The Gay Guy

Andrew and I have been slowly settling in to the Puerto Princesan lifestyle. I found a great laundry place that does laundry by the kilogram. The first time I went I wasn't sure of what to expect. I put all my laundry in a duffle bag, hopped into a tricycle, sped to the NCCC parking lot, and walked inside the tiniest laundromat I've ever seen, fictional or real. It's literally a room wedged between an internet company and a travel center with a young woman surrounded by mountains of clothes. Anyway, I walk in, plop down the bag and tell her what I need. She takes the bag and proceeds to scoop all my clothes out with her bare hands. I'm standing there with Andrew, watching wide-eyed, as my dirty drawers are piled high onto a scale and weighed. The damage, besides psychological, was 90 pesos. Holy shit! I'll gladly endure strangers manhandling my drawers for 2 bucks!

Anyway, the real point of this blog entry is to tell a potentially entertaining story (See what I did there?). So, Andrew is big on massages. He's always getting them at little places along the main strip, Rizal Avenue. One day he decides to get a girl to come to his room instead of going out. To make a long story short, they start seeing each other casually as friends, or not, whatever, it doesn't matter. Today Andrew asks me to go meet the girl with him. He said they were going to Baker's Hill, a local attraction with a few animals and minor sights. "Fuck it", I proclaim. I've got no problem being a third wheel.

We get to the place where we are meeting her when he gets a call. Apparently she's bringing a friend. "Whatever", i proclaim. She shows up a few minutes later with her friend, and as soon as I saw the two of them I knew exactly where the day was going. I was expecting a woman, not an obviously gay man.

We exchange pleasantries and pile into a tricycle. We drive for about 10 minutes, crammed like....crammed like, something...crammed in a small space......*cough*

We arrive at Baker's Hill and start walking around. there really isn't much to see except a few bored animals and a hilariously gay dinosaur (I'll post a pic soon). At this point the gay guy isn't paying anyone much attention. All is well. We decide to walk up the road to Gov. Mitra's house, a huge government home that doubles as a guest house. The property is open to the public to walk around and enjoy. We walk around a little bit, making small talk, and generally being bored. On the way out the gay guy starts walking next to me, asking questions, being friendly. I think nothing of it. Or maybe I just didn't want to think of it. I should have thought of cats, or Easter, or Rock Band 2. Man, I really want to wail out some Pearl Jam "Alive". That's not gay.

We continue talking a little bit here and there on the way back to Baker's Hill. At this point Andrew's lady friend and the gay guy are talking in Tagalog quite a bit more than before. I take note of this for no good reason. When we get there we decide to go to the most heterosexual place on earth: The Butterfly Pavilion. So we hop in another tricycle and speed away.

We arrive at the *sigh* Butterfly Pavilion, pay for the tricycle (Sidenote: they didn't pay a damn cent either time. Andrew and I footed the bill), and walk up to buy tickets. A sign informs us that the butterflies aren't very active in the afternoon, so we decide to go the hell home out of it. Actually, first the gay guy decides to talk to his sister on the phone for 20 minutes, passing her around to talk to us, complete strangers. She was nice enough though. We start to walk towards the intersection when the gay guy and the lady friend begin to talk again in Tagalog. Andrew put it eloquently: "Dude, I think they're trying to figure out if you're gay or not". After this the gay guy asks me about religion. Specifically, he asks if I was a Catholic. Without thinking about where it might head, what day of the week it is, or how "Catholic" I actually am, I say yes. Excellent news, because they are heading to church and would love us to join. Fortunately Andrew had a pre-planned bullshit meeting to attend with a make-believe person. Unfortunately for me, he completely sold me up the fucking river with: "But Matthew's free". I quickly made up some "family phonecall night" story and focused on hating Andrew.

We are still walking towards the intersection while I'm thinking of a nice way to let this dude now that I'm not gay and not interested in him or God when, and I swear this to be true, a giant truck full of young men drives by, all of them shouting and waving: "Hey man, what's up", "Hey dude", "What's up man", and "Looking good hot-ass". Well, it's all true except that last one.

We all catch a tricycle, drive to the end of our road, say our goodbyes, and generally breathe two distinctive sighs of relief. Andrew is away from the girl he was barely interested in to begin with, and I....well you can gather why I am relieved. So that's the end of the story, or it should have been.

I'm sitting down, about to waste time on the internet, when my phone beeps. I have a message. It's from gay guy. How he got my number I'll never know. I don't even know my damn number. He tells me how he had a great time. I do not respond. We go out later to Itoy's coffee house and I tell Andrew about what happened. He figures gay guy got my number through the lady friend because Andrew needed to use my phone to text her one night. Whatever, we have a little laugh and order some food.

Later, I get home and have 2 new messages. They both are from gay guy, preaching the bible and the good word of the Lord. I do not respond.

Oh man. I wish i had a big steaming plate of Sizzling Sisig right now.

Update Re: Exotic Meals

I've come to learn more of the mysterious Sizzling Sisig....

It's been confirmed from two different sources, both Filippino, that Sisig also contains the brain of the pig. Apparently the crispy bits that I actually enjoyed were the brain and face meat. The "sauce" was a combination of egg and mayonaise. Sick.

I'll have a more significant blog entry this weekend. We are traveling to Irawan on Saturday to do some hiking and then Honda Bay on Sunday for some field work. Until then, the week!

Exotic Meals

Andrew went for a meeting with World Vision, so while I'm waiting for him to get back I guess I'll tell you about two of the weird meals I had so far.

One night we decide that we are sick of eating at Chow King and Jollibee. Chow King is basically a fast food version of The Emerald Palace and Jollibee is a hilarious burger joint in the same vein as Mcdonald's. Every time you enter the building a guard opens the door and someone somewhere always says "Welcome to Jollibee" in an accent you can only really appreciate if you hear. It's my second favorite noise so far, only bested by that wonderful NCCC jingle. I'm smiling just thinking about it now.

Anyway, Andrew finds this place called the Lotus Garden. I posted a few pictures of it in my previous entry. It was an Asian themed restaurant with all sorts of different Asian food. Like pretty much every other time I go to a random restaurant, I have no idea what anything means. They have pictures on the menu, but in the case of ordering a meal a picture says significantly less than a thousand words, maybe 20. If a picture said a thousand tastes I'd be laughing.
I'm flipping through the menu while a hen and a group of baby hens (henlets? chickendees?) do their thing outside, a skinny ass cat takes a drink from the fish pond, and a puffy dog runs around. I finally settle on Chicken Satay, a chicken dish with a brownish red sauce and a side of rice. It looks delicious.
The dish arrives and it smells delicious. I take a bite and am hit right in the mouth with a taste not entirely unlike Pirate Cookies. Yes, Mr. Christie peanut butter Pirate Cookies. You might think this would be a welcome "homey" flavor, but it ain't. A big plate of cookie flavored poultry only has so much charm. The pineapple juice was solid though.

The second meal was, ahem, um.......hmmmmmm....

Yeah, so we decided to eat at a place called Sari Baryo. I'm pretty sure it isn't spelled like that, but they don't have a website for me to fact-check. When we get there the power is out. Brown-outs happen frequently in Puerto Princesa when it rains, and it always rains. Each table had a small candle illuminating it. We glance at the menu for a few moments (this one didn't have the false security of pictures) and decide on our orders. Andrew ordered a bowl of soup that I'm sure contained one of every living animal in the ocean, and I order a pork dish called "Sizzling Sisig". Remember, no picture. When I order my Sizzling Sisig the waiter stops for a second, looks at me, and says "It's pork". I look at Andrew, he looks back at me, I look at the waiter, he looks back at me, and I say "...Ok". He smiles and walks away. When he's out of earshot Andrew and I quickly try to decipher what just happened. The conversation wen something like this:

"Why did he say that?"

"I don't know. It says 'pork' on the menu..."

"Maybe because the power is out?"

"Maybe....but why would they sell me bad pork?"

"I dunno"

"...........Oh man........."

The dishes arrive and, as I mentioned, Andrew's is almost swimming away. He honestly scooped out a huge half of crab (an actual half, complete with shell) and asked, "Is this moving?"
My dish came out on a hot skillet, bubbling and hissing away. It was a brownish, pink paste with little hunks of meat sprinkled throughout. It did not match the delicious image I had concocted in my head. I was not expecting this. I decide that since I paid for it, I'm at least going to try it. I pile the rice on the plate and begin scooping the Sisig on top. I take a bite and can honestly say was not impressed. I was expecting a "porky" taste, and got a mouthful of what tasted like seafood slurry. I decided to stick to the rice. Andrew and I have a conversation, and when the waiter comes back to give us our check Andrew decides to ask what I just attempted to eat actually was. The waiter says "Pork" and then points to his face, specifically his cheeks.

I ate pork face.....

I'm sticking to Chow King and Jollibee.

NCCC, my home away from home

So, I've been in Palawan for about a week now, and so far so good. The people are friendly, the food is good, and the weather is mostly amazing. For the first few days, Andrew and I were basically setting up shop: opening bank accounts, familiarizing ourselves with the main stretch, and settling in to our rooms. We met with Doc. Gonzales on Thursday and he gave us a brief overview of the types of work we would be involved with. The University is trying for a level 3 accreditation, so all the faculty are busy preparing for that. Basically Doc. Gonzales told us to sit tight and wait for an email informing us of what to do. In the meantime a few interesting events have unfolded.

First, I want to say that I have absolutely fallen in love in love with NCCC. It's a big old school department store in the same vein as Woolco and it has absolutely everything. The best part is the NCCC theme song. I have to find a way to record it without the employees thinking I'm retarded or the security guards arresting me for violating some law I'm sure exists. It gets in your head and cannot get out. The best part is that you don't want it out. It's amazing. NCCC also gets an award for having no less than 10,000 people working in the store at any given moment. I was in buying a shirt today and a line of employees spontaneously broke out into a funky Asian line dance. Another reason that NCCC fucking rocks. I have to knock off points for the inexplicable love of Shaggy and The Cranberries though. Mr. Lovah Lovah literally had a five song set while I was shopping for food. Throw "Zahhh-ommm-bay, Zahhh-ommm-bay" on top of that and it can easily ruin an afternoon.

Secondly, I got lost. It wasn't an epic "Holy shit where am I?!!" lost, but it was a new experience nonetheless. Andrew decides to get a haircut, and I don't particularly feel like waiting around, so I say I'll mee thim back home and take off in the general direction of our place. The fact I don't know any street names doesn't factor into my terrible equation at the time. I walk for a while up Rizal Ave, the main stretch, untill I feel I'm close to where I should turn off into the neighborhood. I start walking down a random street and after a few minutes I realize I don't have a sweet clue where I'm going. No problem, I'll ask the locals! I got to a gas station and ask the woman there how to get to Aniceto's Pension. Never heard of it eh? Right on....
So, like any reasonable idiot, I turn around and head down another random road. I eventually stop at a roadside store and ask the man buying smokes where Aniceto's Pension is. He has heard of it and even draws me a map. So I thanked him, bought some water, went on my way and got lost again. The map must not have been to scale.....yeah.....
So I decide to turn down another random street (that's three now) and ask a guy around my age where the hell I am. He doesn't know. But an old lady overhears our conversation and tell him how to get there. He tells me to wait a minute and goes into his house for a few minutes. I'm standing there, not quite sure as to what's going to happen, when he comes back out and tells me to hop on the back of his scooter, he'll take me there. I decide to ignore my better judgment and get on the back. At this point I've been wandering around for 45 minutes, I'm dehydrated and cranky, so the chance at a quick free ride home isn't much of a decision at all. I'm lost in a foreign country with a pocket full of cash and a head full of dirt.
He speeds away and begins to strike up a conversation. I find out his name sounds like Ken-ed and that he's in a band. They play mainly emo music. Turns out that Aniceto's Pension was only about 2 mintues away and if I wasn't completely brain-dead the map would've been fine. I get off the scooter, thank him profusely, and go inside.

Thus ends another day. Huzzah.

Oh, here's are some photo's that have little or nothing to do with the preceding post.

The view from the roof of Aniceto's Pension

The staircase leading to the third floor. Very Pretty.

Here's some free advice. Don't buy these. The only time that NCCC has disappointed me to date

Some handsome bastard

Day 2: Palawan Bound

Monday September 15th

We woke up at 5:00, got an awesome buffet breakfast ( fresh fruit kick ass) and got the shuttle to the domestic airport. I forgot to mention the scenery of Manila yesterday so I'll cram it in here I suppose. It is a very old and run-down looking city. In some ways it reminds me of old 70's U.S. scenery. Everything is really crammed and packed together. Almost every space that could possibly fit a business, car, jeepney, tricycle, or person is filled. Oh, and we passed a Kenny Roger's Roasters........yup. My biggest regret in life is not eating there. My second biggest? Not taking a picture.

One day Kenny, one day....

The flight to Puerto Princesa was really short; a little over an hour, or maybe it was under, who knows. Andrew chatted it up to a young local woman. She was in the area doing business as a geological surveyor. He ended up getting her number too. Dude is connected. Oh, she asked if Canada was part of the US, which was cute.

We get off the flight and there is a marching band playing for us, well I guess you call them a marching band, even though they weren't marching. It was so surreal. We were picked up from the airport by Jimmy and Janette, two teachers at WPU. They were great. They took us to a beautiful restaurant nestled in a mangrove forest. The view was spectacular. I'll have to take a picture before I leave. I had a seafood platter that was pretty good. I'm not a big seafood person, but the tuna was amazing. There was also fresh seaweed on the plate which I didn't like very much. Jimmy and Janette took us around the city, sightseeing. I bought a cell-phone that I can't figure out how to use. We tried setting up bank accounts but we were unable because we didnt have a required form. We'll try again soon I suppose. We went to a park and then to a “Chow King” where i tried Halo-halo. It's a kind of ice-cream dish. Basically it's crushed ice with a scoop of ice-cream, some sweet jam, flakes of what tasted like granola, ju-jubes, banana, and lychee. It was pretty good. We had another big chat and it started to pour. Rainy season.

They dropped us home and we both took a nice sleep. Jimmy later showed up around 8:00 pm and took us to his local favorite bar (can't remember the name right now). Me and Andrew both got on the back of his motorcycle/scooter. It was a laugh. The bar was a great spot with an amazing atmosphere. We had a few beers and a big chat. Jimmy told us about the previous exploits of last years interns and I'm super excited for whats ahead of me. Heh heh.......heh.

I really need to start taking more pictures.

Day One: Arrival

Sept 14th and 15th

Today was pretty crazy. I got about 1.5 hrs sleep because of the Sweetapple Rock Bandstravagasma. Mom and Dad drove me to the airport where Pat, Crowley and Steph were waiting for me. That was nice to see. After I said all my goodbyes I met up with the other interns and began the long journey to the Philippines. The first leg of the flight wasn't so bad, but the 15.5 hr flight from Toronto to Hong Kong was brutal. I kept falling asleep for a few minutes, waking up, and expecting the flight to be nearly finished. I was always dissapointed. One highlight was the inclusion of “My Blueberry Nights” on the movie channel. Fucking hilarious. Well if you understand the meaning, which you probably don't...*cough*...

My Blueberry Worstmovieever

So anyway, Hong Kong airport is pretty crazy. It seemed to be a mash of convienince type stores and designer clothes stores. There was a huge Gucci store right next to a Relay. Speaking of Hong Kong, the city is beautiful to fly over. It's so bizarre to see high rises and sky scrapers peppering the mountainous archepelagic landscape. Huge factories and industry hugging the coastline with large bridges connecting the whole crazy mess. Hundreds of boats of all sizes zipping in all directions. Other aircraft flying below us. I took one shitty picture, the plane window wouldn't allow better. I'd love to travel to Hong Kong before my trip is over.

So we finally land in Manila, and it's hot. Immigration and customs was no problem at all. We got a shuttle to our hotel the beautiful Swagman's Hotel. People have been telling me about Philippino drivers and the crazy mess of the roads, but you really have to experience it to understand. It's not quite the unorganized mess I anticipated, but rather a careful orchastrated clusterfuck. A woman came up to the side window at a stop and asked me for money. I said I didn't have any, which at this point was 100% true. Well, I had some American, but there was no way she was getting a 20. She waited a few moments and then moved on to the next van. Andrew looked at me and said ,”Notice how they didn't ask the brown guy for money...”. Pretty funny.

We get to the hotel late, go to the lobby for a quick beer and internet access. Andrew is typing away and making phonecalls. Apparenelty he has a few Manila contacts. One came through and he took off to the local mall to meet up with her. He asked me to come along but I was literally dropping. I sat down and began typing a journal entry but conked out cold at the computer. That was the end of that day.

Somewhere between Toronto and Hong Kong I contracted 'Intercontinental Madness'