woah so many things!

ok since I last wrote we have done a million things, and I will not be effective at writing much about all of them because we are catching an all night bus to the rice terraces to Banaue in a very short amount of time.

On Tuesday we went and visited a garbage dump in the Quezon City district of Manila. The dump was giant, smelled terrible, was disgusting and had squatter settlements all around it. The dump is remarkable because they have implemented a system to harvest methane gas from it. This is only possible because many of the poor work for very little sorting the garbage in their homes to take out recyclable items. This leaves mostly organic waste which produces a ton of methane. Ths system makes over 1 million Euros per year, or 1.5 million U.S. dollars.

We then drove to Pansol where we stayed in our own little villa-esque setting. We had four rooms, a patio, and a pool heated by natural hot springs. They had cold rum and cokes waiting upon our arrival, and our instructor left it as a surprise. It was a great change after being in the mass chaos and filth that is Manila. That day I had Japenese for lunch and Chinese for dinner. FYI Chinses food in America was food invented for Americans and is not much like real Chinese at all. We drank mixed drinks and beers and sang karaoke until we tired and went to sleep. Karoke is HUGE in Asia and I want to bring it back to the states.

Wednesday we took our jeepney to Lake Taal and hiked up to the top of the Taal volcano. Inside the crater is a big lake and it was beautiful. We learned that the lake we came in on was also the inside of a volcano crater from an old super-volcano that erupted millions of years ago. It was truly incredible and I am sad I do not have time to post pictures. We took a gnarly hike down into the small volcano's crater, probably about 1000-2000 ft elevation drop. Once at the bottom there were so many amazing colors due to the sulfur and volcanic materials. There were steam vents, and places where the lake was bubbling, it was like being on a completely different planet. I even went for a dip in the crater lake. How many people can say they have swam inside an active volcano? The last major eruption was in 1965. The water was warm, with very warm spots where the heat was rising from the earth. The experience was truly priceless and worth the whole trip.

Today we went and visited a festival that has been occuring for more than 100 years. The festival is to thank God for the harvest regardless of it is good or if it is bad. The festival was incredible and it made me think about how easy it is for me to thank God when things are good, but ignore Him when things are bad. After the festival we visited IRRI, or the International Rice Research Institute. It was cool to learn more here is a link to the IRRI website: http://www.irri.org/

Time to get on an all night bus ride I will write and put pictures up as soon as I can.