Philippines - Jeepnys

Number of fatal accidents I have seen in the past 2 days: 2. This makes me slightly worried about the amount of time I spend zipping about on the back of Budoy's motorcycle. On the other hand he's a good driver and if we drink we take cabs, so I feel a bit better, but I do really need to get a helmet or something. But on to the main subject of this post, which is.... JEEPNEYS, the main mode of transportation in the Philippines. They are bus/car hybrids that are usualy lavishly painted and decorate with either "god is good", or Kobe Bryant who apparently is tantamount to god in reverence since he is painted on jeepnys.  (The kobe brayant mobile used to be my jeepny of choice to get into the city).   

Basically no one can afford cars in the philippines so three quarters of the vehicles on the street are jeepnys which will pick you up at any location and drop you off at your destination for a mere 7 peso, or roughly ten cents.   You just wait by the side of the road until you see the right number jeepny (all have the route number marked clearly on the top).  Until you know the correct number you are doomed to ride around in circles or look like a tourist and have to ask one of the passengers in which case they wonder why a tourist would ever be riding a jeepney anyway and be too shocked to answer you.    Basically you just flag down your jeepney, climb in the back and pass the kid hanging off the back your seven peso. Then, when you reach your destination you hit a coin on the metal bars above your head so that the drive hears you and slows down to let you off.   Because of this jeepneys are definitely not the most efficient mode of transportation since they stop to pick up and drop off every few seconds, but they certainly are cheap and have lots of character.   Below are some pictures I took of the ones on my route. 

Cebu from a Jeepney window 

The sides are all open and they're pretty long, you can squish at least 10 people on each side, and they definitely pile in as many as they possibly can

This is the dude that hangs off the back and rustles up fares, a lot of times by yelling the destination as loudly as he can

Other jeepney art:

Apparently: "Australia, the legend lives on" who knows......

Another day, another cell phone

I sincerely apologize for complete lack of postage in the past month.  I went to australia and had far too much fun* and completely forgot about the whole blog thing.  I will try to be good about recreating these posts as though I am still in the philippines etc, but this is obvio a BIT hard since this was over a month ago and has begun to recede into the hazy parts of my mind along with calculus and Shakespeare.     I think I'll intersperse these old ones with posts about what i've actually been doing at the current moment if there is anything exciting going on in seatown. 

OK, this post would be from say february 20th or so.  Begin time travel: 

I am now on my third cell phone in three months, kinda ridiculous right? Someone jacked it off our table last night, which made me NOT happy. Did the usual Jullianas, Pump run, awesome fun, but not so much this morning when I woke up to little fists banging of on my door crying tia liz, borrow camera! borrow camera! only a few hours after I had gone to sleep.  All the neighborhood kids discovered that I lend out my camera and then suddenly I was their favorite person in the world.  They call me Tia (aunt) Liz now and greet me with a gesture of respect which is to touch my hand to their forehead when they see me which is pretty cool, I always knew I was kind of a big deal, just under appreciated.









Anyway, since I could no longer sleep my hangover off in peace in my room, I decided that it was altogether too hot to be hungover and set off for Ayala to try and find something to do all day in the air conditioning. To recap, I was very successfully, entering the mall when it was light and coming out after dark... 8 hours later. In that time I: bought a cell phone, ate three meals, bought and consumed a large quantity of aspirin, bored people on skype for a few hours with my hungover ramblings, watched a movie, and spent some time staring at the pictures of Seattle at SBC wishing it looked like that every day.

Ayala Plaza at night

Then as I was about to go home I ran into some friends outside SBC who were going to Honduraw, I had totally forgot it was a jam night, so then I had to rush home, shower, and change and then rush back into the city, which I'm not doing a good job of obviously I am here in this internet cafe blogging and not rushing into the city. Blogging is an addiction, and never install a counter that lets you see the nationality of your visitors because then you start to feel self important and spend even more time blogging. This week I have had visitors from: UAE, Hong Kong, Oz, United States, Denmark, China, UK and Brazil (Philippines too obvi). Coolness. Ok this was a completely pointless post, I'll try and think of something exciting I did next time, but my brain feels like its in molasses, I always figured that this is what it must feel like to be really stupid.

Boring Nerdy Post

ok this one is for my parents to reassure them that I am not rotting my brain with Tanduay, reggae music, etc...

The Red and The Black - Stendhal

LOVED this book. Recommended by dad, so good job. One of the early french psychological writers. About an ambitions young man making his fortune in some reprehensible but perfectly socially permitting ways for the time. Twisted plot where no one is happy... awesomeness.

Faust - Goethe
Yeah, I read about three chapters and just didn't care. I really am not much of a fan of novels in verse, Eugene Onegin and the Oddessy were the only ones I could deal with. And I didn't really feel any sort of sympathy with the characters who all seemed too crazy and convoluted and had no bearing on my life.

Love - Stendhal
Tried to read this as well since I liked The Red and The Black, but this is not really a novel, but just Stendhal rambling about love for 300 pages. I do not recommend unless you are a huge sap and want to read about love for that long- It bored me to death after 10 pages.

Les Miserables - Hugo

I loved the Hunchback so I decided to read this monolith of a novel. Very good, with Hugo's style, but there were a bit too many digressions for my taste, many of which it seemed irrelevant for the text development in any way. As I already knew the story the impact of the novel was also lessened for me, but it still was an epic book.

My complaint was that all of the characters seemed to be archetypes - Cosette was perfectly pure, Jean val Jean was always good, etc. No one deviated at all from their character as real humans do. That is why I love War and Peace so much, all of the characters are anti-heroes, but because of that you can relate with them much more personally because they have the foibles that ordinary people have. I liked Les Mis, but enjoyed The Hunchback of Notre Dame much better, mainly because of the characters and the writing.

"They made the problem of calling the Bourgeoisie a class, they are not a class simply the satisfied segment of the population"

"She loved him the most because she saw him the least, it is very easy to bestow perfection upon those you rarely see"

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Kundera

Also loved this book, Perriface put me up to reading it so thank you. The story is told from the perspective of each of the characters in turn, and is powerful because many of the traits of the characters you see as shocking or socially wrong, but it is also very easy to find traces of those same things inside of yourself they are just much less embraced and open. So which is better to come out and declare to people that you are shocking and openly womanize in front of your wife as Thomas does, or do it behind society? Great book.

Oliver Twist - Dickens

Well, I have mixed feelings. I have never been a huge dickens fan since I find his writing and characters a bit laborious to read. I picked this up and immediately in the intro it says that it is an early and therefore not very developed work, so I cant judge it too hard. I do love Dickens' sarcasm though, most of the text is dripping with it as long as you read closely enough. My problem with the book was that Oliver annoyed me. He seemed so weak throughout the novel, although I guess he was only 8 or 9 so I should forgive him. Everything also worked out way too well in the end. I liked the characters of Nancy and Sikes, and the Artful Doger, but thought that Oliver was a weak main character which I am sure was not what Dickens was trying to represent as Oliver is supposed to embodied the force of goodness, and that would mean that goodness is weak and sniveling against evil, only really winning out by accident.

I'm a Cebuano!!

I got an apt in Cebu for 50 dollars a month!! I actually had been planning on leaving the next day to go to Siargao, but then I got drunk and woke up with a room rented for the next month... no joke, all Matet and Jurry's fault, they convinced me it was a good idea. My liver cancer will also be their fault. My room is pretty basic, just one room with an attached bathroom, and a bed so small that I have to be careful not to roll in any direction orI'll fall off, so I guess I won't be bringing anyone home, but that's ok, and now I'll spend so much less in the next month that I would if I were traveling around, and the best part = it was 50 dollars.

Ive made friends with everyone in the reggae crowd here, and we've been going to a lot of concerts and just generally being really chill cause thats what gangstas do, and its cool cause all of them have got dreds so I don't feel so odd man out. There is some amazing music going on here, I'll try and upload some videos to my facebook if I don't go crazy first because of the excruciatingly long load time. Its really cool cause the concerts are basicaly just big jam sessions - all the reggae crowd shows up and then after the band who was supposed to play finishes their set there is just a massive freestyle jam session.

So my friends here so far are:

Matet & Jurry - the first couple I met here, who helped me get my apt. Matet is gorgeous and has dreds that go all they way down to her butt. She works as a call center person right now bc she ran away from home at 16 because her parents wanted her to go into nursing and she didn't want to. Jurry is a really good artist who does badass henna tattos and plays in a reggae band here that is really good.

GK - Guy who has lived all over it sounds like; he just came back to the philippines from living in hawaii for a few years, which after hearing his stories I want to do. He has a radio show here, which I should listen to sometime, and goes to all of the concerts and generaly just knows everyone and is also a sick DJ.

Budoy - The guy with the badass motorcycle that is made all out of recycled things, for example the seat is an old tire. He was on big brother and the only reason he was voted off was becasue people wanted to see his dreds, but he wouldn't take off his head wrap, which he never does and is about twice the size of his head. Hanging out with him is funny bc everyone is always yelling his name and wanting autographs and shit. He's a sweeeeeet Dubstep / reggae DJ and makes his own visaya music on the side, I need to buy some of the CDs. Ive gotten to ride on his motorcycle 3 times now! wooooo, and it is the most fun EVER in the world.

Valentines Day festivities

* this post has been censored by someone limiting my freedom of speech... damn you infringing my rights zac

All I can say is that this valentines day was superior to the last three, but before you assume that I went on a date and was given a diamond tennis bracelet and roses lets recap the last three:

3 years ago - a pipe in my ceiling broke while my roommate was out to dinner with her boyfriend, spewing water all over my couch, guitar and computer. I called Campus Security to have them come save me, and got... a busy signal for thirty minutes...WTF? seriously, what if I was being killed????

2 years ago - broke up with the guy I had been dating a week before valentines day, and then started talking again a few days after valentines day, I think it was strategy on his part, but he claimed that no one in Norway celebrates it anyway..load of tosh.

1 year ago - Was given chocolates in an awkward and furtive manner by a 'friend' who was at the time dating one of my other 'best' friends, I don't think she got anything, this occurrence still puzzles me greatly and was really weird.

This valentines day I - went to a reggae concert, then out to a club, then went on a food binge/extravaganza with zac at 5am, going first to Jollibee, where we had a 2 hour deep and meaningful about life etc over our burgers and fries which seems to be our thing now, and then after, headed to the drugstore to get a giant bag of Cheetos to supplement my burger and happily munching them on the walk home while zac went off for a valentines day tea party. After going to sleep at 530ish Jess woke me up by calling at 6am, but I was still so incoherent and asleep that I don't remember anything of the convo.



I think my perfect valentines day would either be:
a. Pizza, good movie, beer
or
b. Dinner at the top of the clock tower in Prague with candles, champagne, and Al Green and then a night at mecca with the old crew.... unclassy vs classy

So yeah, I think that would qualify as a decent valentines day. Anyway, I hope everyone had a good party, and the people with boyfriends got a good day, and to the boyfriends congrats its over, you don't have to do anything romantic for another 11 months and 30 days now.

Various Thoughts

1. Dreds
For the past week I have had what kind of feels like a haystack on my head and I have mixed feelings about it. Most people say they like the way they look and they are kinda fun to have, but here are the downsides:
A. they are supposed to be all low maintenance and shit, but this is a lie. Maybe it's because i'm an slovenly human being and don't bathe as often as I should, but you still need to wash it like once a week, and then you can only use natural soap so its still as much of a pain in the butt, and they get little piece of hair that start coming out so unless you want nasty ones you need to constantly be poking that stuff back in, and I have little tails on mine that still get all tangled.
B. When you dive into the water they create drag, kind of like having a parachute on your head, so not advisable for swimmers (note to phelps)
C. Its given people something to yell at me -Now I get: Hey Rasta, Bob Marley, or Reggae. Which is kinda annoying, on Malapascua everyone just called me Reggae the whole time.

2. Fighting Cocks

Last night I went out with some Belgians and Swedes, who proceeded to get so drunk they bought a fighting cock - Then we carried it around with us all night, until it got too "unruly" and started scratching people, and then we returned it to its owner for the night. I saw some fighting yesterday when I was driving around the island, without the knives, and it was pretty cool, so now I really want to go to a cockfight, I don't really have that much of a problem with it since they eat the loser.


3. Philippines

I LOVE the Philippines, it is amazing. example: yesterday I was hanging out with my friend Marlyn up in Madredejos, her family is extremely poor - 9 kids, one room shack on the beach, shes the first to make it through high school, etc. Her mom went and bought my a pepsi and some bread for a snack even though I'm sure they didn't even have enough for themselves.

My plan right now is to go back to Sairgao for a month and do the following:
1. Learn how to surf at least decently
2. Learn how to climb a coconut tree
3. Play guitar more
4. Read the Idiot
5. Fantasize about buying property and living the


4. Life Goals

I also made a list of the things I want to do in the next five or ten years, in no particular order:

-Open a hostel or restaurant
-Go to cooking school
-Have something that I write published in some form even if only by my local newspaper
-Spend 5 months in India
-Work in Australia
-Drive from Gibraltar to Morocco around the Med
-Do Africa
-Learn how to sail so I can borrow the parents' boat
-Live on the farm and learn how to ride horses like a gaucho and speak better Spanish.
-Live in a Yurt/boat on Cortes Island
-Join a commune

Give me a shoutout if any of our goals converge

Batayan 2 - more motorcycle fun, again without getting hurt

Pissing rain this morning, so I was going to split my time between the internet and food, but as I was happily munching on my crepes (out of my budget) I remembered that I had told the kids from yesterday I would meet them at the square today, (gasoline to drive over there also out of my budget). The thought of them waiting anxiously for me to arrive made me feel a bit guilty, so I got on my bike and headed over to Batayan town.

They were indeed waiting for me, so I would have been kind of a Grinch not showing up. After they went back to class I ambled around the town for a while trying to find a library but had luck, which is a bit depressing, everywhere needs a library - mado this can be another of your plan Bs if everything in CA goes to hell. Vincenta said she had a few books I could borrow so I headed over to her school, getting to test out my off-road motorcycling skills on the way, which I would say left something to be desired and need a bit more practice.

The school was somewhat like I had expected, ramshackle, small classrooms, even smaller desks, 40 kids to a room, etc. I got there in the middle of English lesson and caused a huge stir that was very uncondusive to learning anything. Even after Vincenta had closed the doors to the classroom there were still about 30 kids with their faces pressed against the window watching me like I was a circus freak. I'm going to go to the drugstore tomorrow and buy them colored markers because the classroom didn't have any, and also give some money for new paint for the classroom.

Since I was already in Batayan town, and had three mangoes left over I decided to head up to Kota Park again and see the people up there I had met the day before. The kids loved the mangoes, and I made friends with one of the girls my age from a fishing family. She was in kind of the same boat as me - IT worker who got laid off because of the financial crisis. She said she was getting really bored living at home and wanted to move back to Cebu city, but couldn't find a job. Hopefully that won't be me when I go home for the summer.

They were all extraordinarily welcoming, the men even asked me if I wanted to come out fishing with them, but I declined because I think I would have just gotten in their way, and anyway, none of them spoke English, so I could have confused "great white shark coming this way!! for "dive in and untangle that line there please" and that would not have been good.

Before they left the father even did some strange medical procedure that apparently was supposed to be for if you feel sick, even though I told them I felt fine. He took ground up ginger and rubbed it first on my forehead, then on the back of my neck, then the insides of my elbows, knees and finally the bottoms of my feet, said something weird and waved his hands a few times.

They wanted me to stay overnight, but I didn't want to take up their space since I don't think they had enough of it, so I said goodbye and did the hour long drive home in the dark.... it was cold. The end.

Bantayan - Motorcycle fun! note to parents: I am stil alive

Sidenote: I'm publishing these now because I'm sick of being a month behind on my blog posts, so they might be a bit out of order. I wrote all of the posts in between but then accidentally left them on a computer on Malapascua, so I'm hoping that someone there will find them and mail them back to me so I don't have to rewrite all of them.

I liked Batayan much better than Malapascua even from my initial impression of the island- less tourists and more space. The guy who helped me find a place to stay also told me he would teach me how to drive a motorbike if I wanted to, which I obvio did, so the same day I rented one for an hour and had a lesson. It was hard at first but within half an hour a was hardly wobbling at all and could stop and turn etc without killing anyone. Riding a bike is pretty fun as well, and pretty cheap at least as far as gas goes; with the gas prices these days I'm amazed that everyone doesn't ride a bike.





I had an awesome day the next day:

1. Woke up, had my daily ration of peanuts and one mango (I'm trying to only do one meal in a restaurant.. and anyway, I'm sure mangoes and peanuts are both very good for you) Then went into Batayan town on my bike, about a 30 minute ride from Santa Fe

2. Made friends with some kids in the park who wanted to play with my camera, then started talking to one of their moms who was a teacher in one of the elementary schools, going to go hang out there tomorrow

Haha.. bankrupt like my company


4. Back on the bike again and drove up to the way north end of the island and watched the fishermen drying shiny silver fish in the sun




5. Made some more friends


6. Went back to Santa Fe and had dinner at the former white sands, which is run by an awesome French dude who made his fortune at 30 and then has traveled for 40 years, finally settling down here and opening a restaurant which has VERY good food - hes pretty fun to talk to, basically I want to be him

7. Ended up eating dinner with a guy from Seattle and his Pilippina finance, who seemed pretty cool and talked my ear off despite saying that he was stoned which should have made just stare at the wall, and kept telling me I was giving him hope for the future generation even though I'm pretty sure I wasn't saying anything earth-shatteringly intelligent.

One thing that is starting to get to me about the Philippines though is the massive amount of attention I attract. It was much less noticeable when I was traveling with Liam since people are much less likely to cat call at you if you are walking with a guy for fear of getting pounded into mincemeat, esp if the guy is big. Now all of my conversations seem to be:

pinoy guy: "whats your name"
me: "liz"
Pinoy guy "you want to go to the disco?"
me: "no"
Pinoy guy "are you single?"
me: "no I have a boyfriend"
Pinoy guy: "where is he?"
me: "united states"

Thats about the extent of my convos, I've also been asked if I wanted to get married to a few guys by their friends.

Not a big deal but its kind of like being constantly in Vegas in a short dress and heels, despite the fact that I have dreds, have about 6 articles of clothing and am wearing no makeup.

Other pictures from Batayan:

Malapascua - Why the hell did lonely planet rate this place so high?

Basically, Malapascua is not that cool, maybe if you are an ichthyologist it would be sweet, but I don't really care about fish or coral, sooo pretty boring, just lots of fat which Russians on the beach. It also rained the entire time so that may have skewed my impression to the unfavorable. The thing that bothered me the most though was not the fat people obscuring my view of the ocean, but the complete lack of interaction between resort/tourists and the locals. It was like there were two different worlds on the island. I really hate tourists who come and ignore everything but the beach, so that was they type here, and I don't like them. The beaches were very pretty though, but there are pretty beaches everywhere, so I'd like some atmosphere with my beaches please. Thank you.



I on the other hand, got invited to a birthday party, which was the one good thing about Malapascua... cause I had tonss of fun. There were kids running around underfoot everywhere, the tanduay/sprite shotglass was constantly on the move, Lechon Manok on the fire etc. They even fired up the generator so that we could play music. It was really cool, a big family affair, and I was treated as a member of the family. Once it was announced that dinner was served there was a mad rush for the table, and within literally 45 seconds, I kid you not, there was not a scrap of food on the serving plates. Everyone ate just as fast, they were done before I had even started, and I eat fast usually. After dinner we picked up the pace on the Tanduay glass, which had never ceased to be in motion even during dinner, and watched all the kids dance around, the music was obviously a special occasion treat for them. I tried to upload a video of the kids dancing bc they were REALLY good, but it took too long so I got impatient.


Waiting for the Manok to be done.. meanwhile getting bacoi kaho-ed...I'm sure that's not how you spell it.
This kid had a sweet shirt. The back said: "What? You want try?"

Uness, the really cute daughter of the birthday boy

More cute kids...

I think we're getting a bit Tanduay-ed at this point


This is what happens when you let 6 street kids into your room to play with your guitar, cell phone, ipod and camera......Mostly when I got the camera back there were 500 new pictures on it that all seemed to be very similar and blurry.




Watching the greatest movie ever, Hitman, on the ipod. Don't think it was age appropriate really.