Quick Update

Hi all.

So, Vesna has been posting a bunch of pics.  I thought I would let you see some rain.  Today, the rain came down a little at the office.  Below are some videos.  My favourite being the one with the kids swimming in the street. This is the view from the window.

Random Manila Facts

Clearly I'm totally overdue with blogging! This is the shopping centre just over the road. Powerplant Mall. I need to get a picture of the piano, but people can sit and play to their heart's content. It adds such ambience to your shopping experience.

There's also a few Starbucks in the area. Everyone walks around in the evenings and goes for late coffee or frapuccino in my case :-) It's so wonderful just being able to walk freely at night. Totally awesome!

This was the smallest bag of Jasmine rice I could find at our local grocery store, Rustan's. It's incredible how much rice there is here! I've got a photo of the rice isle in the shop further down.

The duck lives in another shopping centre about 5 minutes away. The next photo is basically a picture of his home!?! Such a stunning shopping centre. Looks more like a garden than anything else. All the restaurants open onto the garden and spill over into different parts of it. Totally stunning to sit under the lanterns and have supper - as long as you have an outdoor air con nearby...

This is the isle of rice I mentioned earlier.

Manila Sights 2

Incredible Jewellery.

The fresh water pearls were incredible!

Manila Sights

Some random Manila sights.

The shopping is crazy!

Friday night dinner at a French restaurant with accordian included?!?

The view from our balcony.

Manila!!!

K, so a few sights in Manila. There's a shopping centre over the road from our apartment building. It's called Powerplant Mall of all things?!? So I was exploring it for a bit today and discovered a set of restaurants outside.

It was sweltering hot, but it was such a lovely walk. We don't get to do that in ZA unfortunately.

Most of Manila looks like this.

This was one of the most exciting parts for me! I was like a 2 year old when I saw it. These are the jeepnees. They are old world war two jeeps that have been expanded into limo size and then decorated up.

The cable connections are incredible here. How on earth do technicians make sense of all of these?

And of course, it was amazing to find KFC in Manila :-) Brad reckons it doesn't taste anything like KFC that we know.

And this is us outside the Manila airport. We had to walk out the airport, over a road, down a ramp to a designated pick up area where you stand according to first letter of your surname so your pick up can find you easier. Interesting way of doing things.

So much more to tell but it's already after 12am in the morning...eisssshhhhh.

Singapore Airport

Wow, so here are some sights from Singapore airport. Unashamedly I have to admit I was like a two year old. There are just the most ingenious and crazy things there. Definitely a must see airport!!!

The koi were the size of mini tuna just about!?!








And I just don't know any other airport that has a tropical jungle in the middle of it! THe singaporeans know how to kit a place out!













This was just totally incredible! A little electric buggy with a tow hitch to pull the long lines of mini luggage carts. Totally amazing. Just wish I'd got it on video.










And of course, here are the mini luggage carts. The were totally funky. I got mine to pop a wheely :-)

Brilliant start to a wonderful adventure.

Some motoring memories...sniff, sniff.

Wow, so both the sillver bullet and the silver chorrie are sold :-( I'm quite nostalgic.

So obviously some motoring memories are in order I think!

Here's the silver chorrie...toyota engine...totally reliable...brilliant little car!

This is the Roodepoort Botanical gardens waterfall. It was the silver bullet of course that took us on this adventure.

And how could I possibly forget when we drove up to Loftus to go watch die Blou Bulle play!!! Totally amazing experience! Except my team lost :-( To the sharks!!??!!

All of us drove up in the silver bullet...listening to yes you guessed it, Afrikaanse Treffers :-) Sorry guys, I had to be honest about that one...lol.

The silver chorrie took us on honeymoon. Driving through the Karoo in summer heat without air con was not funny!lol. The building is where we stayed, a lovely pace called De Erf. Stunning! And the car was packed to the roof with all my stuff. Wow, it was quite something to see.

Some more views on the drive to EL in the bullet.

Below is the bulls just about to score a try. Can't remember if they made it or not. But clearly I didn't realise how much I was yelling for my team...eeck!

Packing...eish!!!

So the packing has begun with a vengence. Wow, the 80/20 principle certainly applies! Easy to start, not easy to finish! Got a fair amount to get through when we're back in JHB. Anybody keen to take over our packing?!?

And I totally decided that Nelly has to come to Manila with us :-) I know the piano case looks like a crate, but it'll get Nelly there safely!

Some Biking at Mankele

So, if you are wondering why there are 2 posts in a day, it is because I am trying out some desktop based software for the blog. Ecto, Macjournal and Marsedit.

This post is being done in MacJournal, which thus far, seems to be the nicest tool, however, it will be the more expensive to purchase, once my 15 day trial runs out.

Back to the blog. So Vesna and I arrived at the lodge a little too early to check in.

The Entrance	The View of Accommodation

As a result, we decided to take the bicycles off the car, pump the tires, fill the hydration packs and head over to Mankele. This would be our first time riding with Cleats, and we were obviously a little nervous.

None the less, we had an incredible ride. The trails at Mankele are really special. They are well maintained, with bridges, drops, technical rocky paths and lots of hills.

A Drop (Almost verticle)

Some of the Wide Track

Anyway, we will work more on the blog tomorrow. For now, the attached is our first mini test of MacJournal.
More pictures of Mankele views, the Panarama route and the accommodation to follow.

What's to Come

Well, as you can see, the blogging kind of died after the America's trip.

But don't fear. We will be getting the blog thing back up and running, starting with some pictures of our latest South Africa trip.

So, what can you expect.  Well, we recently went on a little 1 week trip to Mpumalanga and stayed near the Sudwala caves.

What's really great about this place, is it is right next door to a bike park.  That's right.  Vesna and I recently started getting into the whole Mountain Bike thing.  Just before leaving for this trip, we organized some cleat pedals and shoes, so the riding was... well, interesting.

Well, let me get to uploading some pictures etc.

Brad and Vesna