Potentially Entertaining Material: Palawan Edition

The Blog is Dead, Sorta.

2009-09-18T00:15:00.004+08:00

I said the blog wasn't dead and I'm a filthy liar. The blog is dead dead.

Hear me out: I had full intentions of keeping it up when I got home, but after a few entries I realized that a blog created and nurtured based around the idea of me being in Palawan wouldn't work if I wasn't actually in Palawan. It seems much more obvious now than it did then.

So, to the 3-5 people still checking this page (Bless your hearts) I've decided to start a brand new blog. How exciting!

What will you find on this blog? I haven't hammered that out yet. What I do know is that I want to start writing bits and pieces again. I like writing and I like telling stories and I've done neither for far too long.

In the next few weeks or so I'll have a new page all ready to go. I'll post a link from this page and hopefully a few people will see it.

Woo.

The Blog Isn't Dead Yet

2009-03-13T13:29:00.007+08:00

I know I said that the next post would have chicken intestine and fetus ingestion, but the camera is all the way upstairs. In my current state of shameful laziness upstairs and the moon are psychologically equidistant from my bloated carcass. As such, "This Week in Disgust" will have to wait.

The search for a job/career has begun. I've scoured the government websites, Workopolis, JobBank, and other similar sites. While there are a lot of jobs that I am technically qualified for, none are particularly appealing. Scientific research on Sable Island doesn't exactly raise my blood pressure. If I were to conduct scientific research for six months on a treeless horse-infested scrap of land, I'd end up spending most of my time figuring out a way to not go insane and kill my coworkers. When this inevitably failed I'd devote the remaining time to concocting a triple murder-suicide scheme that would leave Sherlock Holmes scratching his head and profiling the horses. I'm talking about a plan so devious and perfect that they'd have to fly in Angela Landsbury. I don't know if she's dead or not, and I'm too lazy to Google it. If she turns out to be dead I guess they could just watch the first few seasons of Murder She Wrote and take notes.

Sable Island is out but I'll be scanning the websites regularly for any interesting or highly paid positions (ie. astronaut) and continue to write about it.

I realize that I haven't been posting very much and I plan to remedy this. It's not that I've been overly busy, but rather that I've just been spending time seeing the people and doing the things that I couldn't for the past six months (Read: Rock Band). Unsurprisingly, there hasn't been much of a need for adjustment to life on this side of the world. I have lived here the past 27 years, so there's really not much to get used to. With that being said, here are three needless complaints.

1) It's fucking cold!

I'm positive there's been a time in my life when I have been colder, absolutely certain. I can conjure up memories of freezing my ass off in the woods, but not the actual feelings of being cold, so these reminiscences have been altogether useless in preparing me for this frozen, barren, lifeless wasteland. Five below isn't even that cold. I know this. But, my body and brain do not give one iota of a shit about what I know and what I feel.

Complete and total cognitive dissonance.

Also, I have uncovered some foolish conspiracy to make me cold and keep me cold. Has it become socially unsavory, a faux-pas if you will, to turn a thermostat to the right? I was always under the impression that buildings were supposed to protect and shelter you from the elements, not faithfully simulate them in the (dis)comfort of your own home. All I’m going to say is this: When the folks come home one day and see me warming my hands by the smoldering black gutted remnants of the tool shed they aren’t getting an explanation, just a small shrug and a “My Hands Were Tied” look.

2) Rock Band

In between looking for a job and getting shamefully drunk I’ve managed to sink an unreasonable amount of time into Rock Band, usually with Andy and Sweetapple acting as enablers. I can see myself noticeably improving on drums, and, like anything I suppose, this motivates me to further improve. It’s a vicious, wonderful cycle. In fact, I’ll go above saying that I’m good on (fake plastic) drums now. I’ll boldly say that I’m fucking great. When someone calls you an “idiot savant” you know you’re doing something right. I think I realized the true gravity of my situation last night when I belted out “Roxanne” and “Mr. Brightside”...on vocals. That’s the equivalent of getting high by smoking a teabag in a receipt. In an uncharacteristic display of self-control and discipline, I plan to go a week without turning it on. The cocaine-heroin dust hybrid released into the atmosphere and up my nose upon striking the drumhead with the drumstick will remain safely sealed in the device. I expect withdrawal symptoms and pangs of regret.

Pathetic.

3) $8.00 for McDonald’s is Outrageous

I don’t have much to elaborate on here. Money goes farther in the Philippines. This is directly correlated with the fact that: a) I was getting paid in Canadian currency, b) The Philippines is a poor country, and c) as a result of (b), the Filipino Peso is a joke. I could get a Big Mac meal with all the trimmings for a cool three Filipino Fun Bux. This is no longer possible. Logic aside, McDonald’s is a shitty restaurant with shitty food for shitty people. The natural progression here would be to assume the prices are also shitty, and that would be correct. Fuck you Ronald. Fuck you Grimace and Mayor McCheese and Birdie and the Nugget Buddies and all those other clowns. I could swallow your prices with a smile on my face and grease on my lip in the Philippines, but no more.

I’ve grown as a person.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned!

I'm Home

2009-03-05T18:31:00.001+08:00

I’m back in Newfoundland and loving it.

I’ve been home for two days now and have not had a chance to do anything much. Dad had his operation yesterday and I’m happy to report that everything went smoothly. He’ll need to stay in the hospital for a few days but should be fine to get half (fully) loaded with us within the week. I saw him yesterday and he looked and sounded great, cracking jokes and giving us the finger.

My sleep schedule is still completely messed up. Traveling for over 29 hours and then having to wake up at 5:30 am yesterday certainly didn’t help any. Yesterday afternoon my body finally threw its hands up in the air and screamed for mercy. I crashed around 6:00 pm and woke up around 4:00 am. I anticipate many yawns in my future; yawns and narcoleptic episodes. I apologize to those who I was supposed to see yesterday.

I don’t miss the Philippines yet, but I do have one more story to tell. The night before I left, a friend (Jonah) bought some Filipino delicacies for me to try: isaw and balut. Isaw is barbecued chicken intestines and balut is boiled chicken fetus. I took a video of both of us trying it for the first time and will upload it to this blog shortly. In short, the isaw was actually pretty good while the balut cannot be qualified as food. I cannot imagine the circumstances surrounding the conception of balut as a food item. The first person who decided to allow a chicken fetus to grow for 18 weeks, and then boil for 5 minutes, is a monster. Not only does it taste terrible, it’s tasteless. The video will sum it up nicely.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about the blog yet. I may keep it, I may retire it, or I may retire this one and start another. I haven’t decided yet. If anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Well that's it for this entry. I'll upload the video shortly.

More Wrestling Dialogue/ Don't Shit Your Pants

2009-02-25T17:17:00.006+08:00

If you haven't already, read the previous post before this one, as this might not make a lot of sense otherwise. Well, it probably won't make a lot of sense anyway. I really enjoy recounting these exchanges.

Peter: “For someone who says they don’t follow wrestling, you sure seem to know a lot”.

Me: “Nah, you just pick this stuff up. Hey look, some Irish guy is throwing around a midget. Finlay, eh? He’s beating some guy with a shalaleigh!?”

Peter: “Midgets are funny”.

Me: “Midgets are funny. Remember when Doink and Jerry “The King” Lawlor had a rivalry going on? Those were some good midget fights man. Doink and Lawlor were having a match when Doink’s sidekick midget, Dink, came out and started causing all sorts of shit. Lawlor didn’t much like that, so next time he decided to have a little bit of insurance himself. They ended up getting three midgets each. Doink had Dink and...hmmmmm...well I can’t remember. Let’s go with Pink and Stink...*chuckle chuckle*

Peter: “Heh heh, good one mate.”

Me: “Heh, yeah. Lawlor had Cheesy, Sleazy, and Greasy. When all was said and done there was a huge midget brawl. Midgets were flying all over the place. I’m pretty sure everyone got hurt. It’s not important who won. The point is....uh....

Peter: “Midgets are funny”.

Me: “Exactly”.

Also, here is a link to my vote for "Game of the Year".

Are you the shit king? I am.

Schlobberknocker!!!!

2009-02-25T13:53:00.009+08:00

The days are winding down now. The next few days are going to be a blur (when I decide to get out of bed anyway) as I jazz around town snapping last minute photos, picking up some gifts I’ve had my eye on, and desperately trying to bribe Emmer’s Military Supply to sell me part of the official police (‘Pulis’) uniform. The shirt is ugly as shit, and I think I want it more because the clerk said I couldn’t have it, but I’m not giving up. My lifelong dream of being a ‘Crooked Filipino Sergeant’ for Halloween will become a reality.

In other news Andrew and I presented our preliminary report findings to university members in the Aborlan WPU campus yesterday. We were told a van would be waiting for us at the WPU Santa Monica gate at 7:00 am, so I got up at 6:00 am to shower and dress. A few students from WPU were also presenting their papers, but everyone was speaking in Tagalog, so we never really got the chance to introduce ourselves or talk to anyone. It was a pretty uneventful trip overall, however one thing of note happened:

On the way to Aborlan (about a 1.5 hour drive from Santa Monica) the driver popped in a Bon Jovi cassette (yes a cassette) that had all of their most popular stuff on it. The van was deathly silent except for the wince inducing squawkings of Jon Bomb Jovi. Then “I’ll Be There for You” began and three of the four Filipino students began squawking right along. I was sandwiched in the middle, dressed to kill, with a crooning student to my left, Andrew falling asleep on me to my right, and two students crooning in the back. I sat there thinking about how this must look to anyone outside and realized that, except for the white guy in the suit, it would have been pretty typical. After I figured this out I didn’t give it much thought when the exact same thing happened on the way home a few hours later.

In other other news, I’ve come to accept that I’m a closet wrestling fan. The comedy channel here is Jack TV and, for whatever reason, they constantly play WWE wrestling. They play vintage WWF matches, WWE RAW, WWE SmackDown, ECW, and TNA. Peter loves watching it, so whenever he’s in the room, which is 90% of the time, if wrestling is on we are watching it. He’s not a huge diehard fan, but apparently I am. I can better express my meaning through paraphrased dialogue and hyperbole:

Peter: “Hey mate! Wrestling’s on. Wanna wotch it?”

Me: “Uhm, yeah sure”.

Peter: “Oi! Do you watch wrestling in Newfinland?”

Me: “Nah, not really. I mean, I watched it when I was a kid, but I was never a diehard fan or anything”.

Peter: “Vegemite.”

Me: “Uh huh”.

*Some old match with Hulk Hogan, ‘Superfly’ Jimmy Snooka, Mr. T (?), some other dirtbags, and special guest referee, Muhammad Ali begins. I couldn’t make this up.*

Me: “Why the hell is Mr. T wrestling Hulk Hogan? Is that Muhammad Ali as a referee? This is insane”.

Peter: “It’s classic mate!”

Me: “Nah, classic was when Jake "The Snake" Roberts had his snake murdered in the ring by Earthquake”.

Peter: “Huh?”

Me: “Yeah man, it was crazy. Well, it would have been if there was an actual snake in the bag when Earthquake sat his fat ass on it, which there wasn’t, but I’m getting off-base. Earthquake was this huge wrestler who had a feud with Jake the Snake. Jake used to pull out this bag with a snake in it as some retarded finishing move. I guess the snake would inject venom and kill his opponents or something, I dunno. Anyway, earthquake had enough of Jake’s shit and after beating the crap out of him he took the bag with the snake in it, danced around the ring a little bit, and did a big fat elbow-drop to the bag, presumably destroying the snake and Jake’s psyche.”

Peter: “Who’s Earthquake? Also, dijiridoo”.

Me: “Earthquake was originally made out to look like an audience member. Dino Bravo, wanting to show everyone how strong he was, decided to do a push up with the fat ass on his back. Next week, bam, Earthquake came out in his gigantic one piece wrestling suit”.

Peter: “Roight”.

Monster

The weeks rolled on and we began to watch more and more wrestling. I would always contend that I wasn’t a wrestling fan and then educate him on 15 years of WWF history.

Peter: “Shit, Triple H is fawking huge”.

Me: “He wasn’t always that big. He started off as Hunter Hearst Hemsly and his shtick was that he was some prissy noble or duke or some shit. He was normal looking back then. I think he had China as his manager/bodyguard. She has a penis now”.

Peter: “Oi?”

Me “Yes man. See....holy shit look! Shawn Michaels! I thought he broke his goddamn neck years ago. Wow, he’s huge too”.

Peter: “I thought you never wotched wrestling?”

Me: “I didn’t. Shawn Michaels used to be a part of the tag-team group ‘The Rockers’. The other dude was Marty Genetti. I remember they had a huge falling out. I think Michaels kicked Genettit through a plate glass window on Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake’s show. Also, 'Sexy Boy' is the best intro music ever”.

Peter: “I’m not even going to ask what that means”.

Me: “Yeah, you shouldn’t”.

Peter: “Well, I’m off to feed the dingos with Paul Hogan”.

Me: “Keep it real”.

I think this picture sums up why they were called 'The Rockers'

So, I think that sums it just about up. I’m a closet wrestling fan. This makes me stoked, as Jordan, Davis, myself, and others have planned some drunken wrestling PPV nights.

Another reason on my medium-sized list of reasons I can't wait to come home.

NOTE: I need a proofreader. I edited this post at least six [ed. make that seven] times now. I'm accepting resumes.

4 Realz

2009-02-19T21:29:00.004+08:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm sort of a nerd. And by 'sort of' I mean 'complete and utter'. I'm not a socially inept nerd, but don't let that fool you. I'm straight up geek to the core. But fuck it. 'Geek' is the new 'cool' and 'cool' is the new 'blasé'. As such, this five month hiatus away from most mass media has been killer. The lack of movies has been the easiest to swallow, but I definitely miss going to the theater. Nothing beats spending $20 on nachos and coke. My musical cravings have been mostly satisfied thanks to iTunes and Mastercard. Well, they were until my iPod decided to brick itself. Some would say "the fun machine took a shit and died". I would say I agree. Apple's getting a phone call.

However, the biggest media craving that cannot be satisfied is my love of video games. More specifically, I miss Rock Band. The fact that I'm devoting an entire post should tell you something since I usually talk about interesting experiences, questionable foods, giddy homosexuals and the occasional suicidal child. For those of you that aren't familiar with Rock Band allow me to elaborate. Rock Band is a video game that simulates the experience of playing in a ..... rock band. The game supports up to four players, each playing a different instrument: guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. If the player is playing the guitar or bass part, colored notes travel down the screen and the player responds by holding down the corresponding color on the neck of the guitar peripheral and strumming the strum bar. If the player is drumming, he or she must simply strike the drum pad of corresponding color and use the foot peddle to play straight bass notes. Singers sing. It sounds pretty straightforward, and is, but can get very complicated on the 'expert' setting. Playing the guitar and bass portions are a pretty exaggerated fascimile of actual guitar, but the drum portion is actually fairly similar to the motions a real drummer would go through.

In short, I miss the (pardon the language) fucking shit out of drumming in a fake rock band. Is this the only reason I'm a huge nerd? No.

Does it help? Absolutely.

Do I care? Not even a little.

I mean, it's the perfect goddamn game. It mixes my love of video games with my love of music. I'm not fighting level fifteen super cobras in World of Wizards. I'm melting faces and winning the hearts of millions of (imaginary) fans. What could be more fun? I don't think one person has ever not fantasied about playing in a rock band or at least being a singer. If you say you haven't I'm going to go ahead and call you liar. So let's leave it there.

Before I left I was getting to be quite the little drummer boy. Having no previous experience in drums makes me feel proud when I crank out a 5-star performance of Metallica's "Enter Sandman". To put it in perspective allow me to show you a video of what I plan to be able to do in a few weeks.

Epic.

Yup, sirs and madams, in a few short weeks I'll be home and melting imaginary faces with my real buddies and getting real drunk on real beer.

Fucking stoked?

For real.

Che: Part II

2009-02-17T19:53:00.002+08:00

Whenever I am in the same room as Che my blood pressure dramatically increases. I’m still a huge fan of the little rascal, but she’s ridiculously accident prone and is constantly falling down and beating herself up. For example, during Tems’ funeral she broke free and ran down the church aisle and out through the door, swerving and swaying like a tiny lunatic drunk. Mom bolted after her. They returned about five minutes later with considerably more facial bruising that before. In her continuing quest to outrun herself she succeeded and took a nasty tumble in the church parking lot. She scraped her face below her eye, above her eyebrow, and part of her chest. In short, she’s a menace to herself.

Today I decided to eat the rest of the pineapple I bought a few days ago. On the way to the third floor I heard the familiar “Baahhbb!”, baby for “Yo”. Che came running from her mother’s lap and gave me the universal pick-me-up motion. I refused:

“Che, I can’t help but notice that you’re a pretty terrible walker. I mean, look at your face. I think it’s high time you read the operator’s manual for those legs. Tell you what though, I’ll give you a hand.”

“Bahh Gabbo.”

“Don’t mention it.”

So, with that being said, she walked me to the third floor with one unbelievably small paw wrapped around my index finger. After I chopped up way too much pineapple for one person, and after Che finished covertly stealing someone’s boiled rice (grain by grain) I washed the knife and she put the lid back on the pot, a few guilty grains still stuck to her corner of her mouth. I didn’t trust her walking down the stairs so I picked her up and balanced her in one arm while I cradled my plate of pineapple in the other. When we got to the bottom I ate my pineapple while Che finished her face rice.

The biggest blood pressure spike came later that afternoon while Peter and I were watching The Simpsons. Che was running around the house, trying to scale the stairs to the third floor. She made her way to the middle landing before anyone had noticed where she was. It was then I looked up and saw that the middle landing window was wide open and at the perfect level for a shaky baby to take a fatal tumble through. I just gaped, wide-eyed as she walked around, not knowing what to say or do. Luckily mom noticed her and ran to close the window and scoop up her child. Now, whenever I’m in that room I’m going to be constantly looking in that direction for suicidal babies. Thanks a lot Che!

On a brighter note, today Che learned how to dance. Some Christina Aguilera video came on TV and I started absently tapping my foot. Che decided that tapping a foot was for people who didn't have any style and proceeded to dance:

Christina spouted nonsense (Some days I'm a super bitch. Up to my old tricks. But it won't last forever") and Che stomped around the house like a miniature rhino. It was adorable.

I said it before and I'll say it again:

I'm really going to miss that kid.

I'm So Mad I Could Kick You Right In The Chest....Right In The Chest.

2009-02-13T17:07:00.010+08:00

Try as we might, Andrew and I cannot get the tourism businesses to complete and return our surveys. The whole project is based around the information gathered from these surveys, so their completion is quite important. To make matters worse, yesterday, in the span of thirty seconds, Andrew received a text message from our supervisor indicating that we were to present our findings on the 24^th of February and I received a phone call from Jimmy telling me the same. We went to Honda Bay earlier today to pick up thirteen of the thirty-something surveys and were informed to come back on Saturday. I suspect this means a Saturday, not this Saturday. I also suspect the surveys would be as easily collected if they were on the moon. In short, we are in quite the pickle.

Pickle or not, a few other interesting things have happened around the house over the past few days. I’ll outline three in no particular order:

1) I attended my first Filipino wake. Sadly, the co-owner of Aniceto’s Pension, Tems, died last week. He had a stroke sometime after midnight and was rushed to the hospital but unfortunately nothing could be done. He had suffered massive brain damage from the stroke and died a few days later. Tems was a really great guy. He was always laughing and joking around. He didn’t speak great English, but he always tried to help you out with a problem in any way he could. I had my first drink of Filipino brandy with Tems and another house guest a few weeks after I arrived. The same night I tried my first Filipino delicacy, tamilok (A coconut tree woodworm). The tamilok was terrible but the company was great. My deepest condolences go out to his wife Tess and the rest of his family.

2) I had my first real gigantic drunk on the roof of Aniceto’s. Three Austrians, a Swede, and a Filipino were all having a huge meal and drinking session on the roof. I was talking to a friend on the second floor as they passed by and they invited me to join them. I obliged and it turned out to be a complete disaster. Don’t get me wrong, the company was great. They were genuinely a great bunch of interesting and funny people, but they broke out the Tanduay and ruined my tomorrow. I’m not much of a hard liquor drinker, and probably should stick to beer, but I think the real problem was the method of consumption. We were drinking the rum “Filipino style”, which basically means from a communal mug with chasers of mango juice. I’m used to drinking beer in pretty big mouthfuls. When I do drink liquor it’s either as a shot or in a very weakly mixed drink, not straight from a huge glass. The rum was deceptively smooth and easy to drink, so much that a chaser wasn’t even really necessary. Add big mouthfuls of rum to easy drinkability and you get a gigantic fucking mess. After the fourth bottle (around 1:00 am) I volunteered to get more. Being, 1:00 am, nothing was open, so I decided to approach a bunch of strangers squatting and drinking in the street near the aptly named Squatter’s Village. I figured (correctly) that if these people had booze they could get me booze. I struck up an awkward conversation and got to the nitty-gritty pretty damn quick. After a price was arranged, one of the guys ran into his house and came out five minutes later with two more bottles of Tanduay. I gave him a celebratory high five and was on my way. I got back to the party feeling very pleased with myself. This was the last time I would feel pleased for 36 hours. I woke up the next day and realized some seriously bad shit had gone down in my room the night before. I’m not going to get into the details on this blog, but let me just say that my first trip of the day (6:00 pm that night) was to Lian’s Laundry with a bag of sheets and towels. The shower needed to be thoroughly cleaned and my knee was swollen and purple, probably (definitely) from falling down. Also, one of the Austrians said that on the way into my room I fell into my door and couldn’t find the knob for a few minutes. I’ll have to take his word for that.

Two bottles of poison and a bottle of Coke

3) As I said, the next day was absolute torture. There was one bright point that turned out to be a complete tease though. Later that night, I tested my luck at keeping some food down and failed miserably. I decided to head home from ChowKing and get some more sleep. When I hopped in the back of the tricycle there was a guy riding on the back of the bike with the driver. He kept looking at me and finally asked if my name was Steve. I said no. He asked did I remember him. I said no. He asked if my name was Steve again. I said no. He said his name was Adonis and suddenly I remembered him. He was the guy who drove me home the night I left my vintage Whaler’s hat in the tricycle!

Holy shit!

I told him I remembered him and brought up the subject of the hat. He told me that yes he remembered the hat and yes he still had it.

Holy shit!!

He said he would drop it by tomorrow after work.

Holy shit!!!

The driver pulled up to Aniceto’s, I paid the fare, I said goodbye to Adonis, thanked him profusely, and thought about hugging and kissing him. I went to bed feeling great, the sins of last night washed away in a wave of pure joy.

That was the last time I would ever see that lying bastard. He should be ashamed of himself. If he’s unlucky enough to run into me in the next few weeks I’m going to kick him in the chest and steal his hat, or shoes. Or maybe his sweater, I haven’t decided.

Rest assured: Adonis will get his.

An Inqueery.

2009-02-07T20:54:00.006+08:00

It’s almost that time folks. In about twenty days I leave Palawan. First I need to take a short plane ride to Manila and over-night there. The next day I’ll get on a series of airplanes, including a 15.5 hour monster from Hong Kong to Toronto, and, barring crappy weather delays, will arrive in St. John’s sometime around midnight on March 2^nd. But before I wave goodbye to this island (in all practicality for good) I feel I need to discuss a subject that I’ve briefly touched upon: gays and lady-boys.

In an earlier blog entry I mentioned an experience I had with Andrew, his lady-friend, and her lady-boy friend. I’m not going to go into detail because I already thoroughly explained that situation. However, this was at the start of my stay in Palawan, before I knew the extent to which the Velvet Mafia had a stranglehold on this nation. What was then a humorous and uncomfortable experience has become a long, drawn-out unfunny joke. If there is a God (and there’s not), He’s testing* my heterosexuality via a daily gauntlet of homosexual smiles, stares, and cat-calls.

Enough is enough Man.

Seriously though, who wouldn't want this?

Before I start in on a rant I have three points to explain:

1) Filipino’s use the word ‘gay’ as a noun and not as an adjective. For instance, if man walked by wearing a ruby-studded speedo, sporting a Final Fantasy haircut I would say, “Wow, that guy is gay!” while a Filipino would say, “Wow, that guy is a gay!” I mention this to avoid confusion, as I am probably going to interchange the noun and adjective forms of the word throughout this post.

2) Gay’s take two distinct forms: A) The classic ‘gay’ gay, and B) the ‘lady-boy’ gay. The classic gay is your standard, original recipe homosexual. You are likely to see these walking down any street in St. John’s**. The ‘lady-boy’ gay probably needs no introduction. As the title suggests, he prefers to dress in women’s clothing and act in exaggerated facsimile of femininity. Think ten thousand brown Marilyn Monroes breathily singing “Happy Birthday Mr. President” in broken English and you’re on the right track. Peter refers to ‘lady-boys’ as ‘Billy-boys’ or ‘fakkin Billy-bois’.

3) I am not homophobic. Please do not take this rant as an admission of homophobia or prejudice. Most of my best friend’s are gay, probably.

So, let’s start the ball rolling here.

The Philippines is a nation of homosexuals. There, I said it. I’m not trying to be rude, or funny, or make broad generalizations (by making broad generalizations), but this is the truth. One of the first things I noticed when I arrived in the Philippines was the astounding number of children running around. One of the second things I noticed (seconds later) was the astounding number of pregnant women. The third thing I noticed? The absolutely astonishing number of homosexuals floating and mincing through the streets. After a few months of field study and observation I’ve determined that approximately thirty to fifty percent of the male population are gay. I have no reliable lesbian number yet, but have people working on it. With at least three homosexuals for every ten men, I can’t help but wonder how 90 million people ended up inhabiting these islands. I figure the remaining men must be working overtime to keep the ladies pregnant. This fact (I’m going to call it a fact anyway) segues neatly into my next point: acceptance.

Gayopolis

I believe that Canada, as a nation, is relatively accepting. That is, we have a high tolerance of other races, cultures, religions, ways of life, and sexual preferences. Well, except the French. Having said that, I do not believe that, as a nation, we are ready to have ‘lady-boys’ selling us electronics, refinancing our homes or even serving us Big Macs. The Philippines is ready and has fully embraced this “third sex”. ‘Lady-boys’ are widely seen as just another group of people and not as ‘freaks’ or ‘weirdos’. Why is the Philippines so acceptant (admirably so) of ‘lady-boys’? My theory is that the ‘lady-boys’ (and other gays) just leave more women for the heterosexual males. For a nation as notoriously horny as the Philippines, this is a godsend. ‘Lady-boys’ significantly increase the average Joe’s chances of getting laid and, as such, are rewarded through complete social acceptance and a total lack of physical or verbal assaults. We could learn a lot from these people.

A typical Filipino street

But another question needs to be addressed: Puerto Princesa is a fairly small city with a moderate population comparable to the St. John’s CMA, so why are there so many more gays and ‘lady-boys’ here than in St. Johns?

The short, reasonable answer: I have absolutely no idea whatsoever.

The better answer: Pollution.

The difference between Puerto and St. John’s (besides the other thousand differences) is pollution. For a small city Puerto is very polluted. The pollution is mainly of the air variety and is primarily caused by the hundreds of tricycles that act as the city’s main transportation network. They clog the streets, spewing noxious gasses and ear-splitting noises from dusk until dawn. I’m no geneticist, but in my expert opinion I think all the smoke is affecting the pregnant women and prenatally scrambling the “man” gene while simultaneously activating the “poof” gene. The result is an inordinately high number of ‘gay-births’. It’s either the pollution or Muslims. I haven’t decided.

With a page and a half of background information and theory out of the way, maybe I should get to the crux of my post, which is as follows: I am a beacon of white, pasty light to the gays of Puerto Princesa.

I really have no idea why I get so much goddamn attention. I don’t think I act feminine or provide any signals to incite interest, but something is definitely going on. Daily I am approached by strange men on the streets asking me where I’m from, where I’m going, and what my number is. A creepy old guy cornered me in the living room a few months ago and told me I was *ahem* “cute”. A group of ‘lady-boys’ who live on the street up from mine (Roxas Street) regularly wave and smile at me (last week one waved, one smiled, one blew a kiss, and the fourth sang Single Ladies). It is unsettling.

Puerto Princesa City Council meeting

A few days ago I was walking around the city distributing the survey Andrew and I have been working on to various tourism operations. I arrived at a place (StarMiles Tours I believe) and couldn’t open the door. The sign said Open but the door wouldn’t budge. I started to walk away when an arm appeared out of nowhere and jiggled the door in just the right way. The door popped open and, as I turned to thank the stranger, immediately regretted waking up that morning. A powerfully gay guy was standing there, a big stupid smile spread across his face. His left arm was slightly raised, hand completely limp, while the other was crooked against his waist, the back of his hand nestled into the groove of his hip with his finger spread out like a fan. He looked like a very gay teapot. To make a long story short, I talked to the woman behind the counter about why I was there and what I was doing, taking special precaution not to engage in any eye contact with anyone. I got the hell out of there as quick as I could, and in my haste completely forgot that I had written my name and number across the back of every survey in case anyone had questions or needed clarification.

To date I have received thirteen text messages from this man, the most recent being:

“its betr n0t 2 meET d perS0n & kn0w dEM. Bc0z, its easier 2 let go wen d oNLY thng u kn0w is just their name.” L

Jesus Christ.

Keep in mind that this garbled, cryptic nonsense is from a guy I met for three minutes and - except thanking him for opening the door - have never spoken. So then why all the attention? Could I be *gasp* too sexy??

Sadly, I don’t think this is the case. I believe there is an altogether less mysterious answer: I am young, I am white, and I usually walk everywhere alone. That is it. Foreigners get a lot of attention anyway (I have five year olds staring me down in the streets) and being white is somewhat of a curiosity for everyone. In general, I receive an overwhelming amount of attention from pretty much every group of people you can possibly think of as well as the gay community. Also, gays are men, and men are naturally more aggressive than women, so I am probably just focusing on all the unwanted attention a little too much because it is right in my face. In any case, I still don’t think this excuses the thirteen goddamn text messages I received from, well, whoever the hell he was. That might be cultural or he may just be retarded. I haven’t decided yet.

Well, I’ll be back home pretty soon, where it’s too cold to be gay. And, I honestly cannot wait. The Philippines has been fun, but six months is more than enough. I don’t think I have the stones to be a world traveler, and I am perfectly OK with that. I have a cozy rut carved out in St. John’s and will be quite happy to resume chiseling it even deeper when I get back. Before I know it I’ll be boarding the plane from Manila to Hong Kong, waving goodbye to the Philippines forever.

And, to tell you the truth, I won't be the least bit surprised if we fly through a huge rainbow on the way.

Bye Bye Philippines!!

*Testing is a poor word choice. This would imply that I'm having an internal struggle against the cat-calls and smiles. I'm not, but I can't think of a better word.

**Or mulling around Sweetapple's back door. I mean that in every possible context.

Valentine's Day? No Sir, I Don't Like It.

2009-02-04T18:29:00.003+08:00

Well, it’s almost that time of year again. That special day where every man says, “See honey, flowers and candy! It shows I still love you! Now let’s hit the sack”. It’s a truly special day. For the first time in as long as I can remember I am going to be single (and in the Philippines) on Valentine’s Day, and this in no way upsets me. I was never one of those ‘to hell with Valentine’s Day’ folks, but I was never a very strong supporter either. I was more of an apathetic participant: forced into a ritual with complete indifference. It didn’t bother me one way or the other that Valentine’s Day forced me to plan a special night for my loved one. But, now as I reflect on Valentine’s Day, (I’m sick of typing that, so I’m calling it V-Day from here on out) and what I am and am not missing out on, I realize that I’m not as apathetic as I once believed. In fact, I now realize that I’m (on some level) completely opposed to it. I realize that I’m not exactly breaking new ground with this topic, but allow me to explain my reasoning.

Google Image Search at its finest. I oppose this.

Valentine’s Day forces you to act in a certain way. Now some of you may be thinking that no one is forced to do anything they don’t want to do, and that those who choose not to participate are free to do so. I feel that this is not completely solid reasoning. It is true that no one is physically forced to participate in V-Day, and to the best of my knowledge, there is no V-Day Mafia to encourage non-believers. But, for those of us who choose not to adhere to laws of V-Day there are repercussions. If your girlfriend (and let’s get real now; I’ve never ever met a guy who gave a flying shit about V-Day) likes the concept of V-Day and expects to celebrate it then you are going to celebrate it. If you don't celebrate then one of two outcomes is likely to happen:

1) Your girlfriend will get mad, possibly calling you selfish and uncaring. You fail.

2) Your girlfriend will say nothing, but will be secretly hurt and disappointed that you wouldn't make a small effort to make her happy. Shame on you.

A third, less likely, outcome might be that your girlfriend doesn't care about V-Day either, and as such, treats the day like any other. In my experience, this is far less likely to happen than the other two outcomes, but should not be completely discredited. I know a few women who don't follow V-Day, although they are in the definite minority.

So, unless your girlfriend is in the third category minority, you have successfully disappointed and hurt your girlfriend. Congratulations, you are officially an asshole. Now, I don't think most people would want to intentionally hurt their girlfriends, so they go along with V-Day just to please them. It makes them happy and that makes you happy. Congratulations again, you have officially been forced into participation.

Boooooooooooooooooo!!

Some of you may be thinking that V-Day is just one day and that I`m probably making too much fuss about one crumby day. This is also not completely solid reasoning. It is true that V-Day is only one day of the year, but if you are doing a good job as a boyfriend then V-Day isn't necessary anyway. The whole point of V-Day is to show that special person that you love/care for them. The whole day is then rendered unnecessary if, as a boyfriend, you aren’t a total bag of shit the rest of the year and are doing things that let your loved one know that you care. If you are in a relationship with a guy who you think is absolutely solid, loves you, and makes you feel special, then ask yourself this question, “Why is Valentine’s Day so important to me?” If your answer is, “Because it’s Valentine’s Day”, I think you need to ask the question again.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter if you do or do not celebrate V-Day. It’s not an important enough holiday to deserve a lot of thought anyway. I’m merely trying to explain why I have come to feel that V-day is a crock of shit. I’ll be the first to admit that I involve myself in holidays, the roots of which I am not a strong follower of (Christmas) or do not understand to the greatest extent (St. Patrick’s Day), so think of my Valentine’s Day rant as an argument against that particular day (and what it currently means) and not of the idea of celebrating other holidays with muddled origins or strained personal connection (which V-Day certainly is).

Happy Valentine’s Day Everybody!!!

Exactly.

Christmas Eve

2009-01-31T13:38:00.006+08:00

I've briefly touched on my Christmas Eve experience in a few previous blog entries, but I don't feel that I ever fully explained the night. Andrew suggested that I write it as I explained it to him, so that's what I'm going to attempt now.

It was December 24th and Sagada was a ghost town. Earlier that day the streets were full of locals and tourists, but the evening shooed them into their houses and hostels, leaving me alone with Madonna, Pastor Lester, and Jen. We were crowded into a bus stop/bathroom waiting for a vehicle traveling to Besao. I was told that there were no vacancies in Sagada, so we were going to travel 40 minutes up the mountain to Besao to stay with Pastor Lester's brother in his beautiful home. I later found out that there were vacancies in Sagada (plenty actually) and that Pastor Leser's brother's home wasn't beautiful as much as nightmarish.

We arrived in Besao around 9:00 pm that night (after accidentally leaving Pastor Lester on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere while he was taking a piss). We took a path to the house that wound down the side of the mountain. It was quite difficult because it was pitch black and the only light I had was my cellphone. Madonna kept bitching that she couldn't see, so I had to keep moving the phone behind me and then back to the front. When we finally arrived at the house I was happy that I didn't break my neck during the descent. When we opened the door the happiness melted away and was replaced by disgust. I'm used to staying in places that aren't the cleanest, but this was absolutely filthy. There were piles of shit everywhere, cockroaches running around, cans of sardines left open all over the floor, meat left out with bugs crawling all over it, and a toilet that I swear could've been on Fear Factor. I sure wouldn't let my ass touch that thing for fifty thousand dollars. Besides, I could poop in the closet and no one would know, ever.

We searched the house for places to sleep (the brother was off boozing somewhere) and quickly realized that the home had two working light bulbs: one on stairwell and one in the living room. I hadn't been able to shower for nearly 24 hours, and against my better judgment decided to use the bathroom for a quick bucket bath. This required taking the light bulb from the living room. I went into the living room and began stacking some chairs so I could reach the ceiling. It was at this point that I noticed three things:

1) According to the credentials on the wall, the brother had once been a police officer.
2) He was a major fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and velvet sunsets.
3) Judging by the syringe hidden/forgotten under the chair, he preferred to inject his drugs directly into his veins. I can respect that.

I gave the needle a wide berth and proceeded to unscrew the light bulb. When I got it down the girls wanted my help in the kitchen. They were going to make a Christmas supper of fried dried fish, sardines in tomato sauce (junkie cop's favorite no doubt), rice, and scrambled eggs. It wasn't exactly a Christmas goose, but it would fill the hole and possibly even dilute the disgust. As I said before, the disgust was amplified rather than diluted when a cockroach was found running laps in the rice.

Anyway, they finished cooking and asked me to do the dishes, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. Wouldn't want to mess up the place... I finished the dishes and went to take my bath. Madonna had boiled some water and placed it in the bathroom for me. I'm going to go on record and say that I have absolutely no idea as to the correct procedure of taking a bucket bath. As such, I spent 5 solid minutes deciding if I should stand in the tub, pour the water in the tub, pour the water in the scoop, or pretend to get a shower. I ended up crouching on the floor, one foot in the bucket, and one hand on the scoop to beat away cockroaches. I started to pour the water over my body, forgot that hot water burn baby, and scalded myself. Five 'fucks' and a 'good goddamn' later I wiped my tears away and added some cold water to the hot from a nearby gigantic bucket. Bucket baths are stupid.

I finished my terribly unsatisfying bath and decided to call it a night. That's when the brother came home, completely shitfaced, and stumbling all around the goddamn house. He kept screaming some shit in Tagalog at his brother and then left. For the next 2 hours he kept coming in and out of the house ranting and raving with an ever changing entourage. It was funny and terrifying all at once. Pastor Lester insisted that I sleep in the downstairs bedroom, and after seeing the lunatic brother busting in and out of the house, I decided that that was a good idea. Well, when I actually saw the room my mind changed pretty quickly. The room itself wasn't so bad. Cockroaches were running around on the floor, but cockroaches were everywhere else too. I inspected the bedsheets and found only a few stains. So far so good. I checked out the pillow and was a little disgusted to see a few stains here and there; they appeared to be blood. I flipped over the pillow and nearly threw up. The whole other side was a gigantic bloodstain. Like, this guy must have a prosthetic nose because his original was mostly on that pillow. I was absolutely blown away. I ended up sleeping half-on the least filthy side with my hat on. In my mind my hat would protect me from Hepatitis C.

I barely slept a wink that night, but eventually the gentle tapping of insects put me to sleep. We left the next morning and I was never as happy to leave anywhere in my life as I was to leave that hovel. In retrospect I really should have taken some pictures, but I think that would've been rude. You really need to see this place to believe it.

Well that's all.

NCCC Can Eat It

2009-01-30T20:21:00.002+08:00

I haven’t been in a very creative frame of mind lately. While I’d love to tell you about my trip to El Nido last week, I’m really not in the mood. I’ve posted many pictures on my FaceBook account that effectively sum up how my mini-vacation turned out. In the future I may write a short blog on some of the funnier things that happened in El Nido, but this isn’t that blog. This blog will chronicle the death of my NCCC love affair.

When I first arrived in Puerto, NCCC was my home away from home. It was the place I did all my shopping. If I needed bread, NCCC provided. If I needed Sonnix, NCCC was there. If I needed cheering up, the 3:00 pm NCCC all female line-dancers would get the job done. Plus, there was always the NCCC jingle to hum.

Well fuck all that now.

I was riding the bus back from El Nido on Wednesday when I noticed that the sound in my right earphone was significantly stronger than in my left. I figured that the earphones must have been damaged somehow during the travel. When I arrived home I tried them in my computer and they seemed to work fine. Just to be sure I went to NCCC and bought a new pair of genuine ‘!pod’ earphones. The clerk assured me that I could return them within seven days for a full refund. This information pleased me and the transaction was completed. I brought the earphones home, plugged them in, and realized immediately that, not only was the sound quality significantly shittier than the official iPod earphones, but that the same problem was occurring. I guess there must be some problem with the audio port on my iPod (Ha, won’t fatty be pissed when he kicks the shit out of a foreigner for a broken iPod), but that’s not really important. What is important is the absolute bullshit that transpired when I went to return the earphones.

I go to customer service and get a ticket that I need to bring to Counter 19. So far so good. The Counter 19 lady calls over her supervisor (by ringing a goddamn cowbell I should add) and points me to the end of the counter to wait with some Filipino dude. The supervisor comes over and begins talking to the guy in Tagalog. I can barely speak any Tagalog, but from my point of view it seemed as if dude (let’s call him Franklin) was trying to return two packages of curtain holders and the supervisor (let’s call her Snarly) was doing everything in her power to stop this. After five long minutes of frenzied gibberish Franklin was finally returned his 45 pesos and it was my turn. I should have realized that things would only get worse.

Snarly turned to me, all fake smiles and fake teeth, and asked me what I needed. This is when someone must have turned on the hidden cameras and started filming ‘Just for Laughs: Gags’ clips for 2009.

Snarly: “How can I help you sir?”

Me: “Yeah, hey. I bought these earphones here yesterday and I want to return them”.

Snarly: “What is the problem sir? Are the earphones broken?”

Me: “Uh, no no, the earphones are fine. See, I bought them because I thought my earphones were broken, but it turns out they aren’t, so I don’t need these anymore. I’d like a refund”.

Snarly: “If they aren’t defective then why are you returning them?”

Me: “Because I don’t need them. I thought my earphones, my own pair, were broken. It turns out my iPod is broken and the earphones, mine, are fine. I’m returning these because I don’t need or want them. I’d like a refund”.

(At this point the gravity of the situation hit Snarly like a kick in the face. She was going to have to take cash out of the register and place it in my hand. This was unacceptable. The fake smile transformed into a genuine frown.)

Snarly: “Ssssssssss, ohhhh. *long pause* Maybe you could just exchange these for something else? Maybe another pair of earphones?”

Me: “*sigh* I don’t need another pair of earphones. My iPod is broken, not my earphones. I don’t need anything else. I just want my money back”.

Snarly: “But maybe, sir, there is something in Men’s Accessories that you would like in exchange?”

This didn’t piss me off as much as it made me laugh. It was a ridiculous question. If I wanted something from Men’s Accessories wouldn’t I have those items in my goddamn hand? The earphones were 320 pesos. So I’m going to go buy three belts and a dinner ascot am I? Jesus Christ. I thought I was shopping at a department store, not a flea market.

Me: “No”.

Snarly: “What about in electronics? You could get a few CDs maybe?”

At this point I was thinking, “Is this bitch for real?” so I gave her a good, cold look. I decided then and there that this bitch was most definitely real, too real, and that this was going to get worse before it got better. I have to admire her tenacity, but seriously, CDs? “Yes, I’d love the REO Speedwagon: Greatest Hits as sung by the Tagalog Allstars CD please; 320 pesos worth. Yeah, just fill this bag”.

Me: “I do not want CDs. I do want a refund”.

Snarly: “Oh my. Oh my, oh my”.

Snarly kept looking at my receipt, thoroughly searching for a loophole in my purchase contract. She was getting desperate and stalling. If she gave me that money, the game would be over. The president of NCCC would be legally obligated to cane her in the town square.

The desperation and complete disregard for customer service was amusing up to this point. I mean, it was a little bit of a pain in the ass to have to argue with a grown woman when I should have been in and out in five minutes, but only a little. However this changed in a matter of seconds.

After finishing her receipt check she began to repackage the earphones, grumbling to a coworker in Tagalog the whole time. Times like these are when I wish I understood Tagalog and could call people out. You don’t even understand how satisfied that would make me. Anyway, in the middle of repackaging she glances up at me without moving her head and says:

“These better not be defective”.

At first I was stunned into silence. How the hell do you respond to that? The more I thought about it, and the more I realized that that statement made absolutely no goddamn sense, the more I got mad. So let me get this straight: by her logic, returning a defective item is worse than returning a non-defective item? So let’s say you buy a new toaster. You get home to have a delicious slice of toast, pop in a piece of bread, and the device blows up in your fucking face. You put out the fire, sweep your eyebrows off the table, and try to return the half-melted piece of shit but, woooooops, the toaster was defective. Wuh-oh, no refund for you. Shouldn’t an item that’s defective be an even better reason to return it? And why did she say it so threateningly anyway? Did I really look like a goddamn crook?

This woman was clearly insane, and there was no reasoning with her.

After she said that to me, and I got pretty mad, she didn’t say another word to me. This is very unfortunate because I took the next 40 seconds working on a speech that would’ve been ridiculously cathartic.

“I’ve been coming to this store for the past 5 months to do all my shopping. I buy all my food here. I buy all my toiletries here. This shitty shirt I’m wearing, I bought it here. These Sonnix, that fell the fuck apart I should add, I bought right over there. And now, you’re standing here, giving me a pile of shit because I want to return one item? Well fuck you and fuck the whole goddamn store. Oh, and your shitty line-dancing employees look like complete assholes too”.

Well maybe the speech wasn't that good, or very clever, but I would’ve loved to spit it at her anyway. I’m a pretty patient guy in general, but this really put me over the edge for some reason. In my experience the customer is practically never right, but this was ridiculous. No respect at all.

So, that’s all that basically happened. I took my cash, signed some sheet, and mentally flipped her the bird. I have to say, this experience has sullied my whole NCCC perspective. It’s a sad day.

Five People I'd Like to Have Dinner With; Fire!!

2009-01-22T12:36:00.004+08:00

I booted up FaceBook the other day and saw that I had an inbox message from Jill. The message was a request directed towards Davis, Edwards, Sweetapple, and myself. The message was a simple question: If you had the chance to have a dinner with any five people, living or dead, who would you chose and why? I'm not normally one to fill out the "What's your favorite meal?", "Who's your favorite Travelling Wilbury" type questionnaires, but I found this question genuinely interesting. It's something I never thought of before. So, I put a little thought into it and wrote out a response. Before I post it I should let you know that I refer to a line Davis wrote in his response about Pierre Trudeau. I cannot take any credit for the crudeness nor the awesomeness of that line. Here it is:

I just finished reading Davis' response, and I don't think I can come close to topping those answers. Plus, I'd never think of the sentence "lick Alberta's giant cunt" in a million years. That sentence is completely un-toppable.

Davis wants to meet great people who did great things. This is entirely understandable. And, after reading his very well crafted essay, I'm a tad embarrassed by my significantly less "important" choices. Mostly, I've picked people that I just think would be a laugh to have dinner with. I have a fear that if I chose important historical and political figures I'd just end up making myself look like an ass and ruin the whole dinner.

Anyway:

5) Chuck Klosterman

For those of you that don't know, Chuck Klostersman is a 'pop culture writer' and columnist for Spin and Esquire magazines. I just finished reading his novel 'IV' and am starting 'Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs' now. I'm not exactly a pop-culture junkie, but Klosterman goes deeper than "What is Robert Downey Jr. sticking in his arm this week?" or "Spot Britney's Twat". He writes in a particular style that I am fascinated by. He bases most of his columns around an idea and explores that idea through celebrity interviews (You owe it to yourselves to read his essay on Val Kilmer. Dude is obviously insane). Some of his stuff is fluff, but most of it is insightful and, and all of it is entertaining.

4) Me

At this point in my life I have no fucking clue as to wear I'm going to end up; not even the beginnings of a plan. I feel I could just as easily end up at DFO or Zellers, and I'm not saying that to be funny. I think it would be completely amazing to be able to sit down with a future version of myself to see where I ended up in 5, 10, or 20 years. Hopefully there would be a future me to sit down with, but if not I guess that would be fairly insightful in its own right. If I knew I wasn't going to be around in 5 years I guess it would either motivate me to do a lot of great things, or depress me into trying every possible mind altering substance on the face of the earth. Either way sounds like fun. I think it would be fascinating to see what life decisions I, um, decided on, what path I chose, where I thought I was gong from here, and most importantly, why.

3) A 'Supervillian'

I use the term 'Supervillian' to refer to any historical figure responsible for some unimaginable act of cruelty, human rights violations, genocide, etc. I guess Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, and Pol Pot are all good examples. I wouldn't want to interrogate this person because pretty much everything you want to know about these people has been exhaustively detailed. I think it would be really interesting to see if you could relate to any of them. I mean, here you are, sitting down with Adolf Hitler (for the purposes of the dinner we can both speak and understand one language perfectly) and he tells a genuinely funny Jew joke. Do you laugh? And if you do, are you suddenly evil? And besides that, what if you kind of like this person? What if you and Stalin are eating scones and getting along famously? If you could see that, in a different time and place, this person would genuinely be a friend of yours, how would you feel? I love this idea. (Plus, I wouldn't feel a bit like an ass for ruining the dinner: "I spilled a little wine or your shirt did I? Well boo-hoo, Hitler."

2) Dean and Gene Ween

Ween are by far my favorite band. The eclecticism of their song catalog is actually astonishing. I wouldn't be able to nail down the 'Ween' sound if you asked me, so i won't even try. From interviews I read, they seem like two genuinely interesting people. I would love to be able to personally ask them the meaning behind some of their stranger material and shoot the shit like a regular fanboy. This choice isn't one of my more interesting choices, but, like I said, I'm choosing based on fun factor. I think this would be a lot of fun.

1) My friends (Awww, some sweet)

This is such a cliche answer that I feel like a complete heel writing it. But, it is the truth. I was honestly thinking of placing Dr. Seuss as my number one, but then I thought, "Well, what the fuck has Dr. Seuss done for me lately?". Unsurprisingly, Dr. Seuss hasn't done shit. Yes, I would choose friends and select family members to sit down with and have a big feed of something that wasn't fried pork or had a trace of rice. As much as I thought I was a 'big boy', I've realized over the past 5 months that I'm quite the pussy. I miss my friends and family more then I ever thought I would or could. I guess sometimes it just takes time away from your everyday routine to make you realize how much you liked that routine and all the people that are a part of it. I'm not going to get overly mushy here, but I definitely would like to shoot the shit with some buddies over a plate of Newfie food. But seriously, no fucking rice. Oh oh, and I don't want to have to cut my steak with a goddamn spoon. What is wrong with these people?!

Seacrest out!

So there you have it. I'm interested in hearing any answers that anyone else may have. Feel free to leave them in the comments section. Or, if you don't want other people to read them, you can leave me an email or FaceBook message. Apologies to Davis for reprinting his line without consent. It was too good to leave out.

Jesus, I almost forgot! Yesterday a telephone pole outside our house caught fire. This was weird enough, but the method they used to put it out was absolutely ridiculous. I'll post it tomorrow or the next day with some pictures. The whole scene was one of those moments where I could step outside myself, survey the whole situation, and conclude that, yes, I am definitely still in the Philippines.

Update Re: Shea

2009-01-20T17:20:00.002+08:00

I asked the Australian guy (Peter) how to spell his daughter's name. He said it's spelled 'Che' and not 'Shea' as I originally thought.

She will undoubtedly grow up to be a little freedom fighter and I will aide the rebellion.

Shea

2009-01-19T20:07:00.008+08:00

Remember the family that invaded my bathroom? Their daughter is in love with me.

Her name is Shea. She is one. Her hobbies include crying all night, smiling, staggering like a little junior drunk, bathing in a plastic tub, and scaring the life out of her mother by nearly falling down the stairs every morning. To spice things up, sometimes she nearly falls down the stairs in the afternoon. She's quite the little firecracker. She emotes a strange, fierce adoration for me that is honestly touching. The first few times we met she merely observed me from afar. I suspect I was more of a curiosity than anything. Eventually she mustered up the courage, and all her baby strength, to push open my door and announce that: a) "You fascinate me, you strange pale creature. I will observe you" and b) "On second thought, I need to type an email, step aside". She then proceeded to bash my keyboard with her tiny paws.

At first her mother was (understandably) protective of her daughter's interest in me. Realizing that the baby wasn't in the room (nor in an adorable heap at the bottom of the stairs) she would run to my open door shouting, "Baby?! Baby!!". Here she would find Shea pounding on my computer or using my cellphone for important baby business. She would escort 'baby' out of my room, but unless I immediately shut my door, Shea would bound back in 10 - 15 seconds later with a smile that said "I got away". One time when her mother came to the door I was trying to wrestle a packages of bright pink allergy medication from Shea's hand. I assume this looked fairly suspicious. Now, however, mom realizes that I'm not a threat and, unless I escort Shea out myself, she only gives her cursory glances on the way to and from the living room.

I've taken quite the shine to Shea myself. I'm not normally a fan of children, especially very young children. They are usually annoying, loud, and/or smelly. Shea's occasionally loud, and maybe smelly, but never annoying. She's interested in the world and I have become her guide. I speak to her like an adult and she speaks to me like a baby who wishes she could form words. Today we spent 10 minutes turning the fan on and off and pointing at it.

"It's a fan", I'd say.
Shea would look at me, look at the fan, sway a little, point at the fan and say, "Uh Uhnn Marnngh!"
What she really meant was, "Yeah, it's a fan. Goddamn these useless baby lips! You know I know it's a fan, right? Right?"
And I'd nod a knowing nod. I know Shea, I know.

After our discussion on the existence of fans, Shea decided that she wanted to take the lesson to the next level and get some tactile fan response. She reached out to touch it when it suddenly dawned on me: "Her hands are, like, super small!". I grabbed her arm just before she stuck her fingers between the rotating blades. Of course mom decided to poke her head in my room at this very moment. First she witnesses a stranger trying to feed her child bright pink pills, and now she's watching the same degenerate feed her child to a (woodchipper) fan. I was thinking of asking her if I could take a picture of Shea to put up for everyone to see, but I don't think now is the right time.

Shea's very cute and remarkably smart for a one year old. She is also fascinated by me. This is most likely because she: a) Doesn't know me that well and b) is one. I look forward to the coming weeks. I anticipate many discussions revolving around the properties of desks, lamps, books, and pillows. I also look forward to being a vigilant member of "Shea Watch" whenever I'm lounging in the living room. I think I've made a new friend.

I Couldn't Bring Myself to Hit an Old Lady. What Have I Become?

2009-01-16T17:01:00.010+08:00

Andrew received his second piece of mail today in as many days and I'm jealous. The folks sent me a package three weeks before Christmas Day and were assured that I would receive it just before, or just after, that date. Soon after, a few friends got together and put together a care package which, shockingly, I have also yet to receive. I assume mailing something literally halfway around the world is a bit of an ordeal and attributed the delay to normal circumstances (ie. poor weather, busy holiday schedules, rogue elves, etc.). Chatting with Jimmy a few days ago revealed another explanation: Postal Thieves. I was informed that mail theft is quite a common occurrence in the Philippines.
"Did they send it FedEx?", Jimmy asked.
"Uh, no, I don't think so" I responded. "FedEx is kind of expensive".
"Oh no, no no no, see, they should have sent it FedEx. Much safer" Jimmy said with disappointment in his voice.
At that moment I felt angry and (possibly) ashamed. It felt as if I had brought this on myself. I should have known that Filipino postal workers were all crooked fuckers. Now, because of this oversight, I would quite possibly never receive my packages. No Christmas chocolate. No Christmas cards. No Christmas themed novelty hand buzzers. No nothing.

After slowly shaking my head for thirty seconds and staring through Jimmy, I concluded that he wasn't going to say psych! Christmas thieves existed. But hey, why wallow in self pity when I can explode on an English illiterate postal stooge? I took to the streets. There would be justice, or, at the very least, the perception of justice.

Pictured Left to Right: Karl Weathers, Matthew Walsh.

It's hard to get mad at an old lady. This made me even madder. I was being denied my earned right to throw a fit and toss a few F-bombs around. You absolutely cannot steal a man's Christmas themed novelty hand buzzers and expect civility. The very notion of such an idea is completely unreasonable. I had every intention of being a nuisance, yet here I was staring at an old lady postal worker and couldn't bring myself to make a scene, not even a little one. I bet she doesn't even work there. I bet management just throws her a few pesos to wear a postal uniform. She's paid to act all sweet and innocent, calming down the occasional angry lunatic. I bet the whole time they were running around the back room, giggling and buzzing each other, eating my Christmas chocolate and watching my Christmas porn. This isn't over.

In other news, I make my grand return in a little over a month. I've had a lot of fun over here, and I plan to have a lot more in the coming weeks. We are in the process of distributing our survey to marine tour operators across the island. We are also starting to interview government officials involved in the management of municipal tourism operations. Our travels will take us to the northern tip of Palawan: Coron and El Nido. El Nido is a huge tourist destination in Palawan and is one of the most photographed areas in all the Philippines. The whole town is basically one huge beach surrounded by an extensive archipelago of limestone cliffs that rise straight out of the water. It should be a good time.

With that being said, I am looking forward to going home. Although this has been my life for the past 5 months, it feels like a break from my "real" life. This just doesn't have the feel of being a part of my actual life, merely an aside. I already mentioned in an earlier post, that I'm not really sure as to what is in store next. I've decided that I'm going to get home and work from there. I have a few ideas floating around inside my head and am looking forward to pursuing some of them. However, right now I'm going to focus on two things: 1) Completing this project and 2) devising a way to make pile-driving a postal worker look accidental, or possibly, an act of self defense.

Left to Right: Matthew Walsh, Postal Worker, Postal Elephants.

Stay Inside Newfoundland; There's a Popcorn Blizzard on the Way

2009-01-15T23:34:00.007+08:00

I was flipping through my notebook the other day and found an entry dated January 5th. I vaguely remember writing it in Tagbilaran. Tagbilaran is where my disease really hit the gas and started messing me up big-time. I was on a self-prescribed drug cocktail and, quite frankly, am very impressed I had the sense and clarity to form coherent sentences. Well, mostly coherent sentences anyway. For some reason I felt it was necessary to write "Rick Bozzo: Bassist of 'Popcorn Blizzard'" in the middle of the page. I have no idea who this Rick Bozzo character is, nor am I familiar with the music of Popcorn Blizzard, although I assume he is, and they are, terrible. A quick Google search confirmed that Mr. Bozzo was indeed the bassist of Popcorn Blizzard, a band once fronted by MeatLoaf in the late '60s. This confirms that: a) I am not completely insane but b) I am quite possibly going insane. The following composition is the rest of that entry.

Rick Bozzo? Really?

Since accepting the CIDA internship and moving to the Philippines I have learned a lot about myself. Some of my discoveries have been significant; others have been insignificant. One of my bigger discoveries has been that, when pushed, I can actually conceptualize and follow a plan. Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm a terrible planner. If given the choice between phoning ahead and booking that campground, ensuring a comfortable night next to a warm fire on a swath of groomed land, or playing "Say It Ain't So" 'one more time, I swear!', you can put your money on a flawless rendition of the Weezer classic and a cold night in the back of a Corolla. Faced with the very real possibility of spending the entirety of my Christmas vacation watching HBO and hating myself, and having no unbelievably patient girlfriend to baby me, I realized I needed to take some initiative. I booked flights, phoned hotels, visited tourist information booths, and explored cities. This might not sound too impressive because it isn't. It even isn't a little impressive. It's wholly unimpressive. But, for a man of my caliber, it's quite an accomplishment. And, I'd be lying if I said I was not a tiny bit proud of myself for actually following through with everything. I've achieved normality.

On second thought, I'm going to stop it here. The next half of the blog entry gets pretty odd. I guess the drug cocktail really kicked in at that point. I talk about nothing for four paragraphs and then it just ends. Guess I should have read the whole entry before starting to type it, eh? Pretty anticlimactic, huh? Sorry.

Well, I'm going to post this anyway. Pretty unprofessional stuff. Since I'm not a professional, I can be forgiven. At least you learned that Rick Bozzo was the bassist of Popcorn Blizzard. That's something, right?

I'll have something better next time. Or not. Get off my back.

Today we Mourn a Legend

2009-01-10T11:56:00.003+08:00

Well the old bastard finally did it. He up and died on us. Tigger out.

In true Tigger fashion he went out in a blaze of extravagance. Dad let the cat out around 9:00 am for his daily prowl and when he let him back in at 12:00 pm for a refueling he noticed that one of his front paws was limp and dangling. Dad figured the cat had somehow managed to break his leg. The folks brought Tigger to the vet and were told that a blood clot developed in his leg. This clot would soon travel to his heart and there was really nothing that could be done about it. Even in the short time between letting the cat back into the house and arriving at the vet his condition had deteriorated. The vet said he probably wouldn't last another day. He was in a lot of pain so the decision was made to put him down.

I knew this would happen; I even said as much to my family before I left for the Philippines. I'm sad that he died, but more than anything, I'm just disappointed I never got to see him again. He was (by a large margin) the best cat we ever had. It's crazy to even think of a time when Tigger wasn't loafing around, kicking the shit out of other cats, or costing the folks more money than he was probably worth in surgeries and medications. In short, he was awesome.

At least he picked a good time to die. Dave and Andrea were taking care of him over Christmas while the folks were visiting my sister in Alberta. If he had of died during that week I'm pretty sure it would have traumatized Andrea. Racked with guilt over somehow unconsciously willing an embolism, she would become withdrawn and reflective. What could I have done differently? are we unfit caregivers? Was it the food? Her search would lead her to look in the bottom of a bottle for answers. After a few weeks of showing up to work shamefully drunk management would have no choice but to terminate her position. All of this pressure would put a strain on her marriage, eventually forcing Dave to file for divorce citing 'drunken lunatic' as the cause. So, I guess you could argue that Tigger really saved Dave and Andrea's marriage. That's just the kind of cat he was.

I'll end this with a few Tigger facts:

He was gigantic.
I was told he had, and I quote, "Excellent bone structure". Actually, one of the few worthwhile things that ever came out of Steph's mouth.
He's had many nicknames over the years including Tiggs, Tiggy, Wigger, and my favorite That Fuckin Cat. Like his actual name, he responded to none.
He nearly killed Pat on two separate occasions. The first day we brought him home was coincidentally the first time Pat slept over to my house. Pat was deathly allergic to cats and suffered through the night. Years later Pat stepped on his tail and the top of the kitchen stairs, an action Tigger never truly forgave him for. Bad blood remains to this day.
He drank from the bathtub.
I'm not entirely convinced he wasn't a guy in a suit.
I loved him and will miss him.

I tried to give him a 'gas pedal' but was too slow.

Back in the Puerto Princesa Groove.

2009-01-07T22:35:00.005+08:00

After almost three weeks of traveling around the Philippines I'm back to my home away from home: Puerto Princesa. And boy am I glad to be back. Traveling has been fun, and I've had some amazing experiences, but it has also been exhausting. For the second time in as many months I woke up today feeling like complete and utter human garbage. At some point between 11:00 pm last night and 9:00 am this morning a virus infiltrated my shitty immune system and began setting up factories, the biggest of which is jammed in my sinus cavity. I'm actually fairly curious as to how I went to sleep feeling perfectly healthy and woke up feeling like a failed genetic experiment (Alright, let's subtract the nose, add a few pounds to the head, and thin out that throat. Ok, stand back). I'm equally curious as to why I keep getting sick in the first place, although I do have a pretty good idea. Besides the fact that my immune system should be renamed the honor system (Now don't you cause trouble again, influenza. I mean it this time buster!), all the cities I've traveled to are completely and totally filthy. I realize this is a developing country; I'm not passing judgment, just stating the facts. The streets aren't exactly paved with gold in St. John's*, but they aren't paved with garbage, dog shit, and the occasional unlucky homeless person either. Touching anything is pretty much an invitation to all sorts of nasty things that are begging to call you home. Even breathing is hazardous. The cities are so congested and polluted that I blew my nose a few days ago and the product was jet black. Being a celebrity isn't all it's cracked up to be either. With my status as 'White Guy' I have to shake a lot of hands and kiss a few babies now and then. This is not conducive to good health. The combination of filth, unfit air, human contact, and an open door policy immune system equals: I'm lucky I'm not dead yet.

Needless to say, I wasn't quite as reflective this morning and mumbled "Fuck sakes" when I couldn't swallow. I didn't have any cold medication so I took some antibiotics I had lying around and two extra strength allergy pills, the drowsy kind. After checking out of the hotel in Cebu City I hopped in a taxi and arrived at the airport where I took a flight back to Puerto Princesa. Just to add to my misery, the change in pressure on our descent into Puerto completely screwed up my ears. Typing this in my room, it sounds like I'm underwater. When I speak I can't hear myself very well, and must go between phases of talking much too soft and much too loud, because I get alternating responses of "What?" and shocked 'No Need to Yell' faces.

All this bullshit aside, it feels really good to be back 'home'. It's so strange how after only a few short months a completely foreign atmosphere becomes yours. I remember arriving here four months ago, stepping into my pink little cell and thinking "Ugh". Today I thought "Ahhhh...home at last". It's amazing how easily I have adopted this building as my home, although it really shouldn't surprise me I suppose. I mean it is my home. These are my four walls; my noisy fan; my cluttered desk; my tiny bed; my pet lizard; and my Meth-Cat**. I've carved out a little niche for myself in this room that's mine and mine alone, and, to tell you the truth, I'll be a little sad to see it go.

Speaking of carving out niches, I really should have really staked some kind of claim on the bathroom across the hall. I arrived home this afternoon to find the bathroom completely filled with toiletries and laundry. There were a bunch of toothbrushes, soaps, and shampoos, a shaving kit, and women's underwear hanging on the miniature clothesline. I later met the man, woman, and baby that are occupying the room next to me. They moved in about 2 weeks ago and, upon not seeing anyone else use the bathroom, moved in. I was talking to the man for a bit today (a big Australian with full body tattoos and a ponytail) and he told me they plan to stay for at least one month. That means I have to get use to having dirty panties in my face whenever I take a seat. I also have to get used to standing on a wet floor whenever I take a piss. Filipinos treat bathrooms (or comfort rooms as they call them) like bathtubs. That is to say, the floor of every bathroom is equipped with a drain, and for good reason. Many towns in the Philippines still do not have running water, so in order to get clean "bucket baths" are taken. Bucket baths are exactly what they sounds like: you squat in a bucket and pour water over yourself while lathering up. Even though most modern buildings have showering facilities, some Filipinos must prefer the bucket bath method. I guess the woman is a firm adherent to the good 'ol days because the bathroom floor was absolutely soaked when I went to use it today. If I had my time back I would've put a toothbrush of my own in there, or maybe one of those sampler's with a cute phrase like "If you dribble when you piddle be a dear and wipe the seat", autographed Matthew Walsh with a picture of me using the bathroom and the caption "I live next door" under it.

Well it's getting late and I'm getting sleepy. I apologize for the lack of any visuals to accompany my recent walls of text. I'll try to spice the next blog entry up with a few pictures. In the meantime you can check out my FaceBook profile. I'll be uploading Christmas vacation pics over the next few days.

Thanks for reading.

* It's common knowledge that roads in St. John's are paved with an Oreo/Elmer's Glue mixture, concocted by the St. John's City Council, in order to save a buck.

** My Meth-Cat in the same sense that this cold is my disease and my problem.

"ARRRGGGHHH. HE HIT IT A TON!!!!!"

2009-01-03T20:19:00.006+08:00

I didn't have Internet access for, like, four days and look what happens. I don't have my usual medium for expressing my adventures, frustrations, and wacky hijinx ("Oh Walsh, that crazy rascal. What will we do with him?" *exaggerated eye roll melting into smug knowing smirk followed by a slow crossing of the arms and a slight shaking of the head*) so I have to go out and buy a notebook and pen from a shady 7-11 at 1:00 am, dodging pimps and straight arming hookers all the way. It's a good thing I was a quarterback sex God in high school or I might not have made it back to write my tales in antiquated longhand, like a savage, for you and me and him to enjoy. It's a rough old world out there. Luckily, I'm back in here. Better luck next time little-kid-trying-to-steal-my-banana-kid. I'm serious; along with the bums, hookers, lady-boys and other lowlifes, that kid exists. He really wanted my banana, but I wanted it more. He was hungry, but only in his stomach. I was hungry in my heart. Plus, I'm trying to stay regular. No one is coming between me and my regularity. No one.

So as I was saying before that fun little tangent, I purchased a notebook, a pen, and a grey hot dog from the 7-11. My last post was actually a modified version of my notebook original that I wrote that same night. What I present to you now is a dialogue from my notebook. What you are about to read happened as it is written. I've tried my best not to exaggerate for comedic value and have remained faithful to the spirit of the conversations. The paraphrasing present is minimal and exists at all because of my extraordinarily shitty memory.

Before reading this you should understand that I had an unreasonable amount of angry in my system at the time. Although everything happened as written, I admit I was incredibly irate that day. After reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Rant", and being a hypochondriac, I chalk it up to rabies. When I get back to Nagtabon beach I'm crushing that puppies head with a coconut. Lick my hand?! Who does he think he is? He'll be a memory soon enough.

Without further adieu:

An Angry Young Man

Purchasing a raincoat and an apple in Legaspi is the equivalent of atomic rocket surgery, or something.

It's quite difficult.

I'm waiting in line for the supermarket/department Legaspi mega-store for 10 minutes and the bag check guy is staring at me like I'm an endangered white rhino with a pistol to his grandmother's head. They don't get a lot of tourists in Legaspi. You can probably understand it's even more frustrating, after his thorough gape, that when I get to the counter and place my book bag in front of him he just shakes his head. I stare back, bag in extended arm, "What?"

"All bags must be checked at the front gate."

"Why can't you check it?"

"All bags must be checked at the front gate."

"*sigh* Where's the front gate?"

"In the front."

"..."

"...Where is the front?"

*He points*

"Excellent."

I go outside, find the front gate, come back inside, go into the store, and encounter a clerk.

"Excuse me, where can I find a raincoat?"

"...Third floor?"

"Uh, thanks?"

I go to the third floor and encounter another clerk.

"Hey there, where can I find a raincoat?"

"First floor."

"Great."

I go back to the first floor and encounter yet another clerk. I'm done with formalities.

"I need a raincoat."

"Ummmmmmm..... *stares at floor*"

"Ok."

Fourth person:

"Raincoat"

"Follow me sir."

She leads me to the raincoat section (yes, a whole section) and, after determining that yes I want a medium coat but no not in slut pink, I purchase my coat and leave.

Estimated time taken: 20 minutes.

I grumble my way to the supermarket and start looking for apples. I find a few beauties and make my way to one of the many ridiculously crowded registers, picking up a few impulse items on the way. I stand in a line and it doesn't move an inch for a good 6-7 minutes. I turn to the lady behind me:

"Excuse me, is there a faster line?"

"What?"

"I mean, is there an express line...I only have a few items."

*The little kid riding in the cart ahead of me kicks me in the ass, hard*

"....That's my sister." And she points to some random lady. I'm 100% serious. That's how she answered my question. I felt like saying:

"What? What?! Your sist--. I don't care! I don't fucking care!! Why would I care?! Jeeeeeeesus missus... 'That's my sister'. You tit."

Instead?

"That's fine", and I put my basket down and walked away.

end scene

Legaspi really tested my patience. Like really really. I have a relatively low tolerance for people, and in general don't like them, but, like I said, that day it was probably mostly the rabies. Actually, that reminds me of a little kid who was rabid for my banana. I'll have to tell you guys that one some time.

Peace out.

P.S. For Davis:

"You know? Mickey Mantle? Arrrrggggh!!! HE HIT IT A TON!!!!"

* For those interested, that's Gene Hackman trying to hit an apple with a chicken leg.

"Through the ring of fire...through the ring of ice...over the dog-doo stick!!!"

2008-12-31T14:32:00.006+08:00

It was Christmas Day night and, believe it or not, I really wanted to get back to Manila. The prevous night I had spent in Besao, a small community north of Sagada. We stayed in Madonna's friend's brother's house for free, but being an ungrateful bastard with no Christmas spirit, I'm going to complain anyway. The place was small and comfortable, but in true bachelor style, it was completely filthy. The women started to cook a Christmas Eve supper of rice with anchovies in tomato sauce, fried dried fish things, and scrambled eggs. To be polite, and because I was starving, I ate everything I was given. Actually, the only real problem I had with any of the food was the discovery of a cockroach. Before water was added to cook the rice the women lifted the lid to find a huge cockroach tap-dancing all over the rice. "God" made dirt so dirt won't hurt... Well "God" made fecal coliforms too, and they fuck you up. Whatever.

We spent the day at the Melicong rice terraces outside of Bontoc. We had to bribe the jeepney driver to leave the village at 2:30 pm instead of the normal 4:00 pm in order to make it back to Bontoc for the 4:00 pm bus to Bagiuo that didn't exist. Faced with the prospect of waiting 13 hours for the next bus, and subsequently over-nighting in Bontoc, I decided to get a 2 hour jeepney to Banauae to get an 8 hour bus to Bagiuo. I said goodbye to my companions and boarded the jeepney, the only other passenger being an elderly lady. The road to Banauae was pant-shittingly scary. The dirt road snaked and weaved its way through the aptly named Mountain Province, on one side a nearly vertical wall of rock and vegetation, on the other a nearly vertical cliff. The drop had to be over 1000 feet. It was pouring rain and very misty/cloudy. Rivers were forming on the road and we were constantly passing huge mounds of rubble and vegetation that had come loose from the mountain and fallen into the road. This often reduced the road to a single lane. I remember we had to pass one gigantic mound of rock and soil with a huge tree sticking out of it. Looking out the back door of the jeepney I could see how close to the edge we had come. The tire tracks cut deep grooves in the muddy road less than a foot from the edge. Looking at it made me physically ill and only enforced the image of us plunging off the side of the mountain. The fact that the driver seemed completely unconcerned did little to ease my mind.

The lady and I had a conversation and we got to know each other a little. Her name was Gladys and she lived in Banauae but was also travelling to Bagiuo to attend a relatives funeral, so we would be rising the bus together. I would later find out on that bus ride that Gladys had been in an accident on that mountain road. The jeepney's steering column had stopped responding and instead of taking a left they had taken a down. Gladys ended up with a fractured jaw, a broken collar bone, a partially caved in skull, and broken arms and legs. She spent 3 months in the hospital. Other weren't so "lucky" and were killed. In addition to the injuries, I'm assuming Gladys also received a "Hard as Fuck" certificate from the Philippine government and a signed apology from Death. I'm just glad she told me this on the bus and not in the jeepney because I would have fainted and rolled out the back.

We finally get to Banauae around 5:30 pm. The next bus was to leave at 6:00 pm, so we had just enough time for a quick bite to eat. Gladys took me to a friend's restaurant (Vegas Eatery I think) and we ate some noodles. After paying, picking up some headache meds, and a water, we trotted back to the bus only to find it gone. For the first fucking time since I arrived in the Philippines something happened on time, leaving us in the dark and a torrential downpour. At this point I was physically exhausted from waking up at 6:00 am and trekking around rice terraces all day, and mentally exhausted from trying not to picture myself crawling out of a mangled jeepney on broken arms and legs, so I had resigned and started walking across the road to sleep in the ditch. Luckily for me, Gladys ain't goin' down like dat, and was all over the situation. She texted the bus terminal, hailed a tricycle, and ordered the driver to speed after the bus. She hopped in the passenger seat, I hopped on the back of the bike, and we fucking gunned it. We were weaving in and out of traffic in the pitch black on a rain slick road in the mountains at an unreasonable speed. It was like a scene from a bootleg knockoff version of "The French Connection". To my surprise and delight we actually caught up to the bus at which point the tricycle driver pulled some sweet suicycle Lance Murdock 180 skid to cut off the bus. I was impressed with the kid and gave him a nice tip.

So we spent the next 8 hours on the bus to Bagiuo, chatting about this and that, reading, sleeping, and being uncomfortable and bored. When we got to Bagiuo at 3:00 am I said goodbye to Gladys and got on yet another bus to Manila. I was one of the last passenger to board. There were 2 free seats in the back so I sat in the window seat and waited for the bus to leave. I'm beginning to think that I may be alone in the back when a dude sits next to me with a little boy on his lap.

"Great..."

About 20 minutes into the trip the kid starts making weird burping noises, and before I can process these familiar sounds, the kid fucking vomits all over me. It felt like gravy and smelled like poison. My leg, crotch, book bag, duffle bag, and foot are covered. Saturated. Earlier that day I had mis-stepped on a rice terrace and gone knee-deep in mud/moss/shit. As a result, I was wearing my shitty shower sandals, so I had the added pleasure of feeling the putrid liquid between my toes and under my heel.

The father says he's "So sorry sir" and gives me a half-assed pat-down with his shitty barf rag. He then goes back to tending to his kid and I go back to marinating. The kid looked like he was on Death's door, so that took most of the angry wind out of my sails. But, when the father made no attempt to do anything further I decided I couldn't sit in human effluent for 8 hours. I noticed him talking to a woman further up the bus so I tap him and said, "I'm switching places with your wife". I got up, dripping chunky shit-brown liquid and smelling like rotten McNuggets, slipping around in the aisle on the bus weaved through the mountains. It was fucking horrible.

I finally arrived back in Manila at 11:00 am where I was promptly ripped off by a cab driver. A fitting end to a ridiculous journey. Now, as I write this, my stomach is rolling and I'm chomping down the Pepto Bismol tabs.

I hate kids.

Get Away from my Junk

2008-12-28T13:04:00.006+08:00

I'm back in Manila for a few days after traveling north to Bagiuo, Sagada, Bontoc, Besao, and Banaue. A lot of shit has happened, and I'm a little pressed for time because this internet cafe is expensive and noisy (there are about fifteen Koreans playing Counterstrike and StarCraft at full blast while another kid is having the time of his life listening to Cartman sing "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch") so this won't be a comprehensive report. The last few days have been some of the most exciting, terrifying, disgusting, and memorable moments of my life. Let us break it down:

I left Puerto Princesa on the 20th and arrived in Malate (part of Metro Manila) that same day. Andrew was here for the day so he showed me around a little:

"Here's the internet cafe, there's the Starbucks, here's homeless family, there's a group of transvestite prostitutes..." And so on.

Actually I'm tempted not to write this, but here goes. We walked up the road, past the homeless family and were approached by the lady-boy hookers. We ignored the cat-calls and whistles but I had to respond when one of them grabbed me in a bear hug from behind. I wriggled away by twisting his wrist and narrowly avoided getting grabbed by the junk. Helllloo Manila!!

Andrew left the next day and I explored the city a bit on my own. North of Malate is the city of Intramurous, a walled city within a city dating back to Spanish colonial time. I took a lot of pictures and I'll post them on Facebook when I get back to Puerto. On the way to Intramurous I was approached by five or six outstanding gentlemen who tried to sell me everything from genuine Molex watches to Raybad sunglasses. My favorite was the seedy, sallow little man who slunk out of an alley with a brochure. The brochure had pictures of guns all up and down the inside. I figured he was providing me with options as to how I was to be mugged, but I was wrong. This guns were merely a small sample of the variety of weapons I could shoot at his firing range. I said I wasn't interested, which was a bold-faced lie, and started to walk away. It was at this point that he pulled out another brochure with pictures of women all up and down. Oh Manila....you scamp.

The next day I met Madonna (a friend from World Vision in Puerto) at the bus terminal and we continued our journey to Bagiuo. Bagiuo is a beautiful city that sort of looks like Corner Brook. It's a city of about 300,000 built on very hilly terrain, so the roads are constantly snaking up and down in every-which direction. I took a bunch of photos that I'll post on Facebook when I get the chance. While here I visited a few neat places starting with the Strawberry Fields of La Trinadad. I bought two bottles of homemade strawberry wine and a jar of strawberry jam. The wine ended up leaking all over my bag, ruining my guidebook, staining my clothes, and saturating my camera which then became a delicious home for teeny tiny ants. I left the jam in the fridge of the place I was staying. So, besides all the pictures I snapped, all I took away from La Trinadad was a kickass hammock and the memory of eating one day old chick. Sam, Madonna's friend and our guide, bought it for me and to be polite I tried some. It's exactly what it sounds like: a one day old baby chick with a stick rammed up its ass and out of its neck, roasted to "perfection". You're supposed to eat the whole thing - head, guts, bones and all. For the record, it tasted absolutely nothing like chicken. Madonna insists it's delicious, but she's a liar. Delicious is very very subjective concept. I suppose it is delicious when compared to something relatively more foul (ie. a chunk of shit), but on it's own it's disgusting. It's a shame too. It could've grown up to be a hearty soup or a nugget. Poor little guy didn't even get a chance to be delicious. Breaks my heart.

We also visted Mines View, a grand lookout over Bagiuo's mountainous terrain, and Camp John Hay, a popular picnic location in the same vein as Bowring Park, just hillier. I guess I should also mention that Bagiuo is pretty damn cold. At night it drops to about 5 degrees. On the way to Bagiuo we had to drive through a mountain range in Benguet province. It was so far up in the mountains, and at such a high altitude that it actually began to snow. Nuts.

One of my favorite parts of this mini-vacation was trekking through a huge cave network in Sagada, a town north of Bagiuo. We hired a guide in Sagada and walked 20 minutes to the mouth of the cave. I was told to wear sandals and shorts because there were parts of the cave where you had to submerge yourself in order to pass. I don't have a decent pair of sandals, but since I didn't want to ruin my jaw-dropping Sonnix I decided to wear my shitty shower sandals that are barely even good for standing in, let alone traversing slippy limestone escarpments. I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss the complete lack of safety provided by this tour. The guide had us climbing over wet, slippery rocks above sheer drops. At one point we had to shimmy, barefoot, down between two rock walls with a waterfall running over us. We also had to use a rope to climb a near vertical cliff. I never really expected anything different. After all, it's not unusual to see a family of five buzzing through the city on a motorcycle. Dad in front, baby balanced on his lap; mom in back, groceries in one hand, infant in the other; big brother or sister hanging off the back; all gloriously helmet free. The cave was pretty awesome though. We were crawling all over the place like fucking spider monkeys, slipping in the water and wading though chest deep underground lakes.

I wrote another entry in my notebook about my experience back to Manila. It covers more of the terrifying and disgusting elements of my journey, so I'll post that soon. I'm in Legaspi now and have already booked a day trip to climb Mt. Mayon and hike around the lava fields. Should be fun. I've only been in Legaspi a few hours and I already can't wait to get out. Msybe I'm just in a bad mood, but most people here seem to have brain damage. It took 15 minutes, 15 fucking minutes, to explain to the saleslady that yes, I do want a medium sized raincoat, but no, I do not want it in neon pink. This escaped her. I went to the supermarket to buy a bottle of water and an apple and no less than 20 people rammed into me from every possible direction, always looking in the opposite direction or at their feet. Come on people...two year olds do that.

That's all for now.

Absoutely Devastated

2008-12-18T14:39:00.003+08:00

I was on the way home from Itoy's coffee house last night and I managed to leave my Hartford Whalers hat in the tricycle. It was by far my favorite hat and the best gift I've ever been given. I'm devastated. There's a small chance I might see the tricycle driver again. We were chatting briefly, and i left him a decent tip, so he may seek me out if he sees me on the street, but I'm not counting on it.

Goodbye vintage Whaler's hat.

Big Christmas She-nans

2008-12-17T02:52:00.008+08:00

I guess it’s time for another one of these blog thingamajiggers. A fucking EPIC thingamajigger!

The Meth-Cat contest has gotten some pretty good entries so far. Keep ‘em coming.

The original Christmas break plan was to jazz around the Philippine islands with Jimmy. This has changed. Jimmy now has familial obligations and Andrew has plans with his girlfriend. Instead of crying in my soup I decided to grow a pair and travel by myself. To ensure I don’t puss out I just finalized buying a ticket to Manila for the 20^th and a ticket “home” (Puerto Princesa City) from Cebu City for January 7^th. The combined cost of both tickets is around $90. Holy shit.

The plan as of right now is to fly to Manila on the 20^th and stay in Malate. Andrew usually stays at a place called Malate Pension, and he says it’s alright, so I think I’m going to check it out. Manila is a huge city comprised of ten districts. Malate is one of these districts and has a reputation for being the tourist capital of Manila. I figured since I’m a first time traveller Malate would be my best bet. It increases my chance of meeting up with other travellers. Since Manila scares the living shit out of me, this is a good thing. Maybe I’m giving Manila to much flack. I only briefly travelled through part of the city on my way to Puerto, but what I saw made quite the first impression. It doesn’t help that everyone I talk to about Manila has tips and tricks of how not to get robbed, beat down, or unknowingly solicit prostitution. You can probably understand my apprehension. You also may be wondering “Well why the fuck are you going then?” My response: Manila is a huge urban center, the likes of which I have never experienced. The closest thing to a “Manila” in Canada would be Toronto, which is really no comparison at all. Last time I checked Toronto had around 4 million people. Manila has 15 million. I always wanted to go to Toronto to see a big city. Skyscrapers, a vibrant downtown, all that shit. Now I have the chance to see nearly four Toronto’s all smashed into one. That means Manila must be four times as awesome! Airtight mathematics.

Four Torontos.

Also, Manila is one of the easiest places to travel to. It’s a great hub city to branch out from. Since my next destination, Legaspi, is reasonably close to Manila, I figure I might as well stay for a few days to soak in the sights, sounds, tastes, and crimes. Being a lifelong student of the School of Cynicism, working towards a joint major in scepticology and scepticonomy, I issue the following challenge to Manila: Manila, I know you’re reading this. I heard from a friend of a friend that you were kind of an asshole...no offence. I want to start off on the right foot though. I guess I shouldn’t have said I heard you were an asshole then, huh? Ok, listen, I’m sorry about the asshole remark. No, listen. I mean it. I was out of line. Let’s start again. *Ahem* Manila I heard from a friend of a friend that you could be a bit of a handful. A bit standoffish. A little curt and frank. I don’t want to believe them, I really don’t, but my educational background prevents me from accepting anything different. Maybe you can show me different Manila, show me you’re not the big bad monster everyone has you made out to be. Prove them wrong Manila. Prove them wrong.

After Manila has its way with me I’m travelling to Legaspi to se Mt. Mayon. Mt. Mayon is an active volcano and has been described as the world’s most perfect volcano. Apparently its shape is liken to the classic storybook image of generic volcano. I’m going to hire a guide and do a day-hike up its side. Currently it’s at a caution level of 2. I’m led to believe this is fairly safe. In 1993 a bunch of volcanologists were blown to pieces and probably melted alive when Mt. Mayon exploded beneath them. When all was said and done 77 people were killed and Level 5 was taken that much more seriously. I’m totally pumped. Volcanoes are the shit.

Mt. Mayon. I'm climbing this!

After Legaspi I’m going to catch the ferry south to Cebu and from there another ferry east to Bohol. Bohol is home to the Chocolate Hills and the tarsier monkeys. The Chocolate Hills are a group of a few thousand large hills formed by what scientists believe to be the coastal uplift of coral. They are lightly vegetated with grasses. During the summer the grasses are scorched by the heat of the sun and turn brown. When this happens they look like, wait for it, chocolate. Ingenious!

The tarsier monkeys are the world’s smallest primates and hold the distinction of being so ugly they’re cute. If you were inclined to grasp one of the charming little monsters you would be able to fit it in the palm of your hand. There is a reserve in Bohol dedicated to the preservation of the tarsiers and I’m going to check it out.

I wish I could type a word to express "Awwww" and "Ewwww" at the same time.

After Bohol I might head west and check out Boracay. Boracay is one of those places you might see on “Wild On...” at 3:00 a.m. with drunken American girls flashing their titties all over the place and drunken American jock retards vomiting over said titties. Certainly sounds good on paper, but the time taken to get there, and the chance that once there I might not even be able to find a place to stay, doesn’t appeal to me. Boracay’s definitely one of those places that you experience with a few buddies and no cameras. Who knows, I may sleaze my way over there, but I don’t have my heart set on it.

Boracay (probably).

I have my return ticket booked from Cebu, so I get to check out Cebu city for a few days as well. I hear it’s basically Manila junior. Should be an interesting place.

This Christmas is going to be exciting and strange at the same time. I’ve never spent a Christmas away from my friends and family before. Now I’m going to experience that with the added craziness of being in the Philippines. I’m especially going to miss Christmas Eve at my Uncle George’s house. We don’t have many traditions in our family, hardly any actually, but every year since I’ve been a little boy we’ve spent Christmas Eve at George’s. When we were younger, Jordan and I would hole up in the basement and play whatever videogame system was popular at the time. Favourite memories include Bart vs the World for NES, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for N64, and Street Fighter III: third Strike for the poor old Dreamcast. Ahhhhh, good memories. Lately we’ve added getting sauced to the equation with positive results. I’m definitely going to miss this.

Fuck Rudolph, Urien punching Hugo in the feet screams Christmas.

See, this is what happens when I wait over a week to wipe my thoughts on my blog; massive overflow. In other news I have a fat guy following me around on a motorcycle. I’m not even kidding. I think fatty means me harm but fortunately for me and unfortunately for him I’m intelligent and he’s a fat idiot. I’ll tell you about it next time.

You’re not getting my iPod you big fat asshole!

Meth-Cat Contest!!

2008-12-07T15:50:00.005+08:00

Meth-Cat is a lot like a cancer.

Over the course of the past few months Meth-Cat has been steadily growing on me. Also like cancer, unless treated with the proper regiment of drugs I'm positive he will kill me. So why am I so fond of this emaciated degenerate thief? This furry purring menace? Hard to say really. Maybe I'm scared to death of him and he's making me type these sentences with a razor sharp claw pressed to my neck. Or maybe it's something simpler. Maybe, just maybe, he's metastasized to my heart.

This is where you come in. I love to caption Meth-Cat's iconic image and, believe or not, he loves it too. Since I'm all out of wallets to steal and iPods to hock his meth bag is dangerously close to empty. Maybe just the right caption will sway the needle of his cold heart from "kill" to "torture" and you'll all get to see me again with plenty of anecdotes about my oddly shaped scars and burns. So how about it? Here's the photo:

So what's the caption?!!?!

The winner, as judged by Meth-Cat, gets a totally awesome and unique gift! OMGZ!!!!!

*Few will enter, fewer will win.

A Grade Three Reaction

2008-12-04T14:49:00.004+08:00

Waking up early is crap. The Nokia alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. and I experience what I like to call my Grade Three Reaction©. That could be interpreted in any number of ways, so allow me to explain. The Grade Three Reaction© originated in...um...grade three. Elementary grade three was a milestone year and particularly memorable for three awful reasons. From least awful to most awful:

3. The folks broke down and bought me a Nintendo GameBoy (God bless them). It was a monochromatic beast, eating batteries and shitting entertainment. I don’t even want to guess how many hours I sunk into Tetris and Super Mario Land, so I’m going to go with a metric lot. Another kid in my class (Gerard Scott, the little bastard) “accidently” took my GameBoy home after school one day, and I ended up with his. I didn’t notice until I got home. When I turned the unit around to pop in some Balloon Fight I noticed the back of the case was all scratched and dented and actually leaking battery acid. The front screen was also scratched and chipped. The conniving little shit swapped my pristine item for his busted-ass hunk of trash. I could never get him to bring in my original, and when he finally did it was in even worse shape than his old system. He ruined my favourite toy. It broke my heart.

It was approximately this bad.

2. I found out Santa Claus wasn’t real. There was only one jolly fat guy who brought the presents and he slept next to Mom. It broke my heart.

And, without further adieu, the actual genesis of the Grade Three Reaction©:

1. My teacher, Sister Mona. It sounds anticlimactic but she was the most wretched, unloving, unsympathetic nun who ever taught. She repeatedly berated children and made them cry. She once told a child to stop running in the playground, and being a kid from a different class, with a human teacher, he thought he had a good grasp on what was and was not acceptable behaviour and what he could and could not get away with. He was wrong and ended up finding out the face-first-in-the-gravel-via-malicious-nun way. She was genuinely awful. She made me think of a new retarded excuse not to go to school every day. Every single day. If I didn’t have a critical stomach condition I was suffering from a vicious head cold. Mom didn’t believe my bullshit. At the time as far as I was concerned, she was an unfit mother. Nuns broke my spirit.

To summarize, the Grade Three Reaction© is a sinking feeling I get in my stomach. It’s comparable to waking up every morning and dreading going to grade three, a condition I’m sure none of you had. Basically it’s a sinking feeling of unease and distress. It’s awful.

Where was I........? Oh right. Today I was to talk to Jimmy’s creative writing class. The topic was Newfoundland: An Overview. The 7:00 a.m. alarm buzzed and I immediately felt that sinking feeling. Public speaking has always been a fear of mine, a debilitating fear. Speaking to a group of young students shouldn’t evoke this reaction, but for some reason it did. It turned out to be completely unnecessary though because the talk went great. I got up, did my thing, and answered questions such as:

“Do you find Filipino women attractive?”

And

“Are you looking to get married?”

...

I like to think I’ve made a difference today.

Overall it was a good talk. The students seemed to enjoy the bits they understood and I was much more comfortable that I thought possible. The Grade Three Reaction© was, as never before, actually baseless! Hmmm, maybe this means I was all wrong about Santa after all!

Gerard Scott’s still a douchebag though.

The Dizzy Reed of Posts

2008-11-30T00:18:00.004+08:00

I went back to the hospital today. No strange rice-related illness this time, just a straight-up cold. Usually I’d just ride it out, but my eyes have become inflamed to the point where it hurts to be awake. I fixed that little problem yesterday by taking four extra strength cold and sinus Tylenol, the extra drowsy shit. After waking up from my 14 hour nap I still felt terrible and decided that over-the-counter self medication was a short-term solution at best. I went to the hospital and saw the same infectious disease doctor as last time. Blood-work and a facial x-ray later I had my diagnosis: I was home to a wonderful bacterial infection. Also, my blood was packed with allergens. This is what she told me. When I asked what I was allergic to the Doc kind of shrugged it off and wrote a prescription for some random drug. Whatever.

Matthew Walsh

I now have four prescriptions and a written suggestion (?) for an over-the-counter anti-bacterial soap for sensitive skin. I also got some free tips such as: “Wash your face” and “Don’t put your fingers in your eyes”. Finally, a doctor who tells it like it is.

The above paragraphs were written a few days ago. Since then I’ve been on the good drugs and feel 100% better. It’s amazing what blind trust in random drugs can do for a person. Not only do I feel better, but I look better too. For a few days I had some serious zombie eyes going on. It was so bad that I didn’t even want to go out in public, afraid that the locals would think I was some recovering World of Warcraft degenerate or Pete Doherty.

Not Matthew Walsh

To celebrate my recovery Andrew and I rented a motorcycle and went to Nagtabon Beach today. Man oh man what a beautiful spot. I took a bunch of pictures that I will eventually post on my Facebook account. We spent the whole day swimming, checking out the beach, and lounging around in the sun. Good times.

On a completely unrelated note, I downloaded the new Guns N’ Roses album a few days ago. Chinese Democracy has become something of a music industry joke, a very long and drawn out joke. I mean, it’s been in the making for the past 14 years, the band itself is now comprised of a constantly changing cast of musicians, and the only original remaining member is Axl Rose. Yes, keyboardist Dizzy Reed is still a member of the band, but he joined the group after the release of Appetite for Destruction, so technically he isn’t an original member. Besides, he’s the fucking keyboardist. No one gives a flying shit about Dizzy Reed. Anyway, the album itself has been in the oven for so long that, inevitably, the hype surrounding it was absolutely huge. Evidence arose early this year confirming that Chinese Democracy was indeed coming out November 2008. The punch-line was on the tip of the collective tongue. Everyone anticipated an unmitigated disaster. It couldn’t possibly match up to the enormous hype, but it in no way is the complete catastrophe the public anticipated. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but personally I think the album is shockingly solid. I too was expecting a total bomb but have to admit was utterly blown away by the genuine quality of the album. I’m not a music critic, so I won’t go into great detail of what I do and don’t like about the album (also because I’m sure none of you give a damn). All I can say is check it out for yourselves. Let me know what you think.

Well done Mr. Rose, well done.

So, all in all it was an excellent day. I’m feeling better, I got to experience a beautiful remote beach, and I wrote a wonderfully unnecessary paragraph on Guns N’ Roses that I am absolutely positive none of you give a flying shit about. That paragraph is possibly the Dizzy Reed of paragraphs.

Next week I told jimmy that I’d discuss the history and geography of Newfoundland with his creative writing students. Being a generally awful public speaker, this has “blog entry” written all over it. As a joke I was thinking of putting a bunch of complete bullshit in the presentation (ie. Newfoundland was originally a depot for Irish sex offenders). I have a few better ideas floating around but I’m all ears for suggestions.

Alright everybody, until next time.

Unlimited Sonnix

2008-11-23T00:11:00.008+08:00

Ok.

Something has been bugging me for a while now. I have to get it off my chest. Here goes:

For some reason, everyone (at least 70% of everyone anyway) stares at my shoes. Uh huh. My shoes.

When I first got here I started noticing people would look down as I walked by. At first I assumed it was because they were shy. Maybe people over here were just uncomfortable with eye contact. Maybe they were just uncomfortable looking at me. I didn’t put much thought into it.

As time went on I noticed that the people who avoided direct eye contact weren’t just looking down, they were actually looking down and towards me. The first few times I figured I stepped in dog shit so I’d look down too. Eventually I stopped looking for the dog shit I knew wasn’t there (Side note: This screwed me one time as I actually stepped in a heap of dog shit and walked around for who knows how long before I realized it). The good news was I wasn’t stepping in inordinate amounts of crap. The bad news: I was still no closer to solving my mystery.

After another week or so it dawned on me that maybe they were staring at my shoes. I’m the proud owner of a fairly shitty pair of no-name skate shoes that I bought at SportChek for about thirty bucks. They are entirely unremarkable. Maybe if they were some recognizable name brand or had some snazzy design it would have dawned on me sooner, but seeing as they are even shittier now than they were out of the box, this didn’t seem reasonable. I told Andrew the situation and, understandably, he thought I was nuts. A short stroll down Rizal St. was all it took to make him a believer. My dirty, smelly sneaks were celebrities.

Hideous.

I had an idea. I went to NCCC and picked up a new pair of shoes. I needed a new pair anyway as the first pair threatened to call Kids Help Phone if I didn’t ease up on the abuse (that’s terrible). Overall, the new pair is pretty much the same as the old pair. Same basic shape, same basic design, slightly different coloring. The new pair also have a snazzy green 55 stitched on the side, which I assume must be quite cool, because everyone still stares at my feet. I figured a Filipino shoe would fit in better than a foreign shoe, but it seems to stand out just as much. Maybe even more.

The flash conceals most of the grime.

The ladykillers.

I decided to write this post after an incident last night. I went to Jollibee, got some food, went upstairs, and walked to the side of the restaurant to sit down. Before I got to my seat some dude with two young children gave me a half-assed glance and then focused every bit of his concentration on my feet. He was mesmerized, probably by the 55’s. It is a deadly number. The two kids saw dad staring at my feet, decided they were missing out on some once in a lifetime opportunity, and followed suit. I uncomfortable slink over to the table and sit down, the family fixated on my every step.

“Unlimited?” says Dad.

“Huh?”

“Unlimited?” he repeats, pointing down.

Looking down, expecting dog shit for the first time in a while, I look back at him and shrug. I don’t know what he’s getting on with. He points directly at my shoe so I pull my leg out from under the table and look at it with him.

“Ahhhhh, Sonnix” he decides.

Before I can say huh again I look at the tongue of the shoe and, of course, the name brand is Sonnix. I guess I picked a winner with my second pair. Sonnix is probably some huge Filipino brand. And maybe everyone is so enthralled with my other shoes because they kind of look like Sonnix or Unlimited shoes. I guess I just have impeccable taste. Yeah, definitely. So in the end I guess I figured out why people are always staring at my feet. I have exquisite taste in footwear. If my next blog entry is “So I got the shit beat clean out of me for my shitty sneakers" at least you'll have some background info.

"Give me those fucking Sonnix"
Last time I'll use him for a while. I swear.

Fifteen Dirty Little Buggers

2008-11-18T22:41:00.006+08:00

I woke up early today to a strange site: A clear and sunny sky. Maybe Mother Nature isn’t such a heartless bitch after all. I was so excited that in my haste to get a quick shower I forgot to bring in the towel and ended up drying myself in my dirty shorts. Nice eh? Whatever, drying my face with filth couldn’t come close to ruining this day. I was in such a good mood that I even gave Meth Cat a wink and “the guns”. After he gave me the finger I bounced downstairs, opened the door, and went outside.

I had you all wrong baby.

Filthy picture care of "Classy" Pat Connolly. He knows allllll the good sites. Sorry ladies, he's taken.

“What a gorgeous day. I have a reeeeal good feeling about today. Yup, today’s going to be a great...*pause*...*sigh*...those little fuckers...”

They slashed my tires. A mob of degenerate children slashed my goddamn bike tires. I didn’t mention it in my previous post, but while fixing up my bike the other day I was surrounded by about fifteen children. They kept asking me questions, poking me (one slapped my ass), begging for money, cursing at me in Tagalog, and generally being little nuisances. In other words, being kids. After I finished pumping the tires and greasing the chain I thanked them for their “help” (“I’m sure glad you guys were around to hold the bike while I greased the chain. I didn’t trust that kickstand”) and went inside to clean up. They probably started messing up my bike the minute I left. My poor bike...

So, today I went to the bike shop and asked how much some new tubes and a gun would cost. The tubes are 80 pesos each, the labour is 30 pesos (15 per tube), and the gun was out of stock.

Grand Total: 190 pesos

Estimated Emotional Damage: All the pesos

I’m only messing around. It’s really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I learned a cheap lesson the fairly easy way. They could just as easily have cut the brakes or messed with the chain. Now I know to lock my bike up around back. However, if I do happen to catch them fucking with my bike again I’m going to be out even more money than this time because I’ll have to replace the shoes I lose ramming my foot up their asses.

Today wasn’t all bad. I found a little roadside store on my way home, “Mountain Pickers” I think, that sell fresh fruit. They even peel it and slice it into pieces for you. I got a whole fresh pineapple for about 80 cents! No funny story there; just great value.

Oh, Dave, if you’re reading this, I picked you up two very (in my humble opinion) kick-ass gifts that I hope you’ll enjoy. I’m going to send them out soon. No sense in waiting for me to get home. It’ll probably take a while to get to you, so they can be Christmas, Birthday, Valentine’s Day (rawr), or Easter gifts accordingly. You can make out my gift to 71 Reynoso Street, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines. The zip-code is 5300. The shipping might be a few hundred dollars, depending on its size (i.e. big), so make the gift worth the shipping. Better use rush delivery too. That might be a few hundred more but I’m worth it.

Huh? How did that get there?

That's all for now.

No Snappy Title

2008-11-15T20:33:00.006+08:00

It’s been raining for almost 24 hours straight now. If my iPod weather report is to believed, this will continue for the next 7 days, at which point a Filipino Noah will float by and rescue me and the meth-head cat from the roof on Aniceto’s Pension. Honest, it says that right there on the screen.

"Listen, i know you're new here, so I'll cut you some slack. You give me your wallet and I don't claw off your fucking face. Ka-peesh? Oh, and your blog sucks."

It’s a pity too; I bought a bike some time ago and used it quite a bit when the weather could be reasoned with. I’ve given up on going to the roof garden and shouting profanities at clouds. Mother Nature is clearly irrational, and I won’t stoop to Her level anymore ... whore. I went to NCCC yesterday to buy a bicycle pump and some grease for my chain (Turns out if you leave a bicycle outside 24/7 the chain gets a bit rusty. Heh, who knew?). I was originally just going to pretend the rust wasn’t there, but after biking 15 feet and hearing what can only be described as bicycle profanity, as well as nearly falling flat on my face from the jerky skipping of the chain over the gears, I decided to cut my bike some slack and treat her right. After all, what’s a couple of bucks for the comfort of knowing my bike won’t disintegrate into a cloud of red dust? People say you can’t put a price on safety. That’s bullshit. Peace of mind costs 115.75 pesos.

The reason I bring this up at all is because I had an epic plan today. My bike was to be fixed and I was to use it. My renewed sense of bike-fancy came from a ride I took two days ago. It was excellent. I went down Manallo St. as far as I could go, and then continued down Manallo Extension and Random Dirt Rd. until I figured I was lost enough. I zigged and zagged through countless side streets until I got my bearings again and began the journey home. As I said, it was excellent. My plan was to blow this excursion out of the water by travelling out the San Pedro highway until I barfed. Then I’d turn around and come back, burnt, dehydrated, and satisfied. I love to explore, and I’ve only seen much of that area through the shoulders of other multicab passengers, so a more hands-on tour would be exciting. Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to be a bit of an asshole today...and next week...and most of the last two weeks. Bitch.

If it stops raining for an hour tomorrow Jimmy is going to teach me how to ride his motorbike. I’m really looking forward to this. It doesn’t look very hard but since I’ve never tried to ride a motorbike before, let alone a semi-automatic, cautious optimism is on the menu. Riding on top of the bus to Sabang was a laugh. I don’t think being dragged under a bus to Sabang will have the same thrill. Baby steps.

Oh, before I forget, I added a few new gizmos to the right side of the blog. There’s a clock displaying the time in Newfoundland and the Philippines for those of you who always NEED to know. Also, I’ve added a gadget that allows you to officially follow my blog. I don’t really know what’s required in order to make reading this page “official”, but if you are required to sign up for any shit, or think you might get assaulted with penis-enlargement spam, then don’t bother. However, if you want to sign up, or are the risk-taking type (live a little already) then I’d love to see who’s reading it. I’ve actually been quite shocked after learning of some of the people who have been following it.

So there you have it, another potentially entertaining entry. Remember, check out “Follow this Blog” on the right side of the page. You’d make my day. There might even be a bigger penis in it for you.

Fever of Unknown Origin and Other Diseases of Infectious Origin!! ORDER NOW!

2008-11-09T16:57:00.009+08:00

It’s been awhile since my last blog entry (I don’t really count the Ice-Cream video as a legit entry, although it is fairly spectacular in its own right). Before I began writing I told myself that the blog shouldn’t turn into a “got a wash, ate some food, took a piss” affair and, to date, I think I have remained loyal to myself. I try not to bore you (and myself) with the insignificant minutia of day-to-day life in PPC, and as such, I haven’t really had much of anything to report lately. Yep, it’s been a slow couple of weeks. With Jimmy and Andrew both attending conferences in Manila, things really ground to a halt over here. It’s a sad state of affairs when two people constitute 100% of your social life. On the positive side, I got to talk to the young girls working at ChowKing an awful lot. We really built up some strong relationships. They say, “Hello Sir Andrew” and I say, “I’m Matthew” and they say, “Sorry Sir Matthew” and I order noodles, and they say, “I receive 200 pesos”, and I get my change, and they say, “Thank you Sir”.

It’s beautiful.

I bumped into my new best friends at Jollibee one afternoon just as I was sitting down to eat and they were getting up to leave. We noticed each other from across the room at which point I smiled and did one of those strange but appropriate “open-eyed quick eyebrow raises” that implicitly mean “How’s she cuttin’”, or something to that effect anyway. They responded with dual smiles and a single “Hello Sir Matthew!”

See? Totally BFF’s.

Anyway, I’m getting precariously close to discussing daily minutia, so I’ll continue on with the real point of this entry: my hospital visit. For the past few weeks I’ve been feeling like a piece of shit. My stomach has been giving me all sorts of grief in all sorts of interesting ways. I figured it might just be the radical change in diet I’ve experienced and my body needed a bit of time to adjust, especially to the ridiculous amount of rice I’ve been eating. Before the Philippines, rice was reserved to remaining on the plate after I ate all the foods I liked, occasionally to be poked at if I was still hungry after eating the delicious portions of the meal. These days, rice plays a key role in keeping me alive. Seriously, if rice doesn’t come as a side with the meal you can bet your ass that something in the meal contains rice. All that gluten can’t be good for a relatively gluten-free system. Just to be safe I decided to go to a doctor.

On Friday, Andrew and I got up and took the multicab to the Adventist Hospital on the San Pedro Highway. After filling out a short form we took a seat and waited to be admitted to the doctor. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the hospital overall. It was very clean and quiet and not crowded at all. Best of all, we were both in and out in less than an hour, but I’m getting ahead of myself. My name was called and I was seen by Dr. Raquel Hisoler-Aloquin, family medicine and infectious disease specialist. Wait......what?! Yes. I was seen by an infectious disease specialist.

Besides the fact that I was a little freaked out about seeing an infectious disease expert, the visit went pretty good. The doctor explained that Typhoid could be the source of my stomach problems, but it wasn’t very likely. She suggested that I get some blood- and pee-work done to be sure, so I obliged. I walked across the hall to the lab, gave some blood, and went to provide another donation. I’m such a philanthropist. After I gave my all I left and the nurse told me to come back in two hours for the lab results. Yes, you read that correctly. Back home you’re lucky if you get results back in two weeks, so hearing “two hours” blew my mind. Long story short, results didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. She told me to eat more fruit and veggies, drink plenty of water, take multivitamins, and stay off the rice for a while. As I left she thanked me for coming, shook my hand, and gave me a calendar....

I could spend all day telling you why the calendar is awesome, but it’s much easier to show you. So here you go:

Finally, a reliable physician to look at my raging schistosomiasis.

Back when I first arrived in PPC I wrote a small blog entry about some of my favourite things. To end this entry I’m going to add two more things to the list. I’m sure they aren’t specific to this city, or even the Philippines, but they are both awesome.

More Things I Likes:

1. Bizarre Foreigners

No matter where you go there are going to be weirdos. That’s a fact. The weirdos in PPC are of a special breed. Most are rice old retired weirdos who have come to enjoy the “good life”. That is to say, the young women. Almost every foreigner I see is a wrinkled old coot with one or more young women following him around. I was strolling down the road the other day when I passed an old Australian dude with half a dozen women surrounding him. He muttered something to me in a ridiculously thick accent, so I really couldn’t pick out what he was saying, but I’m sure it was fairly indecent. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t respect or applaud these foreigners. I actually think they are dirty old mummies. But, I do have to laugh at (and maybe even respect a teeny bit) their audacity. It must take a huge set of balls to walk around in a silly-ass golf uniform, complete with Hawaiian shirt/checkered pants combo, with three twentysomethings hanging off your arm at 80. Then again, if you’re 80 and can somehow connive your way into this kind of situation, who am I to judge?

2. Strange Products

I touched on this subject before. I absolutely love going to NCCC and browsing the aisles. Every time I go I find something new to make me giggle. Yesterday I went shopping to pick up a few packages of noodles and some bananas, but ended up buying a ton of absolutely unnecessary items. Squiz cola is my personal favourite; the secret ingredient is squiz, which is probably disgusting. Other weird products include Cup Keyk brand cupcakes (now with more nut toppings!), Burger King flavoured French fry snacks, and the very fishy Fish Flakes. There are very few western products to choose from. Mostly hair care products, beverages, and cereals. While perusing the cola shelf I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a can of 7-up. Fido-fucking-Dido was on the can. I’m seriously considering leaving my clothes in the Philippines and filling up a suitcase with all these awesome food finds. T-shirts with Bob Ross or Optimus Prime on the front I can get home. Fido Dido on a can of 7-up? I can only get that shit in my dreams, 1992, and the Philippines.

Oh, right, I bought a powder blue T-shirt with Bob Ross on the front with “Childhood Hero” emblazoned under his beautiful face. Unfortunately, Lian’s Laundry turned it into a belly top. At least, if I ever try out for Menudo I’ll have a sexy costume.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Bob Ross.

Many Thanks and Ice-Creams

2008-11-02T15:27:00.004+08:00

I was hesitant to publish the last post. Like I said, I didn’t want to appear ungrateful of this amazing opportunity and experience I’ve been given. Seconds after pushing “Publish” I was thinking of deleting it. Now I’m glad I didn’t.

I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to craft out a helpful response. Some of you posted comments on my blog wall; others messaged me on MSN or wrote e-mails. All the responses were very helpful and I really appreciate the advice and guidance given in each one. The fact that you guys took the time to try to make me feel better means a lot. Thank you.

In other news, I found a jingle that rivals the NCCC tune in infectiousness. The “Initial Exposure to Shit-Eating Grin” ratio is astonishing. I’ll crunch the numbers and get back to you. In the meantime I was able to covertly videotape the perpetrator in action. Yes, I caught the evil genius in the midst of a “sale” (A sale in the sense that the “customer” becomes a shambling currency conduit). The second you say to yourself, “What’s that noise?” you’re fucked. Not hungry? No money? Lactose intolerant? Too damn bad. You’re getting ice-cream.

Maybe I’m over hyping this. Maybe not. Judge for yourselves. Also, ignore the giggling idiot behind the camera. A side effect of the auditory drugging no doubt.

Cover the children's ears!!

A Pissy Introspective Reflection (.....)

2008-10-28T01:51:00.001+08:00

This entry isn’t about the Philippines. It isn’t about the good times I’m having or the funny scrapes I’m getting myself into. It isn’t even going to be about the kid I ran down on my bike today, although I’ll eventually have to tell that one I suppose. No, this is going to be a much more sombre-than-usual post.

A reflective post.

An introspective post.

A pissy post.

Before any of you think to yourselves, in the most disdainful voice you can possibly imagine, “Pfffht! Walsh...what a knob. He’s in the fucking Philippines, a tropical paradise for Christ’s sake! Thirty degrees every day! Cheap food, beautiful women, and NCCC! How dare he complain!!” hear me out. This post isn’t at all going to be about complaints with my situation over here. I have no right to complain about that. Everyone and everything here has been absolutely phenomenal, and I do mean that. No, this post is coming from a conversation me and Mr. Patrick “Class” Connolly had earlier, moments before my internet connection cut out. I swear, I’ll eventually find that warehouse and free those little kids biking day and night to power the net. Either that or make the little bastards bike faster.

Our conversation started off with the typical pleasantries, changed direction to focus on the idea of a vacation (Not for me, for poor old Pat) somewhere when I get back, and hit the finishing line at “So, what are we doing with our lives anyway?” Pat initiated the conversation as he has become increasingly concerned with the cost of living. He wants to become a homeowner sooner than later, and his current situation isn’t conducive to homeownership. He’s been talking about possibly getting a second part-time job, a new primary job with a greater salary, moving out west with the other half of Newfoundland, or working the corner a few nights every week. All viable options. Well all except working the corner. I mean, I know competition breeds innovation, but I hate to think of the all the new depraved acts his poor old mother would have to endure. I kid.

In all seriousness, our conversation made me think of my current situation and the direction in which my life is headed. Like Pat, I still have no clear idea of where I am going or what I will become. I have a B.Sc. in Geography and an Advanced Diploma in Integrated Coastal and Ocean Management. I recently completed a work-term primarily based around GIS (Geographic Information Systems), something which I initially had no interest in but later came to enjoy. I’ve always enjoyed writing, have had an article published in a professional journal (ATLIS), and more recently, am having a lot of fun writing blog entries. I’m in the Philippines researching and engaged in a project related to ecotourism curriculum development for WPU (Western Philippines University). If at this point you’re thinking “What does all this have in common?” allow me to answer with “.....”.

People are often asked by their friends, family, and colleagues where they envision themselves to be in five or ten years. Often, individuals take the more proactive introspective route, asking without being asked. Some people have set goals for themselves, or have had a lifetime dream of some sort. Others have a passion. These people have the answer. Unfortunately, I am not one of these people. I have pretty much played it by ear thus far. Everything I have done (educationally and otherwise) I have enjoyed, and I can’t say that I honestly regret any of it. But, when I stand back and reflect on where I am in life, I also can’t help but wonder if I have made the right decisions. I wonder this while simultaneously wondering what other road I might, or could, have taken. I am in a constant state of wonderment...

I’ve been assured by friends that this outlook is normal for recent graduates, but I remain sceptical. I’m nearly 27 years old, and I feel that at this point in my life I should at least have some sort of direction decided on. A down payment for the rest of life. Maybe, as I tried to tell Pat, “It’ll all work itself out sooner or later”. I’m not the first person to be in a situation such as this and I’m certainly not going to be the last.

Although I may have second-guessed my decisions up to this point, I would not have been able to have some of the amazing experiences without making those very decisions. I sit here now, sipping a Calamansi Nestea, snacking on a package of orange flavoured Chokies (I have no idea how to pronounce that word; maybe ‘Choke-ease’ or ‘Chalk-ease’?) and reminiscing about that time I ran over a young Pilipino child. I firmly believe that life is all about experiences. And, I know full well that every decision I have made up to this point has obviously allowed me to get to this point. Still, it bothers me that I don’t have a plan even though I am fairly satisfied.

I’m all over the board.

I end this post no farther ahead than when I started. Maybe I’ll come home and try to snag a job with DFO. Maybe I’ll look into furthering my GIS education. Maybe I’ll continuing traveling for a while. Maybe I’ll take a shot at professional writing full- or part-time. Or maybe I’ll default on my student loan and professionally run from the Federal Government for the next few years. All distinct possibilities. For now I’ll focus on the task at hand: completing the ecotourism project and professionally fucking off. I’ll worry about making more pesky decisions when the time comes...in about two months...

Oh man...

Big Weekend: Part 2 - The Underground River Trip

2008-10-19T21:58:00.005+08:00

Yo yo!

Saturday we decided to go to Sabang, the location of the world famous Puerto Princesa Underground River. It's been nominated as one of the new 7 wonders of the world (http://www.new7wonders.com/), and it definitely deserves the nomination. It has been one of the most amazing places I have ever had the opportunity to visit. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We had it planned out so we would get the 7 a.m. bus to Sabang, arriving at approximately 10 a.m. Then we would take the monkey trail, a trail that winds through the jungle to the site. I think it has monkeys. 2 hours later we would arrive at the site of the river, go on the tour, and get a 15 minute boat ride back to the bus. We were told by Jessica to arrive at the bus station no later than 6:30 a.m. because it was usually crowded. We were a little late leaving and didn't arrive at the station until 7:00 a.m. We arrived just in time to see the bus begin to pull away. I wish I took a picture because it was something you'd see in a movie. This bus was absolutely packed with people and items. Every seat was filled. Every square inch of standing room was filled. People were hanging off the back and sitting on the roof in between tires and crates of produce. It was fucking nuts. Jessica was sitting on the top next to a few other tourists and waved as she drove away; us standing there completely dejected.
We had to wait two hours for the next bus. Andrew slept for a while as I had a very, very long conversation with a nice enough lady. She was a city councilor for a town near Sabang and she talked a lot.

The bus finally left around 9:00 a.m. and we began the three hour journey to Sabang. The first half of the trip was fairly uneventful. I never had a window seat, so I couldn't get a get view of anything. At one of the stops one of the German dudes, Michael, got on and sat near us. After this, people started piling on the bus something serious so Michael decides he wants to try the roof. "You want to go up?", he asks me. "Sure, why not?", I answer. I wanted to get on the roof the minute I learned of roof travel weeks before when Jimmy first mentioned it and here was my opportunity. At the next stop we got out and piled on the roof. I sat in the front, as close to the cab as I could get without sitting on the windshield, right hand firmly attached to a gigantic truck tire. I have to say, sitting on the roof of the bus as it wound its way around a mostly dirt road was quite the experience. The road was winding, bumpy, and, at certain points, very steep. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shitting my pants most of the time. At one point Michael (who was sitting on a bag of solid ice and getting a wet ass) calls to me:

"This is pretty dangerous"

"Uh huh"

It the bus did happen to flip over at least I'd go out like a champ.

I was fiddling with my camera, taking pictures and videos of the scenery when Michael shouted something. I figured he was talking to one of the other guys on the roof so I didn't pay him any attention. Michael shouted again. This time I heard what he said...it was "Watch out!" I looked up to see a nice sized branch coming towards my face. I ducked, but I wasn't quick enough, and got belted on top of the fucking head. At least it didn't break my nose and I learned an important lesson the fairly easy way. I spent much of my remaining time on the roof not being a moron, dodging branches, and having a laugh.

We arrived at Sabang around 12:00 p.m. and rushed off to register for entry to the Underground River. We didn't get to take the monkey trail because we were running late, so we got the boat ride instead. 15 minutes later we were a 5 minute walk from the site. We got there, registered, got our life jackets and helmets and realized that we wouldn't have enough time to complete the trip. The bus driver told us that he was leaving at 2:30 p.m. With the wait for the tour, the tour itself, and the 15 min boat ride back to the bus we figured we'd wouldn't get back until 3:00 p.m. We told the girl in charge of the registration and she assured us that she would radio the bus driver and he would wait. I was skeptical.

We eventually pile into a little boat with 6 other tourists and a boat operator. I have to say, the Underground River was one of the coolest places I have ever visited. To travel the whole length of the river takes about 3 hours round trip. On this tour we traveled about 20 minutes in and 20 minutes back. The cave was pitch black with smooth walls and high ceilings. Stalactites and stalagmites jutted everywhere from the cave ceiling and cave floor, respectively. Bats were flying everywhere, screeching a high pitched whine and shitting on everything. The boat operator warned us not to look up with our mouths open. I took the advice.

During the trip the boat operator, a funny middle-aged man, would point out various rock structures in the cave and tell us what they looked like. We were both sitting at the very back of the boat. A guy in the front had a flashlight hooked up to a battery and was moving it left and right at the boat operators request. This turned out to be the funniest part of the tour. Allow me to recreate the boat operators instructions:

"Right. Right. Up. Up. UP! Ahh Yesssssssss! This look like a big mushroom!"

"Left. Up. Left. Left. STOP! Ahh Yesssssssss! This look like a shark fin!"

"Right. Down. Right. Other Right. There! Yessssssssss! This look like a woman bent over. Sharon Stone!

And so on. It was pure gold.

After traveling back the way we came through the Underground River we had to boogie back to the bus. The bus was supposed to leave at 2:30 (it was 3:00), but was waiting for us at the request of the registration girl. God bless her heart. I was sorry I ever doubted her and impressed with the bus driver for actually waiting. What a guy. We got the boat back to the shore, clambering off, and booked it to the bus. At that moment it started to pour. We arrived at the bus and got on. Two tourist foreigners gave us a look as we got on and said "So it was YOU we were waiting for". Nobody else said anything but I'm sure none were overly impressed with the two wet goofballs who were holding up the show. We moved to the back of the bus and sat down, ready for the 3 hour ride back to Puerto Princesa. The bus ride back was pretty uneventful. Well that's not entirely true I suppose. I'm pretty sure the two kids next to me were loaded drunk. I could smell booze and they were acting retarded. I'm also pretty sure one kid asked me if I was gay. To this I responded, "Huh? Am I ok?". The kids went back to giggling like fools at this response. One was trying to tell the other, who I guess couldn't speak English, the following sentence:

"Sir, I apologize. I didn't know you could speak English".

So, this one kid keeps repeating this to the other kid, who I assume had some sort of debilitating brain damage as he could not repeat this sentence back. This went on for a solid 5 minutes. I've never come so close to assaulting a child as I did that day.

Eventually people start getting off the bus and I moved away from the kids. After the bus stopped, and a guy climbed through the window with a chicken in a cardboard box (...yup...), I decided I had enough of the inside of the bus. I climbed back onto the roof and it began to rain. One other dude, a native named Arnold was chilling up there as well. We had a great chat about this and that on the remaining hour back to Puerto. We finally got to the station around 6:00 p.m. It was a long day and a great experience. What a blast.

Oh oh oh! I also got some really kick-ass pictures of rocks!

Big Weekend: Part 1 - WHALE SHARK!!!

2008-10-19T18:10:00.007+08:00

I'm sure you were all bored to tears this weekend waiting for my new blog post, frantically clicking "Refresh" over and over, intently scanning Facebook, desperately searching for any new scrap of information regarding the exciting life of Matthew W. Walsh. Well don't kill yourselves yet because I have quite the treat for you! Presenting, Matthew Walsh's BIG WEEKEND! (The caps emphasize the bigness).

I'm just messing around. Well, about the waiting by the computer, finger sore from repeatedly jamming on the left mouse key, eyeballs bleeding from the lack of blinking thing. I'm 100% serious about my BIG WEEKEND! Let me begin:

On Wednesday morning Duncan, our British photographer roommate, invited us to swim with whale sharks. Turns out that a metric bunch (ie, 10) were found swimming around Honda Bay. Apparently this is a big number for whale sharks, so Duncan urged us to go along for the experience. We agreed. Then I remembered I can barely swim. So I promptly canceled.
Duncan said it was probably for the best because there were too many people already, and the more people the worser. But, he wouldn't let me crap out so easy, so he reassured me that I didn't need to be a strong swimmer to enjoy myself. If all else failed I could cling to the side of the boat and have a blast. ".......fuck it", I proclaimed. And so a plan was born.

We rented the necessary gear and met the boat at Baywalk bright and early 6:00 a.m. Friday morning. Duncan wound up on a different boat somewhere or other and never actually ended up going out with us. We were early so we sat in the boat and waited for the others to arrive. Five other passengers soon arrived: Four Germans and an American. We later found out that only two of the German's were traveling together, but they all were staying at the same Pension house, and all arrived at approximately the same time, independently of each other. I have no logical reason to find this strange....but I find this strange. Anyway, we set sail and began the long trek to Honda Bay. Maybe 40 minutes into our journey the boat operator points to some churning, bubbling water, and shouts "Tuna Feeesh! Tuna Feeesh!" I had to smile. It was pretty cool though. Tuna were splashing around near the surface of the water, some jumping into the air, I assume to escape the nearby whale shark. I tried to get a picture with a tuna feeesh jumping in midair, but ended up just getting bubbly water. Shouting and pointing became a theme of the journey, so much so that Andrew and I devised our own set of criteria that the ideal whale shark ecotourim operator should possess. More on this soon.

About an hour and a half later we arrived to a bigger, bubblier batch of tuna feeesh at which point the boat tour operator ran the length of the boat shouting , "WHALE SHARK! WHALE SHARK! You can sweeem!" We were all unprepared for this declaration, so we missed getting in the water the first time. The second time the boat operator shouted "WHALE SHARK!" we were all ready. The three German men jumped into the water like the boat was sinking. Andrew and Jessica, the American, followed. I was last in, fearing that I'd sink like a stone. I didn't sink, but I quickly realized that my swimming ability was even poorer than I remembered. I decided to cling for dear life to the floats on the side of the boat and let the whale sharks come to me. Everyone was swimming around the boat, heads in the water looking at what I sure were beautiful majestic creatures. I didn't even see a damn tuna. Andrew tells a funny story of being directly in front of the creature as it swam towards him. Whale sharks can be over 10m in length, so I can only imagine the crazy experience this must have been. Here is a picture of a whale shark for reference.

Christ!

The way he tells the tale, that diver was him. I would have been terrified, but (un)fortunately for me all I was getting a good look at was the boat's paint job. Oh, and blue. I saw lots and lots of blue.

We continued putting around for the next hour or so, stopping whenever we saw thrashing tuna
and heard "WHALE SHARK!" I guess this is a good time to explain the proper procedure, as determined by Andrew and I, for pointing out a whale shark:

1. Jump at least 2 feet into the air.
2. Land with your feet spread at least 2 feet apart in a sumo stance.
3.Point at the area potentially containing a whale shark. The point can either be a thrusting stab motion (ie, like a fencer) or an overhand tomahawk-like swoop motion.
4. Scream "WHALE SHARK!!!" like a maniac. Pepper with "You can sweeem" as appropriate.

I'm only making fun because I love. Overall it was a great day, even though I never got to see a whale shark underwater. I did get to see one later as it surfaced. The back and the fin surfaced right in front of the boat. It was very cool. Oh, I almost forgot. At one point, the boat operator nearly clipped the whale shark and two of the German dudes. I'm sure that isn't very eco-friendly, but what do i know?

Later we ate a vegetarian meal on the boat and dropped two of the German dude's off at a local beach. The boat operator drove the boat right up to the beach, so that the German's could get out in about a foot of water. If I had my time back I would've taken a picture of this one child playing in the water. He gave the quintessential "What...the...fuck?" face I have ever , and will ever, see. It was priceless. Actually i did get one picture of the German's getting off the boat, but the child is running off-camera to the left. Shitty. All in all, the perfect end to a great day.

Ok, this entry is pretty big, so I'll post Part II in a separate entry.

Flying Pumpkins

2008-10-14T22:38:00.004+08:00

Bugs are bigger in the tropics. It's a fact. Also, to compliment their novelty sizes, they all move at foolish speeds. I've gotten used to the size, but I'm still having severe speed issues. Anything I can't outrun scares the living shit out of me. For example, the last thing I needed today was to be chased down the hall by a hornet that could pass as a zeppelin. Actually I fibbed a little when I said I can deal with the size. The size had a lot to do with the terror in this case. I'm pretty sure it could smell fear, and I was sending out major puss vibes. I guess I shouldn't have gotten in his personal bubble with the Goddamn macro function of my camera. I'll go on record for all the agitated hornets reading this blog: "I apologize. I overstepped my bounds. It will not happen again". If (God forbid) I have an accident here, I want it to be completely out of my control. A Jeepney flipping over and crushing the living shit out of me would be a cool way to go out. Tripping over the coffee-table while running away from a bug, like a little girl, and sticking my head through the television would not. Actually, yeah it would.

The funny thing is this is less than a day after I gave Andrew a hard time for being afraid of a cockroach. He was talking on the phone when he pointed out a dark blob on the wall. I went over the investigate and found a cockroach that had to be a guy in a suit. Like i said, the size isn't usually the issue. It's the speed. So Andrew's noticeably disturbed by our guest and I'm making fun of him. I grab the trusty ol' camera to get a nice picture of the bastard, a superior shit-eating smirk on my face the whole time, when the cockroach decided to pull a fast one on me. It flew. It flew right over my head, landed on the upstairs step, turned around, gave me a wink (probably) and said:

"Didn't think I could fly did ya pal?"

"No sir, I did not".

So...cockroaches can fly...

I have a pic of the beast on FaceBook for those brave enough to look. The comments so far are pretty funny.

I'd like to thank everyone for the positive response to my pictures and blog entries. It's fun to wake up every morning and find new comments waiting for me. I really appreciate the interest, and I thank you. I miss all of you guys and can't wait to see you all again.

Until the next one, later.

Skulking Around

2008-10-12T20:34:00.005+08:00

Western Philippines University (WPU for those in the know) has been preparing for an accreditation for the past three weeks. The goal of the university is to achieve Level Three accreditation. This will allow them to teach other higher level courses, attracting new students, and increasing overall revenue. To be completely honest, I have no idea what "preparing for an accreditation" actually entails, but to the best of my understanding, it basically boils down to the following sentence:

"Yeah, yeah, yeah...you're interns, we get it. Just calm the fuck down, chill out for a few weeks and we'll get around to talking to you...or not, whatever. Go away, I'm busy stapling important documents to other important documents".

So we wait. We research and we wait.

We've actually researched an insane amount of material regarding ecotourism, come up with a project plan, set objectives, and begun to determine what types of questions we want to ask ecotourism operators and tourists. The overall goal is to determine the ideal skill-set and knowledge level of an ecotourism operator, assess the actual skills and knowledge level of local ecotourism operators, and try to determine the knowledge level and perceptions towards ecotourism of local ecotourism stakeholders. Overall, we are providing data to WPU for the development of curriculum relating to a new proposed ecotourism course. Sitting back and reading that previous sentence for speeling mistaks actually makes me feel like we are accomplishing something, or at least on the way to accomplishing something.

We were called into an impromptu Wednesday afternoon meeting last week to answer some questions for the accreditation. The questions were pretty general, asking what we were doing at WPU, our goals and objectives, etc, etc. When we finished this meeting with the accreditor we had another brief meeting with Doc Ben, our immediate supervisor. We went over what we had been doing and where we planned to go, detailing our research and preliminary time-frame. We talked for a few minutes, Doc Ben listening intently the whole time. When we finally finished our spiel he remained silent and sat still for a few moments. Shifting in his chair and adjusting his posture he remarked:

"Sounds good, sounds good, but slow down".

Heh.

Today we went to Honda Bay. Honda Bay is a tourist destination where you can rent a boat and go island hopping to five different islands. We went as part of an opening ceremony for a new ecotourism project. The project is a floating classroom. Here, local fisherman educate divers on the surrounding reef ecosystem, explaining what a coral is, how it grows, the importance of coral reefs to fishing and biodiversity, among other things. After this we went to Luli Island, an island that is almost completely submerged during high tide. Here we ate some BBQ and seafood and explored a little. I came to realize that I have an unnatural obsession with the super macro function of my camera. No matter how boring something may be, I am determined to squeeze every last drop of excitement from it by zooming in. I spent 10 minutes trying to drain a rock of all its awesome when it struck me that I was on a beautiful island in a tropical paradise taking pictures of a fucking rock. I did manage to tear myself away from the wonders of the stone long enough to snap some pretty good pics of the island and the floating classroom though. All in all it was a pretty fun day. We saw some sights, had some eats, met some peeps, and snapped some rocks. Also, I burned. Next weekend we are planning a trip to see the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River.

I bet there are all sorts of rocks in there!

Shakey's

2008-10-05T00:19:00.006+08:00

I've realized that my last few blog entries have been fairly long, and in one case, elaborate. Not all my stories will involve bible-thumping homosexuals or the consumption of hog-head. I don't want to peak too soon. My goal is to go at least 3 months before I jump-the-shark (See:www.jumptheshark.com), so let's slow it down a little bit. I do have a short story to tell, but first I'd like to provide a short list of the things I like and dislike about living in Palawan. The culture is different, the people are different, and the food is different. You know you aren't in Canada anymore when retail clerks not only spontaneously break out into a choreographed line dance, but actually seem to enjoy it. All 10 minutes of it. Andrew has captured this on camera and I will post it soon for you to judge.

Now, in no particular order: What I Likes!

1. I enjoy the fact that 90% of the people in this city (and most likely province) are ultra polite, friendly, and generally awesome. You walk up to the entrance to a fast-food joint, a guard opens the door and says "Hello sir" or "Welcome to *establishment* sir" while flashing a winning smile. You go to the counter to order some food and the employee welcomes you with a toothy grin. Oh shit....Pineapple Juice has ice... An employee notices this minor mistake, on his own no less, and runs away to fix the problem. I'm shocked that they don't thank you for taking a piss. Actually, now that I think about it, shocked isn't the right word. Disappointed.

2. NCCC.

3. The kids. I'm a local celebrity. Wherever I go the kids react in an assortment of equally awesome ways. I get a lot of smiles and "What's your name?", but the best is when the kids shout "Hey dude!!", "Wassup Man", and once "Evening Bro!". I was on an epic bike ride the other day and a short fat kid shouted "Wassup n***ah!". He was probably making fun of me, but I don't care.

Things I Don't Likes!

1. Getting ripped off. I realize I have tourist imprinted on my forehead, and I expect to pay a little more for things than the locals. I was warned of this and I fully accept it. However, I'm not paying three times as much as the next guy. I have to laugh when the tricycle driver says "20 pesos...". "Regular fare is 7 pesos you shitface", has been on the very tip of my tongue more than once. It may sound petty, getting worked up over paying what amounts to 50 cents rather than 15 cents, but it's the Goddamn principle. I do admire the balls it must take to ask a customer for over triple standard fare though, especially when there are approximately 20 zillion other tricycles on the road willing to charge normal fare. Maybe I'll carry around "An Introduction to Economics" and provide free lessons on supply and demand next time.

2. The heat. It's hot heat. Hot Hot Heat.

Anyway, we decide to go to Shakey's Pizza the other night. Apparently Shakey's is a big deal in the U.S. with thousands of stores nationwide. Heh. Who knew? It is one of the few "western style" fast food joints in the city. The only others are Chow King, Jollibee, and Dunkin Donuts. We had exhausted Jollibee and Chow King for the moment, and as far as I know Dunkin Donuts only sells donuts and shitty coffee. Andrew ordered pizza, I ordered spaghetti, and we decided to try 6 Shakey's Wings. Well the wings were delicious, but they held a dark secret. Eating your way to the center revealed that HA! Not cooked asshole!

Think rare steak, but more chickeny.

I'm no foodologist, and I'm pretty lenient when it comes to sanitary practices. I've even been known to eat off the floor on occasion. BUT, I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong Sweetapple) you're supposed to thoroughly cook chicken. Just sayin.

Andy summed it up best:

"Here at Shakey's, we will give you the uncontrollable shakes. Thats our guarantee"

Also, Happy belated Birthday Pat!

The Gay Guy

2008-09-28T20:36:00.011+08:00

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

2008-09-26T17:37:00.003+08:00

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

2008-09-23T09:48:00.008+08:00

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

2008-09-21T19:52:00.005+08:00

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

2008-09-21T11:50:00.005+08:00

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

2008-09-21T11:20:00.005+08:00

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'