At Pico de Loro in Batangas Province

Our beloved cousin Gillian, at the hotel lobby.

Here we are today waking up at Pico de Loro, a remote Batangas beach resort that cozies up to the South China Sea, the bathwater warm and gentle shore. Is it the best beach ever seen by the Clark Family? Dear reader, Pico de Loro deserves serious consideration for that title.

How we got here is a long story, involving family connections and the Catholic church's great resources throughout the Republic.  But we are here, and if there is a finer beach anywhere, well -- as Golden State Warrior coach Mark Jackson says: "Call my bluff."

Such is its beauty, one is reminded of Marc Antony's great line to Cleopatra: "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the great arch of this ranged empire fall. Here is my place."

 Daddy, standing in the South China Sea.