Phillipines

I just returned from my vacation in The Phillipines. It was a paradise in every sense of the word. The landscape is all palm trees, and tropical flowers. The people were fantastic and unbelievably friendly. I did my PADI open water SCUBA certification in Moalboal, which is on the island of Cebu. My instructor was Albert the gentle German, whose competance was matched only by his sincere love of the sea. The course took 3 days, 90% of which were spent underwater. I dived various sites including Kasai, Talisay, Pescador Island, and an airplane wreck. I saw lots of coral, turtles and of course, fish. I stayed at a place called the Asian Belgian Resort, owned by, you guessed it, a Belgian fellow named Daniel and his Filipina wife Mary. They went out of their way to make me feel like one of the family. In fact there 7 year old Tommy was my tour guide for The Moalboal Orchid Farm. I had the entir place to myself all week, except for Thursday where Daniella and Raphael, a Swiss couple, showed up. The staff also showed me around the town as well as a daytrip out to Kawasan Falls. Yes that's me the first stupid foreigner to leap off the cliff. I took meals with the family and spent my nights either drinking beer in Panagsama Beach, or just swinging in the hammock, playing guitar and singing with Joan and her sister Irene. Actually little Tommy traded me guitar lessons for Cebuano language training, Salaamat dong, Tomtom. My guitar Greta was a big hit with the Filpinos, who spend almost all of their leisure time singing karaoke. The first morning I woke up in Cebu city, and went for a walk, I hadn't gotten 10 steps before a security guard stopped me and asked to jam. Soon the girls that worked at a nearby convenience store came out and started singing too, hilarious. Anyway here are some pics, I will publish more later.