Sunday, November 28, 2010

I'm Back from the Philippines

Typical rain in the Philippines.

Some of you might have noticed my recent lack of "blogtivity".  The reason is simple - with my family, I traveled to the Philippines.  Originally I planned to take a laptop with me however in a desire to travel lightly; my husband thought that an iPhone was sufficient.   I found out later on that writing on a touch screen is ineffective for gardener's fingers like mine.  Then I though that I could also post pictures knowing that they can speak louder than words...but sometimes life is not all that simple.   Two of the three small cameras we brought stopped working when we got to Cagayan, the northern-most province of the Philippines.  It was raining so hard that moisture must have penetrated the casing of the cameras.   The only one that remained functional was the one that was stored it in a ziploc bag.   

The Philippines has a Tropical Marine climate as influenced by the sea.  It is always hot with always high atmospheric humidity.  There are only two climates namely wet and dry seasons.  Although it is expected to rain every month, some months (June to November) are extremely rainy due to the monsoon winds.   The rest of the months (December - May) are characterized by lower precipitation due to the dry trade winds.  

Did you know?
1.  The English word "boondocks," comes from the Tagalog word "bundok", meaning "mountain.
2.  The Philippines is composed of 7,107 islands.  Some of them cannot be seen during high tide. :)
3.  The Philippines was a colony of Spain for 300+ years (1521-1898). 
4.  The Filipinos were first introduced to the English language by the British invaders in 1762.
5.   Today English language is taught in schools starting from third grade.  It is the official medium of instruction in high school and college.
6.  The Philippines has the same land area as Arizona.
7.  The Philippines has a population of 91 million.

White sand in Santa Ana, Cagayan.

 Just to give you a glimpse of the place where I was during the last two weeks...
and greetings to you all!

8 comments:

p3chandan said...

Hi Helen welcome back! I know Phillippines is a beautiful country with beautiful people and I really admire the traditional dress for women and shirt for men, they are so equisite though quite a fashion statement too..Some of Tagaloc words have the same meaning as our Malay words. Its been raining here with thunderstorms too. Hope to hear from you in the blogging world again!

Patty said...

Welcome back. I look forward to any surviving photos you have. Too bad about the cameras.

Anonymous said...

Hi Helen,
This is my first visit to your blog and this post of yours is a good introduction. Looking forward to getting to know you better,
Rosie

Claire said...

What an awesome post. Happy to hear about a kababayan going home once in a while to enjoy local tourist spots. :) I didn't know that we had the same area as AZ.. Good to know!

Rosie Nixon Fluerty said...

Welcome back and it looks as if you had a lovely holiday Helen.

One said...

That looks like paradise. I'll be going to somewhere like this in a few weeks' time.

balibobo said...

It's nice to know that you had a great time here in the Philippines, and that you are back to blogging:)
Judith

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