The Mieles and the Martins

Miele_Martin

This weekend was a great LiP get together!  One of our popular LiP writers, John Miele, and his family came to Davao for the weekend.  John was accompanied by his wife, Rebecca and their son Juanito. John came to Davao to sort of enjoy a get-away from the city, and all that is associated with it.  John and Rebecca chose a great time to visit Davao, because this past weekend was the climax of the famous Davao Kadayawan Festival!  John and Rebecca, along with Juanito were able to watch the Kadayawan Street Dancing festivities right from their hotel, and from everything John said, I think they enjoyed it!  I am not going to get into details … [Read more...]

It’s on the Coconut Telegraph

coconut-telegraph

I admit it.  I’m a Parrothead.  Big time. Oh wait… some of you are asking… what the heck is a “parrothead?” Well, a Parrothead is a fan of Jimmy Buffett.  For the uninitiated, Jimmy Buffet is an American Singer.  His music is hard to categorize.  It is not quite rock.  It’s not quite country.  It’s somewhere in between the two.  Jimmy Buffett primarily sings island style music.  He is a man who loves the tropics.  He sails boats.  He flies a sea plane.  He parties a lot, or used to when he was younger.  A lot of Jimmy’s songs really sound a lot like the life that I lead here in the Philippines.  … [Read more...]

Bang!

canter

As you may recall, last week, on Feyma and my 20th Wedding Anniversary, we took a trip to Samal Island for the day.  It was a nice day, as I told about in my article last week. Something unexpected happened, though, on the way home. When we arrived at the Ferry terminal for the boat ride back to the City, there were a lot of cars waiting.  I told Feyma that we would be lucky if we were to make it on to the next Ferry, and that we would likely have to wait until the following Ferry, because the first one would likely be full.  Sure enough, I was correct in my assessment.  We almost made it, but when the Ferry was full there was us and one other … [Read more...]

My Journey to Samal

convenience

The other day, I set out to go to Samal Island.  I was excited to go, because it had been a while since I had gone to Samal, so this was indeed a journey for me!  For regular readers, you will likely remember that I used to write relatively often about Samal and the time I would spend there.  In the past year or so, though, I have not written much about Samal. Life gets busy sometimes, and other activities get in the way of what we really want to do.  Sometimes we let work get the better of us, and we spend our entire days behind a desk, and in front of a computer… or whatever it is your job requires of you.  For me, working means being … [Read more...]

I’ve done some traveling!

Bob in Tawi Tawi, Bongao Peak in the Background

I have been lucky to have traveled to some seriously beautiful places in the Philippines during my time here.  I have been to places where only a few other white men have been.  I've been to places that are considered dangerous, and I've been to places that are very remote.  To be honest, most of my Philippine travel to date has been on the Island of Mindanao.  Perhaps that is part of the reason why people call me "Mindanao Bob." So far, I have traveled to nearly every Province in Mindanao.  In fact, I have actually visited every single Province on the Island of Mindanao.  There are three Provinces that are Administratively under the … [Read more...]