.

The Philippines

Day 2

We travelled outside the city of Manila into more of the jungle and took a river trip to an amazing waterfall called Pagsanjan Falls. While we were driving there, when we started getting closer to the river, men on scooters would drive along next to our van and knock on our window trying to get our business. They wanted to be our "boatmen" and take us up the river. We had one guy driving alongside us and knocking on our window for at least 10 minutes, until we finally reached the hotel we were going to, and these-want to be-boatmen are not allowed. We did hire official boatmen to take us up the river. Jason and I were in one boat and Ralph and Edy were in a separate boat with a boatman in the front and one in the rear. They were amazing. They paddled us up the river and when we came to rocks and passages in the river they would get out and hop from rock to rock pushing us up the river. It must have been such hard work, but they made it look easy.

This is Pagsanjan Falls. We sat on this raft and had 2 other men take us under the waterfall and into a cave behind the falls. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the falls are pretty impressive. Another waterfall along the way. It was so beautiful, the cliffs went straight up on each side of the river and they were covered with greenery.

After the river trip we travelled to a city called Paete, which is the wood carvers capital. We loved this carved Buddha which, as you can see, is taller than Jason. There were also many other incredible works of art carved by hand.
A Tricycle, which is a very common form of transportation. We saw a whole family driving along in one of these. The side car was filled with bags of rice and one small child. The mother, father and 3 other children rode on the motorcycle.
Posing in front of another very common mode of transportation...a Jeepney.

A video of our boatmen rowing us and hopping along the rocks..barefoot.

The Philippines - an adventure!

For the last 3 years Jason's parents have lived in the Philippines. We have wanted to get over there and visit them before they move home to Utah this summer. In April we were finally able to do it. The whole experience was an adventure beginning with the travel there. From Salt Lake we flew to Seattle, then to Tokyo and then on to Manila; with a total travel time of 24 hours! The first thing that hit me as we manoeuvred our way through people to get out of the airport was the HEAT and humidity. We arrived at midnight, but still that first breath of air outside the air conditioned airport was a thick one. As time went on I gradually got used to it, but my hair did not (hence, my hair in a pony tail most days.) As I went through our pictures deciding what to post I realized how much we packed into 6 days. I also tried to narrow down the pictures, but there are so many and each one shows so much of our experience that is was hard to do.

Day 1

We visited Mabuhay, which is a home where children with medical conditions, such as eye problems, cleft palette, club feet, come to stay while awaiting surgeries or other treatments. Jason's mom Edy visits every week to sing songs and do a craft or other activity. The children there were so beautiful, happy and grateful for what they had, which in most cases was not very much. Everyone participated in the songs and craft. Even the older teenage boys, and they did it with a smile.

I have so much I want to share it is overwhelming. I've decided to post something new each day so I don't miss anything.

More Owen

I know I just posted about Owen, but he did something over the weekend that was so cute and funny that I have to share again. We were out in the yard working (yay, that it's finally getting warm enough to do that) when I came across a worm. I asked Owen if he wanted it. He did. After a few minutes of playing and talking to the worm (I wasn't really listening to what he was saying to the worm at this point) Owen says to me, "Mom, I asked the worm if he wanted to be my friend and he said yes! So I think I'm going to call him DeeDee." I was totally laughing. So for the next 15 minutes Owen played with DeeDee in the dirt. I now was listening to what he was saying to the worm. Here are some things I heard: "DeeDee, do you like this hole for your house? Where do you want to live Deed? I think we should build another house over here Deed. What do you like to eat Deed?" It was so funny and cute that he would name his worm DeeDee and then automatically give him the nickname Deed. I thought that was pretty smart. The fun came to and end when DeeDee had been handled so much that he died. Having DeeDee for a friend was fun, for all of us, while it lasted.