Today was a very slow start but I did get up early again to catch up on emails, planning and looking at travel itinerary.
I hung out at Julie's all morning, had lunch with her Father - baby squid in ink was wonderful.
After lunch Julie and I walked into the city and explored the wet market: quite interesting and once again I had every Filipino in site pointing and laughing. They are really amazed by foreigners, they call out 'Joe' - the word for white boy named after all the Americans that come here. We met up with Cots another Local CSer and did some more exploring, through the slums, more markets and finally along the beautiful boardwalk at the port. We walked along shared stories, enjoyed the fresh breeze and found a nice resteraunt on the waterfront to eat at. The food was very basic but nice, we ordered siszig - the strangest thing I have eaten here yet: cooked pork cartilage in mayonnaise, soy sauce and egg - yeah very strange. After dinner and more very interesting conversation we walked back into the city to meet Susy another local CSer. Susy was waiting for us at the festival performance: another exciting night of dancing, singing and loud music. This whole month long festival is such a wonderful thing bringing everyone out of their homes and as all kids are on holidays they have plenty of things to do. At night the streets are transformed into 100s of small bar/restraunts facing a huge stage with local bands. We sat and had a drink talked some more and made our way back to Julie's by about 12;30am. Another big day but once again full of adventure!