Day 9 - Philippines Trip

I shoulda started this blog on Day 1, but there was so much going on, it was impossible. In these past 11 days, we've seen such beautiful things in my homeland of the Philippines. Last I was here was in 1986. I look at it now and it is unrecognizable. Funny what 25 years could do to a country. Mega malls and high-rise condo complexes are scattered all over Metro Manila. It's quite amazing. They've got Starbucks coffeehouses all over, too. One thing we noticed was that almost all the cafes had great coffee... and we're coffee snobs.

I had a little problem with a stomach thing. I must have drank some bad water. I ached through 5 days of it until I finally asked a friend from here for advice. He said, "take Bactrim" Hmmm, "OK!" Did you know that they sell over the counter meds by the pill. So, I can go up to the pharmacist and say, "yah, can I buy 9 Bactrim tablets?" Cool right? I don't have to buy a bottle of 30, when I only need 9. Lol! Everybody in the hospitality and service industry are over the top nice and very accommodating. I feel bad when I only tip the 50 pesos (which is like $1.15) but locals tell me, that's the standard. I still try to slip in more, though... can't help it. So that's just a little teaser on my Philippines blog. Stay tuned and I'll tell you more about our visit to Cebu and Bohol. In the meantime, I gotta go to bed! It's 1:22PM... Guess I'm over the jet-lag. Type atcha soon!