Merry Christmas from Wellington, NZ

Well I made it back to New Zealand in one piece. After a short stop in Singapore to see friends and eat lots of yummy food I arrived back in Wellington on the 11th Dec.
Reverse culture shock? Where are all the people?
Apart from that it was pretty easy to come home and great to catch up with lots of friends before Christmas. A summer BBQ on the weekend was a great way to get back into the swing of things - even if I did have to assemble the BBQ myself.
Wellington may not have as many exciting stories for me to write about but I'll do my best. The politcal situation seems rather tame compared to Manila (thank goodness), Helen (PM) is down in the polls and Tau has been named bad boy of the year. The local newspaper is supporting a campaign to ban whale fishing by Japan. No typhoons yet but a lot of rain - good for the farmers.
Hello to my friends in Manila - I miss you. Merry Christmas!

Storms and Political Storms

Well we survived the typhoons (there were two of them in the end) but there were casualties in some parts of the Philippines due to severe flooding. I think about 26 people may have died over the last few weeks due to typhoon weather. In Manila we had a day of gusty wind and several days of heavy rain. We also had a 'brown out' (as opposed to a 'black out' - not entirely sure why the distinction actually) for about an hour one night. We did have some emergency lighting in the stairwells - I'm guessing that's why it was a 'brown out' not 'black out'.

Anyway just when I thought things were getting back to 'normal' here in Manila, the action started heating up on the political front. Apparently some senator/general guy was in court for some reason and walked out with his supporters. They proceeded to storm into a nearby 5 star hotel and occupy it with the intent of starting a popular uprising against the current president. They hoped the army and civilians would join them but unfortunately they drastically misread the mood of the population and the government succeeded in evicting them from the hotel and arresting them all.
We first learnt of this on Thursday evening when we tried to go to a 9.30pm movie and were told it was not showing due to a 12pm curfew imposed on Metro Manila. Actually everyone was going about their business in our part of the city and things remained calm.
My favourite headline in recent days is 'What were they thinking?'.
A storm in a teacup it seems.