Beautiful Bohol

 

 

One traumatic ferry ride from Cebu later...(Aside: I yanked Derek's arm while we're on the pier to get him onto the boat and he cried for whole 2 hours on the ferry like his arm was broken. We had to have the resort take us to the hospital to get it checked out. I had to carry him every-so-carefully, and slinged his arm because I thought it to be broken, and I'm wondering how we will deal with the rest of the trip with a broken arm or dislocated elbow. Guess what? Turns out he was faking that whole time, maybe it was slightly strained, but after he heard that we'd have to take an X-ray, he threw his arm down and ran out into the hall acting totally fine. Yes, I nearly had a heart attack, but my friends Kyle and Christine reminded me that we should be glad his arm wasn't broken.)

Anyway, after the ferry from Cebu to Bohol, we drove through the beautiful countryside to get to Amarela. Derek loved the swing in front.

Good Eats (Lechon!)

The food in the Philippines agreed with Dek Boy. Here he is after we just landed in Cebu and made our way directly to the Lechon joint. Lecon is an incredibly crunch and tasty preparation of suckling pig. The skin basically turned into a crispy shell with tender meat below. Derek helped himself to a whole plateful. 

Derek was so ambitious in eating that he at one point poked his eye with his fork, which caused some trauma, so Mike stepped into help the little guy continue to shovel it down. Though we were pretty vigilant in carrying along the Epi Pen, he didn't really run into too many food allergies. Even better, we've found out that he's starting to outgrow the dairy allergy and hopefully we can introduce peanuts and shellfish into his diet after age 3. Despite his "limited" diet, there was plenty for Dek to eat in the Philippines, and he was the only one that never got any food-related illness. 

All About Airports

 

 

Waiting at the Manila Domestic Airport to go to Cebu

In planning the trip, we were very ambitious in moving Derek between:
3 Countries
7 Cities
1 Long Ferry Ride
Countless taxies (without a car seat, gulp!)

This was our routing Washington -> Tokyo -> Manila -> Cebu -> Bohol -> Manila -> Palawan -> Kuala Lumpur -> Manila -> Tokyo -> Washington (all in 22 days).

That's 10 flights with the little man, both long haul, short regional flights, and even an air taxi ride in a small puddle jumper with an unpressurized cabin. 

We were trying to maximize traveling with good friends and also enjoying vacation. 
Needless to say, we spent 1 out of every 3 days in an airport or doing a transfer to a new city/hotel/location. However, I think we may have overdid it. Nonetheless, Dek wasn't too much worse for wear. Mike and I however didn't get away so easily. Derek was amazingly cooperatively about 80% of the time and we didn't suffer any heavy melt downs on planes. Though we used lollipops and the Ipod more than I would have liked, we made it through without too much incident. Derek now has quite the fondness for planes ("Tau Bay!" - as he would exclaim in Viet. "More Tau Bay!"). Hopefully we'll get him back in the air soon at some point knowing he was able to make

Timeout in Manila

Dek was a pretty flexible napper and would often sleep in the car on long rides (despite the sweltering heat). It seems I suffered more for hanging out with him in the car in fear of waking sleeping beauty. We did our best to let him nap at least 1 hour, whether in the car or carrier, so that he could stay up a bit later. He mostly went to bed at 9-10pm most nights. 

We made it back from Tagaytay and stopped by Market! Market!, a mall near the newer developments of Fort Bonifacio. Formerly a military area, its turned into a huge hub-bub of commercial development in recent years. Dek enjoyed running around the pop up fountains with other local kiddies. 

There were also these really fun ride on animals that you could drive around for a small fee. I will admit that it was more for me than Dek, but we had a good time nonetheless.

Road to Tagaytay

Derek loved visiting with all the many street side vendors while we took our day trip out of Manila. One of his favorite things we picked up was this big bunch of bananas. We were eating them for several days after, sometimes finding a mushed one at the bottom of my backpack wasn't always a great surprise.

More at People's Park

 

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Derek was also into chasing stray cats all over the place.

The Best Part of People's Park

 

 

I guess I'll have to wait until Derek is a bit older to describe the history of the Philippines and the legacy of a dictator that would rather build a summer palace of decadence rather than care for the his countrymen. Years later, the palace has been returned to the people as a public park (unfinished and dilapidated, its a bit of symbol of the disfunction of a Marcos' rule). Anyway, Dek only noticed there was a pineapple - this is pre-Spongebob era. He sure loved playing in the "pina".