Janelle on January 19th, 2009

Something I’ve always wanted to do is learn how to scuba dive. Imagine my delight when I found out that not only does my cousin dive, but she was willing to take us out somewhere to go on an intro dive. We drove out to Anilao in Batangas to a small resort. When I arrived, [...]

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Janelle on January 5th, 2009

Living in Japan, I often heard people ask me, “how can we Japanese learn English?” or “How come the Koreans/Chinese/Filipinos/Singaporeans speak English better than us?” It was kind of an odd question that I couldn’t really answer before, but coming back to the Philippines the answer seems so obvious: you learn English by using it. [...]

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Janelle on January 2nd, 2009

While in the Philippines, my cousins and uncles have been trying endlessly to gross out Hugh with “exotic” Filipino food. I think this is a pretty common practice around the world, where rather than be embarassed about some local delicacies, most people consider Americans (and its usually Americans who are so grossed out by foreign [...]

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Janelle on January 1st, 2009

After the wedding, we went with my cousins to Baguio, a mountain-top city which serves as a summer retreat for Manilans. I was told that it was very rural and provincial, but I guess after backpacking through rural Laos I had a completely different idea of what that would be. While it was certainly quite [...]

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Janelle on December 30th, 2008

We officially arrived in the Philippines on the 26th, worn-out and suffering from food poisoning (well, me at least.) However, after a few days of rest we were able to attend my cousin’s wedding. Although I’m ethnically Filipino, I was born and raised in the United States and had only attended one Filipino wedding prior [...]

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