Today we are driving to Batangas and then taking a ferry on to Oriental Mindoro where most of my family lives, but first in the morning we got ready to go to the mall to do a little shopping.  We went to the SM Mall of Asia (which apparently is the 6th largest shopping mall in the world).  We need a Mall of Asia here in the US--there were little restaurants with every type of Asian cuisine--that would be a dream. We had lunch at Congo, which is a Filipino restaurant--very yummy.

Driving in Manila is crazy.  There are no lanes, there are no streetlights, there are no rules.  Yet surprisingly, everything seems to run smoothly (enough).  Pedestrians are scattered throughout the streets as well.  And the vendors.  They're everywhere--on the streets, and jumping into jeepneys for a second to try to sell to passengers (frequently they are successful).

The jeepneys (a common type of public transportation) are interesting; the owners name  them and the names are displayed on the front windshield.  Sometimes it is the owner's name, or signs of the zodiac, or sometimes religious names such as "El Shaddai." 

Once we made it out of the city, the drive to Batangas was supposed to be about a hour, but with the traffic, it was more like 2 hours.  Along the way, we saw Mount Makiling which is called so because it looks like the shape of a woman's back.  We also made a stop in Tanauan to drop off Auntie Dorrie to visit with her grandchildren.  As a result of the traffic, we missed the SuperCat and had to take the slower, Starlite ferry, to the Mindoro port city of Calapan.  I enjoyed that though because my cousin Sharon and I were able to stand outside, chat, and watch the city lights approaching (it was dark by the time we got on the ferry).  Unfortunately it was kind of cloudy so we weren't able to see many stars.

In Calapan, we were met by Sharon's sister Keren at the dock.  It's so nice to meet my cousins after so many years of hearing about them but never meeting!  Since it was late, we headed immediately towards my family's home near Naujan.  I fell asleep on the road (which is amazing because it is unpaved and extremely bumpy) and it was about midnight when we arrived there.