It was our very first Chinese New Year holiday in China, and we had two weeks to spend anywhere in Asia.  Obviously, we wanted to escape the Beijing smog that seems to always hang in the air during the winter.  We also wanted to escape the cold, windy Beijing winter.  All of our friends seemed to be going to Thailand.  We had never had a desire to go to Thailand.  All I knew about Thailand was that there were elephants, Thai food, and it was a very Buddhist culture.  Nothing really intrigued me about going to Thailand. So we went to the Philippines instead.  AND we had a great…