Palawan

So after seeing everybody in Manila, we went on to the island of Palawan. Palawan, with its high limestone mountains, beautiful beaches, karst topography, steamy jungles and small villages is often called the Philippines last frontier. There is a website where people can vote on the new seven wonders of the natural world, http://www.new7wonders.com/, and out of the 300 or so places that are listed, 2 of them are on Palawan. One is the Sabang Underground River, a river that goes through on fo the limestone mountains and is the longest navagible underground river in the world at 8.3km long. We'll be going there later. The other is Tubbataha Reef. An isolated pair of atols in the Sulu Sea that has been completely untouched and has over a thousand species of reef dwellers. Out of all 300 places, both of these are in the top 7. We were unable to make it to Tubbataha, but we're already planning our trip to go dive there. We spent a few days in Puerto Princessa making our plans for the days that we have on Palawan and then we headed up to El Nido.







This is a picture of El Nido. It is a small town on the northern end of the island. It only has power for about half the day and no places to stay that have either hot water or AC, but it is the best place to be to see the Bacuit Archipeigo and some of the best snorkling and diving in the Philippines. Every day we would rent a boat and guide to take us to different places around the archipeligo to snorkel and swim and explore the islands and caves that are all around. This was by far the best snokeling on our trip. We saw so many new things; sting rays, tube worms whose feeders were about 6 inches across, others that looked like 2 inch high christmas trees that were all different colors, soft corals that were 5 feet across, hard corals that looked like giant mushrooms that were a good 6 feet across and 4 feet high, lobsters, a baby squid that was about 6 inches long, 7 foot long sea cucumbers, and a baby white tipped reef shark that was probably 4 or 5 feet long. We didn't get a very good look at the shark because he was afraid of us and didn't stick around.






This is the view we had every morning from our room. Well, its the view we would've every morning if it hadn't been raining most of the days we were there. The rain wasn't that big of a deal because it was still warm, and the ocean was even warmer. We spent hours snorking in the ocean while it was raining and never got cold.

This is Secret Beach. Those spiky limestone cliffs almost completely surround the beach, with only a small inlet form the ocean to the lagoon. Actually its probably one of many beaches named Secret or Hidden. For some reason, there are many beaches, lagoons and caves that are surrounded by huge cliffs except for one small inlet, or are only accessable through a hole or cave through the cliffs. I saw my first ray close up here while we were snokeling, it was bright lime green with blue spots.

Plants grow everywhere here.

There were so many beaches like this. We had lunch here one day. Our guides grilled us up some fresh tuna that was caught that morning. It was really good.

First Days in Manila

We spent the first few days in the Philippines in Manila visiting all my friends from my mission. It was great to see them after 5 years. I didn't realize how much I missed the Philippines and the people until we were there again. The pic above is us with Pres Cangas and his family and the Bautista family. It pretty much explains our first days in Manila. It was so much fun to be with everbody again. And everywhere we went, they just had to feed us. We probably ate more in there than in all the other countries we've visited combined. Plus the food was absolutley delicious.

Everbody loved Kaycie and she made friends will all the women in the ward. She chats with them on facebook all the time and they gave her beautiful jewelry as rememberences. They also taught her how to do reflexology massages, which is definitely my favorite gift.




This is Sis. Nancy Magbanua's house. She's the one standing. We baptized their family right before I finished my mission. Her husband, Marlon, was in Korea working when we were there, but I was able to chat with him for a couple of hours on the internet. Nancy always had lots of really good food for us. Sometimes though, we went to their house at the end of the night and I couldn't eat as much as I would've liked, because I was so full from eating everywhere else. It was so great to see them again. Their kids have gotten so big, and they've even had another since I was there last. That makes six. Analyn Sabio is the one seated on the left. She met us and took us around to everones' houses (much has changed in the last 5 years, so many more houses and people). She came with us everywhere. She is also a great cook and made sure that we were full before going out to see people everyday. We love Analyn and her husband Edward. Edward was in Mindanao on business, but we decided to spend less time on Palawan so that we can see him and spend a few more days with everyone in Manila. The woman seated on the right is Riza. She also had to feed us when we came and made some of the best adobong baboy (Pork with potatoes cooked in soy sauce and vinegar with black pepper) I think I've ever had. So a quick explination on the whole food thing. Filipnos are very generous with what they have. They are some of the nicest people in the world. And feeding people is how they show how much they love them.





Here we are with Nanay Chagas and her daughter Butchai. Butchai, pronounced boo-chai, is not here real name, it is just her nickname. Her real name is Maria Teresa Anghela Salazar Chagas. Hence the nickname. Nanay means mom in tagalog, and considering how much she worked with me as a missionary and how much she fed me, Nanay is pretty fitting.





This is most of the Alegrea Family. The parents have moved to the province to farm, but the kids and their spouses still live in the branch. They are so much fun to be with, and Riza and Jun just had their first child, Daniella, and have a second on the way. I was very sorry to hear that their pet monkey had died.






Mario Velaquez and his wife Joy and their daughter Jam are on the left. They are another of my favorite families in the branch. (I know, it seems like all the families are my favorite. And pretty much they all are.) Mario helped the branch do some of its best service/huumanitarian work when I was there. Pres Cangas and his wife and youngest daughter are on the right. Pres. Cangas was the best Branch President I ever worked with on my mission. He has since been moved up into the District Presidency.


We're going to Palawan next to see the beautiful sights of the Philippines. We're coming back to Manila for a few days again though before we leave to Germany.

Hong Kong!

So at the very end of June, we stopped over in Hong Kong on the way to the Philippines. Hong Kong is an amazing city! It's like New York squished down into half the space. Just a few blocks from our city hotel, the mountains surrounding the city (aka Victoria Peak and such) gave us a challenging hour long hike, with waterfalls along the way. There is a tram up to the top of the peak, but we decided to hike it in the rain for fun. This meant lots of water, near vertical concrete slopes, and tons of mosquitoes! An hour later and drenched from head to toe, we reached the top of the peak only to find it contained a small mall and was totally fogged in. I could only say, "All this way for a mall! Are you kidding me?!? But after an hour, the fog cleared out, giving us an incredible view of the city.

This is the view of Hong Kong at night from our hotel. Jon, did you know they filmed the Dark Knight here? Yeeeaaaahh....

The city is so tightly packed that roads seem to come out of nowhere and snake all over each other. Also, our hotel was up the hill a bit, close to the commuter escalator. The escalator system is a train of about ten (or more... we rode on at least ten... Merrill thinks it might be more like twenty) or so free escalators that take you down (in the morning) or up (in the evening) the hill. We've never seen anything like it.

Our last afternoon in HK, we made the hour-long train and walking trip to the LDS Temple. The Temple is tiny and totally vertical. The small structure you see is both the temple and the mission office. Tiny!! But every inch of it was exquisite. We expected to see mostly foreigners in the temple, British ex pats, etc. but to our delight and surprise, we were the only westerners there that day, except for a couple serving a mission. The temple in Hong Kong is an incredible place. There's a really busy road just out front of it (It took us forever to get a pic of it without cars in the way), but you cannot hear any of the traffic of the city from within it. We felt very lucky to be there!

This gross pic is of me eating noodles in a fast food place in the train station. Yeah... I've got some work to do on learning chop sticks. Thank goodness they use spoons and forks in the Philippines!

We're in the Philippines and having a great time! We love it here, and don't want to leave it any time soon. But we will in just three days. We'll write and post about it after we arrive in Europe.

Let us know how you are doing!

Kaycie and Merrill

P.S. Merrill loves this picture below. The coasts at Coromandel in New Zealand were all covered in a thick foam at both high and low tide. I called it "Sea Barf." Enjoy!

Hiking in New Zealand

Each day in New Zealand, we strapped on our boots (Merrill) and Chacos (Kaycie: who hates boots) and went on a nice long hike through the volcano mountain ranges surrounding Lake Taupo. Lake Taupo is a huge crater lake, said to be what's left of one of the biggest volcanic eruption in history! The Lake is HUGE and is said to have no bottom...

Our first day out, we hiked Mt. Tuahara. The face of the volcano was a dense rain forest that consisted of pine trees, ferns, and tropical palms. Definitely one of the strangest but most beautiful mixes of plants we've ever seen. It seemed like it wouldn't be surprising to see a dinosaur go walking across the trail.



The next day, we set out on the Tongariro Crossing, one of New Zealand's Great Walks. The walk took us about 9 hours. At the mid point, we reached the Red Crater (below) and Emerald Lakes. It was gorgeous!! The travel center at Lake Taupo advised us not to hike the crossing without ice axes and crampons (both of which we didn't have...) but we decided to set out anyway and see how bad things were. We met a school teacher on the way up who said that this was the least amount of snowfall he's seen on the Crossing in ten years. We shouldn't have been able to make the crossing, but thanks to little snow fall early in their winter, we could do it! It was amazing. I did wish, though, that Chacos had a front on them when we reached the snow packs at the top of the crater. Next year, I'm buying Keens!


Red Crater



Emerald Lakes

Where's Waldo??

The last big hike we made was back at the Crossing, hiking to Taranaki Falls. The falls were beautiful, but even more spectacular was the view of Mt. Ruapehu, all covered in snow.

Any way you walk around the Crossing, you're bound to see the infamous "Mt. Doom" used in the movie "Lord of the Rings."

We're in the Philippines now, and everything is wonderful! We really can't see any damage from the Typhoon where we are at. It's HOT and humid, but seeing our friends here is wonderful! Pics from Hong Kong coming soon....

Kaycie and Merrill