Geeky Yet Waterproof

My secret buddy for State, whoever it may be, is awesome.

I’ve already said that I didn’t get sick at all while I was in the Philippines. But that’s not true. I caught a fever. No, not that kind of fever…

Guitar fever!!!

It all started with this…

But it ended with — wait, it didn’t end with, it increased with this:

That’s right: I bought myself an Epiphone guitar for Christmas. And let me tell you, the day it arrived I had things to do, but I hardly got any of them done. Because I’m having FUN.

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.