Italianni's restaurant: Why you should not buy the discount card

I had a discount card of Italianni's Restaurant (http://www.italiannis.com.ph) which costed P1'500 and allowed me 20% discount on all bills at Italianni's and some other restaurant for one year.
Unfortunately, one of the Italianni's restaurants didn't bring me back that card after I have settled the restaurant bill. And I didn't notice it. It's gone.

Now it turns out (typical for a paper-based country like the Philippines. Nothing is ever stored in a centralized computer system.) that they can not replace a lost card, although I had to register my name, address, phone number and e-mail address when purchasing it. I had to purchase a new one instead.
When purchasing a new one at the Italianni's at Greenbelt 2 in Makati, it turned out that they are out of stock of the card. They only had the Premium card for P2'500 on stock. A bit frustrated I went for that one and bought it.
Now I am home and noticed that they didn't give me the booklet containing all these vouchers which make the difference between the cheaper standard card and the premium card! When calling that restaurant, they really suggested to keep the booklet until my next visit, so I could collect it then. Wow, this is bad customer service! Just a pity that they serve the best Broccoli Aspargus Ravioli I ever had. Otherwise I would avoid that restaurant from now on...
My rating:

• Kitchen: (8 out of 10)
• Service: (3 out of 10)

New perspective of the Phillippines on Mindanao

During New Year I spend a bit more than a week on the island of Mindanao, in the south of the Philippines. Together with Tes and Papa.
Mindanao is huge, we only saw the small areas around Davao, Malita and Samal Island.

In Malita we met parts of Tes' family, particularly the family of ate Menchie and kuya Mar who were taking care of us very kindly.
Davao City is a relaxed city which does not feel like a big city. There are only about 2 tall buildings, and only a hand-full buildings which are more than 2 storeys tall. The Peoples' Park impressed me with its size, cleanlyness and attractions. It invites to hang out with friends. In one thing Davao City is more advanced than Manila: The public ban of fireworks (particularly during New Year). This reduces the number of injuries, and makes it harder to fire guns as it would be heard and prosecuted immediately (unlike in Manila). It made me sad to read in the local news that two children had been killed by stray bullets in Manila on New Year's eve.

Davao City - seen from my hotel room at Marco Polo Hotel. In the background the island of Samal.

Tes and Mar

Our local transport: The pickup truck of kuya Mar

Our beach in Malita

The host family who maintains our beach. And Papa, Tes and me. I look so tall on this picture... :-p

Tes (right) with two of her sisters: Menchie (left) and Bernadette (center). In the background: Left is our house and right is the house of the host family.

During our little stroll through the back of Lacaron Beach, the terrain was so difficult and steep that everybody was struggling. This is the remembrance I took from that stroll.

The area of Malita seen from the hill side

One of the daughters of the host family.

The Pearl Farm Beach Resort on Samal Island. We just spent the last 2 nights there.

Scuba diving holidays in Palau

This month I could spend 2 beautiful weeks of scuba diving holidays in Palau. Here you find Palau on the map:

The islands of Palau look very particular and distinct:

Perfect for diving, but not too many beaches, as most of the islands have a steep cliff.

Papa, Tes and me, we stayed 4 days in a hotel on Palau, then 8 days on the Palau Siren for diving. This is Papa with the Palau Siren:

Here are some scuba pictures. Good that I just completed the NITROX dive course before, as we were all diving with NITROX exclusively.

This is me in front of the wreck of the Taisho Maru. The Taisho Maru was a Japanese ocean liner which was sunk by a US submarine torpedo on October 26, 1944 (the ship had been converted into a military transport ship during the war).

More pictures are available on my Picasa web album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104727839447798652971/PalauJan2013?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Here are my dive profiles:

Sick at home

Currently I am staying sick at home. I have a nasty caugh that lasts already for about 3 weeks. Let's see what the chest x-ray will reveal. I am already on a antibiotic treatment.

As I have plenty of free time at home now, I can watch Youtube videos all day long. :-) Watch this video about the Tarsiers (as seen on Bohol, Philippines):

And one more about Sloths:

And about the Angler Fish:

Fairwell video for Christian

Christian from Avaloq Zurich stayed with us here in Manila for a couple of months. He helped us to streamline the interaction between Zurich an Manila, and helped us to improve our organization a lot.
The team made a great video for his fairwell:
http://vimeo.com/57844907
Thanks to everybody who has contributed to this nice video!