The pool!

After nearly two weeks of living in our apartment building, we finally got a swim in the pool! The day before we arrived, it had been drained for annual cleaning, but today it was all go, and I think the girls and I were the first ones in! We were there by 8am, and it was a very pleasant time indeed. The sun wasn't high enough to be directly on us, but it was definitely warm enough to swim! We brought some toys, snacks, sunscreen, all that jazz, and had a FAB time. The kiddie pool is shallow enough for the girls to stand easily in it, and the adult area is big enough for lap swimming. We just played and swam for about 2 hours, and made our way back home once the sun started to shine on the pool (nearly 10). With the lack of green space generally in the city, it was a relief to find somewhere pleasant and cool enough to just hang around and have fun.

The honest taxi driver

When we got here, we had to buy new cell phones. Our NZ phones, being the very cheapest you could get at the time of buying, were not capable of working internationally. So we spent some money, and got a couple of nice phones here - ones we could actually use back home again, too, and I decided to get one that could take pictures, so that I'd always be 'ready' when those precious moments pop up.
Well, a week after buying my new phone, I left it in a taxi.
Just minutes after the car drove off, I was sick to my stomach as I realised what I had done. I had been dropped at the school, to meet Emily's new teacher, and later some of the other new staff for some more orientation. I went back to the school guards, and told them what had happened, and asked them to contact me, should the driver decide to come back to the school with my phone. A few of the guards sort of nodded politely, but I saw some of them just shake their heads. Why on earth would a taxi driver bother to return a perfectly black-market-saleable phone? I met Nigel, got him to ring the phone (this was about 15 minutes later), and sure enough, the taxi driver answered it. Nigel asked him to bring it back, and the driver said he couldn't get there straight away, but he would try later. Well, what else was he going to say? Meanwhile, back at the guards station, they were rewinding the security cameras, to see whether they could read the number plate of the taxi that had dropped me off. We left some money with the guards, and rang the phone again and said that if the driver brought it back, there was some money waiting for him. We didn't say how much, because it wasn't much, really, but it was twice the amount of money that my taxi fare had originally cost - basically just enough to pay for his petrol and time in returning it. And that's where we left it.
Two hours later, as we were about to leave school, the guards came and found us and said the phone was back! A miracle! The taxi driver was honest (or motivated by a cash reward, at least!) and had come back to return the phone.
It honestly restored my faith in the human race! Some people will still bother to do the right thing.

What you can learn from a women's magazine.

I picked up a Filipino "Good Housekeeping" magazine from the shop yesterday. After getting over what that said about my age (i.e. I didn't choose Girlfriend or Cleo or whatever) I started reading through it to see what I could learn about life in this country.

The ads are different.

There are ads for Fabric Softener. Have I ever seen an ad for F.S. in my NZ magazines? Judging by my total lack of interest in said F.S., probably not. Not only their presence interested me, but the thing about the F.S. in these ads are that they are anti-bacterial. Why, I asked myself, would one need anti-bacterial fabric softener? Surely if you are using F. S., you have just washed your clothes, and they are therefore clean. Then it dawned on me. The "anti-bak" is not for cleaning the clothes, but it is in prep for the huge amount of sweat you and your family members are about to pour into the clothes when you put them on again. And we all know that it's not the sweat itself that is a problem (fresh sweat doesn't smell) but it's the bacteria that get into it that make the smell. SO "anti-bak" is a smell-prevention thing!

Welcome to tropical living 1: I need to start getting into fabric softener.

There are ads for diarrhoea medicines. Now I'm quite aware that such things exist, but I have to say they are definitely not an every-day item in my NZ household. But it seems that in the Philippines, they are a regular part of life.

Welcome to tropical living 2: Stock up the medicine cabinet.

There are ads for New Zealand milk. I smile. In NZ, we buy according to different brands of milk, but here, they advertise according to different countries of origin. But I see that the company which imports it is Nestle. Nestle is not a NZ company, or is it? How does that work? Ah well, at least the farmers in NZ will be getting something for the milk that is currently in my fridge.

Welcome to tropical living 3: Question: Do they not have cows in the Philippines?

Arrival in the Philippines: The good, the bad and the ugly.

It's hard to believe we're here. After months of preparation, we've finally made it to Manila, our home for at least the next two years.

It was quite a journey - we left Auckland on a Friday, had two nights in Brisbane (family visit), one night in Taipei (stopover) then arrived in Manila on the Monday.

The good:
The flying went pretty well - even with our mountain of luggage - 13 pcs total. The girls coped pretty well with the long flights. Zoe kept watching a 20-minute Mickey Mouse cartoon (without the sound), and Emily learned how to use the seat control to play games!
We were met off the plane by one of the BSM staff, and were driven directly to our new apartment in downtown Manila (Makati). Our household helper was in the building foyer to meet us and help us with our stuff. She's a friendly woman, with two kids of her own, and her last job was full-time nanny to a pair of 3-year-old twins, so she knows her way around toddlers!.

The bad (well, just a little):
Our apartment was pretty bare - (minimally) furnished, but lacking lots of things, including curtains! (But we later found out that the curtains had been removed for cleaning.) As far as apartments go, I think this is a pretty good one - marble floors, each room has its own bathroom, we have helpers' quarters, a large kitchen, and lots of windows for big views of the city. However, at the end of the day, it really is just a box in the sky, and we will definitely miss the little patch of grass that came with our house in NZ!

And the ugly:
In our three days here, I've met 6 cockroaches. Killed 4 of those. Now if this was a stand alone house, I'd be fumigating the place, but there seems to be no point here, as the apartment is connected to an enormous network of pipes and drains throughout its 40 floors. For every cockroach I kill in our apartment, there will be at least 100 more in the drainpipes. YUCK! Anyone have tips on how to deal with the critters?
.....