Some of my wife’s family lives in Manila, and we are yet to hear if they are alright or not. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the family’s dealing with this tragedy.

ABOVE: Alaysa Caranoo waits for any news of her missing brother, who was on board the capsized ferry MV Princess of Stars.

Now i am sure your reading this and thinking, “Philippines sounds awful”, or you think “It’s not true.” Well even after I heard all that I decided that it was worth it to me to “jump in” anyway. So I did and here is what I experienced – I never heard of any cases of malaria or dengue fever during my stay there. It is very hot during the day but the A/C works fine. No one during my entire stay, and I was there for over a year, tried to steal anything from me. Of course there is dangerous areas, and you should probably avoid huge crowds, because an American stands out like a sour thumb. What he said about eating on the bus is true, most likely you will get a bad stomach illness if you drink the water and eat fruits in the Philippines. I ate at Wendy’s in Manila and I was in the bathroom all day for over a week, ( bad advertisement for Wendy’s hehe ) but on the bright side the meal was delicious. Most of the Philippine people are very kind and humble. Jonalyn’s ( my wife ) family treated me like part of their own family. So besides all the endless trips to get all the papers ready, and the constant stress of thinking you forgot some papers and it will ruin the whole visa process, it was a pleasant trip. One last thing, the air in every city in the Philippines ( even the small ones ) smells like gasoline, because all the vehicles use diesel. My brother did say Baguio has fresh air, but I never made it there. Please ask me and questions you have.