The Philippines (Part Two)

 The next morning we headed out to go zip lining. I have no idea why, but I hadn't even thought to be nervous until we got there. That was a good thing, because I may have backed out if I had had more time to think about it, and I'm glad I didn't. I loved it! Drew and I got to go side by side on the way over which I was really happy about. We were so high up there!

 Neil

 Drew

 Lindsey

 This was at the viewing area where we went to buy our pictures.

 I saw my first carabao as we left the zip lining place. We have these as decorations in our house, so I was excited to get to see the real thing.

 Then we went to check out the tarsier monkies. They are such tiny little things. That little guy was about the size of a baseball tucked in there under a branch. It was hard to even spot them.

 Next we went to the chocolate hills. There are a couple thousand of these limestone hills on Bohol. During the dry season they turn brown which is why they are called the chocolate hills.

 After the chocolate hills we went on a little drive around the island to Valencia, which was Drew's second area. He and his companion had lived right next to a woman in the ward there who fed them almost every day. Her name was Paz. He thought about stopping to see her, but was pretty sure she wouldn't remember him after all these years. We told him he should just see, and she definitely remembered him! Her mom was outside when we stopped there. Drew said something to her and she said, "Elder Christensen?!" Drew was pretty amazed that she knew who he was because he hadn't even been as close to her. Paz definitely remembered him. She invited us into her home and insisted we have some drinks and snacks and reminisced with Drew about the time he had been there and they discussed what had happened since. 

 

 At one point she went into the other room and came back with this journal that she had had the missionaries write in. Pretty awesome!

 The area had changed quite a bit, so Drew was a bit lost. Paz jumped in the car with us and showed us around. This was the building they went to church in, which was just a family home now. The man who lived there let us go in and look around.

 For a short time when Drew first got to that area they went to church in this building which was right on the ocean. When it was stormy the water would come inside, sometimes up past their knees. Paz joked that the kids went swimming for fun during primary.

 

This was Drew's first house in Valencia. Pretty fancy.

His second house was a little nicer.

 

Since Drew was there, the district had become a stake and the branch had become a ward. They got this beautiful new church building to meet in.

 

From what I saw and heard, I'm pretty sure this amazing woman is carrying the church in that area. It was so great to meet her.

 On our way home we stopped at some random house on a little pier to get some information about boats for the next day. The view was beautiful there.

 The man Drew was talking to had this adorable this girl that was happy to pose for me.

 The next morning we were supposed to cross back over to Cebu on a little boat to go swim with whale sharks. I'm pretty sure this was the thing Drew was looking forward to the most on our trip. Unfortunately there was a typhoon going on in the Northern part of the Philippines that was making the water pretty choppy. No boats were crossing and we didn't get to go on that adventure. Drew was pretty bummed. We went swimming and had a day relaxing at the resort instead.

 

 Because of the typhoon, the boat we were going to take back to Cebu from Bohol wasn't running the day we were supposed to leave. We searched for some options with no luck at first, but eventually we ended up catching a ride on a cargo ship. The trip over had been two hours, but the trip back was five hours. Luckily we had beds and I had a good book to read. I felt like we were on the Amazing Race trying to find the fastest way across. This was our view out the window when we got on the ship. We had walked through this busy pier, where workers were loading ships, with our suitcases in tow trying to figure out where we were going. A pretty exciting and funny adventure!

 Our beds

 We got another rental car when we got to Cebu and I had to take a picture of the lack of a heater.

 We got into Cebu later than we had originally planned, and then we drove for around three hours through narrow crowded streets in the dark (It gets dark at six P.M. every night year round.). It felt like a long day of traveling when we got to Medellin at ten o'clock that night. We got to our new resort which looked a lot nicer online :). The next morning we went to church at the branch Drew had served in. Again he was sure no one would know who he was, but so many people recognized him, and they even had him bare his testimony at the end of sacrament meeting. The people were so excited to have us there, and they were so friendly and sweet to us.

 The woman right in front of Neil is Gina, and she is another one of those amazing women carrying the church along in that area. She taught both the Sunday school and Relief Society lessons and did a fantastic job.

 
 This was the baptismal font back behind the church.

 
The lady between Becky and Drew was so happy to see us and so friendly. She was another amazing example of faithful service. The missionary beside me was just one of six missionaries serving in that branch. The church is growing in the Philippines!


I chatted with these ladies during Relief Societies. The lady beside me in blue was Aimee (pronounced I-Me) and she asked me tons of questions about America and my family (admittedly we weren't paying attention to the lesson very well). She spoke English really well, so it was fun for me to get to ask her lots of questions too.

 The person Drew and his companion had worked the closest with in Medellin was this woman named Flor. I heard her name a lot in his letters and I was excited to meet her. She hadn't been at church and we did some work to figure out how to find her. We found out she and her husband (she hadn't been married when Drew was there before) had stake callings and were speaking in another ward. We were going to find her when that ward was ending, but we were a little early so we stopped at Jollibee for lunch. As we were sitting there I saw this couple walking past us and I noticed what they were wearing and I said, "They're mormons" and smiled at them. They got just past us when she stopped and backed up and said, "Elder Christensen!!" Drew was so shocked, and we all were completely amazed at our chance meeting. I for one, don't really believe it was by chance. I'm pretty sure that was just a sweet tender mercy. We ate and chatted with them for a while and then said our goodbyes. Again, another really amazing woman.

 As we were driving around later we started noticing a bunch of little pickups with dirt bikes in the back. Drew hadn't seen dirt bikes when he was there before and we started paying attention to where they were coming from. We eventually saw a sign for this motocross track and had to go check it out.

 Cock fighting is huge in the Philippines. We saw roosters tied up like this everywhere we went. They build huge arenas there for cock fighting like we do for basketball.

 Then we drove to see the ocean.

The Philippines (Part One)

11 years ago, Drew served his mission in the Philippines. Ever since we first got married we have said we should go back there for our 10th anniversary. We went back and forth a few times about whether or not we were actually going to make it happen, but ultimately we made the big trip. Drew's mom and dad went with us since they hadn't gotten to go pick him up like they had planned at the end of his mission. They are more experienced travelers so it was nice to have their help, and it was fun just to have their company. We were gone for ten days including a full day of traveling on each end. We left our kids with my parents. Haley and Brian had them at their house for a few days while my mom made a quick trip to Utah for a cousin's wedding, and Nick and Alyssa and Ashley helped out a ton too I know. Haley and Brian had their two boys plus our three kids for church one Sunday, which was just plain rude of me I've decided. I am so so beyond grateful for my family that took that on, and for the fantastic way they took care of our kids. We really had a fantastic trip that we will remember forever, but I missed my babies too much and decided I will not be leaving my kids for that long again unless they are quite a bit older. Parks eventually warmed back up to me, but now he has a special place in his heart for my mom, Haley, and Alyssa who were his other mamas while I was away.

My favorite part of the trip was watching Drew interact with the people and speak their language, which generally surprised them quite a bit. He would speak and sometimes draw a little crowd of people who wanted to hear this white guy speak their language.

For some reason the Philippines has become a hot spot for a mail-order-bride kind of situation. We saw tons of young Filipinas with white husbands, mostly a little older. After a few days I started to notice the ladies there noticing Drew. Their eyes would get big when he would walk in, and especially when he started speaking their language, and then their faces would fall when I walked up next to him. A man at church even asked Neil if Drew was married, and seemed bummed when he told him I was his wife. That was an...interesting part of the trip

We flew for around 15 hours each way with a layover in Toyko. It was fun to get that little taste of Japan on top of our experience in the Philippines. My knees killed me from being stuck in those seats on the plane for that long, and I am swearing off that long of a flight for a while. 

I took hundreds of pictures, so it will be really tricky to narrow it down to my favorites. I am going to break this up into a few different posts.

 This was what I got of Tokyo. A view out the window of our shuttle bus at the airport.

 

We attempted to use chopsticks in Tokyo. The food at that restaurant was delicious!

Becky and I tried to get a little nap during our layover.

 We got to the Philippines around midnight and Drew immediately started haggling about prices for everything. I would have just paid whatever because I wouldn't have known any better. I'm pretty sure he saved us a lot of money. We got to our hotel and got a few hours of sleep. The next morning we got up and had the hotel's continental breakfast (which was the beginning of the end in the food department for me) and headed off to find a trike.

 Drew thought this would be an awesome authentic experience for us, and it didn't disappoint. Here he is haggling and sorting out directions with the driver.

 Becky and I squished inside, Neil sat on the back, and Drew rode side-saddle behind the driver on the motorcycle.

 We were headed to Susing's Guitar shop. Drew bought a guitar there when he was on his mission, and wanted to show us how they did it. He was surprised at how different it was. Apparently they had done very well for themselves over those eleven years and everything was newer and fancier.

 But they still did everything by hand. It was really amazing to watch.

 This was the lineup of the guys carving the guitars. One man was pushing one end of the wood he was holding into his bare foot while he carved the other end with a chisel. It seemed like something that would kill my foot. This trip really confirmed for me how much of a wimp I am.

 

 Some of the awesome guitars in the showroom.

 Back on the trike, this was the view down the road.

 We went back to the hotel to grab our stuff and jumped in cabs that gave us our first taste of the awesome driving over there. People just make things work there, and there's lot of honking (not out of anger how it is in the US) going on all the time. Our taxi driver took us over to pier to catch our jet boat that would took us from Cebu island to Bohol island. The boat ride was two hours, and this was where I discovered the A/C problem. It is pretty rare to have air conditioning there at all, but when they do have it they turn it way up and it's freezing! That was such a cold two hours for me.

 Since I had eaten very little at that questionable breakfast that morning I was pretty excited about the dried mangos on the boat.

 We eventually got our rental car (which was hard to come by) at the pier on Bohol and Drew got to experience driving in the Philippines first hand, and the rest of us got to experience him figuring that out. Drew and Becky had really made all the arrangements for this trip, so I was really surprised and impressed when we got to our resort. It was so beautiful.

 The view from the back of the resort

 It was so crazy what kinds of houses and buildings were just right beside us.

 The beach behind the resort

 We ate at the resort restaurant that night, and I thought I would be safe with salmon, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. I was wrong. Whatever kind of butter they have in the Philippines was really hard for me to stomach and things were generally pretty oily.

 On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Drew liked everything he ate.

 We had such a beautiful view from our table.

 The next morning was my birthday. I was really happy to get to start it off with the awesome breakfast buffet at our resort. I was so happy to see plenty of American options, and the guys were happy to get to try lots of different food from around the world. Neil tried that dried fish for his first breakfast there and said it wasn't too bad. I'm not convinced. Also, they are really into eggs sunny side up which I had never had before, and which I would be happy never to have again.

 Drew said I was in charge of choosing the activities for the day since it was my birthday. The only thing I was really wishing for was to swim at the base of a waterfall (I'm not exactly sure why, but that's something I've always wanted to do.) Drew also suggested swimming in a cave and I was up for that so we headed off for the day's adventures. On our drive we got to see more of how the people live there. They are such hard-working, happy people.

 We had a guide take us down into the cave to swim. He knew exactly what to do with my camera to get some cool shots in there which I was really happy about, because I still don't really know how to work it in the dark. It was pretty awesome in there!

 

 The water was the perfect temperature, but Becky and I were a little too nervous to go too far back in the cave where it was pretty dark. Neil and Drew explored back there a little though.

 After swimming in the cave it was time for lunch. Becky has eaten at different McDonalds restaurants around the world, and it's part of her traveling ritual so we made that happen. I was happy to have some familiar food.

 They had the normal stuff, but they also had fried chicken and spaghetti on the menu which is what we saw most people eating there.

 There were so many trikes around in the middle of the city. One of the laws there is that the trikes have to have a bible verse on the back of them. I wish I had gotten pictures of those.

 There are also motorcycles everywhere there. We saw lots of families riding a motorcycle together. I saw a few families of five, and lots of young mom's with brand new babies riding on the back of a motorcycle. Since I am kind of a car seat/safety hater, this made me really happy.

 I wish I had gotten better pictures, especially of the little girls, but we saw kids walking to and from school all over the place every day. They all wear uniforms.

 We started noticing the houses like this around, and Drew told us they were made from banana leaves that were woven together. 

 On the way to the waterfall we stopped to take pictures on this road that I thought was pretty.

 This was just a tree with something weird growing on it.

 We headed down these stairs for a little hike to the waterfall.

 We stopped again on the way back, and got a better picture of Drew and me.

 We stopped at this little fruit stand on our way back. I was excited about the mangos. We also tried that fuzzy looking fruit in the front of the picture. You split it open and the fruit inside looks like the inside of a grape.

 There were some people selling some interesting drinks near the fruit stand and Neil tried this green drink. It was some kind of coconut juice with green jello in it.

 Drew had some calamansi juice.

 Back to the resort

 After dinner, Drew and I headed down to the beach with the tripod to grant my other birthday wish. Jumping pictures by the ocean. Haha.

 Birthday cake number one (not that great so I only had a few bites and we went to get something else)

 Birthday cake number two. Mmm mmm.