We took it easy for most of this trip: lots of rest, no day tours, more time spent with family. (Sorry to all the friends with whom we skipped meetups, maybe next time.) We went down to the family’s farm in Laguna to try and swim in my uncle’s geothermal pool, but didn’t get to swim since my dad’s company Christmas party was in view of the pool area and that would have been uncomfortable. (But I did get to sample some of my uncle’s most excellent scotch upstairs. Oh yes.) We lunched with Dad at Polo Club and with Mom at Club Filipino, and did some shopping at the Greenhills tiangge and department stores at Megamall and Shangri-La — which they are apparently calling “Shang” now. Amy got pearls and shirts, and I got a ton of bargain-priced black underwear. We also got to see an exhibit of Chinese-Filipino portraits by Fernando Amorsolo at the Yuchengco Museum, part of an ongoing Amorsolo retrospective. And of course our last days were spent in reunion with relatives at Tito Cesar’s wake.

More photos here, including our New Year trip to Anilao, which I will write about later.