And Back Again

Some people leave Manila to avoid New Year's Eve and the fireworks. Not us. We deliberately headed back for the fireworks. We figured that as we were going to be bombarded by noise anyway we might as well get the visual show over the city too.

We weren't sure how bad traffic would be or whether catching a ferry would be a problem - there was still a backlog of foot passengers coming from Manila. Some friends of ours arrived in Batangas at 12 noon and didn't get onto a boat until 10 p.m. They have 2 young children so I bet that was not fun.

So we decided we would go for the 6 a.m. ferry but as Rose was awake and woke us both up, we made the decision at 4:20 to try for the 5 o'clock ferry instead! Unfortunately it had already left when we reached the pier at 4:45 (it's just down the road from the guest house) so it must have been full. So we ended up on the 6 o'clock ferry anyway. We had very comfortable seats - a horseshoe affair with proper cushioning and a table. It wasn't very full - even when the foot passengers got on. We left about 6:15 and made good time, arriving in Batangas about 2 hours later. We breakfasted at McD's and made it home super fast as there was no traffic on the road. Rose didn't even sleep in the car.

Rose was very glad to see Candy and Floss, Naomi went straight to her doll's house and Josh was pleased to get back to his "moon sand".

We left to go up to Faith about 9:30 p.m. as the fireworks round here were getting so loud we couldn't hear the film we were watching very well. We watched some of the volleyball games. Rose played with her cronies.

At 11 we went outside to begin watching the displays. These are not organised or co-ordinated affairs but everybody sets off their own fireworks and they are pretty cheap here. Josh fell asleep almost as soon as we settled into place. Naomi was asleep by 11:30! Rose was off playing with her friends, but Steve and I - and the crowd of others there - enjoyed the display. It was a very clear night and a faint wind was blowing the smoke away from us. i think it was our best ever display.

It's an amazing scene. You can see right over the city towards Makati and from one side of the horizon to the other there were fireworks going off. They had been going off since about 6, and it gradually builds up until we hit 12 for the climax. It was so cool to have a varied perspective from far away to the really close fireworks. My favourites were some new ones that seemed to flatten out as they exploded. The rich people in the valley below school put on an amazing show between them! The other good thing about watching it from the top of the hill rather than at home is it is more muted!

Just after 12 as the displays were waning we left. On the way home we passed all the paper strewn across the roads from the numerous firecrackers set off everywhere. We could smell the aftermath as we entered Brookside. The kids went straight to bed. We waited till about 1 when the majority seemed done!