From The Land Of Cheap Pearls & Really Good Coffee!!

I know it's been a long, long while since I've updated this blog, so let me bring you up to speed. For those who don't know, I'm here in the Philippines for my grandmother's 85th birthday. It was a little traumatic getting here. Our flight out was delayed due to the bad weather in the Northeast. We almost had to stay overnight in Guam, but Continental had the plane wait for us since it would be cheaper than trying to put up a planeload of people overnight. Once we got here, it took us almost 2 hours to find our relatives that were picking us up from the airport in Manila. BUT (and here's the good part) we're staying in the Shangri-la in Makati City. Makati is the business & financial district in the Manila and the Shangri-la is one of the top hotels in Manila. One of our relatives works here, so we got a GREAT discount and when we got to our room (at 3am), there was a fruit tray and 2 bottles of wine courtesy of our relative!! WOO HOO!!!!!!

We spent today pearl shopping! We walked out of the market with bundles of pearls for almost nothing!!! After that, we did some sightseeing at the historic part of Manila. I'll post the pictures when I get a chance.

We leave for the provinces tomorrow afternoon and the rest of the week will be family fun-time and we'll wrap up the week with a huge birthday bash for my grandmother complete with a "here's your life" slide show courtesy of moi.

More to come (complete with pictures) later.