July 2

I helped Jackie's younger sister, Lannie, with High School English homework last night. I was more successful just helping and not doing the work for her than I was with Tansy or Danielle.

We spent most of today in taxis. I had to go to the Philippine Immigration Bureau to get my tourist visa extended. It was a very, very long cab ride. Lots of stop and go. The driver tried just about everything to get around the grid lock, so we saw some "interesting" neighborhoods.

Manila is a hot bed of free enterprise. Some cab stands have "expediters" who flag down the cabs and load the passengers. They expect 10p for the service. The cab drivers don't want to pick you up if you try to jump ahead of the expediter. We saw street kids stopping traffic so drivers could make tricky turns, and getting tips for their help. At one point, the cab driver tipped the security guard of a parking lot so he could cut through and avoid a difficult left turn. The design and engineering of streets is so bad, I'm amazed there isn't a continuous chain reaction accident 24/7 until all traffic is completely stopped, and then the motor bike riders would be going through any opening in the wreckage.

The fee to extend my visa until Aug 12 was 3200p. I could fill out the forms and sit and wait all day, but I chose to pay the greeter 4500p and he got my paperwork done in about 10 minutes. You have to have copies of your passport to document that you were there, and you have to pay for them. Someone is always manning the copy machine in the corner of the waiting room. I will have to go back on or before Aug 12 to get another extension.

After immigration, we went to the mega mall to pick up Jackie's computer. The touch pad on the Powerbook I sent her went out. The Apple Store in Manila honored my Apple Care warranty, so the repair didn't cost anything. I got her a mouse to cut down on wear and tear on the touch pad.

Joan, Jackie, and I ate at a place called Goldilocks for 380p. I had a boneless pork chop with rice and a ramen type noodle salad. We all had pineapple juice, and the girls each had a piece of chocolate cake. Goldilocks is a restaurant chain. It is difficult to explain what it is like...sort of a fast food cafeteria, but Filipino fast food.

Guess what? They still use CARBON PAPER here, and EVERYTHING is in quadruplicate!!!

I took Jackie and Joan to see "Eclipse" to thank them for wasting a day taking me to Immigration. They argue about which one of them is Bella. Jackie wants to be a vamp to be "everlastingly beautiful." We saw a first run movie for about $5 each. I was stuffed from lunch, but Jackie and Joan shared a popcorn.

I am going to run pics through software to make the file size smaller and see if I can post pics. My internet is terribly slow, and can't send the files.