THE MOTHERLAND
For the holidays, I had nice vacation with my family in the Philippines.

I esp. enjoyed going out to another island without the parents and BE on vacation. Me, my brother and 4 other relatives went on boat rides, swimming, snorkling, ATV-ing and hiking. It was so relaxing and also so nice to have a real shower with hot water!

Most of time, in the provinces, we have to bathe with cold water. With that first tabo of cold water, it's like *burrrrrrr!*shiver!* then it's ok 'cause it's so hot in the PI. To get warm water, you have to boil a huge pot of water and mix that water in a bucket half full with cold water to get it warm! It wasn't new to me since I have been to the PI before but I just missed a shower. It was such a luxury!

Another funny thing: back in '97, they used to have these Mexican novelas/soap operas dubbed in Tagalog. A bunch of them! Lately, they have alot of Korean soaps dubbed. My aunt told me that I missed the Taiwanese phase a couple years ago. It was really odd "listening" to Mexicans and Koreans speaking Tagalog.


I met so much family again and started to get everyone down for the family tree. All my lil' cousins, nieces and nephews were so cute! A bunch of them sang to me (in English and Tagalog) on New Year's. Two nephews on my mom's side kept playing games with me even though we could barely communicate with one another. It took like a week for us to not be shy with each other so I was so fun getting over it and just playing!

This trip was one of the best xmas presents my parents gave me. I have other memories I would like to share. So far, this is what I have time to blog. So stay tuned, k?