Geeky Yet Waterproof

As of Saturday, I have returned to my bayan — oh wait, no more Taglish… you get it. Anyway, after more than 24 hours of traveling, I’m back home.
I’m usually a very cold-weather-person, but when I stepped off the plane in Seattle I felt like I was going to crumble into a thousand ice shards! Being in 90° heat with 1000% humidity seems to have changed my comfort zone.
I somehow didn’t get sick the whole trip, even though I was getting about five hours of sleep a night. I think it was due to all the nutrients in the fruit slushies I had every day, because the day after I got back, I came down with a fever.
I went to swim practice today for the first time in about three weeks, and so I was worried I might drown (especially after reading Kate’s email that said to bring a shirt to swim in!). But it seems I chose the right day to come back, because we did 208×25’s!

But now I must bring this entry to an end, for it is almost time to prepare the sparkling cider and Monty Python movies! The Essence of New Year.

Thursday was our last day in the Philippines. We spent the first half of the day walking around a local market, called Market! Market!. We saw a lot of interesting local things, like ube buns, ube candy, ube piaya, Fish For The Gods, and suman that’s supposed to be so good you need a reservation to buy it.

We also walked around the meat market. I’ve never “experienced’” so many different smells in such a condensed space. The air would change every six feet! On the right would be seen see a bowl of pig intestines, on the left a mountain of fish, and in front a wall of coconuts.

Amazingly, we hadn’t yet ridden a Jeepney this whole trip. So instead of riding home with everybody else, Christopher, Jeremy, and I got home by means of one of those infamous jeeps and — that’s right — a trike.

A Jeepney is a thing that would by no way be legal in the States. We were sitting inside waiting for it to fill up so we could start moving, but I couldn’t understand why we were still waiting. The Jeepney was full! Yet people just kept piling in, until there were about 20 people inside one little Jeep. I think Jeepneys have a secret method to compress humans.
Another thing I didn’t expect to see was an elderly lady carrying a shopping bag containing round objects, which we soon discovered to be live chickens. Unfortunately, this didn’t make its way into my camera.

The Jeepney took us about halfway home, so we rode a trike the rest of the way. The diver even let us take control! I wish…

That night, we all went to dinner at a restaurant on the 31st floor of a skyscraper in Manila. It was awesome: there were balconies looking out over the city, 600ft above the ground (which was hilarious since Christopher is afraid of heights). You could easily see where the main highway was, because it was outlined by giant billboards as far as the eye could see.
There was even a swimming pool which, being out in the open air, was placed precariously close to the edge of the building.

Eamon at the Top of Manila

Don’t Look Down

When we were done viewing the world, and had recovered our stomachs, I ordered a (sarap) seafood soup, which after consumption yielded these remains:

But when we got home, Christopher and I were forced to confess that we hadn’t even started packing, even though we’d have to leave for the airport at 7am the next day. This was a problem, because my packing style looks something like this…

1. pack for five minutes
2. surf the internet for 10 minutes
3. repeat steps 1 & 2 until finished

This is by no means an efficient method, so as you can imagine, we were up until about 3am. But this is the Philippines: who needs sleep??

We’re waiting at the airport in Taipei for three hours, so I thought I’d update you on some Taiwanese awesomeness. Look what we found at a store in the airport:

USB Sushi!

Also: what’s wrong with this picture?

I’ll fill in the rest later when I have better (American) internet.

On Christmas Day we slept in somewhat (after a long night of partying), then drove to Tita Peewee’s house and took the day easy.
Before we had Christmas dinner at 1pm, we set up the table as our own internet cafe. The internet was somehow working well enough for me to video chat with my family back home, so I gave them a tour of the food and the coconut trees. When we started dinner dessert, Tita Leah, Tito Alex, and Andre came over.
After dinner, Christopher and I jammed on somebody’s guitar for a while (with cameras flashing), and we just relaxed for the rest of the day, which ended with our midnight snack at, you guessed it, 12am.

The Internet Cafe

Midnight Snack

Monday, as (I hope) you are very well aware, was Christmas Eve. We spent said day of festivities at the Agbayani residence, mostly just hanging around Filipino-style (aka partying nonstop). In the morning Apa showed us around his school, Ateneo. Since it’s located about 200 meters from the house, we just walked there. A stone wall attempted to impede our passage, but it was overcome:

Apa Invades!

Christopher Scales the Wall!

Rick Emerges with a Camera!

We got to see the school “prison”, which is called The Post: if you commit a crime (such as forgetting your ID), you have to stand within a small painted square for one hour…

…And lest you be tempted to make your escape, this guy will discourage any such behavior!

We also got to meet St. Ignacius, who offered us his sword:

After the short tour, we went back to the house to do some interwebbing (and eating, and eating). In the evening we went to Mass, but I couldn’t understand anything because the priest kept switching languages every half sentence!
Later that night after eating some more, all of us armed with cameras, we opened presents and discovered the true identity of Santa Claus…

A spy! Oh wait, it’s Tito Roby.

Eamon, Tita Yeyet, Apa

After a while, somebody took out Tito Louie’s old drum set and we all watched Christopher, Yeyet, and Louie jam into the wee hours of the morning:

With all the partying, caffine, and in some cases alcohol, nobody wanted to go to bed, so most of us stayed up until 4:30am.
You may think I’m being sarcastic, but I’m not: it felt good to get a full four hours of sleep! As I’m writing this at 8pm the next day, I’m wide awake and feeling great. Merry Christmas!

A few days ago we took a half hour flight in a small jet from Manila to Boracay. Boracay is a tourist attraction, because it’s located on a white sand beach of a small island in the Visaya province.
When we landed, we had to take a boat out to the island, and then ride in a van across the island to the other side where the hotel was located.

When we got there, I was amazed by how much everything looked just like a movie or a postcard — Caribbean-blue water (which, to our surprise, got shallower as we waded out farther), a long strip of white beach, a curtain of coconut trees, a mob of street vendors, and an endless row of cafes. There was even a mall area behind the cafes, called… D’Mall.

We spent most of the day swimming, lying on the beach, and trying to convince the vendors that we didn’t need an ATV at the moment. It felt good to relax, after all the things we’d been doing for the past few days.

The next day, we got up early to go on a boat tour around some of the islands.
We stopped to go snorkeling for a while near some island where the water was shallow enough to reach the bottom. It was again, amazing. There seemed to be less "landscape" than at Hundred Islands, but there were a lot more tropical fish. It’s too bad I don’t have an underwater camera case, because some clown fish (I found Nemo BTW) were letting me get up really close, without them swimming away.
And even if we didn’t expect it, it was bound to be: that’s right, street vendors exist even offshore. While Christopher and I were snorkeling and everyone else was relaxing in the boat, a guy pulled up in a small vessel selling buko coconuts.

After we had snorkeled for a while, we continued on to another island, whose main trait was a network of caves. To enter one cave, you had to climb down a frighteningly steep set of stairs, and after the stairs you had to take a walkway leading through the water, and then into the cave. But inside the cave was a tunnel, no more than about four feet high, leading into another cave!

Our tour lasted about three hours, and by the end the sun was almost at full heat (which is a thing you want to avoid at the 12th latitude). When we got back, we spent the rest of the day lying on the beach and shopping for souvenirs at D’Mall. It was a good weekend.

On Tuesday, we went to the Hundred Islands, which are a group of (more than) a hundred islands just about a mile or two out to sea from Alaminos.
We first rented fins and snorkels at a little shop. It was just a shack on the side of the road, so I was surprised to see this posted on the wall — I didn’t even know my aunt was running for governor!

After we had rented all our gear, we took a boat to the islands. In the boat we fit our driver Molito, Uncle Rick, Christopher, Chris (a servant we kidnaped from the condo), and two boatmen. The boat was like a canoe with pontoons and a roof; it felt very rickety, but that made it more fun.

The Hundred Islands were amazing. Tito Louie described it as “paradise” (about five times). We first went to a floating raft anchored just off the north side of Quezon Island, where we went snorkeling for a while. We had to swim about 80 meters to get to where it was shallow enough to reach the bottom, but the water was as warm as a pool. I’ve never actually gone snorkeling in the ocean before, living in 43° Oregon, so seeing the coral, tropical fish, and random bright colors up close was amazing. One of the things I had never seen before was the army of giant clams — the smallest ones were about a foot and half long, while the biggest ones were two and a half to three feet long! We dug up half of a shell from a dead one and swam it back to the raft. Unfortunately, it’s illegal to take specimens from a national park, so we were forced to commit it to the depths. However, we did immortalize it in pixels.

After a while, we got back into the boat and migrated to the other side of the island, where there was a white sand beach and picnic tables. Chris barbecued some fish and steak for us, which was delicious. The fish wasn’t even cleaned; it was just slapped on the grill, organs, head, and all. True filipino style.

After we ate, we swam a little more in the warm waters of the South China Sea. A fish led me on a five minute tour around the swimming area, and I dug up some shells from the bottom.

By about 2pm, we had to start heading back because our boat, being of the same design that has been used for the last several centuries, didn’t handle waves very well. But as we were navigating between the other islands, the white sand and palm trees (and restrooms) were impossible to resist, so we unloaded at Governor’s Island, which was advertised as having a viewpoint.

To get the the viewpoint we had to climb a long set of stairs, which seemed cruelly steep for Asians (who aren’t typically, well, tall).

But when we got to the top, it was like stepping into a postcard. My pathetic words are incapable of a just description, so as compensation, please take these humble pixels and this panorama in their stead.

When we finally started heading home, we were all a different color from when we started out, whether it be brown or red.

As we were driving through the town, Molito unexpectedly stopped the car at the bank. When we asked why we were stopped there, he said, "Don’t you want to take a shower?". What?? We’re taking a shower at the bank? But we followed along, and he led us to an office upstairs where we found Tito Louie! And yes, he had a shower in his office.
So after we had all showered and eaten suman (sticky rice cooked in a bamboo stalk) while listening to his tales of war, wine, and revolution, he drove with us a ways to show us around his mango farm. Yes, he owns a mango farm as well as an entire condominium.
We saw some cool things at the mango farm, such as a three foot tall anthill, magical leaves that close up when you touch them, and even a cock fight (well, more like a cock sparring session).

When we got back, we had dinner at the condo and then Tito Louie took us to his (yes, his) bar. It’s called Bar Tec, which could mean "Bar Technology", or in the native language, "drunk". We were there from 11pm to 1am, watching pirated DVDs — the whole time.

We’ve all agreed that during the two days we were in Pangasinan, we saw more of the Philippines than in the whole trip before that. Manila is nice, but it’s Westernized. The country (or as they say, The Province) is where the real Philippines are.

Note: I just discovered that my web gallery can only handle 500 photos, so I haven’t been uploading any new ones lately, as I’ve reached the limit. I’ll try to upload more photos to a new web gallery, but I don’t know how long that will take with the "masama" internet connection. I’ll post when I get it published.

On Monday morning, Uncle Rick, Christopher, and I left with our driver, Molito, to go on a little excursion to Pangasinan. Pangasinan is the province of the Philippines which Tito Vic (and before him, his father) used to govern.
The drive probably would have taken us about four hours, but we made several stops along the way; first, we stopped at Jollibee, the Filipino version of McDonald’s (only better).
Next, we stopped in Lingayen, which is the capital of Pangasinan, to see the governor’s palace — and the 12ft statue of my uncle in front of it.

That’s my Great Uncle!

After that, we went on to poke around Tita Teresing’s cottage in the woods (palm trees?). There we saw some really scenic countryside, straw huts, and even a guy taking a carabao for a walk.

Rick Photographs the Bananas

Since it was only a short drive from the cottage to the beach, we indulged. While walking on the beach, we saw in the distance a small group of people standing around a large shape. Thinking they were fishermen pulling in their nets, we went over to investigate. As we got closer, we saw that the shape was actually a pile of sand from a freshly dug hole in the ground. We would have gone directly to them to ask what they were doing, but we were intimidated by the low hats, the bandanas hiding their faces, and the fact that they had all stopped their work to stare at us. So, trying not to look too suspicious, we just kept walking by.
The problem was we had to be back at the car in five minutes, which was in the other direction. So after walking about 50 feet past them, we had no choice but to turn around. However, curiosity conquered us, so we asked them what they were doing. It turned out they were mining for gold — on the beach! They said they had to work all day, but I guess they must have been doing something right, because they showed us the results…

After we were done on the beach, we headed to our final destination of Tito Louie’s condo in Alaminos, where we would stay for one night. (By “Tito Louie’s” condo, I mean that he owns the whole thing. Being the mayor had its advantages.) The condo is right on the water, and there’s a raised viewing platform which you have to go up a spiral staircase to get to. We went to the top of the platform, and it just happened to be at the same level as the tops of the coconut trees. So as you can probably guess, we picked a coconut, bashed it on a rock, and drank the milk. Ahh… sarap ng buko.

Eamon and the Cocounut

Christopher and the Coconut

Rick and the Coconut

When we had gone back to our rooms it was only a few minutes before, to our surprise, someone knocked on our doors saying, “Dinner’s ready!”. We hadn’t ordered any dinner, but we walked across to the cafeteria room to see what it was. A merry servant was setting a huge dinner on the table for just the three of us. He then said, “Enjoy!” and left us alone to eat!
It way too much food for three people, but it was all delicious.

When we had finished eating, we said “salamat” to someone who might have been the cook, and then went back to our rooms to shower / wash off spilled coconut milk, sleep, and prepare for our next adventure: The Hundred Islands.

On Friday afternoon, we met up with Uncle Rick (who came in from Japan) and left Tita Peewee’s house in a van to go stay with some other relatives, the Agbayanis, in Quezon City. Quezon City is only 30 miles from where we were staying in Alabang, but it took us two and a half hours to get there. Do you ever get impatient when traffic slows to a walking speed on the freeway? Maybe the congestion even lasts up to ten minutes sometimes? Well, we might have gotten to where we were going faster by walking, because it was like that for the whole drive. And I’m starting to realize that the cause of the traffic in the Philippines is not the number of people, but the divider lines on the road — or rather lack thereof. I’m amazed that I haven’t seen any wrecks at all, but no matter how careful the drivers are, you can only go so fast like this.
But even though the trip was long, this one scene made it all worth it:

Before I go into detail about our arrival, you must understand that the Agbayanis are very rich. One of them used to be the mayor of a town, another used to be the governor of a province, and his father also used to be a governor.
So now that that’s done, I can explain the next thing: the Agbayani house is very big. When we first arrived, one of the first things we did after trekking over the hills and through the woods (within the house) with our luggage was to go swimming in the pool in their backyard. And this is not just a dinky little foldable pool like some people have; this is a full-fledged, 40ft square, 10ft deep pool. Only it’s not square — it’s triangular with rounded corners and one crescent-shaped edge.

And now that you know how big the house is, I can mention the final aspect of the Agbayani residence: we’re still trying to figure out how many people live in this house. Besides us (being Grandma Nini, Grandpa Dan, Uncle Rick, Christopher, and myself), there’s Tita Teresing, Tita Pia, Miggy, Robbie, and Viktoria whose real name is Yeyet. These are the people who live in one wing. In the other wing are Tito Vic, Tita Jammy, Tito Joey, Apa, and a few more kids.
These are just the ones who are our relatives. When you count all the servants and drivers in the house, the number of people is at least double of those I just mentioned.

Eamon, Christopher, Tita Pia, Apa, Yeyet, Tito Joey

I apologize that this entry is several days late, but we spent our first day at the Agbayanis’ trying to figure out the internet. They have broadband at least, but I’ll just say it’s Weird broadband which demands a mythical username and password and an Inconvenient setup requiring a Mac sacrifice.
But the other reason it took us the whole day to figure out the internet was that Christopher and I, to our relief, found a guitar. Need I say more?

That night, Yeyet/Viktoria took Christopher and me out to see what clubbing is like in the Philippines. Yeyet, our aunt (or something like that), is 38, but since she’s a pop singer, she still looks and acts like she’s 25.
We went to several clubs; the first two were a bit boring, but the last one we stayed at for a few hours. When we finally decided to go home it was about 3am, but Christopher and I didn’t go straight to bed — instead, we went swimming. After that, we went sneaking around the kitchen hunting for Ensaymadas to eat, video chatting with our people in the US, and playing around on our Macs.

By the time I finally went to bed, it was 5:15am. That was a fun day.

Yeyet, Christopher, Eamon

This evening, Jeremy, our second cousin (or uncle, or first cousin twice removed, or something) took Christopher and me out to sushi and to meet some of his friends. It was fun getting to meet the locals. They’re crazy in some ways, but I’m afraid we fit right in.

Afterwards Jeremy, Christopher, and I went back to the house for a few minutes, but it wasn’t long before Jeremy’s friend kidnapped us to ride around town in his pickup delivering Christmas cookies to people!
However, we weren’t just delivering the cookies… we followed a strict routine that went something like this: call the victim lucky person on the “celfone” (if they didn’t wake up on the first try, we’d keep calling until they did); tell them to get out of bed and step into their driveway because we’d be at their house in three minutes with cookies; show up at their house, give them the cookies, and kidnap them!
One person claimed she couldn’t be kidnapped because she had a class at 7:30am the next day, so we just kidnapped her house instead. We set up the living room as headquarters and discussed crime strategies for future kidnappings. She didn’t seem to mind though, because she was payed handsomely in cookies.

Ah, but I did I mention that all this started at about 11pm? And we, being Filipinos, are challenged when it comes to leaving a party. Let’s just say that after we released most of the hostages, we stood around talking for an hour and a half about guitars, crocodiles, and dynamite (plus everything in between). So I think I need not mention that I’m writing this 3am — and I’m not the only one still awake.

Christopher, Jeremy, Eamon