The Philippines is where we will be this week. It is obvious that we are in Manilla instead of Tokyo or some city in the U.S. because of..........
the streets, the people, and
those who are selling all sorts of goods to motorists for a day's wages.
You see billboards the size of 15 story buildings.
You find piles of rubbish or belongings on the side of the road.
I'm not quite sure if this is garbage or someone's storage unit.
You see small businesses almost built on top of each other without power and trying to survive. How do they get away with selling cell phones without power? Hmmmm........
You see Dong Won Gardens that sells clean and fresh meat. Not to be confused with other places that sells the dirty and rotten meat.
You will find Dunkin' Donuts not only in NYC, but you can't miss seeing a Dunkin' Donuts shop in Manilla. I wonder if they are fresh?
Some businesses cater to walkers instead of drivers so they block off part of the street and put out chairs! Interesting....
You can buy your new refrigerator right off the street! Notice the wide selection. I wonder what else you can buy there?
Here is a shopping mall. It is surrounded by chain link fencing for "security" purposes.
You may be able to run, but you will never be able to hide from the Golden Arches!
Walking to work and have no time for breakfast? Don't worry, you can find all sorts of food sold on the streets!
In a traffic jam and you're hungry? Jump out of your car, get off the Jeepney, hop off the tricycle, or stop your motorcycle and grab something to eat off the side of the road. It's got to be tasty!
Need an eyebrow job? Maybe you should pray about it before you go in.
You see statues of various kinds all over the city. This represents the people's freedom from a bad government at one time in their history. From what people tell me and from the looks of things, the people may have to liberate themselves again from a corrupt government. Hmmmm...... I'm trying to think what role model in the world that they would have right now?
Another statue. Anyone out there know who this is?
You see Jeepneys lined up at gas stations or driving on the roads more often than you see cars.
You see people just hanging out at the gas stations.
Some Jeepneys do some great advertising for all sorts of businesses and causes. It looks like this one is hoping to save people not only from walking, but to turn them to
God. The guy has great intentions!
These "tricycles" are a great mode of transportation. I think the charge is around 7 cents. Cheap!
Just go find a tricycle stop and you have a ride anywhere! It would be interesting to do a medical survey on these tricycle drivers lungs......???
I'm not sure if there are regulations on the number of people you can put on your tricycle, so load those people on and take off!
Some people prefer riding by themselves, but finding your motorcycle after you park it may be difficult especially if yours.........
looks like everyone else's!
We next see some of the living quarters in this city.
This place has walls, but no roof.
We find homes without electricity built on top of each other in noisy, dirty parts of the city,
we find them built in clumps of trees,
we find truck trailers being used as homes, or just plain old plywood and cardboard homes built wherever there is land. I'm pretty sure none of us should ever complain about our living conditions after seeing this. We are all blessed beyond measure to have what we have in the U.S. We need to get on our knees and thank God for the blessings of living in America. We need to be thankful to our founding fathers who sacrificed their lives to create a government in a new country that allowed liberty and freedom for all. A country where men are free to choose and work and become who they want to become without an oppressive government. A country where all have the opportunity to be educated and to love God. Everything in this world that has helped mankind has come from America because the people have been allowed to be creators, to be innovators, and to be free to choose their way of life. Nothing but gratitude and compassion fills my heart when I see this.
The first day of school started when we were there. It seemed as though people were hustling and bustling to get into their new schedules.
Uniforms are required in this school for boys and for
girls. This school looked like the boys and girls were separated in two different wings. Is that normal for schools in the Philippines?
This large building was built when Imelda Marcos was in power. It was built under a strict time line because of a big event that was happening in the country. Unfortunately, because of the time crunch, it was first built without safety measures and many people were killed because of accidents. With that in mind and the time limit in mind, they just covered up the bodies and kept building. It is now considered haunted. Our hotel was next to this place and I kept looking for ghosts, but either my eyes are really bad or I couldn't find any. Bummer!
Parts of the city are improved to make one think that this is like a normal "civilized" city that includes
high rise office buildings and apartments,
shrubbery that line the streets, and
beautiful architectural structures.
Let's now go to another part of Manilla.
A hotel.
You first go through security guards who have guns and dogs.
Once you go through a series of security checks,
these beautiful girls welcome you to the hotel with this beautiful
flower arrangement behind them. The arrangement was made with incredible, unique flowers that stood at least 12 feet tall. I just wanted to stand and gaze at it!
The woman standing next to Kent is Kate Bellosillo, who works with him. She always takes such good care of us and puts us in a nice hotel whenever we go to the Philippines. The other people are part of her wonderful family. Thank you, Bellosillo family!
The hotel grounds are beautifully kept with
flowers blooming and lush green plants.
The rooms were beautiful
with a nice comfy bed,
and the restaurants were spectacular. Check out some of the food at this buffet.
There was everything and every kind of food imaginable. Where's the Italian section, the Japanese section, and the salad section? Where's the dessert section? Where are all of the other sections? With all of the incredible food surrounding me, taking pictures must have slipped my mind! Really? It was a sight to behold!
Since Kent was in meetings most of the time, a few of us ladies decided to go out for an adventure.
Karen Breshears, Janeen Sargent and I went to the Quezon City LDS Mission Office to drop off some goodies for two missionaries; Janeen's nephew, and our dear family friend, Jenna Welling.
We made it after a little over an hour drive.
This big building not only houses the mission office, but it also serves as a ward building.
Here I am!
We took this picture of us and the office couple to send to the missionaries and to their parents.
Jenna's picture is third from the left. She is serving in Tay Tay, a section of the city.
These are the elders who help the mission president in the office.
As we were driving back home, we saw something very familiar that we had seen in pictures before!
The Manilla Philippines Temple. I'm pretty sure it is the most beautiful building in the country.
After our "act of service", we decided to go to the largest mall in Asia.
This is the main entrance.
There was security in every doorway.
There seemed to be a few nuns shopping when we were.
Dairy Queen? Check out where it is. Yep! Under the stairs!
Do you need some Philippine Pesos? No problems in this country. Currency exchange places are every where. The other nice thing in the Philippines is most people speak English! You can't beat that!
Let's check out some of the people....
Later on that evening, we went to a convention.
We were asked to wear traditional Philippine clothing. Kent wore a special occasion Philippine shirt and I wore a special occasion scarf. So fun to be part of the culture!
Janeen and Karen wore their scarves as well.
Kent and Michael "modeling" their shirts for us.
As part of the convention, they had some dancers come. Would you call this skilled or showing off? Amazing!
Games were played, awards were given, food was served and afterwards......
they hosted a dance! In order to get some of us out of our seats and on the dance floor, professional dance teachers were hired!! I loved it. It reminded me of my good ole' college days. It was great fun dancing with my little short friend! Let me tell you, he had the moves and was swinging me around like no one's business! Kent, maybe you could take lessons from him?
Let's check out the faces of these beautiful Philippine people.
On Sunday, we decided to go to the closest ward to our hotel. When we got there, we had a wild idea to go try to find where Jenna was attending church. These cute men helped us find the address of the other ward.
I couldn't help myself from taking pictures of these happy, beautiful people!
Missionaries serving in this ward.
A couple of young men.
Here we are with the missionaries and then off we went to find Jenna Welling.
We found her after about an hour drive!
It was sooooo fun to see her. She and our son, Jeff, who is serving a mission in the Michigan Lansing Mission, have been friends since they were babies. I have watched her and her siblings grow up. She and her family are like our second family.
Sister Welling with her companion and two other sister missionaries.
The people love her and she loves them.
Caught off guard!
This almost felt like a mother/daughter photo! I wished so badly that I could have teleported her parents there!
We attended a baptism where we sang
The Spirit of God.
Hello everyone back home! We love you. We wish you were with us!
Part of the building where she was serving.
The next day we went to dinner with some friends.
But before we got to the restaurant, we went to the fish market to pick out the fresh fish that we were going to eat.
These sweet people are the owners of the restaurant in which he developed all of the recipes.
Kent surrounded by two lovely ladies.
This particular shell fish is a cousin to the lobster and has to be kept in a plastic bottle to protect him from his friends and family who will eat him. Yes, they eat each other. Would we call them cannibals?
This couple also owns the fish market. The other lady works with Kent.
Here is an outside view of the restaurant.
And here are the dishes that were served to us.
Shrimp
A sweet and sour type fish.
Another cousin to the lobster?
Clams.
The killer shell fish.
Soup.
Lobster.
Rice.
Okay everyone. These are only a few pictures of the food we were served, and can I tell you that I have never had better seafood in my entire life. Yes, I'm originally from Seattle where there is fabulous seafood. I have been all along both coasts of the U.S. I have been in many Asian countries where fresh seafood is prevalent. I live in Japan that has the best food in the world, but I have never had better tasting seafood as this was. Our friend knows exactly how to put seasonings and flavors together with seafood. I told him that he needs to be on Iron Chef and I would bet money that he would win! I wish that each of you could have been there with us. It was so good. Even those of you who are seafood haters would have liked this. So yummy!
Here are pictures of all who partook of this incredible feast:
The next day, Kent finally took a few minutes at the end of the day to go out by the pool and relax.
I am so glad he was able to get in the pool and sit since he works himself ragged every day.
Check out these cute girls who were serving us at the pool.
This is a river type pool which was great!
Very nice.
Okay, people. If I ever go out in public showing off my belly like this, please someone slap me and drag me inside!
There are hundreds of ships that pass this hotel every day going from island to island. Do you know how many islands are in the Philippines? 7,107 islands. Yes, 7,107 islands. Incredible, right?
Enjoy the sunsets.
It was time to go home and as we walked out of the hotel a new floral arrangement bid us farewell.
So beautiful.
Off we went to the airport.
Security everywhere. Why? Because the police force doesn't work. It is up to each business or individual to hire their own security.
We were greeted with lines of people of all kinds. So interesting to see.
In the airplane ready to head back to Japan.
The dramatic difference between wealthy and poor in this country is a sad thing to see. Please remember how fortunate each of you are. Show your gratitude to God through your kind actions towards each other.
We love you,
Mom and Dad
Grandma and Grandpa
Uncle Kent and Grandma Barb
Kent and Barb
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