Our last days in the Philippines

Our last few days in Davao were spent at the Rotary District Convention (DISCON).  We had a great time reuniting with all of our new friends!  The first night, we (the ladies) participated in a dance presentation with the Tagum North and Tagum Golden LACES clubs.  It was really fun.  None of us have danced on stage as adults and definitely not in front of 1000 people!  The theme of the evening was Grease, so that was also fun getting into character with what we had in our suitcases.  Jim by far had the best Grease outfit.  The second night was the Governors Ball, so we all dressed up.  Jim had a Barong made.  A barong is the traditional formal embroidered shirt of the Philippines.  Not surprisingly, he could not find one that fit, so he had a beautiful barong tailored.  It was also fun getting to meet and get to know the Filipino GSE team that will be in Texas in a few weeks.  We are all looking forward to entertaining them in Texas.  Besides the DISCON, some of our new friends took us our for some karaoke one night and we went out dancing with 2 of the Filipino GSE team members.  We had a great last few days!  Thanks everyone!

Fellowship night of the DISCON

Greasers, Jim and Noel

The start of our dance!

The end of our dance.  So much fun!

The Filipino team coming to Texas!  

This is the GSE team from Pennsylvania.  They were traveling in the Northern part of the district and we were in the Southern part.

All dressed up for the Govenors night.  The team and Milo!  Thanks again for the Tex-Mex!

Alexis and Tiffanie with their Davao host, Kathy

The team with Lai and Bading

John and Ann dancing 

The team with LA

Glen!!

The Cebu group!

The Team with the District Govenor.  Great night!  Tiffanie has all the photos, so I will try and post more later. 

Our final dinner in Davao!  Thanks Paul for treating us to a delicious Chinese feast!

Colleen, possibly delirious and sleep deprived 

Wacky shot with our amazing hosts, Lindy, Ronnie, Jet, Jim, and Paul!  Thanks guys, it was a great last night out!

Celebrity sightings, delicious dinners, and Kublai

Soooo, during some fellowship at the Marco Polo hotel with the East Davao Club we had 2 celebrity sightings!   Muy guapo!!  We met Robin Padilla, known as the Filipino 'James Dean' and bad boy and Ricardo Cepeda, known for playing bad boys.  Ricardo is the brother of Ronnie, one of the rotarians that was hosting us for the afternoon.  It was exciting, even though we are not exactly familiar with their work.  

That evening, we were treated to Milo's Tex-Mex feast!!  We had dinner at his Aunt's house,  ,  also a rotarian.  Her house is a beautiful spanish style home, so it was perfect with our Tex-Mex treat!  Colleen and I also visited Ponce Suites, a funky small hotel that featured Kublai's artwork (the artist that makes all the native sculptures in our photos).  Every wall was covered in his work of every type of medium you can imagine.  It was interesting to see some of his experimental and not as refined work!

the Ladies with Robin Padilla

The ladies with Ricardo Cepeda

Tex-Mex night!

The group at Inday's house after the Tex-Mex feast

Irene checking out Kublai's work

Colleen enjoying some of his sketches

The ceiling was even covered in his work

Sculpture using an old typewriter

One of his many sculptures outside the hotel.  Durian fruit!

Don't mess with Texas...even in the Philippines!

Milo takes us to Samal Island....and makes us Nachos!!

We had another great trip to Samal Island with Milo, president of the Central Davao Club.  We went to his cousins place and kayaked, snorkeled, relaxed, and ate amazing food.  The snorkeling was the best we had ever seen with so many types of coral and lots of other creatures.  Thank you Gene Rose for sharing your paradise with us!!  Unfortunately, Tiffanie's waterproof camera battery was dead, so we have no photos to share!  We will just have to go back!

Milo lived in the U.S. for 25 years and is a chef.  He and Emanuel, the local Rotaract and culinary student, prepared us a delicious lunch after we kayaked.  Lucky for us, he was also chef at a Southwestern restaurant.  After a long swim while snorkeling, he answered our prayers and had nachos with his homemade chilli con carne and CHEESE!!  I really wish I had a photo of the nachos, but I think we ate them too fast to get a photo :)

We also visited some schools while on Samal Island.  One school had prepared some songs and dance for us.  The other school, we visited each class and were greeted with an in-sync 'Good Morning Vis-it-tors!!' and a lot of excitement from the students.

When we got back to Davao, we went to the Central Davao Rotary Meeting.  They will forever be remembered as the Club that FINALLY got Jim to sing Karaoke!!  Jim, Colleen, and some rotarians sang a beautiful rendition of 'Hey Jude'!

The group with Milo seaside

Cute kids at the Tagbaobo School

Grade 1 kids singing a Filipino song about rainbows

Grade 6 girls doing a native dance

Grade 3 girls singing

Grade 5 doing a traditional Filipino folk dance

All the kids and teachers!

Buhangin school

One of the classrooms

Us at the school with the Principal, Milo, and Emanuel

Central Davao Rotary Club

Colleen and Rae's free day at Eden!!

Our host Boy's children, grandchildren, and sister took us to Eden Mountain Resort for our free day!  It was so much fun.  We took a tour and had lunch.  We were at about 3,000 ft above sea level.  Thank you all for spending your Sunday with us and taking us to such a beautiful place!

Striking a pose at Eden Nature Park with Agatha, Tita Goody, and Mario

Jump shot!!

Beautiful scenery

Macho man Mario

Colleen and Rae with Agatha and Phillip's children, Noelle, Ann, and Miguel

Organic farming with Davao City and Ocean views

Nice just shot Mario!

Having fun on the Indiana Jones zipline

Gorgeous peacock

Happy girls at the wishing well.  Hard to think of something to wish for when the past month has been so amazing!!  Thank you all who have helped make it so incredible!!