Manila Manila is a sparse urban sprawl consisting of large malls and lots of villages. It is busy, polluted and traffic is unbelievable but you can get or do anything you want in Manila. I go there because that's we're my family is now based. I get to stay with my Lola who is the greatest little Filipino. My uncle and aunty look after us incredibly and we have the best time seeing the sights and going to the malls. Going to the cinema for a fraction of the pri...

Subic The journey to subic didn't go as planned as our tyre burst near the beginning and then we got stuck in traffic. Luckily we left early arriving at Aunty Marissa's family home at 11am instead of 9am. Zoobic Safari was our next destination. It was a crazy place. We got to have our picture taken with a real Tiger. I was quite nervous but was pleased we were not posing with the gorgeous huge white tiger in the cage angrily pacing up and down his cage. The ti...

Sagada Caves An early start after a restless night being kept awake by the bloody roosters next door. The road trip to Sagada was scenic and beautiful. Our first stop was an early morning view of the Banaue Rice terraces, they say are 2000 years old and still an effective way of growing rice today. An extraordinary man made wonder. We drove along the edge of the mountains on narrow windy roads that I imagine in rain would be highly dangerous. The mountains se...

We left on Thursday (29th) evening at 10pm. We left the house at 5pm to ride a jeepney, bus, jeepney to meet Auntie Marissa in Makati and watch the beautiful Christmas light show and have dinner (pizza & pork bbq and rice cake) in an outdoor market before getting another bus to the coach that would take us to Banaue. After 10 1/2 hours we arrived on Friday morning at our home for the weekend a place called Las Vegas that had incredible views out of its back ...

Manila Monday morning on our way to Greenhills and in the distant there is a huge black cloud of smoke rising. As we get closer you can see the flames and people surrounding the area as they watch their homes burn to ash. The squatters area was burning fast as their homes are made of cardboard, tin, wood reclaimed scraps. People were trying to save as much as they could. Getting very close to the flames to grab what they could. Families knocked holes into the ba...