original little hellraisers

(photo gallery of the philippine trip here)

december 8^th

owen and i started the day searching for donuts. he’s not eating much at all here – he’s always been finiky, but this is taking it to new levels. he’ll eat a bit of orange, and then he’ll ask you to make toast and then he’ll eat his slices of cheese. and then, really, all he wants is cookies and candy. it’s totally not his fault. we don’t exactly set him up with a positive food role model. we eat crap, he eats crap.

anyway, there are loads of donut stores here… in malls. there’s none outside of malls near us. so, we walked and walked and walked to end up at a 7-11 of all places that sells mr. donuts donuts. there is a place here called go nuts that cracks me up, but we haven’t had those yet. after about 2 hours of walking, we ran back to the apartment so we could head out to manila ocean park.

manilla ocean park was just built and it’s pretty awesome. it’s a giant (4 hectres of space) aquarium. it reminds me of the san franciscio academy of sciences. they’ve got a ton of interesting fish and as you might have guessed, owen went ape-poop in the place. we went with ran, liz, mika (their adorable daughter) and lola. mika tried to get owen involved, but he was being totally shy.

they have fully grown blow-fish, a gigantic spider crab (it was like 6 feet across), a shark tank, enormous manta rays, etc. it was pretty awesome.

at the top of the place though is a fish spa. this is huge in japan, but what it amounts to is fish that eat the dead skin off your flesh and rejuvenate your skin. i must say, and there’s video to prove it, it tickles. it’s like hundreds of fish nibbling on you at once. i heard in japan they do a full body thing with it, which i couldn’t imagine the… places… the small fish could get into and presumably start cleaning. true to their promise though, our skin did feel smoother. kara conceded it was like she had gotten a pedicure. we were quite the spectacle though and owen thought we were being hurt, so he started crying uncontrollably while we were laughing. a crowd gathered too. i blame that on kara. she has this surprised squeal that could summon whales.

heading back was another adventure in itself. we had been told the night before what manilla traffic was like. it took us two hours to take what should have been a 30 minute trip. it’s pretty intense. pedestrians just stand in the middle of the street and cross whenever they want – cars just ignore the pedestrians until they just about hit them then they either swerve or stop. there are no noticeable lanes or traffic laws. people just drive super aggressive.

everything here is amazingly cheap. you can buy a condo for 300 bucks a month (plus some down payment). i’ve already praised the beer prices. clothes, food, taxis, etc. are all incredibly cheap. we’ve not even spent 120 dollars in the time we’ve been here so far. but there is such an incredible divide here between rich and poor. the filipinos that we have been spending time with refer to their country as the third world. to me, it just reminds of a nation in mid-development – there are these brand new malls everywhere that would rival everything you’ve seen at home. a few blocks away though and you have these ramshackle shanty towns that stand on rickety legs and look as though they’re going to fall over in a strong wind. barefoot kids (and by kids, i’m talking 4-6) wander through traffic looking for hand-outs. people sell whatever they can at intersections to make a living. it is such a stark juxtaposition – something we saw quite a bit of in costa rica, mexico, etc. the kids are enough to break your heart…

december 9, 2008

the revolt has begun.

today was spent consoling pissed off kids. maybe the jet-lag is finally catching up to them. owen, still refuses to eat, tested our desperation with mcdonalds. he still didn’t eat. and the fries taste the same, trust me.

kara did a bit of shopping today while i waited with owen to take his afternoon nap. he woke up briefly in the middle somewhere and just started screaming for kara. his shirt was soaked with sweat and despite all my best efforts, i couldn’t really calm him down. this culminated with him needing to pee and everytime he coughed or cried the stream would intensify. he hit the wall.

eventually he calmed down after taking some milk (but was pissed that his cup was cold – i had to make a poor-man’s coozie out of my shirt). he likes having his head and back “tickled” and fell asleep on the couch. from where i type this, i can see the pool of drool forming.

meanwhile, my stomach is on a revolution of its own. not sure what i ate (or drank?) but the liquid gnarly has visited and is here with a vengeance.

dylan refuses to take a nap and has been screaming for the past 40 minutes. if this was owen we wouldn’t even be able to type this right now. (as i write this though, kara goes to console the little man – his voice is hoarse now.)

we head to boracay tomorrow for what is advertised as a relaxing beach stay.