Harris World Tour

Monday, July 1st, 2019. Today we got up, had breakfast, and headed to the airport at 10:00am. The hotel staff was so sweet and wanted to take a picture with us before we left. We thanked them and then we got our free ride to the airport which was only 15 minutes away. We got there too early, but in Manila it took a while to get to the airport and go through security. This time everything went fast and smoothly. We sat in the waiting room for a while but the wait wasn’t bad because there was actually decent WiFi. At the airport, we saw a Spanish family that we had seen in El Nido and in the Butterfly Sanctuary in Puerto Princesa. Small world. The flight was pleasant and quick. Arriving in Manila is never fun because traffic is horrendous and we had to wait for a quite a while for our Grab taxi to pick us up even though the hotel was less than 1km away. Gregory got a hotel near the airport because we leave early tomorrow morning. Plus, we are not interested in seeing anything in Man...

Sunday, June 30th, 2019. Oops, we woke up at 8:40am, breakfast is served until 9:00am but like Gregory pointed out, they normally leave it until 10:00am so he never rushes. We don’t touch the Philippino food because it is mostly meat. The kids only have cereal and fruit. We have never been excited about the food since we got to the Philippines but it is nice when breakfast is included and we don’t have to go out looking for food. In the morning, Gregory did some work, I caught up on the blog and the kids stayed in their room. I can’t believe that I had to force myself to go swimming but it is my only exercise and I have been feeling very lazy about it, so I did it. Once I’m in the water, I feel like a mermaid or a siren which is the same word in Tagalog and Spanish. At night we asked our driver to take us to Giligan's for dinner. It was just ok, Daniel was the only one who enjoyed his boneless chicken teriyaki. Have I mentioned that they served most of the meat with bones in the P...

Saturday June 29, 2019 Today we took Sunshine to the hospital because I was really worried about her legs. She never complained but I saw her scratching nonstop. When I saw all the bites that she had on her legs and one that looked like a little dot in the middle, I worried. I read last night on the internet that female sand flies lay their eggs under the skin and they hatch 3 weeks later. I also read that when that happens, the flies normally die but I did read 4 severe cases in Colombia. Of course, the circumstances were extremely different [ Gregory's note: different insect, different continent, different diet, etc. Gotta love the Internet] but I was still worried and I needed professional reassurance. I had suffered a lot from bites in Port Barton and I was miserable. I actually spent one day taking cold showers and staying in the room because the heat activated the itchiness. We took her to the Adventist Hospital which was more expensive but recommended by and for forei...

Friday, June 28th, 2019 Today we didn’t do anything special. We felt lazy and stayed all day at the hotel. We swam, read, napped, etc. We didn’t even want to go out for dinner. We had noodle soups that we had bought in a convenience store for dinner. Gregory did go out with the masons. They took him out for dinner and he came back happy. He said he had a good time and got to know more about the life of the Philiphinos. For pictures please click here https://photos.app.goo.gl/vbHosXMuvye53onY8

Thursday, June 27th, 2019 Today I actually had to go upstairs to the kid's room to wake Sunshine up for breakfast. She is normally the one who come knocking on the door for breakfast. We woke her up singing happy birthday. At breakfast, they had banana bread so we pretended that that was her cake. The staff heard us sing happy birthday to her and after we ate, they approached me and said that they wanted to do something special for her! They wanted to bring something to her room but she was still sitting at the breakfast table. I told the staff to just bring it to the dining room where we were hanging around. The cook and staff brought 3 special cupcakes on a plate that had her name written in chocolate. That was so sweet of them. They sang happy birthday, we took a picture, and we were all happy. I asked Sunshine if she wanted to spend her day at the beach, but she wanted to go to the movies and then have pizza for dinner! I don’t know what my family did in the morning, I spend m...

Wednesday, June 26, 2019 Today the breakfast was much better and had plenty of fruit for us. The first time we stayed here, the fruit was normally gone because we are the last ones to eat. How strange! We had a good breakfast. Afterward, we took advantage of a good WiFi connection to call my mom. We chatted for about an hour, finally! After that, the kids and I went for a nice swim in the sun. We could see the clouds coming so we took advantage while we could. After a while, we had some snacks by the pool and then we went to our rooms to take a shower. I took a nice nap while Gregory worked on getting things ready for our return. I told him that I wanted him to relax and enjoy his last days of vacation, but he said he can’t. After my nap, the hotel staff wanted to move the kids to another room and then move all of us the next day. I got kind of upset because the last thing we want now is to change rooms every day. Can't they understand that we just want to stay in one place? We su...

Tuesday, June 25th, 2019 Today the trike came to pick us up closer to 11:00 to take us to the bus station. We were supposed to leave at 11:00 but the driver was waiting to fill up the van. There is space for 12 people so they won’t go anywhere until they fill every seat. At one point we left with two empty seats but the driver stopped along the way and got two more passengers. One of them sat in our row of three so we were a little bit cramped and the fourth passenger had to share Sunshine’s backrest. Gregory made the driver stop the van and move the passenger to the back seat when he saw us. The ride was not pleasant because the road was super curvy and the driver was driving fast. Sunshine, who switched with Gregory and sat on the front seat after the only break, said her head was moving from one side to the other  like a dead chicken . No wonder her neck hurt afterward. We thought the ride was going to be 6 hours but it took less than five! The driver offered to take us to our ...