We packed really quite a lot into the day today, beginning with a trip to the petroglyphs--thought to be 5,000 year-old carvings into the stone near Angono.

The two main images are of women in birth and of probably myth-size sea turtles. But what I like to point out to people in terms of Philippine heritage is the way that people are portrayed alongside nature and mystery, not in conquest as we might expect, but in even surprising peacability. Characteristically Filipino.

On the way to the Balaw Balaw restaurant, one of my favorite places to visit, we stopped at the Blanco Tree for a bird's-eye view Laguna de Bay and the surrounding area.


In addition to all the cultural adaptation that has gone on in the Philippines over the last five hundred years or so, from this high up you can see the geographical change the island has undergone over the last several thousand.

Balaw Balaw was built by a national artist named Perdigon Vocalan who combined culinary delight with interior design and the fine arts to create a dining/viewing experience that is of a kind. His joy in an almost ridiculous plurality in close proximity (maybe most characteristically portrayed by a tree growing out of rock) is a contemporary pair with the 3,000 B.C. petroglyphs.

Then we took the Philippine's famous jeepney to the market in Taytay.


If you visit the Philippines and don't ride one of these noisy, crowded, polluted and polluting means of public transportation--how are you going to claim your credentials as a tourist?

The Halvorsens were anxious to learn everything they could about their adoption country, and the local market is full of all kinds of curiosities and living character.

Deborah gave a great tour of all the fruits and vegetables we eat at various stages of ripeness. Lot's of--"No, really?"--s.

And just up the street from the little children's home now, is a full-fledged shopping mall (SM), with all the Western goodies that make you feel at home.