Around Manila

Hanging about Manila was neat. It's bigger than Cebu so there's lots more to do. I spent my time hanging out with Aimee and her friend Ingle. Ingle and his brothers run a few very successful metal working businesses around the area. Ingle's shop mainly makes stainless steel hand railings for malls and other commercial buildings. Al mainly deals with steel. Louie was pretty involved with the Mall of Asia building and got the steel globe built at the front of the mall.

I got a little exercise in practicing with JP's flag football team. I put in a little time at quarterback. My arm's still good...the speed and accuracy were there. I was a little rusty at playing the position and getting the ball to the open receiver though...it's been a few years since the Mudbowl days.

We tried going to the World Pyro Olympics at the Mall of Asia, but were stuck in stop and go traffic for 3 hours before we decided to turn around and go watch a movie. If you're thinking about watching Eragon...don't bother, it's pretty bad.

I did a bit of shopping in some of the cheaper bazaar areas like Greenhills. I saw some neat t-shirts but the filipino "large" size is a little tight on me...really shows of my beer belly. I did manage to find a couple nice ones at the XL size. Clothes are pretty cheap here compared to Canada...nice jeans and shirts for about $10. Good deal...I'll probably go on a shopping spree before I leave. Will have to buy another bag to carry it all too.

Anyways...here are some pictures from around Manila.

Escalators at the Galleria mall:



A strange name for a restaurant, it seems that some clarification was needed:



I've taken to pulling out my camera when stuck in traffic at night. Here are a couple neat abstract shots:

Tita Gina and San Juan, Batangas

Aimee and I borrowed JP's car and drove down to Bantangas to visit Tita Gina. Driving there was easire than I thought it would be. The map we got helped and the highways from Metro Manila are nice. We had to stop and ask for directions a couple of times, but overall we got there in about 3 hours.

Tita Gina is the youngest girl out of the 9 children in my mom's family. She stayed behind to take care of my mom's parents. She lives by herself now in San Juan. The oldest son, Tito Danding also lives there. We stopped by to say hello as well.

Communication was limited because I don't speak Tagalog and their english isn't that great, but she fed us a lot of food and we caught up a bit. We stayed there for a few hours and then went back to Manila.

Here's Tita Gina and I in front of her house:



An old family friend also stopped by to say hello, but I don't recall her name. Nice lady...she spoke to me in Tagalog and I replied in English. Somehow we understood each other and had a pleasant albeit short conversation.



Tito Danding and his wife with Tita Gina and Aimee:



And the old grammar school that my mom went to:

Back in Manila

Aimee and I flew back into Manila on Monday. The Asean summit was scheduled to be back on in Cebu and the city would have been a pain to get around due to the escorted convoys of delegates blocking up streets to get through. It was probably a good idea to get out of town for a while. It's also a good chance for me to go to Batangas in southern Luzon to visit my aunt. We'll head there tomorrow to visit her for a bit...should be about a 3 hour trip each way barring any problems getting there. Aimee's friend J.P. was nice enough to lend us his car...makes it easier.

Today we went to check out the SM Mall of Asia. The place is massive! About 390,000 square meters of shopaholic heaven. The place is easy to get lost in. I guess there's enough money around Manila to support the mall...there's definitely enough people to around to go there. A few hours of wandering around the mall was enough for me...tired me out.

Tonight we went to see a movie: Blood Diamonds. I'm not a big fan of Leonardo Dicaprio, but he was good in the movie. The story was solid and the movie was well done. I read about this issue a while ago. GNN even made a video about it (BTW, the video archive on the site is worth checking out...especially S-11 Redux). While it's good to see this movie and know the issues involved, at the end of it, girls will always want a diamond ring for their engagement. Guys will always want to get something really nice for them. There will always be a demand for diamonds. Some portion of the diamond market will always be supplied from conflict regions where people die. It's the same story with oil. The questions still remains: What can we do about it ? We the people who live in the areas of the world with the highest demand for diamonds and oil and the money to pay for the high prices ?

A little deep, I know...but I forgot to take my camera out with me today.

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On another note, I've been checking out the Clustrmaps thingy in the sidebar to see where around the world people are looking at this blog. It looks like someone in northern Manitoba is checking out this blog quite a bit. I don't think I know anyone who lives up there. So if you're up for it, whomever you are, drop me line. It'd be nice to know who you are...

New Year's in Boracay

Happy New Year Everybody ! I hope this year turns out even better than the last one !



After staying a night back in Cebu, I met up with Kitchie, Kate, and JR to head to Boracay for New Year's celebrations. Kim, Tala, and Abok from Davao met us there. It's one of the busiest times for Boracay and all the flights were booked so we had to take an overnight boat to Iloilo and then a van from Iloilo to Caticlan. To get to Boracay island, you have to take a bangca ferry from Caticlan to the Boracay terminal and then a tricycle to your destination. It took a long time to get there, needless to say. I think the van ride was the worst of it...tiny and uncomfortable with some really bumpy roads. I found it hard to get some sleep.

Boracay is a really cool place. The sand is white and really fine. There's a lot of variety in terms of accomodation and eating. You can stay there for a few days on a budget, or you can splurge and go big and some really fancy places. There are a lot of cool beach clubs/bars to hang out in and the beach really long so there's lots of room to park and hangout at the beach.

Unfortunately, the weather was overcast for most of the time we were there. We only saw a couple of hours or so of clear sun and it actually rained pretty hard when we left on the second.



We still had a good time, though. New year's eve was pretty crazy...lots of partying until the early morning hours. The fireworks were awesome...both sides of the beach and they lasted for a good 30-45 minutes. Here are a few pics from the night:









The way home was the opposite of the way there. This time we hired a van exclusively for us rather than wait around waiting for the commuter van to fill up. There was the option of taking the local bus back to Iloilo, but the cost was around the same for a hired van. We got lots of seating room and a non-stop ride to the pier.

At the pier back in Cebu, some of the local people from the slums come out in their little boats and beg for money from the passengers. People toss the coins and bills and they try to catch the money with their hands, catching baskets, and pieces of cloth. They even dive into the water after money that wasn't caught before it sinks too deep. It started with one boat, then a whole bunch of them followed with old women and children. I felt pretty bad for them, they seemed like a desperate lot. One of them was powered by a small diesel motor...something you'd find on a lawnmower or something. I couldn't help wondering if they ever got enough money to cover their fuel costs. They must...they wouldn't be doing it otherwise. I watched them for a while and then tought I may as well take some pictures:

Bohol

After christmas, Jon and I went over to Bohol to meet up with some friends of his from Manila. Bohol is famous for two things: the chocolate hills and some little furry animals called tarsiers.

The chocolate hills are interesting geological formations, but we didn't think it was worth driving two hours each way just to check out a bunch of hills for 10 minutes and take a picture.

We stayed at the Lost Horizon resort at Alona beach on Panglao island. A nice little place with decent rooms at a decent price. The people we met though satyed at a really nice place called Amarela. For about US$100...it's probably worth staying there, you can get the contact info here.

After staying up late the night before we traveled, we were pretty tired when we got there so we slept for a few hours right away. We had a late lunch afterwards and then rented a couple mopeds and rode into the island a bit to check out the tarsiers at the visitors centre. Cute little creatures...here are some pics:







The next day, we did a couple of dives around Balicasag island. Lots of coral, and cool fish. On the first dive, Jon said he saw a big tuna, but I missed it. On the second dive, we saw a couple big schools of Barcuda. It was awesome...I had a thought to swim in between them, but thought better of it. They are pretty dangerous animals...probably best to check them out from a distance.

We met up with the group from Manila later on that night and had dinner at a place called the Bohol Bee Farm. The food was pretty good, especially the grilled fish. Not sure what it was, but I think it was most likely Mahi Mahi. Anyways, we decided as a group to go on a dolphin watching / snorkelling bangca boat ride the next day...starting at 6am !

I got some neat shots of the sunrise while waiting for the group. Here are a couple:





Sadly, we were about an hour late leaving so we didn't see much of the dolphins. The weather was overcast and cold. The bangca boat was poorly built too and kept letting big splashes over the bow and soaking us. The group in general were pretty miserable, but Jon and I kept laughing about it...it was such a bad ride that it was funny. The snorkelling was fun though. We packed up and headed back to Cebu that evening. I decided to switch plans around and head to Boracay with some of Aimee's friends for new years.

Maligayang Pasko !

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas...or as the say here in Tagalog: Maligayang Pasko ! I hope you all have a great new year as well.

I probably won't be posting anything for a week or so. We're going to go to Bohol and then Bantayan to spend some time on beaches and maybe do some diving.

Thinking ahead...

I've had a lot of time on my hands the last few days so I started thinking a lot about what to do over the coming weeks. Then I started thinking about what I'll do after I get home. Top of the list is looking for work. I have a few ideas but I figured I'd start with posting my resume on here on the blog. The link is now on the top of the blue sidebar.

So if you know anyone who's looking for a Mechanical Engineer with some good design and manufacturing experience, please forward the link to them. Please feel free to pass on the link to this blog as well. So far it looks like I'll be back home in Canada around the first week of February.

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Some geeky techie stuff:

I generated the pdf using a handy little tool called CutePDF Writer combined with a GPL licensed postscript converter called Ghostscript. It behaves as another printer on your machine. To generate a pdf of any document, you just select "CutePDF Writer" in the printer list. A dialogue box will come up asking you for the file name.

I stored the file on online file storage site at www.box.net. You get 1GB free by signing up. The upload time depends on your internet connection, but with broadband it's pretty fast. They have deals for more storage, but for sharing small files like documents the free storage size is more than enough.

Manila and Josie's Wedding

We left for Manila on Monday morning. The flight itself was short, but the landing was a little bumpy due to turbulence. The pilot had to abort the sequence and start over again.

Manila itself is a lot nicer and cleaner than I remember it. Getting around town is a real pain though, the traffic is brutal. It seems like we spent most of the day on Tuesday in a vehicle stuck in traffic. We stayed with Jasmine and her brother J.P. J.P. was nice enough to drive us around to do some shopping and meeting up with people. I also met some of Aimee's Manila friends later on in the night...a lively bunch and really nice people.

For those of you that don't know, filipinos use different terms to refer to their relatives and family. Tita is used for Aunts, Tito for uncles, Kuya for older brothers/cousins/male family friends, Ate for older sisters/cousins/female family friends, and Lolo/Lola for Grandpa/Grandma.

I had to buy a traditional formal shirt for the wedding called a barong. Looks thin, but it's kind of like wearing a windbreaker...not much in terms of ventilation. We lucked out with some cooler weather so it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

The wedding itself was good. It was nice to see some relatives that I hadn't seen in years and meet some relatives that I had never met before. Some of the relatives that I thought would be there weren't so I'll have to make some plans to go visit them in the coming weeks.

The pictures don't look that great. The lighting was low and I tried to get away with not using the flash too much. The 400ISO setting on the camera is junk, but here are some anyways:

Tita Salud and Tito Pepe checking out some video on Jon's phone:




Inside the church:




Jon, Aimee, Tita Beth, Tito Candido and his wife Tita Carmen, Dr. Cecil Ramos, and me:




Ate Leida and me:




Tita Salud and Tito Pepe making some short speeches:






Ate Josie and Andrew cutting the cake and the toast of the night:






Here's one with Kuyas Junjun and Boy with Tita Salud and me. I'm not sure who the older couple is, but I'm sure mom will know:





Whew ! This was a long post.

Beach resorts at Mactan

I tagged along with Aimee for a Christmas party with the girls from her flag football team. We hung about a couple of beach resorts: White Sands and Shangri La's Mactan Island Resort and Spa. Pretty fancy places and on the pricey side, but really really nice.

The party itself was a lot of fun with the girls getting really silly with their secret santa gift exchange. They brought enough food to feed a rugby team and their pets. Spent the night at White Sands and kind of snuck into Shangri La to hang about the beach for the morning. I didn't bring a camera though...probably a good thing.

Update...

I updated the previous post about malapascua with some pictures...have a look.

Malapascua and diving...

Aimee, Jon, and I went to Malapascua on Thursday and came back yesterday afternoon. It's a small island north of Cebu island that's famous for beaches and diving. It took us about two hours to get to the ferry (forgot the actual visayan term for the boat)and about a 45 minute ride to get to the island. We stayed at a small inland resort called Kuan Ba or The Wobbly Boot. Uncle Geoff is part owner of the place.

It was a good chance for me to get some diving experience. I managed to get the Open Water certification in two and a half days. It was a lot of work and not much time to really relax. When I wasn't in the water, I was busy reading and testing for the knowledge base that you need. I got certified by Thresher Shark Divers under the instruction of Ravi Jassal...great guy and a pretty good instructor. I don't have the certification to dive deep enough to get to see the thresher sharks or some of the manta rays that they have around there. I imagine that I'll head up there again to get the Advanced Open Water certification to do those dives. I'll have lots of time again after the new year to head up there for a few days.

I didn't take many pictures of the place because I was fairly busy. Aimee took some so I'll have to get them off of her before I post some pictures. We're heading up to Manila tomorrow morning and I still have to pack so no time to post any pictures. I'll get around to it after we get back.

Update: Here are some pics

Aimee chatting up a german dude on the boat ride over:




A view of the island boats:




Gearing up and looking like divers:

Hanging about...

We were supposed to go to Malapasqua on Monday, but the typhoon had stirred up the waters in the area and diving would have been bad. So we decided to wait a couple of days before heading up there.

I spent more time at the gym boxing and swimming, went to see "Casino Royale" with Andrea, and being a mall rat.

I also took Aimee, Jon, and Uncle Geoff out for dinner at a cool japanese place here. The food was really good and the atmosphere was nice. Jon's a bit of a celebrity around here because of his modelling work so some of the girls on the staff were giggling and trying to get a picture of him.

There's a wierd phonomenon here with cell phones. It's kind of like yawning...one person starts and then in a matter of minutes the people around are doing it too. In every conversation there's a moment when everyone is fiddling with their phone. Here's what it looks like:



I stitched two pictures together using
autostitch. It's neat and it works well. The demo version is free, but I don't know if there's a limit on how much you can use it.

Badian

A bunch of my cousin's friends decided to go on a weekend trip down south to Badia. The family of one of the guys have a beach resort there. The four-hour trip there was interesting, but a little long...can't really drive too fast through those windy roads.

A Catergory 1 typhoonblew here the same weekend too. The storm was enough to postpone the ASEAN Summit here until January. Although I think that they used the storm as an excuse because they weren't ready to host it yet. The convention centre is still under construction.

We weren't affected too badly by the weather. It was just gloomy and rainy...cold for the natives, refreshing for me. Andrea's family beach house towards the north of the island got hit hard with really strong winds blowing trees over.

The weather wasn't conducive for being at a beach but it was still a good time. With everyone speaking cebuano most of the time, I pass the time having a one sided conversation with a bottle of Tanduay rum. We brought food with us and the people at the resort did an excellent job of cooking it up. We also bought some really fresh fish off of some fishermen who were paddling by.

We were supposed to go check out the Kawasan falls in the area, but the weather was still bad and there was no point to trekking in the mud and rain to get there. We might head back down some other time to check it out.

Unfortunately, my digicam doesn't work too well in the rain and all my batteries were drained. It was a shame because I wanted to get some shots of pigs getting transported in tricycles here. Really unique ! If I see any down the road, I'll make sure I get a picture.

Beach on Mactan Island

I met a guy here at the kiwi lodge from BC who's a snowboarder. It turns out that he's good buddies with Paul Horton, who's out there in an effort to make the olympic team for boardercross. I tried emailing Paul about it, but the address I have for him didn't work. If any of you are in touch with Paul...please tell him I met "toaster" here in Cebu.

Anyway...Toaster, Andrea, and I went to the Portofino beach resort on Mactan island to hang out there for the day. The place turned out to be a pain in the ass to get to partly because the cab driver didn't know where it was. It was a small beach...nothing spectacular, but it was nice to sit there, have a San Miguel Light, and chill out for a bit.

The weather wasn't that great. It had rained in the morning and the sun was struggling to poke through the clouds, but it was still nice. Here are some shots of sand, dead jellyfish, and the beach area:







There was a hobbie catameran lying there at the resort. I thought about taking it out, but it looked like it hadn't been used in a while. If I had another beer, I probably would have taken it out, but the service was poor and I never got to order another drink.

We had lunch afterwards at a bar called MB's Tavern. Apperently it's another popular hangout for expats here. It was started by a german...the schnitzel was good.

I decided to go play basketball with Jon and a bunch of other guys. I was terrible out there: a couple of airballs and some porous defence. I rememebered why I stopped playing though. I was hobbling around for a couple of days.

Comments...

I was wondering why nobody was commenting on the site anymore. I thought I lost a lot of love...started feeling emotional and distraught. Then I remembered I turned on the comment moderation feature to see what I can do with censoring comments...especially those by a crazy kiwi. Apparently I have to approve every comment before they're posted. I turned that feature off, so comment away !

Some people are still commenting anonymously. Please sign your name...It'd be nice to know who is saying what.

Boxing

I got a month-long membership at the gym where Jon and Aimee work out. It's good...sort of like a typical Goodlife Fitness gym back in Canada, except that they have badminton courts instead of squash or racquetball courts. They also have boxing training. Jon actually was in a celebrity boxing match in Manila a couple of weeks ago...yeah, he's pretty good.

Anyways, he took a video of my first go at it with his phone. Have a look:



I look really slow and standing straight up. I'll try to keep up with thte training and we'll take another video in about a month from now and see how I look then.

Feel free to come up with some boxer names for me and post them in the comments. Here's mine: Ramzi "Slohanfaht" Asfourrrrr !

CFFL Superbowl

Sadly, the Pink Flamingos got spanked really bad by the Sharks. It was tough to watch but here are some pictures. Josh animated and going over offense plays, a cute one of Tonet, and my entry for the Silliman U mascot.

Typhoon

Some of you may have heard about the typhoon that hit here in the Philippines. It hit the northern islands of the country and mainly around the capital, Manila.

We didn't really get affected here in Cube. Only a little short rainfall the other day, but it's been sunny and hot here.

A Taoist Temple in Cebu

Andrea and I went to check out the Taois Temple here in Cebu. I don't know much about Taoism because there wasn't much information about it there and didn't bother asking anyone about it. You can't take pictures of the statues inside the temple either. They did have a poster about some kidney shaped wood blocks that people use to ask a question when they pray. They think about the question and then drop the blocks. How the blocks end up give a yes, no, or maybe answer to the question. Seems a little strange to me, but if it works for the people that believe in it, so be it.

Anyways, I got some nice pictures there. Could have had more, but the batteries in the camera died on me. And the spare ones I was carrying turned out to be dead too. I managed to get a couple of this really cute baby girl there. Have a look:







Photoshops of what the diety for the Macho Temple looks like seems like a fun politically incorrect thing to do here. So far F's been the only one to send me something for the Silliman University mascot...see this one.

Andrea got us lost on the way out of the gated neighbourhood that the temple was in...It was pretty hot walking around there. She's a crazy kiwi girl that I met the first week I was here. Her family owns and runs the Kiwi Lodge here in Cebu. It's close to the centre of the city and the food's pretty good.

B&W Album

I uploaded the b&w photos to India Album 7. Some of them look crooked. I'm not sure if the negatives look that way or the scanning system did it. I've had the problem before...not paying attention to the frame lines of the view finder. I'll have to be more conscious of it using the camera next time.

B&W pics from India

I finally got some of my black and white film developed. The pictures turned out great. I took them using my Olympus XA compact camera and Kodak 400CN film. I wish they made a compact digicam with a fixed focal length lens and a quality that rivals the lens on this little camera. I like the ease of use of digital photography, but I have to say that I still prefer the look of film taken with simple old cameras that have very high quality lenses. Especially using B&W film. Anyways, here are some of the pics. I'll have to put up another album for them sometime.









Developing film here is pretty cheap. I got 3 rolls developed, prints, and CDs done for around $15. The same thing back in Canada would have probably cost around $50.