Ah Vacation!

It's that time of the year again when we've had our fill of cold & snow, so it's time for that interlude in the tropics. We visit my wife's relatives in the Philippines, since she likes to spend a goodly amount of time with them, and if I said, "I'd like to take a month off", the answer at work would be "Are you out of your #%&(^)@ mind!". As a result, we go over there, I spend a couple days and come back, work for a couple weeks, then go back and spend a week and a half or so (working for an airline gets me great rates on the airfare). I'm back home now in bachelor mode, should be returning to Manila later this week, anyway, I figured it would be nice to post a few photos of the first part...

Here we have some shots of various wildflowers I came across.

 

Here we have (assuming they upload in order), a banana blossom about to open, a grove of cashew trees, and a mango tree.

An interesting fact regarding cashews, the fruit surrounding the seeds (the nut we eat), is quite caustic, you need to wear rubber gloves to open the fruit. The mangos by the way, are AWSOME this year, bumper crop and I've never tasted them as good as they're are this year.;

 

Here we have a shot of one of my wife's nephew's two little girls, they are 3 and 4 respectively. My wife's nephew knows about a resort and conference center near Manila and its owner, this is their off season so we were able to get a room there for P3,000 (about $62) a day. Here are some assorted shots taken from the balcony of our room, the resort is on a mountain top so we had quite a view. That's us in the gazebo, the volcano poking its peak in the clouds is inactive, the lake you see in the distance (hazy picture due to smog from Manila), is lake laguna, the largest lake in the Philippines. When our troupes that survived the Bataan (pronounced ba ta an') death march were rescued, they had to be taken across that lake.

For the camera buffs, I was using my Canon Xsi with the kit lenses for all of these. So if you are looking at the exif file, remember to multiply the focal length by 1.6 to get the effective focal length due to the APs-C image sensor.

 

Don't worry Jay, the bachelor mode SUCKS! Going back this Wednesday if flights are open.

 

Just noticed, I forgot to upload the shot of Lake Laguna I mentioned earlier OOPS :redface: here it is. also another picture of some rice fields in the distance.

 

Thanks for the compliments Jay...
Aussie, your'e going to Manila on sun. I am going back the 11th, ariving the 12th, assuming the flights are open (standby is a bitch, but you can't beat the fare), if you think you will have some free time, why don't you PM me, we can try and get together for a San Miguell or 2...