Pictures! Random! Good times! Philippines!

Goodbye Bacolod & Rotary GSE; Hello Manila and Luzon Area!

I can't believe it! 

GSE has come to an end...and we spent one of our last nights partying it up with our good friends...some of the wonderful, wild, vivacious women of Rotary in Bacolod.  We sang karaoke 'till our voices were scratchy, we danced 'till our feet hurt...we ate tons of food like lechon (an entire pig!), cake, and other delicious foods.  That was excellent.

Tommi heads out to her other adventures in Taiwan and Malaysia for the next two weeks; Emily is off to Palawan and other islands in the Philippines with her husband; and Lauretta & I are off on our own adventures in the north Philippines!

We arrived back in Manila just about 2 hours ago today. We booked some bus tickets to travel late tonight to Baguio City, 6 hours north from here.  We will depart at 11:45pm tonight and sleep on the bus :) 

We were adventurous and took a Jeepney from the bus station to the MALL OF ASIA; we're so proud of ourselves! We've finally rode in both a tricycle and a jeepney now.  So this mall...this place is giant!  It's like an entire city to itself.  But we have quite a few hours to kill...

Thanks to everyone we met through this fantastic trip.  We have been reminiscing on all the good times, the strange times, the funny times, the crazy times, and everything in between.  Overall...we are so grateful for our experience here and all the new friends we have made.  We want to come back and see more!

Much love to all our Filipino friends and beyond.  To all the Rotarians here and their spouses, families, friends, and all the support we received through this trip.  Our experience wouldn't have been as valuable and wonderful without all of you.  Thanks to all the Rotarians back home in Oregon in our district.  This has been a fabulous past 4 weeks....

Saying Goodbye

As we are wrapping up our GSE, we are saying goodbye to all of the friends and host families who have welcomed us, fed us, taught us, laughed at us, and laughed with us along the way.  We are excited to see a few of them in Oregon next month, and to all of the rest, we hope to see you in Oregon someday, or we'll drop by to say hello when we bring our families back in the future.

We are truly honored to have been welcomed so warmly into the Filipino community here in the Visayas.  From way down in Zamboanga, all the way up to the top of Pan-ay, we have collected beautiful memories and invaluable information.  Hopefully we can start up a few short-term and long-term projects which will bring our countries and respective Rotary groups closer through international collaboration. 

A giant thank you from the Oregon team to RI District 3850.  Please keep in touch!

Until we meet again   ;)

During the last week we enjoyed an Eco Park which is working to preserve some of the remaining critically endangered species of Negros such as the lovely philippine spotted deer. We spent time with youngsters at a day care education facility supported by Rotary and toured the historic remnants of a sugar cane plantation hacienda.

Bacolod, The City of Smiles

Currently, we are in Bacolod of Negros Occidental!  We've been here for a few days...and we will be here through DisCon, where we hope to see many of you once again! 

Again, we have all been so busy with fun filled days with Rotarians and our host families...it's been difficult to find time (or functioning internet) to post updates on our blog.

We had an amazing time through all of the cities.  Thank you everyone for the wonderful experience thus far...

Bacolod so far has offered us an array of exciting scenery, fun activities, amazing people and more amazing food.  We explored Mambucal forrest resort up in the mountains where giant flying fox bats reside, thousands hanging in the trees and flying through the sky above us as we soaked in a natural sulfur hot spring.  We explored the waterfalls and the varying trees and plants.  Beautiful! 

We also were able to tour the Hawaiian-Philippine sugar cane mill...a fantastic tour that showed how loads upon loads of sugar cane gets processed into the sugar crystals we love to eat! 

My host family took me on a lovely scenic view up the mountains to Don Salvador, a small town of 20,000-ish people.  That was amazing!  I was able to see many beautiful mountain rice terraces, higher altitude pine trees, waterfalls, and hills that resemble the Bohol Chocolate Hills. 

Pictures to come later!

Thanking our Hosts so far

With limited time right now, we have not done justice to all the other amazing hosts and locations that we have been treated to, for example, Antique! We promise to do more when possible. For now, thank you to all. Everyone should come and experience the Philippines for themselves if they can. Last night we were treated to dinner with Douglas, president of the Rotary club of Borocay. We leave tomorrow for Roxas so we all plan to go out dancing tonight. Last night I am afraid we all fell asleep before the party even started, but batteries need to charge before the fun can begin.

Iloilo, San Jose Antique, & Kalibo, in a nutshell!

I apologize that I don't have a lot of pictures up nor many descriptions right now...but here are some of our latest photos of where we've been!  I'll work on updating this more later...we are headed to Boracay today!

Our First Week in the Philippines: Zamboanga!

"It's More Fun in the Philippines!"

Zambaonga City, Philippines

"Asia's Latin City"

We arrived in Zamboanga on Friday, February 8th 2013...after a very long flight starting in Medford, Oregon to San Francisco, California, to Manila...a 12 hour layover in Manila airport was enough to drive one mad, but we handled it like champs and had a good time.  We even practiced our dance there.  

This is what we looked like in the Manila Airport...they turned the a/c on high, so we were trying to stay WARM in the Philippines! Who would have thought?? Ha ha!

Upon arriving to Zamboanga's airport...we were greeted like celebrities by all these wonderful Rotarians and family members!!  Everyone was so very excited, as were we!  Oh, and it was HOT and Humid!!

We enjoyed our first Filipino feast with the Zamboangan Rotarians at the Lantaka Hotel restaurant outside on the beach front.  Hello friends!!  From here and for the week, we were to meet our host families and go to many amazing places in the city!

 

We went to many places including the Pasonanca forestry park where the Rotary Watershed project was installed along with many other neat parks and recreational areas.  We were able to see the Chinese School's   annual Chinese New Year's Lion dance team perform at Paseo Del Mar!

Paseo del Mar; perfect for Valentine's Day couples to stroll along the water and watch the sunset :)

My host family (minus my Host Brother, Roel and their daughter Kayla)

Nanay, Patay, Me, Minette, Gaby

My Host family again!  Roel, Minette, Gaby, Kayla...we're all going to Santa Cruz Island!

Hello ladies! The GSE Team and the Fabulous Anna ...Santa Cruz Island, across the way from Zamboanga.

Lyn serving up some delicious crabs!  Sea food here is amazing and plentiful. 

And we were plenty protected...with a bunch of Coast Guard guys escorting us the entire time!  Plenty of armed guards around the Philippines!  However, right now in the Cities they have a Gun Ban for the duration of the upcoming elections.  

Yes, we went to a real cockfighting arena, filled with so many (mostly men) people!  It was both sad and yet induced a feeling of hunger within us.  Chicken...yum...

We met the Mayor of the City of Zamboanga!  That was a nice time.

We visited many schools, hospitals, and other vocational areas.  A very nice thing about Zamboanga City is the mixture of cultures and religions in a peaceful manner here...Many Muslims and Roman Catholics are located in this area and there are no major conflicts with the locals here from what we observed.  :)

 This is John bringing the 4 of us (Lauretta, Beth, Emily, and I) BALUT to try for the very first time.  Balut is the duck embryo of an egg that hasn't hatched.  These were 18 day old duck babies.  WE ALL DID IT.  I had the hardest time, look at my face here!  But...we did it!  Feathers, beak, and all.

OREGON!!!  Go Ducks! (Not Balut ducks!)

And then I attempted durian (sp?) ...stinky fruit with a sharp spindly outside and a creamy inside and the smell of funky feet!  They say "It smells like hell, but tastes like heaven!"....we beg to differ.  :)

Our first Governmental/Public hospital visit.  Very eye opening. Very understaffed, too many patients per nurses (50 to 1?!?!), and so much old equipment, technology, and just not enough resources to provide excellent care.  The private hospitals are much better, but it's only for the people with $$$ who can pay...

The ICU...these nurses work 6 days a week...every week.

Their Crash Cart.  Cardiac arrest, anyone?  That's their defibrillator.

Well, overall Zamboanga was a wonderful stay, and this post doesn't even do justice to the amazing people we've met and new friends we have...nor to the area and the beauty of Zamboanga.  Everyone is so hospitable and friendly, even the curious local onlookers and bystanders.  I will hopefully have more time to do a better post about this area in the future.  :)

Vinta sail boats are the City's symbol...colorful sails on narrow wooden kayak type boats with stabilizers.  Beautiful! 

We love you, Zamboanga!!  

-The GSE Team-

Emily, Beth, Tommi, Lauretta, & Kendra

(Posted by Kendra)