Day 03 in Baguio Philippines

This is a view from my window. I see this every morning when I wake up.

This is what happens when I tell Loida to smile.

Making flower pots out of old car tires.

The neighborhood 

The road from Loida's house

Flowers alongside the road

You can see goats everywhere.

Hamburger and hot dog stand.

20 pesos is a little less than 50 cents USD.

Here is my burger. It was quite good.

At a restaurant. Everything was about 500 pesos. About $12 USD. Probably a bit expensive for the Philippines. 

Taro ice cream dipped in taro chocolate. 14 pesos. Almost 35 cents.

Jazmine just got out of school

Waiting to go to the barber

I am next

I think this was the second or third time in my life for going to an actual barbershop

So far so good.

Since I don't pay to get my haircut in America, I don't know what the typical price is. My guess though is that it would be less than 50 pesos. (About $1.20 USD)

Got the razor out. No cuts!

Got a "nice" head and shoulder massage (I think I would have preferred not to have one).

This is how you can know a country is awesome. Pez!

Mango marshmallows!

Day 02 in Baguio, Philippines

Loida looking out the window in the morning

Me with my new best friends Jazmine and Arbee

After doing real bowling the day before, we decided to try out something called "Duck pin bowling." It is basically a mini version of normal bowling.

The lanes, pins and balls are smaller. I found that I did much better in normal bowling. Duckpin bowling was much cheaper though! It was only 30 pesos a round. That is just over 70 cents. 

The balls are like mini shot puts. 

You don't have to wear special shoes. Here you can see Loida bowling in her sandals. 

You can't really see it in the picture, but there is a guy who manually sets up the pins and rolls the balls back to you.

No computers to keep score.

Here there are a lot of cheap pastries that are amazing! Nothing like what you buy in China. These things are good!

This reminded me of a cinnabun. This was basically a cinnamon roll (minus the cinnamon). It cost only 10 pesos.  A little less than a US quarter.

View of the city

First day as a tourist in Baguio, Philippines

This is a view from Loida's house looking up. To go to the road, you have to take a short hike.

It is about a 30 minute hike from the small road to get to a main road where you can go into town.

Seeing goats along the street is very common.

This is looking down onto Loida's house and neighborhood. Her house is the rusted roof on the bottom right hand corner.

Look at this closely and you should be able to figure out what tree this is. Bwa ha ha! It is not a tree at all! It is a fern! I have been really impressed with what grows here. So far I have seen huge fern, pine trees, poinsettias, palm trees and bamboo.

I think they still use bottles here quite frequently.

With my Baguio T-Shirt.

First meal I got was Pizza. And it was good! Definitely much better than anything I have had in China. This pizza cost around $7 USD.

Thought this sign was interesting. Not so subtle way of saying "We want to hire someone good at flirting."

These vehicles are called Jeepneys. They are the way probably at least of 60% of the people travel here. Here is a slightly comical but mostly true description of the jeepney experience.

Cool sign. Wish they had this in China.

Went bowling! Didn't do so well though.

I have been eating a ton of street food. It is amazing and super cheap!

They have donuts here that taste like donuts! YES! (bottom left in case you don't know what a donut looks like).

Day 01 here as a tourist was fantastic. I have been constantly amazed at the beauty that surrounds me here.

Trip to the Philippines! Going to church.

After not having slept for a good couple days, I slept wonderfully through the night. I was excited to go to church today in a real church building!

(By way of note, while I was in Hong Kong, I bought a new phone [Galaxy Nexus]. I have loved playing with the phone, and while the camera on the phone is not the best, it is still quite good. What's more is that any picture I take using my phone automatically uploads and is super easy to post here on Blogger. That being the case, I will mostly just be showing images with commentary. Hope you are OK living without my often sarcastic or snarky remarks, but with my limited time, this is a better way for me to show what I have been doing.)

This is the view I woke up to. Needless to say, it did not take me long to fall in love with Baguio, Philippines.

Arbee and Jazmine decided to go to church with us today!

Panoramic view from my window.

Loida grabbing the first flower she sees upon leaving the house. 

Arbee smiling

I told him to smile big!

It has rained every day I have been here so far.

Loida ready for dinner.

Rain.

This is a note that Jasmine wrote to me. Probably the sweetest note I have ever received from a girl (I suppose technically it was from both Arbee and Jazmine though). It came folded somewhat like a crude paper airplane and this is what it says: "Open - From: Arbee and Jazmine. Directed by Arbee and Jazmine. | We love you so much. Open. Your handsome. Tito Mckey. I love my family and tito Mckey. From: Jazmine and Arbee. | I love you!

Tito means uncle.
Also of note, I am usually saddened when people spell my name McKey (after me telling them how to correctly spell it), but when a 5 and 6 year old boy and girl spell it that way, I think it is quite endearing (and a bit impressive!)

Church was great. It was nice to talk to missionaries and be in a real church building. After church we all went home to eat lunch and relax for the rest of the day.

Trip to the Philippines! Hong Kong to the Philippines.

The original weekend plan was this: go to Hong Kong, meet my girlfriend there; we would both apply for our work visas. A day after getting our work visas, we would return to China and live happily ever after.

After living in China for more than a second, you realize that things never really go as planned. On Wednesday I rushed to the foreign affairs office to apply for my visa a second time (I did it the previous week just to be told my documents were outdated). This time I was told I was missing a document. I assured the girl I had everything and showed her all my documents.

In despair I went to the nearest place with Wi-Fi (my only way of communication in Hong Kong) only to receive a message that my girlfriend would have to remain in the Philippines. Double ouch. Talked to my boss. Found out that I did in fact have the correct documents but I showed the girl the wrong ones. Yay. I could not return to the office because it was already closed, so I would have to remain in Hong Kong an extra day.

Me having done a lot of traveling for a visa just to be rejected started feeling bad for myself but feeling much worse for my girlfriend who had been rejected no less than 5 times at this point (and who had to do much more traveling than me in order to get rejected). I asked my boss if I could go to the Philippines to visit my girlfriend since I had the next week off for the Chinese national holiday. He said probably not. Then probably. Then stuff happened and I am in the Philippines! Woot!

I spent the next couple days in Hong Kong arranging plane tickets for the Philippines and trying to find some clothes I could wear for the next week (being smart and a light packer I decided all I needed for an overnight trip was two pairs of shorts and two t-shirts. I had no idea my overnight trip would turn out to be a week and a half long).

On Friday night I went to the airport. Spent the night there, then flew out Saturday morning. After waiting for about an hour to go through immigration, I was finally able to walk on Philippine soil (or at least asphalt).

After meeting up with my girlfriend, we took a jeepney, then took the 5 hour bus ride to her house. Between nap sessions in the bus, I was able to look at the countryside and be thrilled looking at a country that had green everywhere and little to no pollution to block my view.

Yay for the Philippines!