A Final Hurrah in the Philippines

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Somewhere between Vietnam, Japan and South Korea the two of us made the second-most pivotal decision of our long-term adventure: to finally return home to the United States. We had decided that surprising one side of our families after two years on the road would be a unique Thanksgiving gift that only we could give. So, as our final hurrah, with about a month left we headed to the Philippines to explore a handful of the country’s 7,107 islands. We played in the beach with local kids, visited the famous Chocolate Hills, went tarsier-spotting, and watched once-in-a-lifetime sunrises and sunsets. We went scuba diving with thresher sharks, rode around in tricycles, hung out in a biker bar in Manila, and ate our fill of local dishes like lechón, kare-kare and dinakdakan. We really savored our last few weeks on the road in the Philippines, reminiscing over the two years’ worth of adventure we’d just had, and enjoying a vacation before re-entry into the U.S. 

With a long history of conquest and settlement by the Chinese, Arabs, Spanish, Japanese, Americans, and various indigenous tribes (to name just a few), the architecture, cuisine and general culture of Read the rest of this entry »