Hello again, our clamouring fans! We understand it's been a while since our last post. This is not because we've not had internet access or because we don't have anything to tell; neither is the case, quite the opposite. So, we're here in Tiffany Place, at my dad's pad, on our last day in Asia. We've been here for over a week, and what a week it's been.

Our last post included our first weekend in the Philippines, so here follows a quick round-up of the week since then. On Monday we had a very lazy morning, an excellent breakfast over cartoons, and by the time we were ready to leave, we only had time for a quick spin round the malls before coming back to supervise the caterers preparing for the evening's party. This was put on by my dad for his team and included dinner, drinks and poker for about 20 people in all. An excellent (re-)introduction to the high-flying business expat lifestyle! The next day we'd planned to go to Intramuros, Manila's old town, but after another slow-ish morning and an hour and a half in a bank waiting for them to process a travellers' cheque for us, there was no time. Instead, we took advantage of the afternoon for some museuming: Philippine history, some pre-Hispanic gold artefacts, pots and textiles at the Ayala museum just round the corner from here. That evening we went to a NSN (that's Nokia Siemens Networks, the company my dad works for) "sportsfest", a team-building/social exercise that took the form of a bowling tournament. Hotdogs, nachos and beer included. It was a fun evening, getting into the spirit of things and even having a game ourselves, courtesy of NSN!

Wednesday we made an effort in the morning and actually made it to Intramuros. We started out at Manila Cathedral where we walked in on and stayed for a mass. A very nice building, perhaps surprisingly, finished in 1958, the sixth building on the same site since 1560-something as they keep being destroyed by fires, earthquakes and wars. Thereafter to Fort Santiago, built by the Spanish and later used by the Americans to guard the entrance to the Pasig River. All this Spanish stuff is quite strange after the lack of European influence on culture at our previous stops: if it weren't for the palm trees in the garden and the slums visible over the crenellated walls, it could have been any minor fort in the Mediterranean. This was followed in similar vein by a monastery and church, the oldest church still standing in Manila. The monastery is now taken up by a small museum, which included the usual paraphernalia, statues and so forth, as well as a collection of dictionaries and grammars of native languages put together by the missionaries (rather than trying to teach said natives Latin). From there it was an easy MRT/LRT trip back into town for a quiet evening in with my dad.

Thursday and Friday we spent looing up wedding dress shops online, finding their addresses in the map book, going to said addresses and finding, variously, banks, management consultants and residential houses. This was very tiring and frustrating, as I'm sure you'll understand, and I hope to have recovered from it by the time I get back to the UK and need to start looking for such dresses again. Thursday evening was a greaet improvement on the day time, as my dad had laid on a very posh dinner party for 9 of us in total. Excellent food, real wine, good company and so forth, just the antidote to an unproductive day in the malls. Friday was improved partly by the fact that we bought a rice cooker, yay! (now we just need to get it home) and partly by an iiiinteresting dinner for the inauguration of one of my dad's colleagues' wife as the Smiling Visionary President (officially) of her local Rotary Club. Nice enough evening, which gradually grew stale as the speeches wore on and on and on. But nonetheless, interesting and mostly enjoyable.

Saturday we went to Corregidor, a fortified island that guards the entrance to Manila Bay, bitterly contested by the Japanese and Americans in WWII. We took in ruined barracks, gun batteries, bomb craters, memorials and suchlike on a bus tour, stopping for lunch in the middle. It was all very interesting, and quite moving in the way that war-related things usually are. When we got home we needed a nap, then went out for dinner at a supremely tasty restaurant with Henkka and his wife Cynthia (the first of whom has been a family friend for as long as I can remember) followed by drinks at the lobby bar in the Manila Peninsula hotel - very ra and lots of fun. The next morning it was off to Hidden Valley for a weekend break (this Monday being public holiday). This was a selection of natural springs and pools in the rainforest about 2 hours south of Manila, with an attached resort. We had an excellent time there, just relaxing, swimming a lot and eating even more. On the way home we went via Taal Lake, a very scenic volcanic crater lake where we stopped for afternoon drinks and a bit of view. Now it's Tuesday, we've just met up with Ben, our old driver, which was excellent, and are about to head up to the newly refurbished pool (finally!) for some final chillaxing before our early flight tomorrow morning.