Last night it rained, and it rained HARD. We woke up early to head to Bancuro to go to a butterfly sanctuary and have lunch at a resort there. Our first surprise was on the road on the way there. It was flooded. We're talking a foot of water in places, reaching almost to the top of Owner's tires. And the current across the road was pretty strong, which was the scary part. But, my kick-ass cousin Keren just drove us right through to the other side. (I've included a picture here of people walking through it and a house in the middle of it).

When we arrived at the butterfly sanctuary, it turned out that all the butterflies had been blown away in the typhoons, so there weren't any to see. There were, however, many beautiful flowers in the garden, so I took a few pictures of those. Another Filipino trait (which I seem to have inherited--much to the chagrin of Alex) is the tendency to have lots of potted plants in the yard and around the house. Once again, no matter how rich or how poor the family, no matter how nice (or not) the house, all of them have loads of plants (I've included a picture here of a house where the walkway is lined with plants).

The resort, Benilda, was right next door so we headed there for lunch. First we walked around the beautiful grounds. There is a swimming pool, restaurant, hotel rooms, billiards table, and many spots where you can lounge and relax. I don't know if it was the time of year or what, but we were the only guests there for the day.

Lunch was delicious. Lunch was also delicious for the mosquitos (yes, they dined extravagantly on my legs under the table). Actually, there's a bit of a debate over whether the bites are mosquito bites or flea bites (because there was a dog under the table where we were eating). Regardless, I got about 25 bites per leg and since I am allergic they swelled up to gigantic proportions. I'm just glad that it cooled down after that rain last night because the rest of the week I was able to wear pants. Oh, and yes, I was the only one to get bitten.

After lunch (and after slathering myself with DEET), we decided to play billiards. It was U.S. (Uncle Rene and me) vs. the Philippines (Uncle Boy and Keren). Although we played two close games, it's probably the first time in the history of that pairing that the U.S. has won.

While we were playing, the rest of the aunties were chatting...and praying. Well, not really praying. They were doing what Keren and I called praying--falling asleep as they were sitting there with heads dangling in praying positions. We saw a lot of this over the past few days. They usually took turns at this and we had fun predicting which one would be the next pious one.