yesterday i got back from being in the philippines for the past three weeks. the three weeks went by really fast, but it was hot and humid the whole time. my dad and his sister built a house in the philippines so now we have a place to stay when we go there instead of leeching off our relatives. i really like our house. it has two master bedrooms, 2 regular rooms, and a maid's room. the bathrooms and kitchen are nicer than the ones i have here. as soon as we got there, we went shopping. and for the next three days we kept on going shopping.

on saturday night we went to the province to visit family. i have so many nieces and nephews there. it's nuts! i had so much fun in the province. the little kids are so funny and all of them can dance so well.

when we got back to the city we shopped somemore. we would leave the house at 11 am and get home around 9 or 10 pm. i have never been shopping so much in my life.

that weekend we went to the island of mindoro. we stayed at my aunt's house then on saturday afternoon we checked into a resort. the next day we didn't have anything to do so we spontaneously decided to go to another resort, a better resort. we went to puerto galera's white beach resort. we only planned to stay there for the afternoon but ended up checking in. we went snorkling at an excluded beach which we had all to ourselves. i scraped my knee on some of the corals. my mom saw them, laughed, and said that it is my souvenir. at night we walked around the beach. i saw so many gay guys dressed as girls. it was so funny!

when we got back we spent two days shopping. i finally bought things. it was only during my third week there that i actually bought something. that thursday we had a house blessing. i saw so many people i didn't know but it seems that they knew who i was.

for my last week there all i did was shop. it rained a few times during the last week but i liked it when it rained. before the rain came it would be hotter than most days. but once the rain came the weather was really nice.

sunday night was our last night there so i went shopping with some of my cousins. i met my couin-in-law's gay cousin. he is so funny! i think gay filipino guys are a lot funnier than american gay guys. he gave me a pedicure. gay guys are pretty good at pedicures. haha! when i got back to the house i found out that there was a brown out since 5 pm. it lasted until 2 or 3 am. the bad thing is that we still had to pack six boxes of our stuff before we had to leave. we had candles and flashlights everywhere. packing was horrible but it got done.

this was was one of the best trips i have taken. i found so much about my family. i realized that my family is just as messed up as any other family in the world. i spent 97% of my time with my dad's side of my family which is a whole lot of family. so many of my family members stayed at our house. i like our house because it can sleep at least 25 people without having anyone sleep out in the living room. we also got a dog. he's a 5 month old german shepherd named buddy. we didn't name him, his previous owners did. then we are getting a doberman in a couple months. i'm pretty excited. i love the philippines. the traffic and drivers are crazy but you get used to it after a week or so. i swear i was going to die the moment i got in a car. i really miss the philippines even with all the smog, traffic, heat, and mosquito bites.