Welcome To Leopard

Just upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5 this weekend. Still restoring applications and settings right now but all looks good. The new Safari even supports Blogger's additional blogging tools.

She's Sick Today

We got a call from our daughter's school today. She wasn't feeling well and threw up at school. My wife had to hurriedly changed her plans for today. She was supposed to help out at my son's kindy and do a show-and-tell with the boy about the Philippines. Instead, the boy had to do it by himself with some help from his teacher.

The little girl is resting now, she had a 38.9C fever this afternoon which came down but she's still not feeling well and is now resting in bed. Anyway, we tried getting a doctor's appointment for tomorrow but we were suprised that they were fully booked and the earliest appointment we can get is Monday. At any rate, we just gave her parecetamol for now and she's sleeping early tonight. We hope she'll be better tomorrow.

From The Travel Journal: Manila Leg

1.10.07

Yesterday it was (cousin) Maya's birthday and when we played the first game I won the grand prize and before that I helped decorate the cup cakes. And we couldnt eat the cake because Maya is going to have another party. Then we went to sleep.

3.10.07

Yesterday we went swimming at the palms club. My favourite thing was going in the deep pool because I could do a bomb. Then we had lunch. For lunch I had cold noodles and plain rice. Then we went home.

5.10.07

Yesterday we went shopping. We had breakfast at a hotel. Then we went to the Manila Polo Club. Later then we went to Fully Booked ( a book store ). And later we went to Krispy Kreme. And we had a grand tour and I made my own doughnut. And after we had dinner.

7.10.07

Yesterday we met Tita Zai and Tito Ian. We had lunch together. And then we went shopping. While I was waiting for Tita Zai and Tito Ian my tooth fell off and that night the tooth rat came. ( The tooth rat didn't take a bath ).

8.10.07

Yesterday we had early Christmas. For dessert we had jelly. The colour of the jelly was green and red. And we opened the presents. There were lots of presents. We had lots and lots of fun!

From the Travel Journal

18.9.07

On Tuesday I went to Dumaguete. Lola Etts gave me and a bear. I called mine Briana and my brother's was called Buster. My bear was pink. My brother's bear was brown. I like my bear because it's pink. My mum doesn't like it because it's too pink.

19.9.07

Yesterday I played bowling. My team won which was called Tito Tater B.B. ( team ). I can't put itdown because it's no appropriate. Then we got ice cream which was my prize. I got 500 extra points ( that's how we won. )

21.9.07

Today I went to the beach. We had a little swim and then we had lunch. Then we had another quick swim. Then we had a wash up and then we found shy plants. A shy plant closes it's leaves when somebody touches the shy plant.

23.9.07
Today I went to the beach. We swam in the sea with Fykee, Dad, Tita Zai, my brother, Tito Ian and Tita Jaja. Then we had ice cream and then we looked for fossils. And then we went home and then we had a hair cut.

25.9.07
Today I went swimming. It was lots of fun. My mum was scared because she didn't want to go on the kids slide because she will hit her buttocks. Then we had dinner. Later then we went home.

28.9.07
Yesterday I went out for dinner. I had spaghetti bolognese. I was the first one to finish. Then we went to the boulevard. Then we went to a place that my mum and dad partied after their wedding. We had dessert there then we went home.

Philippines Holiday 2007: Dumaguete

We arrived in Dumaguete on we were met at the airport by my parents and my brother. We haven't seen them in a couple of years so it was really good to see them again. Of course, they were especially glad to see the kids and it showed. We planned this vacation probably almost 10 months in advanced so we could coincide with my own parents vacation from the US and it was great to sort of see the plans come together.

The old house is still standing and flourishing, I think, thanks to the Canday-ong gang. I can't say the same for the rest of the neighborhood though. At first glance, Dumaguete seemed to have let itself go, it's not as clean, nor as orderly as I remember. But then, after a few days, I realised that I was probably has always been like that. A little more people, a little more chaotic, but still the same Dumaguete as before.

Our days in Dumaguete consisted mostly of eating and sleeping, LOL. I should let the girl tell you all about it but she's packed her journal now ready to be shown to school tomorrow. Seriously though, it was great to see the family again. Particularly great was to see them with their grandkids, their niece and nephew. Back here in Adelaide, my wife and I often talk about how our kids antics can only be seen and appreciated by us, and how we wish the rest of the family could see them. Well, this holiday the rest of the family finally got to see how great the kids have turned out so far. I was particularly happy that the kids actually got to spend quality time with my siblings and parents, from tickling Lola Etts in bed, to watching TV with Lolo Dadad, going bowling with Tito Tater Bum-bum or eating out with Tita Zai. It was too bad that my youngest bro couldn't be there with us but I'm sure we'll get to see him soon, I hope.

At any rate, vacation time is never enough and despite having the most wonderful time we had to leave all too soon.

Philippines Holiday 2007: First Leg

From my daughter's travel journal:

17.9.07

On Sunday I went to my Mum's house. Uncle Teddy picked us up from the airport. The whole family was awake to meet us. There was Lolo, Lola, Tita Gina, Tito Teddy, Tito Jody, Tito Martin, Maya and Tita May.

Tita Gina gave us a gift. The present was pens and bathers that were pink. Then we went to sleep.

Tito = Uncle Tita = Auntie

We arrived late on the Sunday night from Singapore but my wife's family were still up to meet us and the kids. We were staying a day before catching another plane ride to Dumaguete.

We were happily surprised that the grandparents eschewed their usual sleeping time to eagerly wait for their apos arrival.

18.09.07

On Monday I went to the mall with Tita Gina, Mum and Dad, Nico and me. Tita Gina and I got name tags and ice cream. My brother and I went to a little playground then we went back home.

She had these tiny ice cream cones which was really cute.

Philippines Holiday 2007: Starting Out and Singapore Stopover

So we just got back from our short 4 week holiday. It seemed like quite a quick holiday for us because this time we spent it both in Dumaguete and Manila. Both my parents and sister were coming back from the US and it was sort of a little family reunion. Anyway, had too much fun too actually sit down and blog during that time as I notice that I did not do any blogging for the whole month of September. As my sister says, why blog it when you can live it.

Actually, there was one person who was actively writing about our trip. The little girl actually had travel journal which she wrote on almost every day. She was going to miss 2 weeks of school so her teacher gave her a travel journal so she would have something to do. Her teacher even gave a travel journal to the little boy so he wouldn't feel left out as well. What I might do is just to "copy" what she wrote.

15.9.07

On Saturday I went on a plane. It was called Singapore Airlines and Joyce and Justin brought us to the airport. When I looked out of the window and I saw red desert and I learned that theres lots of deserts in Australia. And the plane went over and through the clouds. And then we went a bus to go to the Elizabeth Hotel. We had trouble opening the connecting door.

Our good friends here actually brought us the airport even though we had an early flight. We still had time to kill in the new Adelaide airport so we stopped by the kids playroom had a little breakfast and looked around until our flight boarded for Singapore. On the plane to Singapore, the kids were actually quite good and excited as they got to play with the in-flight entertainment system. The kids are well taken cared of on Singapore Airlines flights as they were also given activity books and crayons as well as having good tasting children's meals.

We thought that they might have time to sleep on the flight but they stayed awake all the way so we parents were actually on our toes alternately taking them to the toilet or helping them finish their food or helping them work the in-flight entertainment system.

We got to Singapore it was still 6PM local time. We were staying overnight until our plane trip to the Philippines the next day and as part of our itinerary we had a hotel booked and we took a mini-bus to get there. We used to stay in 1 star hotels on our layovers in Singapore because we knew we wouldn't be staying long but this time around we stayed in a 4 star hotel and we could really tell the difference. The Elizabeth Hotel was only a few blocks away from Orchard Road so the kids got to see how busy the shopping district was on our way to the hotel.

We already asked for adjoining rooms in advance but when we checked in, they only had 2 separate rooms available. It was a good thing the nice Filipina receptionist was able to upgrade us to a junior suite and we enjoyed the luxury even if it was only for an overnight stay. We did, however, had a little trouble opening the connected rooms and by he time housekeeping helped us out and we all settled in it was already late. We decided to get some room service and called it a night after that.

16.09.07

Sunday I went to Singapore Zoo. I went to see some animals. I saw the Splash Show and after that held 2 birds with my dad. Then we went back to the Elizabeth Hotel.

The next day, we were still getting used to Singapore's humidity so after breakfast ( buffet! ) we had a dip at the hotel pool. It was a bit drizzling but the kids didn't mind. Our flight didn't leave until late so we decided to go see the Singapore Zoo. It was a good experience and certainly it was quite bigger than the Adelaide Zoo. We didn't get to see all of the animals but were able to see the elephants, hippos and of course, our girl's favourite animal, the flamingos. We were even lucky enough to catch the Splash Show where they had performing seals and penguins. We didn't stay too long because we felt the heat really getting to us and we made our way back to the hotel in time for our bus ride to the airport.

I'll write ( or copy ) what we did next in another post. This one's already getting long! But more photos in our Flickr page. Singapore Stopover Set

And We're Back

Just spent what seemed to be a very short 4 weeks in the Philippines for a holiday! For those who were wondering where we went, we spent over a week in Dumaguete and about the same amount of time in Manila. Very short vacation indeed but it was so great to catch up with family we haven't seen in so long.

I still have a couple of days holiday left so I'll find the time to sift through the pictures and blog a little about our little whirlwind trip. Suffice to say, we're back in Adelaide safe and sound.