A field trip on Philippines sugar production...

So many things can be a field trip when you're living overseas (or if you're being a tourist in your own culture.) On Thursday, I decided to teach the boys a little about sugar production in the Philippines. 

I had been scratching my head over why the big supermarkets here had so many different kinds of sugar. Well, the reason is that sugar was the most important agricultural export of the Philippines for about 100 years, from the late 19th century through the 1970's. Sugar is produced throughout several islands and regions, but the most important area of sugar production is Negros Occidental, so I decided to take the opportunity to head to their annual trade fair at Glorietta 3 in Makati. 

So here's how ya do a field trip on Philippine sugar production if you're a homeschooling mom. :)

Step 1: Throw your kids in the van and pull up a couple of Youtube videos. This one was good. And so was this one. Ask them what they noticed in the videos, and have a short discussion while you're headed to Makati.

Step 2: Get there as the mall opens and while the fair is still setting up for the day. Make sure you're prepared for this by bringing a bag of books to read in a McCafe while sharing a hot chocolate. Be thankful that your oldest student knew that this was a Filipino field trip and threw this wonderful picture book into the bag. (Go ahead and watch it read. I dare you not to cry.)

Step 3: Find the garden set up of regional plants. See them get excited when they find rambutan. Smile as the friendly volunteers encourage them to try walking on coconut shell stilts.

Step 4: Oooh and ahh over regional masks. Remind them of the fiesta we went to with church friends, and tell them that these are masks that people wear in Negros during their fiestas.

Step 5: Make note of all the booths of sweet things to try. Ask your kids why they think there are so many bakery items produced in Negros. Watch the wheels turn in their minds and things start to click. Hint: when you've got access to a lot of sugar, you bake with it. Try a lot of samples, and watch your baby have his first suman dipped in coco sugar.

Step 6: Walk to the handicrafts section of the fair. Enjoy hearing about the production of stone decorative items in Negros using all native stones and native metals. Ask questions.

Step 7: Make sure you've got plenty of Negros baked goods and muscovado sugar to sample for later.

Step 8: Type up what your kids remember about what they've learned the second you walk through your front door. Print it out. Have them draw pictures and describe them to you. Call it a day and pick up the learning some more tomorrow.

Step 9: Learn about muscovado sugar production. Muscovado sugar is sometimes called poor man's sugar because it is the least refined sugar using the simplest methods. Basically, you squeeze the cane, use the cane husks to build a fire, and boil the juice until it's concentrated. Then you pour it out and keep stirring constantly as it dries. That's muscovado sugar, and it's delicious, with a strong taste of molasses. If you want to see more, watch this video. 

Step 10: Have a taste test of refined sugar, brown sugar (which is refined sugar with molasses added back in), and muscovado. Decide which you like the best. Make sure to let your ate taste as well so she can vote also. Promise your children Negros treats for dessert after dinner.

Sweetest field trip evah! ;)

Embracing the Philippines...

Learning and practicing their Tagalog words with Ate Maryann.

Way back when we first started thinking about trying to go overseas, I remember trying to articulate why I wanted to do this. Sure, traveling is great. I was itching to travel, after being tied down to baby and toddler schedules for several years. But travel wasn't the only thing that I wanted. 

I wanted to live in another culture and learn that culture. A week here and a week there won't cut it for cultural acclimation. I was totally jealous of the years that David lived in Germany as an Air Force child, and I wanted that for myself and for our kids. I wanted us all to have our eyes opened to life outside of our wonderful American borders. 

Now, I didn't know how that was going to pan out. That part wasn't up to me. David applied for short term details overseas, and our deal was that he wouldn't tell me where he was applying. Seriously, I didn't want to know. I didn't want to invest any emotional energy into something that didn't have a decent likelihood of panning out. 

So when he got an interview for a position in the Philippines, I had to Google "living in Manila with kids." Our part of the U.S. doesn't have a big Filipino population. All I really knew was that it was about as far away from the East Coast as you could get, and that this "Ring of Fire" dealio could make me intimately acquainted with earthquakes. 

I had never imagined myself living in the Philippines. Like, never. I thought he'd applied to Eastern Europe. My imagination involved bicycling through the Albanian countryside. It wasn't populated with palm trees, rice fields, or smiling trike drivers. 

But this is where God landed us, and at this point, I am beyond relieved that I'm not somewhere in Eastern Europe. For one thing, I'm getting the idea that a lot more people speak excellent English in Manila than Albania, from the executive working in the high rise down the street to your local coconut vendor. This is an excellent "starter country" if you've never lived out of the U.S. before.

For another thing, Filipinos are some of the friendliest people in the world, and they love children. And when you have 3 wild little boys, you need some indulgent people around you who shrug and grin when your kids start climbing things or dropping things or get lost when you turn a corner. In the Philippines, I usually feel like the locals have my back in this mothering thing.

I took my boys to the Pacem Eco Park in Antipolo, and Ben fell in a pond. He missed a step, and just like that, he's over his head in stagnant water. I had no extra clothes, no towel, no nothing. I took him back to the office, and the lovely ate in the shop took him over to the hose, stripped him down, scrubbed him down, applied betadine and a band-aid to his banged up knee, and put him in an oversized t-shirt from the gift shop. I'd lived here long enough that I knew enough to just let her get to it. This is the love of the Filipina. They will mother your children while you run to the van to see if you've got a towel in back (I didn't), and you let them 'cause you know your baby is safe with them. 

Another highly significant thing is that we are Christians living in the only predominantly Christian country in Asia. That makes it a lot easier for us to become a part of the local culture through our church. We go to Victory Church at the Fort. It's a Filipino church led by Filipinos mostly for Filipinos, and we love that. We can get a window into culture here just through being members. We are part of a small group, we help teach children's church once a month, and I'm on the crafts team for children's church. Our kids see the same kids in their classes, week in and week out, and they learn a Tagalog word here and there. We have been embraced and loved by this church and its members, and we're so grateful for that.

It would be too easy for me to live in an expat bubble. I could get by here without really doing life with Filipinos, but that's not why we asked God to give us the chance to live overseas. We want to know the people in this country, and that takes some effort on our part, but that effort has been so generously rewarded. If you reach out to Filipinos, they will reach back to you and teach you so much about true hospitality and generosity.

I have been a grumpy expat, kvetching about hating this or that about an unfamiliar place, but I have no desire to be that lady most of the time. There is so much to enjoy about the Philippines. This is the experience of a lifetime, and I want to find the leche flan inside the suman whenever I can. ;) 

This international living moment...

Suman brought in by my helper for a company dinner. Suman is a sticky rice dessert, usually wrapped in banana leaves, and it's especially good covered in a coconut milk and sugar syrup.

I recently finished a book by D.E. Stevenson called "Mrs. Tim of the Regiment." It's based on the author's memoirs of her years as an officer's wife in Great Britain, and I smiled quite a bit through this book. There was plenty of moving houses and dealing with household staff and worrying over what her kids would be doing for school when they moved and whether or not she'd like it there or make any friends. In short, I found some definite similarities to my expat life here. 

Should I keep a careful journal so I'll have material for a book one day? Seriously, there are so many points in some days that I think, "This is my life? I can't believe that just happened." 

The other day, we got in our elevator, and some sweet Indian grandparents in our tower were already there. Indian Grandpa offered them Filipino suckers, and they were thrilled. (These suckers deserve a post of their own. They're like DumDum pops, but the amount of skill and effort that it takes to get the wrapper off of one makes me think there is something essential my kids missed out on because they didn't go to Filipino preschool. "Ok, children, now that we have shown you how to wash your hands, we'll have our lesson on getting into a lollipop.")

Evan and Ben hopped out on a lower floor to go visit their good friend, a Filipino American kid who they love not only for his charm and kindness, but for his kind ate (all around helper) and nanay (mom) that let them go and scavenge in the pantry for merienda (snack) whenever they feel like it. 

Seth and I got off on the ground floor, where we said hi to another friend just getting home from his day at school. We were greeted with a smile by the doorman and the front desk staff, like we always are. "Hello, ma'am. Hello, sir." I'm handed our phone bill... because they know who we are and where we live, even though we live in a huge high rise tower with at least 50 stories. (My mind was blown by this when I realized it only a couple of months after we got here.)

I walked Seth out to the circular driveway in front where our driver had pulled up in our minivan. (This poor minivan is not only bewildered because it has been moved to a foreign country where people are regularly surprised by its automatic doors, but also because it is shockingly clean every day of its life. It doesn't understand either of these things.) Seth climbed in, and I reminded him how to get to Boy Scouts when Rey dropped him off at this international school (that he doesn't attend) for his meeting. I told Rey that Seth would get a ride home with another family, and that he could leave for the day after he's dropped Seth off.

Then I went back upstairs and thought for a second about all of the things I have just experienced that I have only ever experienced living overseas. :)

Visiting Japan....

A few months ago, I said to a friend, "Hey, let's take a girl's trip somewhere!" My idea was that a few of us would go somewhere within the region, but a place that was a little pricey for family travel. We'd check it out over a long weekend while the dads were home to watch the kids, and if we loved it, then we could consider taking the whole family one day. Genius, right? ;) (Well, maybe just a convenient excuse to hit the road without dragging along the younglings, but it is what it is.)

I suggested Japan, and Joy and Eugenia agreed that it sounded like a good plan. Plane tickets were bought, and a hotel was booked. And that was about the extend of the planning. :) We knew we wanted to bop around Tokyo and eat good food and shop. We would only have a few days, so we couldn't get too ambitious.

The first day was a little rough. We got off the plane, and things got confusing from there. We bought the wrong train tickets into Tokyo from Narita and ended up taking a long train with multiple stops. We also discovered that the Tokyo subway is really made up of rail lines operated by 6 different companies and "subway" really means "Subway, Inc." That can make for some stressful times when you've got a map that isn't showing the lines of the train you're riding on, and you're being reassured by a Japanese hipster that you're still on the right train, but he doesn't speak a ton of English, so....

We made it to our stop, after a decent amount of asking around and wandering metro stations, and when we did get off, Google Maps immediately started taking us in circles. The hotel was in a business district, and there weren't a lot of English speakers to help. I went into a restaurant and showed the guy inside the hotel address, and he just looked at me and said, "No, no, no." We stared at each other, and then I walked out.

We finally hailed a cab, and an angelic Japanese lady stopped to help us. She spoke to the taxi driver for us, and we loaded our suitcases... and then a lady walked up, and she and the taxi driver started yelling at each other in Japanese. The Japanese Angel explained quietly that she had called this cab, and he thought we were her. Our suitcases were quickly and unceremoniously dumped back on the sidewalk. Japanese Angel walked us to a main street and helped us flag down another cab and explained the address to the cab driver.

After we got to the hotel, I wondered how bad it would be to just stay in my room and watch Netflix all weekend? That bad? Maybe not? :)

After an hour to calm down and take deep, cleansing breaths, we ventured outside our hotel to get dinner... within a 2 block radius of the hotel after making careful note of landmarks. ;)

It was Friday night in Tokyo, and we were eating dinner with a lot of Japanese businessmen and women, ties loosened and having a beer after work. I ate some of the best and freshest gyoza of my life. We were doing this thing.

I took this picture to help me find our hotel again. It was a great little hotel, and it wasn't terribly expensive and was centrally located. It's the Tosei Cocone Kanda, and you'll find it within a very short walk of the JR Kanda Station, West Entrance. You'll see this view when you exit. Walk this direction, and then fire up Google Maps. :)

We decided to stay on the JR line, so the next day, we bought a tourist pass at the JR Kanda station. For 750 yen, you can ride the line all day, which takes away some of the stress of possibly going the wrong way on a line and having to figure it out coming back. We got a map, and we headed to Ueno Park. Ueno Park is large park complete with the zoo, several national museums, some shrines, etc. It's a good place to get started if you're a clueless tourist.

650 yen will get you a day pass to the National Museums. We got the audio tour for another 500 yen. (The exchange rate is roughly 100 yen to one U.S. dollar.)

An ancient scroll depicting a story of a rat that tricks a Japanese girl into marrying him. This is her noticing that his attendants are all rats and starting to get a little suspicious.

We walked out of Ueno Park into a local business district as the sun was setting, and we stumbled onto an arcade. A guy on the plane into Narita had told me about these photo filter machines in arcades that will make you look like a 17-year-old anime pin up. We did a group shot and single shots 'cause it was so much fun. :)

The Japanese love vending machines. We paid for our meal here using the machine, and then a ticket came out. We gave it to the cook, and she gave us hot, fresh, fragrant bowls of soba or udon noodles and broth, which we then ate at a long counter with chopsticks.

This is a hand battered corn dog, studded with bits of potato, and then deep fried. 

Gotta love animal shaped bread from a bakery near Ueno Park. The pandas were filled with cream cheese. I'm wishing I'd bought more of them.

The second day, we went shopping at Takeshita Street. This is the entrance, right across from the JR station. We roamed the shops full of secondhand kimonos, Japanese Star Wars shirts, food themed squishy toys, and the mother of all 100 yen stores. I get really excited about dollar stores, and this was a 3 story one full of Japanese items. Daiso was like a museum where you could buy all the things and take them home! (If your luggage allowance would allow.) I went a little crazy. We all did. And then we had to rent a locker right across the street to store our stuff before we could keep going. :)

We walked and ate and shopped until we were footsore and drooping, and then we headed back to our hotel. The next morning, we took the JR line to Ueno Park, took a short walk from that station to the Keisei Skyliner Station, and picked up the Skyliner back to Narita. This was much faster than the slow train we took into town, and I highly recommend it when coming into Tokyo from Narita.

I'm not really a city person, and I was honestly a little surprised by how much I enjoyed Tokyo. This Japanese city just feels so different from other cities I've visited. The food is fresh and delicious, and I am admittedly a pretty picky eater. The Japanese do things precisely and well, even their "fast food." The architecture and ways they use machinery, even the compact way they put together a hotel bathroom, the way you can pick from a variety of pillow styles in the hotel lobby, the vending machines, the different foods... it's all fascinating to me. This was a really enjoyable Far Eastern cultural immersion.

Also, it's pretty rare that I do a girl's trip. As much as I enjoy traveling with all my boys, they are boys. It doesn't even enter my mind at this point in my life to plan a day of shopping or going to a spa when I travel with my family. :) No one in my family is interested in doing girly things except for me, and that actually hadn't occurred to me until I was on a trip where I could do girly things. Hey, I like doing girly things sometimes! Maybe I should try and do them occasionally. It's fun! ;)