Jeepneys

Manila is an interesting city. There is no real city center. It is just made up of a bunch of smaller cities. We live in Quezon City where the Manila Temple is. The "main" city center" is you want to call it that is Makati. That is where we meet for church and most people in our ward live in that area. Depending on traffic it can take up to an hour to get to Makati from Quezon City. Traffic here is horrible and sometimes down right scary! Traffic here is the definition of organized chaos. There are lanes and lights, and signs but those are all more for decoration. Drivers here have turned driving into an art form. It is all weaving in and out. Public transportation is a joke so that is why traffic is so bad. There are local "buses" called jeepneys that are the old army jeeps that the United States left in the Philippines after WWII that have been converted into buses for local transportation. They are decorated in interesting grafitti style art.

Jeepneys

Quezon City is not as nice as Makati is. Makati is the business district so there are a lot of beautiful buildings and more nice city areas. Where we live is not dump at all. Infact we live in a resort type place. It is called East Wood City. There are a lot of apartment buildings serveral malls, tons of restaurants, movie theatres. Basically we do not have to leave the East Wood City area. We live on top of a mall. Kind of strange to think but cool. There is always a part going on outside. I like it because we can go around East Wood and feel safe pretty much at any time.

Our apartment is very nice. We have several orange walls. I was told that the Filipinos like the color orange. My sister Ellen's favorite color is orange so she would love it here. We have a funky washing machine. It kind of washes our clothes. We have no oven. I was told the Filipinos do not use the oven. When in Rome do what the Romans do so we will follow suit and do as the Filipinos do.  

View from our window.

We do not have any swimming diapers for Cosette so we use regualr ones instead. They get really big!!!

Cosette and Daddy are too cool for school. 

 Yeah, we are not in New York anymore. The water is bad so we have to drink bottled water. All our fruit and vegetables have to be cleaned in bleach water. you have to be careful about what you order at some restaurants too. We are getting used to it. Life here can be very luxurious if you make it. A lot of people have helpers (aka maids) and drivers. Having a driver is nice because traffic is so horrible and they know where everything is.

That is what it is like in our neck of the woods.