Nana in Town

Mom/Nana came to visit for a few weeks. She spent a week with us while school was still in session and then went off with us on our Spring Holiday to the Filipin island of Boracay and Hong Kong. We loved having her. Here are the girls dressed as tour guides ready to give Nana a tour of the Rockwell complex where we live in Manila.

Tour guides Emmerson and Ada.

Guides with their tourist Nana.

And a random one of Emmerson with this crazy hairdo she likes to whip up every once in a while.

Walmart Pinoy Style

Captured this footage on the trip home from Laguna which is across the lagoon that borders the east side of Manila. Anyone want to go in on opening up a Kostko?

Fun Times at Jollibee

Every once in a while I will give in to the girls ongoing quest to eat at Jollibee. This was one of those times.

Ada being happy at Jollibee. She was quite excited to find this enormous fry and named it Fryzilla. Of course she wanted to keep it and add it to her collection of prized possessions but we talked her out of it and she ate Fryzilla.

Apocalypse Now Redux Part ....

I chaperoned the 9th graders on their overnight geography field trip. We went to the Lagunas area, a huge inland lagoon about 60 miles SE of Manila. The Splash Mountain Hotel provided our accommodations and each day different groups of students shared their time between the Makiling Forest Preserve, the town of Pagsanjan and the rural area of Magdalena. Students investigated each area relating to various concepts learned in geo class back at ISM. I went to the forest on day one, which was fabulous, old growth, primary tropical forest sprawling down the side of a dormant volcano. It is a watershed for the surrounding community and serves as the research center for various universities. The second day, I went on a recon mission up the river where Apocalypse Now was filmed - the scene when the crew ventured into the area where Marlon Brando had gone native. No way Vietnam was going to be open to filming back when the movie was made so much of it was done in the US friendly Philippines. Interesting how politics/history makes its impact on our world in so many unexpected pockets. Will take me a while to get all the photos and relating stories up but here is a start.

These are all from the Apocalypse Now Recon river trip.

Beginning of the mission. Mr. X ready to embark on the recon mission. Mr. Fellow in Orange, our local contact.

Buffalo?? Perhaps, perhaps....

Buffalo and accomplice.

Mr. Fellow in Orange taking us in ...

Going in!

What we do for the cause - full on recon...... 

Random local kid swimming - I think not. 

Brando territory.

Full on into it.

The "Waterfall"

International Day at ISM

I missed the elementary International Day as I had an overnight field trip. I returned just in time to meet up with the girls after school on Friday and take a few photos of them in their USian oufits. The flags only show half of those displayed and each represents our student body.