Philippines First Impressions

Laoag street scene - note the clear blue sky

There are a lot of people here and they are all out on the street.  Kathleen says that Manila is the most densely populated city in the world.  The people are vibrant - full of life and they all like very loud music.  On the airport terminal transfer bus in Manila (a 45 minute trip through stop and go traffic) there were intermittent bouts of very loud music.  I am not sure why it was intermittent - maybe the driver was having problems with his blaster.   At the local grocery shop in Laoag they had speakers set up on the sidewalk making a deafening sound. Inside a different song was playing at  slightly lower volume. We made our flight to Laoag with no seconds to spare but at least we had had some music. Our students seemed to enjoy it (the music).

There is a constant background of motorcycle noise as there are thousands of "trikes". (motorcycles with sidecars) and they operate 24/7.   Amongst all that, we managed to hear a rooster crow at 4 am from our mid-city hotel.

John Evans shaking the world

For the first time on this trip, we woke up to clear sunny skies in Laoag.  Quite a contrast to the constant haze in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Manila.

Filipinos are very polite.  On Sunday John Evans sang a song in church.  As soon as he began to sing there was an earthquake (5.6 on the Richter scale) and it went on for quite a while with the floor moving back and forth quite noticeably.  But despite this, only a few people at the back ran out of the building.  Most stayed put and enjoyed the song although the people's prayers provided a background for it.

On Monday morning with the necklace

Kathleen had the experience of admiring a lady's necklace at church and having it put around her neck with no objection accepted. She felt very humbled and found out later she should have said how much she thought the necklace looked good on the person wearing it.  She has determined to wear the necklace, which she really does like, as much as possible during the rest of our time in the Philippines.