Sunday, the last day of the weekend. We all crawled out of bed about 8:30 as normal. The kids played and watched videos on the laptop all morning. We hummed and Hawed about what to do today, while lazing around the dormitory room the school has provided for us.

    About 11:00 we had decided to go out to the “BHG” a Mall not too far from our house. It is a 20 minute walk, or 5 minute rickshaw ride away. We love riding rickshaws. Our whole family always has. The kids call them Tricycles as that’s what they are called in the Philippines. What they actually are, however, are the front of a motorcycle attached to a back Bench seat for passengers. The whole device is enclosed in a large metal box with windows. These little boxes zip around the city like mini-taxis. Everyone talks about how dangerous they are, because there are very few licenced ones compared to the number of rickshaws on the road. The unlicensed ones might be dangerous drivers, cutting into traffic or driving too fast, but we’ve never had a problem with them.

    We took the rickshaw to the mall. As we entered the mal there was a man renting robots for the children to ride in. So we let the kids drive these exoskeletons around for 5 minutes. They kind of looked like robot-shaped bumper cars at the entrance to the mall. They had a great time running into each other or chasing each other for 5 minutes.

    Then we went to our favourite restaurant, Saizeriya. It’s good priced Italian food that the whole family likes. We go there about once every week or two. We arrived just after the lunch rush, we still had to wait for a seat but only for 5 minutes. We were able to have steak, pizza, spaghetti, sausages and squid and not break the bank.

    Finishing that we went to the top floor of the mall where there is a children’s arcade. All the games are geared to elementary school kids. Sammy got to play a firefighter simulator where she sprayed water at flames that appeared on a screen. She won 2 pogo stick races (Real pogo stick, virtual race), and rode a horse in a horse race. Joshua played virtual bowling (real ball, digital pins), went on a safari adventure with a jeep, and both racecar raced and motorcycle raced.

Upon finishing this we went to the supermarket below to get cereal for breakfasts, found Maple and Brown Sugar instant oatmeal (From Canada) that Sammy and I love. And before coming home were able to rent a whole merry-go-round for just our family (for $10), and then JD & Irish took a little kids roller-coaster ride all by themselves (No other customers) while Sammy and I took the rocket ride where you go up and down in a rocket that flies in a circle.

Irish pointed out at the end of all this that there is no way we could have had a day like this in Canada. We just could not afford it. It is nice to be able to take the kids out and have fun with them. Tomorrow is school again, and I have to plan my lessons in a few minutes but it is nice to just relax.