Philippines update

Now that I’ve been home for almost a week, it’s time I gave you an update on my trip to the Philippines. In short, I had a very enjoyable time. I LOVE exploring new areas. In terms of work it wasn’t a very productive trip, but personally it was very enriching.

My first impression of Manila was about the driving. Traffic is a madhouse and gridlock is the norm. Road signs and traffic signals are just contributions to a canvas of creative driving art that is limited only by the imagination of the driver. But since everyone drives very defensively there seem to be fewer accidents than I saw in Bamako or Dar es Salaam on average.

The second impression was about their advertising. I have never seen such profligate use of giant billboards. They are enormous—many looming more than 5 storeys above the street. One might find some Freudian reasoning to argue that the size of the billboard is indirectly proportional to the size of the people.

General impressions are numerous. For example, the public transportation in Manila is conducted through the use of what is now my favorite mode in the developing world. Every developing country I’ve visited has its own form of local interpretation of moving people around. One of the universal traits is that they are driven by young, brash hooligans who own the road and tear about with abandon. In the Philippines, these buses are called Jeepneys, the name and design of which are inspired by the American military vehicles of WWII. But that is where the similarities end. Jeepneys are school-bus long, made of shiny metal and gaudily decorated.



I would love to create an encyclopedia of the different designs. You’ll find religious themes, Hollywood themes, and political themes. The most incongruous characteristic found on all Jeepneys is the following sign:



This sign never failed to evoke a chuckle from me.

I found Filipinos to be a very polite, warm, beautiful people. Their children are adorable. They dress modestly and cook some wonderful foods. The best food I found was bibingka. It is a Christmas treat that tastes like an egg custard with coconut on top. Ferino’s is the purported best brand of bibingka.



The fried baby crabs aren’t bad. They are eaten whole, shell and all, and taste crunchy bland. Hot sweet bean curd soup was undoubtedly very healthy, but not the greatest.
The peanut sauce soup with tripe was tasty. And I loved the various sticky rice pastries.

Filipinos love malls and Christmas. Malls are numerous, enormous and packed every day. It was pointed out that the few parks in the Manila metro area are found in Manila itself. None of the other cities have any. Therefore the only place that families and couples have to spend time together outside of the home are the malls or villages in the provinces. And since the villages aren’t air conditioned, malls are the most popular place to hang out. Even in early November the Christmas decorations and cheesy music were already in force. Christmas lasts through the –ber months (any month that ends in ‘ber’) and ends in the –ary months. I, too, spent a lot of my evenings there exploring, people watching and shopping. It was a lot more enjoyable than sitting in my hotel room wishing Carolyn and Célia Marie were with me.

At the mall I found a couple of food providers that seemed made to attract my pesos.



and



Finally, I came across the most hearteningly optimistic fellow one hot afternoon.

Catching up on Pictures

Well, we finally figured out how to fix the problem we had with downloading pictures from our camera to our computer. So I thought I would post a few pictures we have taken over the past few months. Here Célia has gotten into some flour and when we found her she looked at us like "What?" with her big innocent eyes. (If you click on the picture you will see she got almost as much on her as she did the floor.)

This next picture shows how much she loves her mom. She has been pretty big into posing for the camera lately.

Here she is watching TV. I just like this picture because she looks so cute with a baseball hat on.

Here she is helping dad wash the car. She loves playing with water.

Here she is wearing a really cute outfit that her Nana bought for her. I just love the sandals! Oh, and she rarely lets me put her hair up so when I do I only get one chance at it. So sometimes it looks pretty funny but I have to leave it because she actually let me try.

In this next picture she just wanted me to take a picture of her eating. We have a student from Taiwan staying with us at the moment and for the first few weeks she took pictures of all the dinners we ate and Célia thought that was pretty cool. So one day at lunch Célia went and got our camera for me to take this picture.

Halloween really isn't celebrated very much over here but we were invited to a Halloween party this year. I went as a mommy mummy and Brian went as a cereal (serial) killer. As you can tell I worked and slaved over our costumes! My mummy wrappings didn't stay up past the door but that was okay with me because it got very warm very quickly wrapped up in all that toilet paper.

Here is a picture of Brian's first attempt at surfing (That's him on the right). Yes, we have been in Australia for three years now and he only just got around to trying it out. I was a little bummed that I couldn't go as well but I can't see how I could have paddled on the board in my condition!

Here is a picture of Célia helping me make Pumpkin Bread. As you can tell, she loves to help me cook (although there isn't much that I let her do yet).

Oh, and for anyone interested, here is the recipe we were using (it is absolutely delicious):

Pumpkin Bread

3 1/2 cups flour (I do half plain and half wholemeal)
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
3 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups fresh pumpkin, 16 oz if using canned pumpkin
1/2 cup water, 2/3 cup if using canned pumpkin
1 cup vegetable oil (I usually do 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 water and it still turns out really good)
1 cup chopped pecans (optional - I usually don't use)

Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Combine flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, water, oil and pumpkin. Stir until blended. Add nuts. Mix well. Pour into two 9x5" loaf tins. Bake 1 hour (I usually have to do 70 min in my oven) or until done. Cool slightly and take out of pans to let cool on a rack. This tastes best if you wrap, refrigerate and wait one day to eat it. It keeps well in the fridge and can be frozen.

Well, that's all for now. Brian is going to post about his recent trip the the Philippines. I hope you all enjoyed the pictures and I encourage you to try the Pumpkin Bread.