Table of Contents:     (links will be created as posts are published)

• Days to 1 to 4: Manila
• Day 5: Taal Volcano
• Day 6: Pagsanjan Falls & Mall of Asia
• Day 7 and 8: Basketball, Shopping, and Church
• Days 9 to 11: Bohol & Panglao
• Day 12: An Unexpected Family Reunion in Siquijor
• Day 13 and 14: More fun in Manila
• Days 15 to 17: Coron Island
• Day 18: Wrap-up

 

After several business trips to the Philippines (June 2011, Sept 2011, Feb 2012), I was successful in convincing Tia that we should spend our summer vacation there (without kids!). As mentioned in the first post regarding this vacation (Day 12), it would give us an opportunity to see some amazing sites and attempt to explore more of Tia’s family history.

The rough agenda had us staying around Metro Manila for the first week, including a few days in the office, and then island hopping for the final two weeks (returning to Manila on the weekends). The islands we visited are Bohol, Panglao, Siquijor, and Coron.  Each offered a variety of great experiences and memories which we’ll attempt to capture in this family journal through an ongoing series of blog posts.

Highlights from the first few days include:

• Attending Church a short walk from the hotel
• Manila Bay Dinner Cruise
• Rain taking us to a professional basketball game (PBA)
• Tia’s first experiences shopping at the Manila super malls
• An evening with Toto & Ava Jill, who took us on a tour of
  • The Manila Philippines LDS Temple
  • Ateneo University (where we played basketball with an organized group)
  • Mushroom Burger (yummy!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Airport Anecdotes:

* We ran into not one, but two, good friends at the Houston airport! One was an old family friend from Sacramento, and the other was a co-worker from Australia who was passing through on his way home from Miami to Perth.  (the same co-worker I met up with in Manila several times on previous business trips)

* On the plane from SF to Tokyo, we were surrounded by a group of young men in their 20’s dressed in basketball warm-ups. Turns out they’re a traveling Christian Missionary Team, and their coach is from my old highschool in Sacramento!  (he wasn’t a coach when I played for the school, but said he recognized me)

* At the Sacramento airport (we had an overnight layover, dropping off our kids with their grandparents), someone who had the same brand of luggage as me took mine by mistake (and left).  Luckily, I managed to locate his luggage and worked with the airport staff to contact him. He came back to the airport to exchange bags with me. Close call!

* Leaving Sacramento, upon check-in, our reservations showed an unknown error and would not let us proceed. The lady at the counter had to call headquarters not once, but twice, to get the mysterious error cleared. It was a pretty tense 15 minutes or so standing there with our fingers crossed (and even then, Tia’s connecting boarding pass from Tokyo to Manila printed out fine, but mine would not!  I had to get mine printed at the gate in Tokyo).

* The flight from Sacramento to San Francisco was delayed due to weather. If it was delayed more than an hour or two, we would have missed our connection to Tokyo (luckily it wasn’t).

* Returning to the U.S., I was denied check-in at the counter in Manila due to a red coloration in my left eye.  I knew it was being caused by a cold sore on my eyelid, but they escorted me to the airport doctor for examination. Despite my plea that it was a harmless cold sore on the eyelid (that I’ve had reoccurring since my teenage years), he still wrote conjunctivitis on the diagnosis form (which is highly contagious, pinkeye). Luckily, he also checked the box that says I’m clear to fly.

When someone sends you an email asking if you’d like to catch dinner and the game, courtside, the answer is “Yes, please.”

Following are a few short clips from television intermixed with video from my camera phone. At the beginning you can see us taking our seats in the lower-left corner of the screen (I’m in the purple shirt). A few scenes are shown both from my phone and the TV.

We just watched the documentary “More Than a Game” — the story of LeBron James and his highschool teammates.  The film covers everything from their start as 4 best friends on an 11 yr old AAU basketball team all the way through their senior year and third state championship (beating the Nation’s #1 team Oak Hill Academy along the way).

The director/creator of the film started it as a college project (the original assignment was a 10 minute short).  He was from Akron and had heard about this local group of kids who started playing together at a young age and decided to all play for the same highschool.  The coach and highschool administrators allowed him to follow the team their junior and senior year as a fly-on-wall cameraman.  He does an excellent job of capturing the essence of the team as a unit, each player’s story (not just LeBron), and their mentor coach (the point guard’s father).

I purchased the movie on Amazon.com and expected to learn a lot about LeBron James intermixed with a highlight reel of game footage.  What I got instead was a wholesome story of friendship, family, and sports as a catalyst for something greater than “the game”.

While we weren’t state champions or anything, some of my fondest memories and closest friends were made on my highschool basketball team (and thanks to Facebook, I can stay in touch with them).  I think Tia liked the film as well, she also played sports in highschool (and college).  “More Than a Game” highlights many of the character-building aspects of sports which makes me hope our kids enjoy athletics as much as their parents do.