Earthquake!

Maybe we were getting a little too cocky about Cebu never getting hit with the typhoons that plague the Manila and Mindanao areas, but on Tuesday morning at about 8:00am we got a surprise in the form of a 7.2 earthquake centered in Bohol, a neighbouring island famous for its Tarsier sanctuary and the  Chocolate Hills.  Tuesday was a statutory holiday in the Philippines and it's thought that this meant there were fewer injuries, but tragically over 140 people have died and hundreds were injured during the quake, mostly in Bohol.

Nena and I were at home in the condo when the quake hit and it was terrifying.  I was on Skype with John when I felt the slight rumble that I normally associate with a heavy truck going by outside.  Then I realized that heavy trucks don't make our building tremble but earthquakes do!  I told John I'd better go, and then we just hung on until it stopped, grabbed a key and ran out the door to join everyone else who was escaping the building.  We're only on the 3rd floor and I'm very grateful for two reasons - it's quick to take the stairs out and the lower floors didn't sway nearly as much as the higher floors did.  We spent about two hours outside while the maintenance people checked the building then we were let back in.

We are very lucky that our building has a generator that kicks in as soon as the main power goes out, so while most people didn't have power for the rest of the day, we did.  Also, the Internet stayed up  and running the whole time, which I was very impressed by.

Later in the day, we were evacuated again after a particularly strong aftershock, but that was the extent of it for us.  No one in the building was injured and the building itself handled the disturbance without any problem.  Others were not nearly so lucky.  Many buildings -- hospitals, schools, churches, homes and malls -- were severely damaged.  In Cebu, the Santo Niño de Cebu Basilica, one of the main tourist attractions, was badly damaged.  And on Bohol, the roof of the Church of San Pedro in Loboc collapsed.  It is very upsetting for a strongly Catholic country to have these two significant churches, as well as others, badly damaged after they've stood firm for over 400 years.

Aftershocks are really quite disturbing, especially for the first couple of days when they are still quite strong and the shock of the earthquake itself is still so close.  I can't imagine how awful they must be for families that have lost their homes or loved ones.  Each tremor makes you stop, tense and wait to see if it will get stronger or stop.  I am getting used to them and they're quite infrequent by now -  4 days later - but there was another one as I was writing this.  

None of the people in the company or their families were hurt, and they were all able to stay in their homes.  Our office building is an older building and it didn't fare quite so well, so we've been working from home all this week.  As of now, the water is back on and the building has been inspected and declared safe, so we'll be back in there on Monday.  It's not clear if the air conditioning is working 100% yet but we'll find out.  

There is a small silver lining for me from this.  I've been fearful of the "big one" happening for years and now I know that well-built buildings can withstand a truly incredible amount of shaking without damage.  That's reassuring.  And I've also done some research of earthquake preparedness and will be much better prepared, wherever I am, next time!  

3 Days in Thailand

We've just returned from a week away -- 3 days in Thailand and 2 in Hong Kong.  We've been to Hong Kong a few times before and still really like it, but Thailand was new and exciting.  We booked 4 nights in Bangkok and only decided a few days beforehand what we would do there.  I have to admit I was quite apprehensive about Bangkok as it seemed so foreign, and almost everyone I spoke with said "don't go to Bangkok -- go to x".  But flights had been booked so we went.

In general it was great and I'm very glad we went but I have to fully disclose that we did the full-on touristy trip - no braving Bangkok on our own for me!  We hired a private tour guide company and were escorted around all 3 days.  We saw a ton of things, and learned a lot about Thailand, or at least the tour guide version of Thailand.

Day 1 - Royal Grand Palace, Canal Tour and Flower Market

This was a lovely day spent in Bangkok and guided by the charming Em.  Being with a guide was wonderful for all sorts of reasons -- they negotiate taxi fares (or make sure that the driver is using the meter), stand in line for tickets and pay the entrance fees, fend off the people trying to sell us things, provide advice on what to buy in the markets, translate the various customs of which there are many (remove your shoes to show respect, don't smell the roses that are to be given to Buddha; Buddha gets to smell them first, cover your legs and shoulders in a temple, etc. etc.), provide all sorts of information about the country and its history, and generally makes sure that we enjoyed the time we had in Thailand without worrying.  I highly recommend it for wusses like me when visiting a foreign city for the first time.

We went to the Royal Grand Palace and Royal Temple first, in Bangkok.  It was amazing!  There's really no way that these pictures can do it justice but here are few to give you an idea (and to prove that we were there).

There are recurring themes of buddhas, monkeys and demons everywhere and I'm inspired to read a lot more about Buddhism and the stories that are depicted.   Here are monkey guards.

And monkeys and demons -- the demons are wearing shoes, the monkeys are barefoot (and are the good guys, I think - I really need to learn more about this).

We then went to the temple where the reclining Buddha is.  He's huge!  This picture just gives you a sense of how big the image is - you can't get far enough away to get all of him in one shot.

I had to put coins in 108 brass bowls - not sure why, other than for luck.

I found the various faces of Buddha quite fascinating.  This hall had dozens of Buddha images in it and each was slightly different than the others, but none of them were fat like the Chinese Buddha.

After lunch we went on a boat ride through the canals of Bangkok.  At one time they were used as a transportation highway but now they are for the tourists and some pretty huge barges.  There's no fishing allowed near the temples but you can buy bread to chuck at these huge carp that fight over each chunk.

From there we took a Tuk Tuk to the flower market, which was great.  No pictures but you could buy a bunch of lovely roses for about $1.  It's amazing what can be grown in a tropical climate like Thailand has.  If I lived there, I'd have fresh roses in my home all the time.

Day 2 - Summer Palace and Ayutthaya (the second capital of Thailand). 

On this day and the next we were guided by TJ, who was a font of historical knowledge about Thailand.

We first went to the Bang Pan-In Summer Palace, built by one of the early kings of the Chakri Dynasty (of which the current king is the 9th and the king depicted in The King and I movie was the 4th).  Although the movie is banned in Thailand we found that both of our guides found it an easy reference when describing which king did what.  The 5th king, for example, was educated at Oxford in the UK and was responsible for much of the modernizing in Thailand.

This tower was originally used for spotting wild elephant herds.

But the only elephants there now are these topiary ones. 

It was a lovely spot, with a mixture of Thai and European architecture.  

At one point, I had to put on a sarong to cover my pants.  Not sure why, other than to show respect....

Next we went to Ayutthaya historical park, where we saw lots of ruins and Stupas (the Thai equivalent of the pyramids).

Here's us in front of the Buddha head that magically appeared in the tree.  We're sitting down low so that we aren't disrespecting Buddha by being much higher than him (or at least that's what I think the guide told us). 

We had another boat ride, this time in the country and then went back to Bangkok.

Day 3 -- 

This day was rather ad-hoc as we changed our mind and didn't take our original tour as booked.  

Our first stop was at an old Thai house that the owners opened up for tourists to see (and wear silly hats so that they can have our picture taken).

They also made coconut sugar there, and I was particularly interested in seeing that.  TJ is holding a coconut flower bud, which is what the sugar is made from. 

The sap from the flower bud is collected and boiled down to make sugar syrup (the vat closest to us is almost finished; the other two are in varying stages of production).

Later that morning, we went to a floating market in a town outside of Bangkok and had another boat trip around the canals. 

On the way back to Bangkok we stopped at one of the many Elephant Camps and watched a very hungry momma elephant devour banana after banana while her baby switched between snacking on bananas and snacking on Mom.  There were elephants available to ride but we decided to save that experience for another time.

Back to Bangkok and then to two museum houses - the Jim Thompson House and one whose name translates to the Cabbage Patch museum (because the land was a cabbage patch at one time).  It's a very inelegant name for a lovely museum house with a wonderfully animated curator who gave us a great tour. 

Most of the places that we visited allowed picture-taking only outdoors so we were not able to capture the insides but they were charming.  One thing I particularly liked was that the entry to each room required stepping over either a short or tall threshold.  The shorter threshold is to prevent bad spirits from entering the room; the taller threshold is to keep the babies either in or out.  

Summary of the trip --

- Thai people are lovely and I intend to go back (but probably not during the rainy season)

- I appreciated their strong devotion to Buddha, their King and Queen, and the way they value their history

- I have put Buddhism and Thai history on my list of books to read (and want to watch The King and I again)

- The food was great and not expensive, outside of Bangkok

- There are things to watch out for - leaving for the airport, we neglected to negotiate the taxi fare or use of the meter (so the trip cost us a bit more than we expected) but the taxi was clean, the driver was polite and we got to the airport in time for our flight so all good. 

New Avalon condo

Technically we've lived in the "new" condo for almost 2 months now but I was here just one day after move-in before leaving for 3 weeks, so it still feels fairly new.  I really like it - there's definitely some disadvantages compared to the old place, but the advantages outweigh them by a lot!  Here's a little photo tour.

This is the view when you walk in the door - kitchen is to the left, dining table right in front, living room behind it.  It's definitely darker than Zenith was, but....we have real curtains, and a rug on the floor, and we can actually hear the TV when it's on!  That's a real bonus.

The next two are views of the kitchen.  It's pretty standard, hotplate instead of a stove/oven but we have the little oven I bought (it's on top of the fridge) and of course, no dishwasher. 

There are 3 bedrooms in total, and only 2.5 bathrooms so it is smaller than the last place but much more homey and comfortable.  This is just a bit of the master bedroom with my desk.

And the master bathroom.  It has a bath/shower unit that you can't see in this photo but it's a pretty typical bathroom.  The only interesting thing is that it comes with a bidet faucet - you can see it on the wall next to the toilet.  So far it's only been used for cleaning the floor drain (as far as I know that is) but it's very handy for that purpose.

So, that's the unit - pretty standard.  

Oh, I almost forgot 2 of the 3 best things about it -- another reason we can hear the TV is that the aircon units are quiet!  We can actually have them on and hear each other without yelling - that's very exciting.  And finally, in the bedrooms, there are real drapes so if we want to sleep in past 5:00am (which is when it starts to get light...every morning of the year), we can.  

When I said there are 2.5 baths, the .5 is not the typical powder room that you would expect.  Did you notice the door next to the fridge?  In behind there is a tiny room with a lot of stuff in it -- a small bunk bed, washer, dryer, sink, toilet and shower.  It's technically the maid's room and came with just the bunkbed, toilet, washer and dryer in it.  We had them add the shower and sink to give us a 3rd bathroom that Nena uses.   

Now for the other features, which is really why I like this building.  The gym....it's not huge but it's quite well appointed and Cyrus, my PT, comes here when we work out.  No more trekking through the mall in gym clothes for me!  I'm working on weights, as usual, and also running without stopping - I'm up to 33 minutes as of this morning.  

Here's another great feature, although I've only been in a couple of times.  In the first picture, you can see the corner of my old building behind the pool as we are literally right next door.  The treadmills look out over the pool and it's nice seeing the kids playing in it.  

Here's the kids pool and some of the deck chairs.

Finally, there is a rooftop deck that I quite like.  There's a couple of little sitting areas and a function room. 

 The next two are pictures of the city that I took from the rooftop.  The first one shows the ocean in the background and the greenspace where we go walking most weekend mornings, and then head to one of the many coffee shops nearby to cool off.  This whole area surrounding the mall was a golf course at one time and this is one of the last pieces of greenspace left (and they're putting up new buildings on it already).

This last picture is from the other side of the building, facing my office with the mall expansion below.  

Australia

We're back from 2 weeks in Australia and while it was not warm, we had a good time and would happily go back again, during their spring or fall.  The array of birds and animals that are so different from North America's was really quite amazing.  We went to a zoo in Adelaide, a wildlife preserve in Sydney and then the best part - during a wine tour, driving down a country road - we saw a mob of kangaroos in the wild!  And yes, a group of kangaroos is called a mob.  John took these from the side of the road.  Apparently they're pretty much like deer around Victoria - considered pests by the farmers and will run off if you get too close.  I stayed a bit further back because the bus driver warned us about snakes in the long grass and I had no interest in seeing one of those outside of a glass cage!

At the wildlife preserve, we got to feed and hang out with the kangaroos. 

There were lots of koalas.  

Wombats....

and meerkats.  This one is doing guard duty while the others eat.

There were dozens of colourful, noisy birds and of course, plenty of snakes.  We almost took a picture of 2 fake crocodiles in the Adelaide zoo but happened to overhear a woman pointing out the moss on one of them to her children, so we walked away.  We have hundreds of photos that we could happily bore you with but these are some of the highlights.

Australia is a lot more than animals, of course, however Adelaide was a bit dreary, to be honest.  It was rainy, cold and dark most of the time - a lot like Victoria in the middle of winter.  We did stay in a great vacation rental apartment there.  One of the owners is a chef and the kitchen has in it every spice and condiment that you could imagine, all available for use by the guests.  So between that and the Adelaide market, which is huge, we cooked quite a lot.  Adelaide also had some great restaurants, gardens, museums, etc.

Sydney is a beautiful city and has more gardens, great harbours, the opera house (that we didn't go to, sadly).  We decided to spend money on two day trips out of the city instead, both of which we enjoyed.  The first was to the Blue Mountains and while the mountains themselves are not spectacular compared to the Rockies, it was great to see something other than city.

This photo was taken from a cable car, and you probably can't see it but there are fences near the top.  Apparently people used to climb this big rock and picnic up there but it was deemed too dangerous recently and now you can only look at it.  

The source of water for the area is all underground springs and even in the worst drought conditions, the waterfalls will still be flowing.  This one is called Fairy Falls.  

The second tour was through the Hunter Valley wine region, which has something like 270 wineries in it.  We stopped at 5, all good, and great to have someone else doing the driving.  

We're back in Cebu now, in the new condo, and I'm back at work tomorrow. 

It was good to go home, even for a few days

I'm back in Cebu after a whirlwind trip back to the Canada and the US.  Not that this one was much different, other than having too many medical appointments - the effect of getting older I guess.

John and I mostly traveled back to Canada together, first time we've been so coordinated.  And we flew through Tokyo, which I've never done before.  I don't know if all of Tokyo has bathrooms like in the airport, but I definitely want to go back and find out.  Check this out.....it's a picture of the extra features of the regular women's bathroom toilet.  To be honest I didn't try them all.  And then, in the airport lounge bathroom, white noise starts playing as soon as you close the stall door.  Isn't that great?

From Tokyo to Toronto and on to Ottawa, to recover from jetlag and for me to attend eHealth.  Day 3 of jetlag always seem to be the worst for me and that was the day I was writing 2 health informatics certification exams.  I don't have the results yet but at least have a decent excuse if I didn't manage to pass them.

Peace Tower

We did some touristing in Ottawa - I'd never been into the Parliament Buildings, so it was fun to do that.  We took the free tour, which was pretty hokey, in a nicely Canadian way, but it was fun to be in Ontario with its many interesting personalities!

On the last day before leaving Ottawa we visited the War Museum, and it was pretty impressive.

After a couple days in Toronto visiting John's sister and nephew, we came home to Victoria where the highlight was having my two US-based daughters (who are both pregnant) and families come to Victoria for the weekend so that we could have a baby shower for Liz.  Here's a picture with their youngest sister, who appears to be suffering from preggo-envy!

But after that, and seeing some other family and friends (but not everyone I wanted to) and having 3 trips to the dentist and 2 to the optometrist, and picking up the things that I can't get in the Philippines, it was back to the airport and the long trek home to Cebu.  Victoria is beautiful at this time of year and it was much more difficult to leave than when it's cold and wet in January!