Hello Manila

December 29, 2008: (Manila, PI) We arrived in Manila at about 8:30 a.m. Below is a great photo from Terri's window seat of our approach to the city. Notice how blue the sky is? No rain! Why does it rain almost every day of our vacation, except the day we leave?


Anyway, we took our time getting to baggage claim--we weren't in any big rush since our flight to Hawaii didn't leave until 7:50 p.m. When we arrived at the baggage carousel, all our fellow passengers and their luggage was gone! Only our three bags were left--looking a little forlorn and forgotten! We wish we had a photo to show you, 'cause we had a good laugh about it.

So, what do you do with over 10 hours to spend in Manila? Unfortunately, not a whole lot while you're dragging around three huge and densely packed suitcases! From the airport, we hired a taxi to take us to a few sites around Manila. FYI-It cost us 1300 pesos to have our taxi driver take us to the Manila Temple and the American Cemetery, wait for 1 hour at both sites, and then drive us back to the airport. That's about $28.00! Not bad, eh?

The next few pictures were taken at our first stop--the Manila temple. We had also wanted to do some souvenir shopping at the CTR store across the street, but like the temple, it was closed on Monday! RATS!

The two gentlemen in the bottom left corner of this next picture are Brother Peter & Dr. Alexander. Brother Peter is the temple gate guard who accompanied us as we checked out the temple. Bro. Peter has hiked to the top of Mt. Everest. How many people can you say you've met who have hiked to the top of Everest? .And Dr. Alexander is the doctor and missionary assigned to help with health issues for all the missions in the Philippines. We had been in the car a couple of times when my parents talked to Dr. Alexander about health concerns with their missionaries. It was fun to put a face and name together.

Here's one last photo of us at the temple. The grounds were beautiful, the weather perfect, and the visit well worth it! I was disappointed our timing was off and we couldn't go in to do a session. We would have had plenty of time! But it was fun to visit this temple with Terri--my temple buddy!