Last Day in Jakarta… Ready for Bali!

Nov 9th

Before going to bed last night we made plans for the next day with Icha. She said that she would take us around for more sight seeing while Meza worked. This morning Jess and I woke up at 8:45am in order to be ready for our 9:30am departure with Icha. We were all ready to go and went downstairs 9:15am to have breakfast. The past two mornings one of the family members had been waiting for us to come downstairs and instructed us to have breakfast. This morning we went downstairs and no one was there. The table had food on it, like it had in previous mornings but there was no one there encouraging us to eat. Jess and I were unsure what to do. Not wanting to be rude we sat on the couch and talked hoping someone would come down and direct us to eat. No one came. We sat for about forty-five minutes before Meza’s brother (14 years old) came in from outside. He invites us to eat. It was funny because I’m sure it would have been fine if we just started eating, the family is so nice I’m sure that they wouldn’t have minded, but we wanted to wait for approval. We asked Meza’s brother where Icha was and he told us that she had gone to the bank and that we were the only ones home. We were kind of confused since it was over an hour after we were supposed to leave for our sight seeing adventures, but we decided to be productive with our time and pack our backpacks so we could leave as soon as Icha got back. At around 10:30 Icha came in and apologized for being late- it took her 3 hours to go to the bank- the traffic is crazy here. She packed her bag for our trip to Bali and we were off to start our day at 11am.

Our first stop was at this place that had replicas of the different types of traditional Indonesian houses from different Islands. They were all so different and it was really interesting to see since we are only able to visit two Islands on this trip. Since it was Monday many of them were closed, so we could walk around the outside but couldn’t go in.

 

 

 

 

Afterwards we decided to go to the mall and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and shopping with Meza’s sister and her friend. I bought two dresses because I am getting sick of wearing t-shirts and its too hot for yoga pants. I will hopefully get a chance to wear them in Bali!

When we were done shopping we went outside to the spot where the driver dropped us off. Icha called him to ask him to pick us up, but there was no answer. She called again, no answer. Again an again and still no luck. At this point we really needed to get going, we didn’t want to miss our flight. Luckily Icha’s friend was still with us and had a car and offered to drive us back to the house. While we were en route the driver called and said he fell asleep and apologized profusely. It didn’t matter to Jess and I who drove, we were just glad we made it back to the house in time to grab our belongings and didn’t miss our flight. We arrived at the airport with an hour and a half to spare before our flight. Unfortunately Icha and Meza were on a different flight because they booked their flight much later than we did. Jess and I said goodbye to the driver and Icha and proceeded to the Air Asia check in only to find out that our flight time had been pushed back two hours and since we didn’t have a local phone number we weren’t informed. I was annoyed, but there wasn’t much that we could do. We went to Starbucks and grabbed a coffee and a comfy seat and got caught up on our blogs.

The flight to Bali from Jakarta was pretty painless. It was a quick one and a half hours (compared to the 14 hour flight from Chicago to Tokyo, 1.5 hours is like the blink of an eye). Our flight made good time in the air and we got in a few minutes early and to our surprise met Meza and Icha at the baggage claim terminal. We grabbed our bags and hopped in a taxi. The ride to our hotel was only 10 minutes which was nice. We checked in and got settled, we were all tired since at this point it was 1:30pm. I showered and was off to bed. We have an early morning with lots of beach time, we’ve got to get caught up on our rest!

Love,
Katie

Creepy Crawlers

Nov 8th

Last night as we were getting ready for bed  and Jess mysteriously had about 6 bites on her arms. They quickly turned red and started to itch, she applied anti itch cream and we blamed it on the fact that we are now in a tropical climate. Right as I was about to turn off the lights I happened to glance at the wall behind our bed and to my surprise there were thousands of tiny ants crawling up and down the wall. My gasp sent Jess sprinting to the other side of the room. Since we thought everyone in the house was in bed Jess went running down stairs to get the maid. Luckily as she was on her way down stairs Meza appeared and saved the day. She told us that the ants weren’t what caused the bites and that they are normal and it was okay to sleep with them.We talked for a bit and said our goodnights. Jess and I pulled the bed as far away from the wall as possible and we both went to sleep.

Our alarm went off at 8am this morning and I continued to lay in bed as Jess sorted through her backpack to pick out clothes to wear. I was startled awake by a gasp all to similar to my own- Jess had ants swarming her backpack. It turns out that Jess had her dirty laundry in a bag that once had a banana in it and the smell of the banana was attracting all of the ants. Jess spent the next 30 minutes going though every piece of clothing she brought and shaking the ants out of her clothes. Meza gave her a laundry bag and Jess was able to wash some of her clothing. We got dressed and I watched as Jess squirmed at the idea of having “Ants in her Pants” for real. I somehow remain bite free and ant free- that’s a first for me!

 

  

It’s probably a good time to talk about malaria. As most of you know malaria is one of the biggest threats when traveling to tropical places, especially third world countries. I visited the travel clinic before I left home and received malarone- the same malaria medicine that I took when I was abroad. I was instructed by the travel doctor to take the medicine one week before I entered the Philippines and every day until I got home in late December. I would be take the medicine for approximately a month and a half. I opened the bottle when I got to Hong Kong in order to start taking the medicine as directed, and much to my surprised I was only given 7 pills in total. I decided that my greatest risk for malaria would be in the Amazon rainforest so I will be saving the medicine to take while I’m there.  I’m not sure who messed up with my prescription- either the doctor or the pharmacy, either way let’s hope I don’t get malaria.

After getting ready for the day we headed downstairs and had breakfast with Meza, her sisters, Icha and Dina and her parents. Her parents were very friendly and welcoming and her dad speaks great English- we enjoyed chatting with him. All of the children speak English very well, which made communicating really easy! Meza is the oldest and of course went to high school with Jess for a year in Duxbury, Ma. The second oldest sister also studied in the United States with AFS, and her youngest sister is going next year! Two of her sisters started their own business, selling shoes that they paint. They design shoes, have them made especially for them, design drawings then paint them onto the shoes. Some of the shoes are so cool! They even have a website where you can buy them and they sell about 200 pairs a month and have 5 employees! I was very impressed by all of this!  Breakfast this morning consisted of two types of chicken, rice, and lots of mango! Jess had mentioned the morning before how much she loved mango so they had three different types of mango prepared for us to try- it was all great!

After breakfast Meza, Icha, Dina, Jess and I piled in the car and the driver took us sightseeing. Our first stop was 2 hours away at a tea plantation. We saw field after field of tea plants- they were cool to see up close. At the same stop there was a lady selling pineapple right on the side of the road so we bought a whole one for 30 cents and shared it- it was so sweet and fresh!

 

We got back in the car and drove for another hour until we reached Tang Kuban Perahu, which is an active volcano in Bandung. It was interesting because we could see into the creator of a volcano and saw some grey-ish liquid that was steaming and smelled like sulfur. We got some great pictures with all of us at the volcano.

 

 

Our next stop was at Saung Mang ujo, which is a music and performing arts center in Bandung. We saw a show put on by mostly kids, ages 3-15, and they sang traditional songs, danced the traditional dances and played the angklung. The angklung is a traditional bamboo instrument from this part of western Java (the Island we are on). Everyone in the audience learned how to play it and  after our lesson we got to play some songs that I recognized like “You Raise Me Up,” “Doe, Ray, Me, Fa, So, La, Te, Doe” (sound of music), and Momma Mia. I loved it. During the traditional dance piece Jess and I were pulled up on stage by two little girls and got to take part in the show. It was quite a site to see.

  

Our next destination was dinner. We were all quite hungry because we had skipped lunch. We went to dinner at this outdoor restaurant with waterfalls and bridges and paths you walk through to get to your table in a secluded hut. It was very private and comfy- the seats were filled with cushions. I tried ox tail, a food that is very common here, and I actually really liked it! I also tried some great tea, called Bandrek which is ginger tea with brown sugar and coconut pieces.

After dinner we stopped by Meza’s grandma’s house because she lives in Bandung. Meza’s grandma is so sweet and served us mango and chocolate. We also got to meet Meza’s two cousins who live with the grandma. The two cousins were 10 and 12 years old and they enjoyed pulling out every family picture and showing us. I pulled up a couple of pictures of my parents on my phone, but wished I had more to show.

We headed home, it was a long 2 hour drive. Everyone fell asleep in the car expect me (although I was exhausted!). I showered and jumped into bed when we got home- praying that the ants would leave us alone as we went to bed.

Love,
Katie

Jakarta, Indonesia

Nov 7th

The plane ride into Jakarta, Indonesia last night was interesting. We arrived very late at 11:55pm and just as we were about to deplane all of the lights went out. We sat in the pitch dark for about two minutes before the emergency lights came on. Even then we only had enough light to see silhouettes of each other- nothing else. The flight crew came over the intercom and said that we were having a problem connecting to the ground power supply. We ended up waiting for 25 minutes while they replaced the power outlet before we could get off. It was annoying and tired, but that’s part of the fun of traveling I guess. We then proceeded right to customs, where we realized that we didn’t have visas to enter the country. We knew that it was simple and cheap to get them when we arrived, but somehow managed to walk right past the visa counter on our way to customs. It was poorly labeled because while we were waiting at least 20 other people came from the customs area also having missed the visa counter. We paid the $10USD and got our visas. It’s really funny to me that USD are accepted at so many places. At the airport in the Philippines we bought dinner with USD (they had big signs everywhere saying “for your convenience we proudly accept US dollars“) even thought I think we were the ONLY Americans in the whole place. Regardless we were pleased that they took USD because neither of us had any Indonesian Rupiah’s yet.

Jess’s friend Meza and her sister met us at the airport when we landed. We all drove back to Meza’s house, which is huge and gorgeous. We got to their house just before 2am, and all went to bed right away. I felt bad because since they are Muslim the whole family gets up at 5am to pray then Meza had to go right to work after praying- she must have been exhausted!

Jess and I got to sleep in which was nice! We woke up very warm this morning and attempted to turn on the AC but couldn’t seem to get it to work. Then Jess decided to jump in the shower and quickly came back out saying the water was freezing. We quickly realized that the electricity and hot water was shut off by the time we got up, we‘re really experience the culture and will plan ahead in the future. We both took cold showers which actually felt really good after the initial shock because it was SO hot today- reaching 93 degrees without the humidity factored in.

After showering we headed downstairs where Meza’s mom and sister, Icha, was waiting for us with a full meal prepared. Her mom speaks very little English but sat with us and chatted- Icha translated for us. There was literally a feast on the table that was prepared by their maids. We enjoyed us soup with meatballs, rice, noodles. vegetables, fish, chicken, bread with chocolate chips which was really good - served with butter and chocolate sprinkles on the side. I loved the tea, which was the best tea I’ve ever had- I‘m definitely bring some home! We also had mango and salak (snake fruit). It’s native to Indonesia and grows on a species of palm tree. It tasted kind of like bubble gum!

Since Meza had to work, Icha and her friend took us around the city all day. It was nice having them to show us all of the best sites and translate. We were even lucky enough to have their driver chauffeured us everywhere we wanted to go. He came with us to all of the different sites but kept his distance most of time. He was really nice and pointed things out and explained stuff to us too, even though he didn’t speak a word of English, Icha translated everything for us!

Our first stop of the day was at the National Museum, which I thought was really cool. Then we went to Monas, the “landmark” of Jakarta. It is a 132 meter high statue with a gold flame on the top that was built by their first President in the 60’s. We got a private tour from a tour guide trainee. His English wasn’t that great but we just went along with it anyways and read most of the signs ourselves while nodding to whatever he said.

 

After that we headed over to the mall, which is also huge- we‘re starting to notice a trend with the malls in Asia… they are all HUGE. We had lunch and frozen yogurt. The Fro-Yo was fabulous… very refreshing on such a hot day! We went to this place called, Smooch where you get a bowl and fill it with as much yogurt as you want - there were 8 different flavors to choose from- then you put on the toppings that you want. The final bowl is weighted and you pay a certain amount based on the weight. It was great, I had acai berry and vanilla frozen yogurt topped with lots of fruit!

After our frozen yogurt we drove to the old part of town that was settled by the Dutch, called Kota Tua. The museums were already closed for the day but the sun was setting and we walked around the plaza, and it was beautiful. There were people everywhere, hanging out, some praying, and lots of street vendors, it was a really nice glimpse of a typical Indonesian Saturday evening.

All day getting between our different sites and places that we visited we encountered a lot of traffic and going to dinner was no exception.After spending a while in the car we arrived at a waterfront area and went to a restaurant where you get to pick your own seafood for dinner.

It was a little difficult for us because we didn’t really know what some of the choices of the sauces were, how the fish would be cooked and also didn’t understand what the options for rice and vegetables were, but everything ended up tasting great at the end. We had a feast and it only cost $10 each, we actually ended up having so much extra food that in the middle of our meal Icha called the driver to come into the restaurant and help us eat the food! For dinner we had salmon, crab, calamari, veggies, and rice. Everything was cooked in lots of sauce, but otherwise it was really good and fresh! I ordered coconut orange juice and it was served in a whole coconut which was really cool.

After dinner we were all tired and full so we decided to head back to the house. Jess and I each showered and caught up with our blogs. Off to bed!


Love,
Katie.

Bring on the Heat Manila!!

Nov 6th

We were up at 9am this morning so that we wouldn’t be late for breakfast. We packed our bags and got ourselves ready for a full day. We were both excited to head to the orphanage and spend time with the babies, but Ronald thought that we should do a different itinerary and wouldn’t allow us to go with John. We were both disappointed, but were ready to take on the rest of the sites in Manila. Our first stop was at Coconut Palace, which is a palace that was built for the pope’s visit in 1981. The pope thought the palace was tooextravagant and never ended up staying there. Just our luck, it was closed, so we looked from the outside. Today was HOT! I’d say that the temperature was above 90 degrees, Jess and I we’re constantly sweating and just couldn’t get hydrated.

Since the palace was closed we decided to jump back in the taxi and head to the Mall of Asia (the next stop on our itinerary made by Ronald). The Mall of Asia is the largest mall in all of Asia, and we could definitely see why! The mall even had an ice skating rink which I thought was the coolest!

We spent the rest of the day in the Manila Bay area. Our first stop was at the aquarium where we saw lots of cool fish, got to touch star fish and sea cucumbers, and even saw a cool jelly fish exhibit.

 

 

  

Next we headed to the Manila Hotel which was is the oldest hostel in Manila. It has a beautiful pool and a grand entrance with a band playing.

I felt very underdressed in my yoga pants and sweaty t-shirt. We were getting tired at this point, but decided to walk along Manila Bay. This is the spot that is supposed to have the best sunset in all of the Philippines (its sad- but the reason that the sunset is so beautiful is because of all of the pollution). We were shocked to see all of the trash floating in the bay, it was horrible to see car tires, bottles, and pieces of who knows what.

The walk along the bay was nice, we passed the US Embassy, the Philippine’s Navy base and the Manila yacht club. I during the walk I was surprised by the locals. Throughout our several mile walk we past probably about 50 locals, most clearly poverty stricken and resting from the heat. Some were sleeping in the shade, others were swimming in the dirty water and some where trying to make a living by selling massages, cold drinks, snacks, and tri-cycle rides. I was a little hesitant to walk by them especially because we were two young foreign women, plus I had heard about how dangerous the Philippines is. I was shocked that most of the people that we passed simply wanted to say hello and looked for just a simple “hi” and a smile in return. The people are all friendly there, not once were we in a dangerous situation. On our walk we did encounter people trying to sell us massages or rides on their tricycles or taxis, when we said no and that we wanted to walk they didn’t nag or follow us, most of the time they said “okay, have a good day,” it was great and gave me a new respect for them.

After our walk we were both so hot and exhausted that we decided to head back to the hostel. We were supposed to meet Paulo again for dinner, but he was running late and we we’re nervous that we would be late getting to the airport because the traffic had been so bad, so we had to cancel with him. We said our goodbyes to John and Chiato and were off!

 

The taxi ride to the airport was much like all of the taxi rides we’ve taken very fast with lots of stop and go traffic. Jess has gotten a little car sick on almost all of the taxi rides. I usually am white knuckled by the time we make it to our destination- its quite an experience.

We got to the airport with over 3 hours before our flight took off which ended up being way too much extra time. All of the airports that we have been to so far on our journey have been huge with lots of shopping areas and tons of restaurants. Since we had so much time to kill we decided to sit down at a restaurant and have dinner. Of course this airport terminal was very different from all of the other airports and had about 2 options for dinner both places were to go only and only served sandwiches. Jess and I shared a “Santa Club” (a club with spiced pears and ham) and a “Christmas Club” (a club on carrot bread with Christmas ham and pineapple). I really enjoyed them both. Here in the Philippines they love the holiday season and they say that as soon as the “ber-months” hit they start with the Christmas decorations and music- September, October, November, and December. I love that!



We spent some time catching up on our blogs and reading our books at the airport. Our flight to Indonesia is 3 hours and 45 minutes. We’ll be staying with Jess’s friend Mezaya at her home in Jakarta, then traveling with her and her sister to the island of Bali- were so excited!



Well that’s it for now… More to come from Indonesia!



Love,

Katie

Rain, Rain,Go Away!

Nov 5th

This morning we were awakened by the Chato, the house keeper, at 9:30am because we had requested that we have breakfast at 9:30am and since we weren’t up yet our breakfast was now getting cold. We had a coffee/hot coco mix to drink, yogurt, a banana, and hot oatmeal- it was a great way to start the morning. I’m glad Chato woke us up because we had gotten plenty of sleep and both would have slept for hours if no one had waken us. Ronald had written out a detailed itinerary for us, even saying where we should eat and what we should order. During our breakfast we met John, a thirty year old American, who had previously lived in the Philippines as a missionary and is back currently helping with the floor victims. John was interested in seeing a lot of things that we wanted to see so we decided to spend the day together. It was great to have John with us because we could ask him tons of questions and he is fluent in Pilipino. He quickly became our tour guide for the day and was great to us!

 Our first stop of the day was at the Alaya Museum, we learned all about the history of the Philippines and the people. They had great artifacts including a great gold exhibit. John was able to tell us a lot of interesting things like, the taxi drivers here don’t own the cars, they rent them by the day at a fixed price. In order to get a full days worth of rent they literally drive for 24 hours- I think that may be why there are so many bad drivers here in the Philippines- we’ve almost been in dozens of accidents. The Alaya Museum was wonderful. We really learned a lot. John was able to also fill us in on the facts that, like that the museum was just recently built and how astonishing it was because the Philippines is such a poverty-stricken third world country, he couldn’t believe that it was so nice and contained so much gold.

We were all getting kind of hungry at this point so we went to a dampa (as recommended by Ronald). A dampa is a Pilipino restaurant where you  pick out the seafood you want and choose how you want it cooked, then they prepare it the way you want it. The moment we got out of the cab, a representative from each restaurant came running up to us telling us to choose their restaurant and that they’d give us a good price.

Jess and I sat back and kept saying, “he’s in charge” and pointing to John, we were very overwhelmed. We let John do all the talking and we ended up getting a good deal.

 

  

All the seafood is sariwa,  meaning very fresh! We tried so many different Filipino dishes, we had enough food to feed a family of 10! We were all stuffed and still had tons of food left over, I’m sure the wait staff had a feast of our leftovers when we left. For our meal we tried sinigang, a type of sour soup made from a fruit, or seed. We had ours with milkfish, which is one of the most popular fishes here. It is a white fish and has a little bit of a sour taste, and a lot of tiny bones, I didn’t care for it too much.

We also had milkfish ihaw, which is prepared by cooking it on an open grill with hot coals. It was stuffed with their version of a chili sauce, which was essentially peppers, onions, tomatoes and spices, I didn’t love it.  We also had HUGE prawns, the biggest I’ve ever seen in my entire life! They were cooked in a garlic butter sauce and they were delicious! We had fried calamari, served with their version of marinara sauce which is pink (made with mayo and ketchup).

The Salmon was my favorite dish, it was very simple, prepared with just a little bit of butter and garlic. We also had crab that was tiny but good. It tasted like lobster, but was a lot more work for only a small portion of meat. For dessert we had fresh pineapple and the freshest mango I‘ve ever had- it was delicious!

It was fun to chat with John over lunch. He not only have a missionary and lived in the Philippines for two years but he’ also working with an organization and will be walking from NYC to Los Angeles starting in May- it will be about a 9 month walk. John has also been a flight attendant and worked for several airlines including United. I have always thought of this as a potential job so I of course drilled him with questions. John was lucky because United needed to down size so he took a voluntary  furlough for 30 months and can technically go back if he wants too, but he doesn’t have any huge desire to do so though. The best part is that he can fly standby on any United flight and still has all of his health benefits- sounds like a dream to me! John is also working on setting up his own non-profit with a couple of friends called AACWIP (Americans for the Advancement of Clean Water In the Philippines) to help provide the Philippines access to clean drinking water. The non-profit will start in 2011. John is working on buying a 2 bedroom condo in Manila which he will live in for about 4 months a year while he’s working for the non-profit, he invited us back to stay there anytime we’re in the area, even if he’s not there- he better be careful or before he knows it we’ll take him up on that offer and move right in J (just kidding John).  I’m so glad we got to meet John and spend the day with him. I am really impressed that he is doing so much, and am inspired by his love of the Philippines. It’s incredible. I hope we continue to stay in touch and that our paths will meet again in the near future.

We headed to Intramuros next, which is an European-style medieval fortified city that functioned as the seat of government from 1571 to 1898. The massive walls stretch some 4.5 kilometers, enclosing a 64-hectare area once occupied by palaces, churches, monasteries, schools and wealthy residences ('Intramuros' means 'inside the walls'). Sadly, the whole city was razed to the ground by bombings conducted by American forces when they recaptured Manila from the Japanese in 1945. Today most of the walls, gates and bulwarks have been restored, affording visitors a glimpse into the past. We also stopped at the Manila Cathedral which was having a graduation mass which we watched for a few minutes.

  

We walked around and took everything in and then decided to get going back to the hostel because it was getting late, rainy,  and we needed to get ready for dinner. John decided to join us for dinner which was nice, I really enjoy all that we’re learning from him.

We all showered and got changed then jumped on a Jeepey which are a form of public transportation (they are the old WWII Jeeps left by the Americans). It was a lot of fun to ride, but very hot with no AC. We got off at Greenbelt- a huge mall complex and met Paulo, a friend of Mezas (Jess’s friend who we are staying with in Indonesia). Paulo was a great host and took us to his favorite Sleek Pilipino restaurant which was delicious. We ordered a bunch of things to share including fried prawns, mussels with a cheese sauce, chicken with a lemon sauce, citron eggplant, and garlic rice. I really enjoyed everything! For dessert we split. Halo-Halo (a milky-icy dessert with lots of gelatin things as well as fruits and beans, Buko Pandan (young coconut gelatin), and a fried Jackfruit roll.

 

 

 

After dinner we grabbed a coffee at Seattle’s best and enjoyed a little more together chatting and talking about life. It was a nice way to end the night. We hopped in a taxi and went back to the hotel where we chatted about our plans for the next day. Ronald promised to have a full itinerary ready for us in the morning when we get up, I’m sure he won’t let us down. We’ll off to bed we have a full day in the Philippines (we’re going to try to go volunteer at an orphanage for a few hours in the morning) with lots of sightseeing, and then we’re off to Indonesia tomorrow night.

Bye for now.
Love,
Katie

Jetting Off to the Philippines!

Nov 4th

We woke up at 5am this morning, it was miserable. Our decision to book morning flights so we wouldn’t waste a full day of traveling has backfired since we spent the whole day being exhausted. We were out the door by 5:15am in order to catch the 5:30am bus to the airport, of course it was late and we could have slept an extra 20 minutes, but that’s beside the point. Jess and I were surprisingly chatty on the 1 hour bus ride to the airport. We checked in and had plenty of time to kill at the walking around the terminal. We traded our subway cards and got our deposits back, grabbed breakfast and changed over our extra money into Philippine Pesos (there‘s a great exchange rate here, $1USD=48Pesos, everything is super cheap). We boarded the plane and quickly found out the plane was practically empty so Jess and I could spread out a bit  which was nice. The two of us passed out immediately upon sitting down. I slept the whole ride, only waking a few times to change positions or realize that I was drooling all over myself. 

The flight was two hours (although it could have been 4 and I’m sure I would have slept every moment), but we were about 20 minutes late due to bad weather. When we arrived in Manila we were shocked to see it was dark and overcast. We haven’t seen rain in weeks (besides Beijing which was late at night and really didn’t alter our plans in any way). We collected our bags and made our way through customs- both very pleased by the number of stamps we’re collecting in our passports.

We grabbed a taxi and headed for our hostel. It was a bit of a challenge to find but we enjoyed the ride taking in all of the scenery that we could. We noticed that there was some damage from the flooding that they have had recently, but everything is open and people appear to be functioning as normal. We also noticed that many people here have guns, this kind of shocked us at first, but we‘re not getting used to the idea. It is very tropical here, and I really wish we had more time to explore places outside of the city. Looks like they have great scuba diving, but I don’t think I’ll have a change for that unfortunately.

The hostel that were staying in is very interesting. Its located on a somewhat popular side street in the Makati section of Manila. There’s a cute looking bar next door, although it seems like the building that were in is mostly all apartments. The hostel, Our Melting Pot, is located on the 5th floor and is run by a woman and a man. The hostel is in a 1-bedroom loft apartment. You walk into the downstairs with a tiny kitchen and a half bath. There’s a desk to check in as well as a computer that we can use, a TV and a couch. Upstairs is the open air loft with 4 bunk beds and a full bath. I keep telling Jess how much I like it here and would love to have an apartment like this someday all for myself. it really isn’t a big  place at all, it would be a perfect apartment for 1 or a couple.

We spent some time looking at a travel book and a map that the hostel gave us, but were both exhausted. The women who checked us in, Chato, was very friendly and asked us a bunch of questions and began mapping out our time in Manila for us. She said she'd remember our names because we were like
Jessica Alba and Katie Homes"- I liked that she scored big points with me. I'd marry Tom Cruse any day. She finally caught on to the fact that we were tired for mich sightseeing and suggested a spa. The owner, Ronald took a break from work and came to the hostel to meet us (this is a very small and personal place!) and continued to plan our day. At this point it was pouring outside and the idea of walking around in 90 degree weather when it was pouring and we were exhausted sounded horrible. We asked Ronald more about the spa that  and decided it was a perfect idea for us. We jumped in a cab and were off.

The spa was called Wensha Spa. It was a huge place. For the equivalent of $15 USD we got 6 hours to enjoy the pool, hot tub, sauna, steam, all you can eat buffet and a 1 hour full body massage. We took full advantage. We were both starving at this point and started with the buffet. It was all Philippine food- most of which I didn’t like. I had a lot of rice. I did really love this soup that they had a lot of mix-ins Basically how it worked was the wait staff would set up with hotplate right on the table and add spices and garlic then you would grab whatever veggies you wanted from the buffet and add them to the soup. The beef or chicken was added next. The soup cooked for about 10 minutes and was ready to eat. I really enjoyed it. We had banana ice cream for dessert, it was great. From there we decided it was time for our body message. We changed into the robe and silk short set that was provided and headed to the massage area. Jess and I shared a room and before long two Philippines women a little older than us came in. Jess’s lady was much more talkative than mine was, which was fine with me- I wanted to relax. Jess’s lady made several comments that definitely were inappropriate. She asked me why I was bigger than Jess, and if Jess’s boobs were real, and why we didn’t have boyfriends and weren’t married. I guess they we’re trained in foreign etiquette- although we tried to make it clear with our responses that they were being rude to us. I felt kind of uncomfortable because I was basically completely naked the whole time and there was no door on our room and people kept walking by, I guess we’re not in America anymore. Regardless, it was definitely a cultural experience and a great message. From there we headed to the pool we showered before entering then soaked in the nice hot water. The pool was huge! It even had a huge projector screen playing TV (a Pilipino soap opera that was very dramatic) that was enormous. From there we showered and changed back into the robes provided and headed  to the manicure area to get a little more pampered. For about $7USD extra I got a manicure and pedicure. Since I had gotten my feet done the day before they focused rubbing my feet and painting them, which I was dying for. The manicure came out great as well. We finished our experience by having around meal at the buffet- all the same foods again, but this time we knew that we liked and wanted to try. We changed, settled up our bill and jumped in a taxi back to the hostel.

We were exhausted and decided that it would be best if we both got a good nights sleep- we need it! We were in bed shortly after 9pm!

Bye for now.
Love,
Katie.

Thoughts on Hong Kong...

I LOVED Hong Kong! I would go back there in a heart beat. The city is safe and clean and it has one of the best skylines that I’ve ever seen. There is a lot to see and do in the city, and there is also easy access to a variety of small islands and countries. I thinks a great place for international business and would love to come here for work. it’s a nice mix of all of the best things in Asia! I will be returning again soon!

Bye Bye Hong Kong…

Nov 3rd

We had a late start to our final day in Hong Kong. I had stayed up late catching up on blogs and uploading pictures and Jess is coming down with a cold and not feeling up to par. Needless to say the idea of sleeping in was appealing to both of us so we turned off our alarms and fell back to sleep. Around 11am we put ourselves together and were on our way. We jumped on the subway and headed about 30 minutes north to Man Fat Monastery which is known as the land of 10,000 Buddha’s.  The subway let us off into a large mall (On a side note- you wouldn’t believe the underground malls and shopping areas connected to almost all of the subways in Asia. Many of the places here you can literally walk for miles underground and get from one side of town to the next and about 50 of the same exact stores. Its unbelievable), we were quickly confused and lost, never seeing a sign for anywhere near where we wanted to go. We continued to walk through the mall which was huge with no luck finding a sign. We did find signs for a hotel so decided to follow them and ask the concierge for directions. En route we found the food court and grabbed a quick bite to eat.

Afterwards we finally make it to the hotel which was approximately a mile away and asked the first hotel staff member that we could find for directions, she didn’t know. We found another staff member and asked her for directions, the second lady had never heard of it, by the time we asked the third staff member I was ready to give up. He seemed to know what he was talking about and pointed us outside of the building and directed us to walk towards some apartment buildings.

We got outside and started walking. We saw lots of signs giving directions to tourist sites, but none to the 10,000 Buddha’s. We asked a young man walking by for directions and he waved us off, not having time for us. We decided to go back in the mall and ask for help some more. We finally found a lady who spoke English and was willing to help us. She told us that we were very far away and needed to take a bus to the 10,000 Buddha’s and pointed us in the right direction. We ended up back at the subway station. We asked for directions at the ticket office which took 3 people to answer our question and point us in the right direction. We went outside again and were dumb founded that we had read so much about visiting the 10,000 Buddha’s yet there was no directions to it and no one seemed to know anything about it. There were no signs pointing us in the right direction. We found a map that was in Chinese and since Jess and I are so smart were able to translate enough of the map to get ourselves going in the right direction. We crossed the road twice and took several turns and FINALLY we saw a sign for the 10,000 Buddha’s. Luckily it was only about  a five minute walk. No busses necessary. Not to toot our own horn, but I seriously wonder if people who are bad with directions would ever been able to find this place.

 

 

 

 

The monetary was wasn’t as exciting as we expected but we made the best of it. We hiked almost all of the 480-something stairs to the top seeing Buddha is every position possible. We were surprised that we only passed about 5 other people during the whole time we were hiking, I guess no one could find it. There were lots of signs saying “beware of monkeys” and “don’t feed the monkeys” and we definitely heard the monkeys, but never actually saw them- which was disappointing to me.

Jess and I were also ill prepared for the cold front that has hit Hong Kong. I wore shorts and a t-shirt thinking it was going to be 90 degrees again, but it only reached a high of 60 degrees. I froze. Jess started to feel really tired and didn’t want to get even more sick to we headed back to Kowloon. We decided to split up in front of our hotel. Jess went back to the room to lay down and I went out for a little more sight seeing. It was literally the first time I’ve been alone during the whole trip. It was a weird feeling- I wondered if the feeling will start to hit me when I’m traveling alone in Peru in a few weeks. I can do it alone, and its kind of nice to see what you want, and do what you want to do when you want to do it. But its also great to have someone with you to chat and joke with, as well as two brains when your figuring out where to go or what to do. My time alone was actually quite short to tell you the truth. I had really wanted to go to the Hong Kong space museum which is this huge dome really close to our hotel. When I got there I quickly learned that its closed on Tuesdays- just my luck. I walked around, but really didn’t have anywhere to go or do, so I decided to get a pedicure- something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. It felt great! It was $100HKD ($12USD) and the lady did wonders for my feet. Althought here they don’t cute your nail or even paint them- its more of cleaning them up and messaging them. I guess I’ll have to get another one soon to all some color to my piggys! Trying to sell me a full body message she gave me a free trial full body message. I laid down on the table and the little Asian lady jumped right on my back. She spend the next 15 minutes walking up and down pressing on different points and bending and cracking my body in ways I didn’t know my body could move. She ended with a neck and head message- it was wonderful! I didn’t want to spend the money in Hong Kong because it is pretty pricy here compared to the rest of Asia, but its definitely something that I will look forward to in the next week or two.

I returned to the hotel room to find Jess relaxing. We spent the next 2 hours planning things to do in the Philippines and booking a hostel (we had originally planning on couch surfing but haven’t had any luck recently getting in touch with the guy we were supposed to be staying with- plus we’ve had great luck meeting people in hostels and have had lots of fun with them- were hoping to have a similar experience in the Philippines).  I was reading lots of info about the Philippines and am very aware that its one of the most dangerous places that we will be. There are lots of warning to travelers about theft and scams. I even read that the most common scam is when locals offer tourist food and drug them, then steal their money and valuables. The warnings that I read definitely scared me and I will be on the look out.

Around 5:30pm we decided we needed to get up and see a bit more of Hong Kong. We found the bus stop that we’ll need to take in the morning to get to the airport as well as spoke with the hotel staff about checking out so early. We then walked to Temple street to check out the night market. I bought two pashmina scarf’s and a black Mark Jacobs small purse/wristlet. Afterwards we grabbed some more sushi (we were worried that we won’t be able to get as much good fish from here on- so we made sure to get our fill). During dinner we got a call from Carlos (our Spanish friend from the hostel in Beijing) wanting to meet up with us and grab dinner. Since we were both full, Jess wasn’t feeling good, we had a lot of packing to do, and we had to get up early the next morning to go to the airport we decided to call it a night. We stopped at 7-eleven (7-eleven and the subway are set up with the same credit card so you can wave it in front of the machine and it deducts money right off the cards- its pretty cool) and used the remaining amount of money that we had on our subway passes on snacks for the plane (otherwise we’d loose the money all together). We went back to the room and skyped home, packed our bags and set our alarm. We need to be out of the hotel by 5:15am tomorrow! Eeeekkkk!

Well off to bed!
Love,
Katie