So far, 2006 has been a busy year. For work, I was in Kuala Lumpur for 3 weeks and Manila for a month. In between, I’ve been travelling to Helsinki and Espoo (Finland) quite a lot too. Fortunately, Petra, Sofia and Nico were with me in Manila. They were there for 3 weeks (the longest they can stay without a visa) and then went ahead to Bangkok to wait for me there.

In Manila (actually, Makati), we stayed at The Peninsula Manila. It’s a beautiful hotel with a grand lobby. The service is good and the breakfast buffet is pretty good too. It’s also conveniently located as Glorietta is just across the street. It’s an expensive hotel though so we would normally never stay there unless it’s company paid.

While in Manila, I was very busy with work so we didn’t get to do that much. Mostly, it was just Petra and the kids in the hotel room or at the pool. If they’d go out then it was just walking around Glorietta, SM, Rustan’s and Landmark. Petra was also able to visit Divisoria though. Then there was Grandpa Primie’s birthday party; an evening with Mark, Joyce (my high school classmate) and Carlos; dinner with Peter (my very good old friend from Cebu; and of course, coffee at Starbucks with Uncle Lalu and family. On my last week, when Petra and the kids had already gone to Bangkok, I also had dinner with some high school friends: Mark, Padie, Juan, Jong and Joyce.

Also during my last week in Manila, Little had her debut party in Bangkok. It’s a good thing that at least Petra, Sofia and Nico were already there so they could attend. Grandpa Primie flew over to attend also. I heard everyone had a great time. Maybe Amie can make a post about it

On the way back to Finland, we had a few extra nights in Thailand. We went to Kanchanaburi (Grandma Som’s home province) with Uncle Peter and spent a night there. We also had a chance to go for an elephant ride. When I have some more time I’ll post the photos I took.

Back here in Finland, life hasn’t been as much fun. First, there’s the garage that’s been taking forever to finish. With what we’ve spent so far, we could’ve bought a small house in Thailand or the Philippines. And our garage doesn’t even have a roof yet! It doesn’t help either that we’re travelling a lot. Maybe this summer we can finally complete it.

Then there’s the winter which seems to be extra long and extra cold this year. In the mornings, it can still go down to -18ºC. It may reach around 0ºC during the day though. There’s lots of snow too which is good or bad depending on how you look at it.

But it’s not all bad. It gets quite sunny now during the day. Plus, the days are now getting longer than the nights. We’ve also switched to summer time so now the time’s 1 hour ahead. Another thing is that Sofia and Reko have started dance lessons. Sofia is taking Hip-Hop for 3-4 year olds. At 2 years and 7 months (when she started), she’s the youngest and shortest in the class. Still, she has no problems keeping up with the teacher. Reko is taking Hip-Hop too. In addition, he’s also taking Break Dance which is a lot of fun. I wish we had that when we were kids.

Well, that’s it for now. I really don’t have much time for the internet (or the computer) nowadays. What little time I have I need to spend reading/answering personal emails, processing digital photos and also make sure the website is up and running.

By the way, next week we’re off to Manila again. This time for 2 months. Till the next update…