Planes, Trains, Taxis, Busses and Ferries!!!!

My intrepid traveling companions.  There are none better than these!!!

Well Hello!!!  Sorry that this one is late, but haven't had the time to sit down and write.  This will be a short, but interesting one.  Enjoy!

SCHOOL:  Nothing to report, other than a very long seven day work week.  We were definitely ready for a vacation.

ADVENTURES:  This week found us having dinner with my friend David and his family and then preparing for a week long excursion to the Philippines.  The adventure truly began on Sunday afternoon when we finished teaching and headed for the train station to catch the fast train to Schenzen.  We had packed up all we needed into our backpacks and were ready to go as soon as school was finished at 2:40.  When we travel to the islands of Southeast Asia we always pack very light.

On the first bus

 When you are on a tropical island, what more do you need than a swimsuit and a couple of shirts?  I typically wear one and then switch to the other the next day.  I wash the first one by hand and then lay it out to dry while I wear the new one.  Besides, we are in and out of the ocean so often that they really don't get all that dirty.
  Enough about my tropical laundry routine.  When we road our motos over to the train station at roughly three in the afternoon, we discovered that the only train tickets available were for seven hours later.  We decided to buy them and then go have dinner, rest and then return.  When we got back to the front gate of the community in which we live, we decided on a whim to check the bus schedule for Shenzhen.  It just so happened that there was a bus leaving in ten minutes and that there were seats available.  We decided to bail out on the train and jumped on the bus.  We figured a three hour bus ride was better than waiting seven hours.  Besides, the idea of trying to find a hotel at midnight wasn't very appealing.

 We made it to Shenzhen at around eight and took a cab to the nearest metro station.  We then rode the metro to a place called Sea World.  Sea World isn't a theme park with whales and dolphins.  It is just an area that is near the sea, that has some nice hotels and restaurants.  We have stayed there before and the girls really wanted Mexican food for dinner.  It is the only place in China that we have found good Mexican food.
  We enjoyed our meal and then headed for our hotel.  We learned a very valuable lesson that evening.  The lesson is this, just because you have stayed at a place and it was very nice the first time, always make them show you the room.  The room we got was not as nice as the first one and it smelled of mold.  We ended up having a restless night of sleep and getting up early to head to Hong Kong. 
  We were heading to the Hong Kong Airport early to see if we could catch an earlier flight.  We had mistakenly booked our plane for the wrong time and wanted to get to Manila earlier than 12 o clock at night.  We decided to take the ferry from Shenzhen to Hong Kong.  It was very pleasant and took us closer to the airport than riding the metro all the way from Shenzhen.  After arriving in Hong Kong and clearing immigration we jumped on the metro to the airport.  We arrived at the airport at around 11 am.  We were hoping catch the next plane out, which was at 1:30pm.  Philippines Airlines was very gracious and accommodating.  They made the change for us and didn't charge us extra.  On top of that, they got us seats all together.  By the time we were finished we had just enough time to rush through security and then get to the gate.  Thank goodness for packing light, it really does make a difference when traveling.  Also, the nice thing was the plane was late arriving so we had time to catch our breath and grab a bite to eat.  The bonus at this point, was there was a Starbucks located very near the gate.  I know I have mentioned it before, but Starbucks is really a Godsend in this part of the world.

The ship set sail on a 3 hr. tour ..............

 After a short wait we jumped on the plane and headed for Manila.  We arrived in Manila around two hours later.  When we got to Manila I had a couple of messages waiting for me from our friends Leslie and Sonny.  These are our friends that we were going to be staying with for the week.  You will hear about them in more detail later.  Leslie gave great directions and we ended up taking another cab to a bus station.  We got on the correct bus and proceeded to leave Manila.  At least we thought we were leaving Manila.  The traffic was so bad that it took us nearly three hours to get to the first stop that was supposed to be only an hour and a half away.  We finally made it to the Subic Bay area and met our friends.  A short ride to their home and we were finally at our destination.  It was quite the adventure just getting here.  I will share with you in the next blog all of the cool stuff we are doing while here in the Philippines.

Our bus from Manila to Olongopo.  Just Kidding!!!!

  Despite the time and delays, I considered it a rather fun trip.  I kept thinking, even when we were in traffic, it still wasn't as bad as the 30 hours our friends the Madsens were experiencing on the train going to Xian without a sleeping car.  30 hours in a train seat isn't appealing to me.  I know my brother Paul would have looked forward to that, NOT!!!!!!!!
  Until next week, Adios!!!!