Party in Iloilo

Weekends are invariably better than weekdays here. My immediate and extended family are free from the daily grind, which means that I have playmates. 

Last weekend my parents and I flew down to Iloilo City to attend the Dinagyang festival, as guests of the mayor. I was wrong in my last post - apparently my dad HAD met him before, which is how we got invited in the first place.  Regardless, it was pretty cool. We (along with the other guests from my dad's office) got picked up by a police escort. I wasn't really that concerned about my safety - mostly it was just nice to see the traffic cleared from the path of our van. Though I don't really feel deserving of that kind of special treatment.

It turns out the Dinagyang festival is: 1. Contrived to promote tourism 2. A celebration of Sr. Santo Niño - the Christ child 3. A dance competition showcasing indigenous heritage.

The main event was not in the street, we ended up having reserved seats in a (thankfully shaded) grandstand.  The costumes were bright and elaborate, each dance troupe was accompanied by a drumline, and I really enjoyed the sights and sounds. I took over 350 pictures, but I'll just show you two (and a bonus video).

 

Saturday afternoon, we took a sidetrip to a local village and got to meet a weaver. Apparently she was once part of a cooperative, but left it because its was too restrictive. She works on commission by fashion designers. I'm kind of into cottage industries, so it was pretty neat to see her little enclave and her work.

SCUBA

Well, last weekend I spent 4 days in Anilao to get my SCUBA Open Water Diver certification. It was GREAT. SCUBA is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but was too chicken to try. Seriously, I was paranoid that I wouldn't be able to use all the gear properly and drown underwater, or get the bends or something. I toyed with the idea of getting certified back when I was in Belize my junior year, but again, chickened out. The snorkeling was pretty good there anyways :) But then every time I heard of someone I knew going diving, or I saw pictures of divers, I got really jealous.

So I finally put my metaphorical foot down. This was my one goal for this trip (other than getting to know my family/relatives) - do SCUBA. It was kind of frustrating the first month or so I was here, because the entire country was caught up in holiday activities (including me) and I wasn't able to find any instructors/arrange any lessons. But we finally got a hold of someone.

The weekend before last, the instructor came by our house to deliver some snorkeling equipment and discuss what to expect. First off - this is one thing that has surpised me about the Philippines. People are EXTREMELY accomodating. And we were trying to arrange a pool session before we went to Aniloa for the open water check out dive (the way certification works is that you learn from a book, practice in a confined water area - like a pool - and then do a checkout dive) and I wasn't sure I would have a way to get there, and he also offered to pick me up.

Anyways, while the instructor was here giving me the down-low, my Dad randomly decided he wanted to get certified as well. So the Tuesday before we left, we went to a pool in Makati (one of the districts of metro Manila) and learned how to breathe underwater. It was MUCH easier than I expected it to be. Its all fairly intuitive.

We drove to Anilao on Thursday morning, and got a dive in that afternoon. Again, I was nervous about going deeper (since the pool was about 12 ft deep, and our dives were 40-60 ft), mostly because I don't find equalizing the pressure in my ears the easiest thing to do, but (not surprisingly) practice makes, if not perfection, than improvement. Another thing that was a little difficult was figuring out how to swim while neutrally boyant. That surprised me, that swimming underwater is harder than swimming on the surface, but you have to get used to the physics of weightlessness.

As for the sights themselves, I can't even begin to describe what I saw! I've seen pictures of reefs, I've been snorkeling, but...it was better than I could have imagined. You could stare at one little outcrop and see 15 different species of fish and coral all interacting. It was like watching this microcosm of a city, people (fish) hustling and bustling everywhere. I saw mating behaviors, territorial behaviors...coral of SO many shapes and colors. The only thing I didn't like was that you had to get out of the water after 40-45 minutes because you start to get low on air.

My dive instructor had an underwater camera, and took some pretty cool shots of my dad and I, but he hasn't emailed them to me yet. The camera I have can be submerged to 10 ft, so I have some pictures I took snorkeling. I'll have to post the dive pictures when I get them.

In about 10 minutes I'm off on a plane to a southern province. There is a festival there this weekend, and my dad got invited by the mayor. Looking at that website, I think its going to be quite a sight to see, but also hot. Outside in the street, lots of people. Woohoo for sweating.

 

 

 

Ilocos Norte

Sorry for double-posting, but these were long enough as is without being all together.

For New Years, my dad and I flew up to Ilocos Norte, a northern province. One of my uncles is friends with a guy who owns a resort up there, so we spent two nights up there on the beach. 

All the fare was traditional Ilocano food, which apparently involves a lot of salt, overly boiled vegetables, and fatty meats. On the upside, I found a beachfront with some ancient coral formations towering above the water. The rocks themselves were really cool, because they had been built from all kinds of different coral (think variety of formations), plus they made some really good tidepools. I wasn't prepared for swimming, but I couldn't help but throw off my flip flops and hike up my skirt to go tromping around looking at little marine beasties.

I had to get torn away from the water by my family, because the day's agenda was really to go siteseeing. We saw a bunch of old buildings, and rode a rickety little calesa (buggy). 

Happily (for me, anyways), after we returned, I convinced my dad to go back with me to the coral formations. This time, I was prepared for full submersion tromping. And I definitely saw some neat things.

But really the scenery was the best part, especially as we watched the sun go down.

Holidays on the other side of the world

Yep. That's a pig head. Sorry to be so graphic without warning, but I feel like its a pretty good representation of how unfamiliar it felt spending the holidays here. 

On Christmas Eve, our entire extended family decended upon the "Woodward Resort." That's like 5 families plus an assorted number of unattached cousins (well I guess they can be included in familes). Normally, Christmas is just me, my parents and my brother. Sometimes my grandparents from my Dad's side of the family.

We had a caterer come and lay out a buffet of food (largely unfamiliar to me). Lechon, which is the suckling pig, is a traditional holiday dish.  And yes, I was kind of weirded out by a pig head hanging out in this tray of food, but I have to admit, it was pretty tasty. Well, not the head. I didn't touch that. But the meat in the tray.

Most everyone got all dressed up. My cousin convinced me to let her curl my hair. After dinner everyone exchanged presents, which was probably most fun for the youngest family members (a two year old and four year old girl).