Filipino Adventure

 Mikee: Tito (Jan-Eric) had a foot operation in July and Tita (Jennifer) asked Eric and me, if we wanted to go on a Filipino adventure, while Tito’s foot healed. Of course we jumped at such proposal. A few days after Tito came out of the hospital and we could see that he was fine we jumped aboard a plane and flew to Manila. Tita Jennifer first took us to the north of Luzon, the main island of my country. We visited several old colonial towns and she dragged us into several museums. Both Eric and I pretended we liked the museums, but to be honest they were quite stuffy. But we had adventures too. I was zip lining across a beautiful lake. Eric and Tita felt it was too scary but I loved it.

And we went to sand dunes. They opened them up specifically for us and we had a four by four to cross the dunes and then we drove quad bikes. It was steep and especially downhill it was quite scary. I got on a surf board and surfed down the dunes, while Eric just watched us – and mainly his iPad. But we had lots of fun. And it was cool to see the old churches too. i didn’t know so much about Filipino history before.

Eric: After that we flew back to Manila and down to Bicol, where Mama was born and where Lola, my grandmother, lives. We stayed with them for a week. Mikee spent some time with her dad but what was really cool was all the surfing we did. Mama had arranged surf boards and teachers for us and we went out. I was really good. Mama and Mikee said that too, so it is really true. And one of our teachers was Riza’s previous boyfriend. Cool! When I see Riza again, I must remember to tease her about that.

And we met all my cousins and uncles and aunts at Lola’s and Lolo’s house. But the surfing was the best on our trip.

Mikee: After Bicol we flew down to one of the islands in the Visayas, Bohol. Bohol is famous for its chocolate hills. They look like chocolate pralines and when it is dry they turn brown like real chocolate. We took a day tour around the hills with car and quad bikes and river boat. We saw a tiny monkey (well, sort of monkey anyway) only 10 cm long (if you exclude his enormous tail) that was hidden among the bush. But as always I like the adventures most of all. And we had lots of adventures. I learned to scuba dive and we were down to a depth of 18 metres among all the fish and coral. It was soon beautiful. And we were bicycling across a line far above the hills. It felt scary, Tita said, but I just felt it was so much fun. See how happy I look on the pictures.

Eric: Thank you Mama for arranging all this for us. Mikee and I loved it. Mikee was very brave driving the quad bike down those steep slopes and cycling across the line and diving among the coral. And then we came home to Papa, who told us that he had been able to walk around the garden the other day. That is not much to brag about, is it, when you can venture around the world with your Mama? And Mama took such nice photos too! Look at her long range shots of me surfing. Good, aren’t they?