I've seen things!

A few weeks ago, I my uncle (who is a doctor) had a conference to attend in Kuala Lampur (that’s in Malaysia for all of you who are as geographically challenged as I am). So I tagged along to go sightseeing with my aunt.

I found KL to be a really interesting city, but mostly because of how much of a contrast it was to Manila. It was clean! And not filled with pollution, bumper to bumper traffic, barefooted beggar children…It’s actually a very well designed city – wide streets and lots of green space. I’m not sure why this was so surprising to me. I guess, having never been to this part of the world before, Manila became my baseline standard on what to expect.

The visit led me to think a lot about why Manila is the way it is. Despite the extreme traffic, Manila isn’t this backwards, underdeveloped place. Belize seems far more “third world” to me – that country lacks the majority of basic infrastructure. There is one traffic light in the entire country, and two “highways” which are both single lane roads. But in Manila (if you are at least middle class), I can’t think of anything that I can get in the States that I couldn’t get here. Some things are harder to find, some are more expensive, but a LOT of things are much cheaper. And once you get out of the city, there are lots of things to do (mountains, oceans, beaches, caves…).

But after going to KL, I realized that much could be IMPROVED in Manila, and it would have far go to bear any resemblance to KL. Honestly, it seems to me that all the problems stem from population size. The city is totally overrun with people. Less people would mean higher paying jobs, less traffic, less pollution…And what I find a bit fascinating is that (I realize I’m delving into an extremely controversial issue and making broad generalizations but) this problem stems from the influence of the Catholic Church. The Philippines has about 500 years of Spanish colonial history. And the Church continues to be a strong cultural presence. I saw myself a church with banners plastered all over it proclaiming “say no to abortion, say no to contraceptives, say no to family planning…” But its so strange, because so many other historically Catholic countries (Spain and Italy for example) do not have this problem. My aunt and uncle explained that this is because those countries already have separated church and state, while here the politicians are all still afraid of angering the bishops. ALTHOUGH. There is currently a move to pass a reproductive health bill, allowing access to family planning information and contraceptives. So that’s cool in my book.

But KL. My two favorite parts of the trip were visiting this Chinese Buddhist temple and visiting the aquarium. The temple was one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever been in my entire life, which in a way was hard to comprehend because there was twangy oriental music playing, it was bright and well lit and colorful…and yet the location had this palpably calm presence. And the aquarium – well I’ve never been to an aquarium I didn’t enjoy, and this one was surprisingly well designed. I like going to aquariums in different places because they always feature the local fauna. And I liked that this one placed a significant emphasis on freshwater fish – usually those fish get treated a bit like second class citizens. Oh and the seahorses! Many seahorses. Which are adorably absurd creatures.

Quick Notes on Filipino Life

1. I freaking LOVE the mangos here. I eat them every day. Apparently they are a different species that those that we see in the States - they don't travel well because their skin is thinner. Its a shame, because they are so damn delicious.


2. Ube ice cream! Whats not to love? Its purple (my favorite color) and its ice cream (one of my favorite foods). Ube is purple yam - for those of you who drink bubble tea, its the same as taro (a common bubble tea flavor).

3. At the other end of the line - the majority of public bathrooms do not provide toilet paper (And actually many dont even have toilet seats on their toilets). Everyone here (women anyway) has a habit of carrying tissues and hand sanitizer in their purses. That being said, some higher-end places DO have fully stocked bathrooms. That's always a pleasant surprise. Its funny what kind of luxuries we take for granted.

Thoughts on blogging

More than once, it has occurred to me how blogging is entirely based on this narcissistic presumption that one actually has something interesting to say. Why go to the effort make your writing public if no one is going to read it? I’ll admit that this sometimes bothers me, because I cannot abide the type of people that constantly need to be the center of attention or whose favorite topic of conversation is themselves.  I fear that in keeping a blog, I end up placing myself with these categories of people.  Most of the time though, I can move beyond these insecurities about why I keep this blog, and I’m actually quite glad these applications exist.

 

 I’m usually loathe to admit this publicly, but I’ve been keeping a Livejournal since senior year of high school.  Livejournal (for those who don’t know), is just another blogging client (although it allows a bit more privacy because it enables you to limit your reader base only to chosen Livejournal members).  Livejournal has a bit of a reputation for being a haven of teenage angst, and it’s probably true that my own blog there began as such.  However, it proved to be the number one way of keeping in touch with high school friends, and with two exceptions, the only people I still keep in touch with from high school are those who also have Livejournals.

 

When we finished high school, my friends and I all dispersed across the country, began separate lives at separate schools.  With time zone differences, class and extracurricular schedules to coordinate, and admittedly a little bit of laziness it was hard to make time for phone calls (infrequency of conversation necessitates long blocks of time to adequately catch up with each other).  But when you write something and just post it online, whoever wants to read it can do so on their own time.  And the comment feature of these sites allows a blog to maintain the dynamic nature of a conversation.

 

 Anyways, the reason this all came up is that the other day, I spent a considerable portion of my afternoon catching up on the blogs various friends of mine are writing.  During college, other than my friends on LJ, I knew very few people who kept blogs, and (for previously mentioned reasons) it always felt like a bit of a geeky thing to do.  But when I graduated college, I started this blog.  And a significant number of my friends followed suit.  And again, I am glad that they have.

 

I kind of wonder if maybe this form of friendship maintenance seems less sincere to the older crowd.  A while back I was discussing the merits of Facebook with a friend who had deactivated her account – I was telling her I like the site much more now that I’ve left school, because it is so easy to keep up with my friends.  I mean really, you don’t even have to talk to them! All it takes is a click of the mouse and you have pictures, gossip, know where they are working, whom they are dating….Which was why she didn’t like the site. She felt like you couldn’t sort out your “true” friends.  And I agree to some degree – I think I would have lost touch with a lot of those high school friends had they not had Livejournals.  And my really close friends, I still talk to them outside of blogs or Facebook.  But also am glad that these types of websites allow me to keep up with people that otherwise would have fallen wayside in my mind.  At least this way, a few years down the road I won’t be wondering whatever happened to Susie Q and regret not having her email address or telephone number.

 

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).