Movin’ to the country…gonna eat me a lot of…Halo Halo?

Moving days are not our favorite days, what with all the packing and reorganizing and tidying and loading ourselves up with our all our belongings, but it went pretty well, all said, and we were able to fit in a bit of school and a bit more swimming.

This pool was a godsend, we’ll miss it!

We tricycled up to the local immigration office (feels nearly normal cramming four humans, four backpacks, two suitcases and a duffle onto a glorified side car these days…even amusing when I got out and my ENTIRE leg was asleep and I had to gimp in the tingly beast for 5 minutes.) Unfortunately the immigration office did not do visas longer than 59days and so we’ll need to go to the Manila office. Sigh. On the up side we were in a fancy air conditioned mall where we could treat ourselves to Halo Halo!

Included here: ube ice cream, jack fruit, sweet beans, jellies, flan, jellied coconut, ube, and ‘saba’ banana atop shaved ice and sweetened condensed milk

Other fun sights:

Getting ready for Christmas! It’s a month ending in ber you know 🙂

This was great and pretty common: PWD = people with disabilities and also includes pregnant ladies. They also had this at the grocery store that included people with infants or little kids. Love it.

And we were off to our new place…and it was a little further out. But actually it was a bit of a relief because as much as we have been enjoying our trike rides, I was about to join the Asian masses and get a mask to cope with the pretty oppressive exhaust and general air pollution.

It was nice to go back and back into more green and jungle

I hope you can imagine Marion’s joy when we were greeted by our hostess and her 5 year old daughter Lylou, a little girl who speaks English, French and Tagalog and was decked out in dripping diamond earrings, plastic Liz Taylor necklace and unicorn gear. Like the heavens opened up. The girls immediately fell to Lylou’s legos and then out to explore and play in the yard. A hammock for Alys and more kids for them both brought smiles to all our faces.

As You May have seen in Chads post we are staying in a more traditional style ‘Nipa’ house. It is big and airy with beautiful wood floors and two big bedrooms for us. There is, of note, no A/C. So sad. Mulongkot. Ugh the Tagalog is pitiful, but we’re trying! And it is super awesome staying with a family who will help us. I find the Lola a particular delight and help in repeating and teaching. She has a house in the backyard…they all sort of share a space with her folks and a bunch of neighbors, nothing is demarcated and the kids and dogs and cats and chickens all roam around untethered (except the roosters) amongst the homes. In fact the girls are currently in the neighbors house watching TV. (Head shaking, I think it’s ok, they tell us it is, but I feel like we’re imposing anyway. But the girls are happy).