2.20.12 - from tagaytay to pasay

Breakfast at the hotel this morning had an eerie, but comfortable quality to it. This being Monday morning, all the tourists that had been here for the weekend took off yesterday afternoon and evening. Though I had felt at times over the past three days like I was the only guest (with families leaving early and returning late to get the most out of the the tourist attractions in the area), this morning I would find it to be true.

A heavy fog rolled off the lake and covered the surrounding mountains, contributing to the eerie feeling of waking up in a hotel as the only guest. There was something a little Shining-esque about the fog, being the only guest, and being invited to stay on, "as long as you like sir, there is no one else here". The lone waiter at the restaurant, after getting to know my eating (and coffee-drinking) habits over the days, left me with a full coffee pitcher to refill as I pleased. Saving himself the minimum 4, maybe 5, return trips to the table. I delighted in the luxury and nursed the pitcher down over the next hour. Eventually I gathered my things and waited out front for the bus to Pasay, which is a neighboring area of Manila and near the airport. The plan would be to stay over a night in Pasay and head for the airport the next day for my flight back to Honolulu.

From a window seat in the back of the bus I had a nice view (through the soft haze of water-stained windows) of the towns along the way. It made for a good opportunity to snap the last pictures of the trip.

foggy morning in tagaytay

tree as seen through the bus window

joshamae canteen

jeeps in Walter Mart parking lot

Walter Mart

 

2.19.12 - day 11 - tagaytay cont.

Things have stabalized in the last two days. I'm getting sufficient rest, and have gotten into the routine of walking down the Nusugbu highway toward town making photographs along the way. Strange looks abound. I am the lone walker. I feel a bit like David Carradine from Kung Fu, walking from town to town getting in adventures. Thankfully, mine don't involve hand-to-hand combat.

Yesterday was uneventful and didn't warrant a log entry. Today I visited the local zoo. It's not very large but I was impressed to find a couple lions, and a half dozen tigers. I generally find zoos depressing, so I didn't stick around for long. From there I continued on with my walk. Today being Sunday there were large families everywhere brunching or lunching. My solitude seemed especially alarming to people today. At the zoo, several lunch places (it took me a while to decide on one), and a coffee spot, I was greeted, "How many sir?" I would respond, "One." Startled as if I just demanded all the money from the register each respective greeter responded, "Just ONE sir?" "Yep, just one." And upon being seated I would recieve multiple glances and a few lenthy stares, each one I imagined carrying the question, "Just ONE sir?" That's right. It didn't bother me at all though. Neil explained that on top of obviously being a foreigner, the fact that I am traveling alone is probably the source of the stares thrown my way. Now, throw in family day, and one of these things is DEFINITELY not like the other. I find it more interesting than anything, and I get the feeling "alone time" is not a common request among families on the Philippines. Tomorrow I head back up to Manila. I am uncertain of internet connections at the next hotel, so this may be the last entry until I get back to Hawaii on Tuesday.

birds

crocodile

lions

tiny gorilla and giant gorilla

bus stop tag

tide

2.17.12 - day 9 - tagaytay and picnic grove

7 hours of sleep! I couldn't believe it when I woke up. I'd gone to bed every night thinking, "tonight is the night I'm going to sleep," and it actually happened. I attribute that to a couple major shifts in the trip. One, leaving Manila (I think that town combined with my jet lag was too much of a shock to my system), and two, being here on the outskirts of Tagaytay, breathing fresh cool mountain air. I started out with a bottomless cup of coffee here at the hotel. Since being in the Philippines my coffee regiment has greatly been impacted going from about 48 fl. ounces of decaf a day in the states to a single cup of regular a day here at the most (they don't have decaf). A few days I have not had it at all. So I couldn't help but to see the potential for metaphor in the waiter's refilling of my cup. Sweet ambrosia! After Neil and I enjoyed our breakfast at the hotel he packed up his things and had to make his way back to Manila. I may or may not see him again before I leave, but I have a strong feeling our paths will cross again some day.

I made my way to town to get a little lunch before heading to Picnic Grove/People's Park which is one of the tourist attractions of the town. In addition to offering horseback riding and ziplining, they also offer some nice views of the lake and volcano (supposedly the "best", but later in the day I would find that not to be true). For lunch, I was dropped by the bus in the middle of town, surrounded by about 7 fast-food chain options (they really like their fast-food here, have I mentioned that yet?), and I had a feeling this day would come at some point on this trip where I would look up, see the golden arches, and say, "YES, quarter pounder w/ cheese, here I come." I could feel the memories of craving McDonald's from my childhood and teen years coming back to me. It was about 200 yards away and as I was walking closer my mouth started salivating. I passed all the other restaurants on the way and with each one I thought, "glad I don't have to eat there today." It's not necessarily a taste thing or a quality thing, because we are talking about fast-food afterall. What I was excited about was a quantity thing. I was hungry. Quite hungry. Not starving, but quite hungry, and one thing I've struggled with in ordering from the Filipino places is that the portions are deceivingly small regardless of how HUGE that chicken leg looks on the picture. Not that McDonald's doesn't have the same misleading photographs of food, but I know a quarter-pounder fills a good portion of my belly and I know Ronald is committed to maintaining worldwide standards. So I would surely leave feeling full. Finally it was a gas station away, I rounded the corner to the parking lot and much to my dismay, I saw the great big "COMING SOON!" sign. Wha...? Now I was faced with having the strange feeling of being upset that a McDonald's wasn't open. Weird feeling. And one I haven't had to visit since I was a teenager, driving around at 3 in the morning after a concert or something sitting in the drive-thru for about a full minute before realizing the arches were turned off.

After I settled on a place (Jollibee - the Philippines version of McDonald's but different enough that it's...just...different) I got some food then headed for Picnic Grove (aka People's Park). I walked around there for a bit photographing. It does have a pretty nice view of the lake and the volcano. After I walked around there for about an hour photographing I went back into town, and from there I would begin a slow exploratory journey back to the hotel. I decided I wanted to walk a good portion of it to take in the environment at a slower pace. Maybe I might find something I wouldn't see from the jeep or bus, and I wanted to stop at a roadside fruitstand as well. Not twenty yards down the road from the town circle where I was dropped off from the Picnic Grove jeep, I was greeted with the reward for this decision to walk. A coffee house with a balcony overlooking the lake! I'd passed it four times already since being here, but it had gone unnoticed. Two cups of coffee in one day. No complaints.

Tagaytay town circle

Taal lake (Volcano to the right) as seen from Picnic Grove

Lone horse at Picnic Grove

Tree trunk in side walk

Flowers at roadside stand (mommysnap)

Roadside alter

2.16.12 - day 8 - tagaytay and taal lake

Neil came by and met me at my hotel early so that we could begin our trek to Tagaytay south of Manila by only an hour if it were a straight shot. However, town-to-town travel here is rarely a straight shot unless you hire a car which is relatively expensive compared to taking a bus or a van. We started out taking a taxi to the bus terminal, but since no busses go directly to Tagaytay there is 15 passenger van service. The way this works is, you sit in the van until 15 people come by and all want to go to the same place. This can take a long time. We sat in the van for about an hour and a half before we decided to take a more active, but roundabout way. After an hour and a half there were only five people in the van. So we took a bus for an hour, then took a jeep for about another hour (packed like sardines), then took a tricycle for about twenty minutes and then took a jeep for about another forty minutes to the hotel. Finally we arrived in Tagaytay, one of the small towns that is near Taal Lake, which contains an active volcano in the middle of it. Tagaytay is significantly higher than Manila and is much cooler and less humid as a result, with much cleaner air. All welcome changes. By the time Neil and I arrived I was starving (Neil handles his hunger much better than I do), so we grabbed a bite at the hotel restaurant including a libation to take the edge off and proceeded back to town (the hotel is a bit down the road) where we found a tricycle driver willing to take us down the winding road to the shore of the lake. The tricycle is a low powered motorcycle with a side car welded onto it that seats one luxuriously or two very uncomfortably. It was worth the trip though getting down to the shore and seeing the volcano from lake level. After that it was back to the hotel for the night. Hopefully, being out in the sticks along with the exhausting day of travel will cure my insomnia (last night's 4 hours was my best night of sleep so far).

View of Taal Lake from the hotel balcony

View of Taal Volcano (to the right) from the shore

Sweet boat name (Bon's lost brother)

Tricycles similar to the one that took us to the lake shore

2.15.12 - day 7 - corregidor island

Today I departed early for the ferry to Corregidor Island that sits at the mouth of Manila Bay. The ferry ride was about an hour, but I feel the captain was a little timid on that gas pedal. I got to the ferry a little early, but it was a treat because there was a Starbucks near and I was able to get a halfway decent cup of coffee. One thing I haven't had much of since being here. So on the trip out they played a couple of short documentary films about the historical significance of the island. During Spanish times, we were told, a prison was housed there. It was called Isla del Corregidor, meaning Island of the Correction. I did read something online that said the island was used by the Spanish to inspect incoming ships carrying goods on to Manila and they checked all the documentation at Corregidor. It was called Corregidor because everything was checked and if something was amiss it was "corrected", but that's a lame story. The prison story is more interesting, but it was probably both. Regardless, the movies and the tourguide spent almost no time talking about how the island was used by Spain. The focus was primarily on WWII. Corregidor is where the U.S.-Filipino Military set up their stronghold because of its strategic positioning at the mouth of Manila Bay. It is also very rocky and mountainous and the height of the heavy weaponry had a significant advantage over ships at sea level, launching 1000 pound shells a distance of up to 8 miles. The island was significant to Japan's conquest of the Pacific Ocean. The day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor they unleashed an air strike on Corregidor, forcing General McArthur to retreat to Australia in 1942. His famous words (in big letters on his statue there) were, "I shall return." And he did so in 1944 when the U.S. was able to coordinate a large enough attack launched from Australia, taking back Corregidor. McArthur is a hero in the Philippines. Now, what sits on the island are the ruins of all the old army barracks and large artillery. It's definitely one of the better tourist experiences in the Manila area, and a glimpse into a significant phase in both U.S. military history and WWII history that I don't remember being taught in school (my history classes tended to glance over Americas imperialist ventures). In addition to the beauty of the time-worn barracks the experience, the day also offered some interesting people watching opportunities.

Relief map

Barracks

No climbing on the guns

Climbing on the guns

untitled

Tablet-ography

Cinema

Cinema before

View from old Spanish lighthouse

Collapsed bunker

Battery Crockett (couldn't find battery Tubbs)

Japanese memorial

Mile-long barracks (not actually a mile long)

Malinta tunnel (a network of inner mountain tunnels that stored the majority of ammunitions)

2.14.12 - day 6 - valentine's day

Jet lag continues. Though now I feel inclined to call it full blown insomnia since it has been six days of this and each night I've kept myself up until I absolutely can't keep my eyes open any longer. Still, two straight hours to start, followed by three to four hours of tossing and turning. It's a bummer, but I made up my mind it wasn't going to get in my way. I had a lunch meeting today in Makati City, and a visit to the Philippines Women's University where my friend that took me around on "day 3" is the dean of the School of Fine Arts. She wanted to show me around the school.

Makati City itself is not very photogenic. It's where the financial district of Manila is and feels pretty sterile walking around. I did manage to make a couple snaps. I went to the Yuchengco Museum to kill time before my lunch meeting. It was largely uneventful. The exhibition I wanted to see had officially closed three weeks ago, but it was still open and partially up, though no videos were playing (which was a large part of the show) and some of the artists works had been taken down, but not all. I guess I was just lucky to see what I saw since it wasn't technically open.

After my meetings I headed back to Intramuros as to sun was setting to make some pictures I failed to make the other day and was kicking myself for. That experience made the whole day worth while.

Bronze sculpture of important Filipino historical figures outside the Yuchengco Museum, Makati City

Tree, Makati City

Tree kickstand, Makati City

Fairway #4 outside Intramuros (That's right. There's a golf course that surrounds the walled city.)

Smoking Area inside Intramuros (Smoking is pretty common here, you can get a pack for less than a buck and it seems everyone on the streets are smoking, but inside Intramuros smokers are relegated to about 16 sqare feet.)

Couple under red umbrella

Fallen tree given birth to many smaller trees, Intramuros courtyard

2.13.12 - day 5 - out of Manila

Today I was picked up by at my hotel by a great young man named Neil whom I was connected with through a friend. To give you an idea of what kind of a person Neil is, when he heard I was coming to the Philippines he offered to take me around without ever speaking to me, emailing with me or really knowing anything about me. Furthermore, how Neil came to find out I was coming was when he was working tech support for Epson, and my friend had called in because of a printer problem in May last year. They got to talking and it came up that Neil was in the Philippines, and my friend explained that I would be going there some time (I hadn't purchased my ticket yet). I contacted him when I got here, and he touched base with me several times a day in my first four days making sure that I was doing alright, knowing that this can be a tough place for someone to be exploring alone. How great is that?

Once he came and got me the first thing we did was get out of Manila. He took me up to the town he is from called Malolos City in the Province of Bulacan, where the First Philippine Republic was established in 1898. It's about an hour north of Manila and a very quiet small town. A welcomed change of pace. He showed me around the towns historical sites, took me to meet his Mother (it was on the way to where we were headed), and cooked us lunch, after taking me to the town market to get the required supplies. He also helped me get comfortable with hopping on and off the Jeepney's and the general etiquette that goes along with it. After our day he got me back on the bus to Manila and I managed to make my way back to the hotel safe and sound...and wet. Today started what the forcast says to be a week of scattered thunder showers. Well, at least they're scattered and not torrential.

First glimpses of countryside (photographed through a mucky bus window, not raning...yet)

Neil, savior of the day

Grotto in parking lot

Me in front of Barasoain Church connected to the building that housed the First Philippine Republic (photographed by Neil)

Filipino Market

Car wash along the way to Malolos City (also through the hazy window)

2.12.12 - day 4 - rest

It seems jet lag has gotten the better of me. I haven't slept more than two consecutive hours and no more than four hours in the first three nights that I've been here. In addition to the complete opposite (from the U.S. east coast) time change, the local diet has also had its effects on my inability to sleep. Today I decided (my body actually decided for me) was going to be a rest day. It is the Sabbath afterall. Even though sleeping during the day isn't going to help me adjust to the time change, my body was begging for some kind, any kind, of peaceful rest. I left the hotel twice today, once for breakfast, and once to go grocery shopping for lunch and dinner. The rest of today has been spent reading and sleeping. I'm happy to say I feel much better than I did when the day began. I did manage to snap one picture on my way to the market just to keep the visual diary going.

2.11.12 - day 3

Today I visited the Ayala Museum in Makati City (an area of Metro Manila) to view the exhibit, Philippine Ancestral Gold. It is a collection of over a thousand pieces of gold in the forms of ornaments, containers, implements and ritual sculptures dating back to the tenth century A.D. and used as inter-island trade before contact with the western world. Also at the museum is a history of the Philippines in small diorama form. Who doesn't like a diorama? Afterwards I got lost walking around the shopping mall connected to the museum. The outdoor food court is where the giant cross (pictured below) is located. The presence of Catholicism is very strong here.

Before that I visited with a friend who took me to the Folk Arts Center where a 4-day printmaking workshop had just been concluded and was introduced to several artists there. The center sits on Manila Bay, the birthplace of American Imperialism in 1898, and also where the U.S. embassy sits today. It was a very educational day.

2.10.12 - day 2 - a centenial of sorts

A couple weeks ago my aunt reminded me that if my grandfather were still alive, today would be his 100th birthday. I spent today walking around Rizal Park in Manila. I visited the People's Museum of the Philippines, saw the large scale relief map of the Philippines, monuments to Lapu-Lapu (credited with killing Ferdinand Magellan), Jose Rizal (and many other that fought Spanish forces) and did a little walking around the Intramuros (walled city which was the extent of Manila during Spanish rule and is now a tourist trap for suckers like me).

Statue of Lapu-Lapu

Jose Rizal Monument

View from inside the Intramuros. Original canons still in place.

Relief map of the Philippines in Rizal Park

Jeepneys

Shrine to Mary outside gas station bathroom.

2.9.12- day 1 - arrival in Manila

First sight of the Philippines after 10+ hours in the air coming from Honolulu.

I landed safely around 6pm (5am on the U.S. east coast) and got to the hotel with no problems at all. Traffic is pretty intense. Busses, taxis, motorcycles, and jeepney's (10-15 passenger jeep/van hybrids for mass transit) weave in and out of each others paths with a very natural flow. The sound of beeping horns is a constant, but hostility is seemingly absent. It's a feeling of, "we're all in this together, so let's just get on with it." At the hotel I gladly accepted the complimentary libation offered to all new guests then retired for the night. Very tired.

2.6.12- preparation

Essentials laid out for packing. Including, but not limited to; reading material (Mutant Message from Down Under, Cloud Atlas, and Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, and Twisted Head), 2 digital cameras (one not pictured being used to make the above snap), 2 corresponding battery chargers, and 2 USB cables, 1 old cell phone and corresponding charger for use with prepaid Philippines SIM card, Tarot card deck, 1 pen, 2 mechanical pencils, 1 notepad/sketchbook, 1 talisman for safety and good fortune, 1 razor with replacement blades, 1 aux cable to connect ipod to car stereo, misc. maps of Manila and surrounding area, 1 manual cable release, ipod, headphones, 1 white bandana, business cards, passport, face wash, vitamin B, Tylenol, malaria pills, misc. sedatives for 23 airplane hours and corresponding jet lag, dental floss, tooth paste, toothbrush, cliff bars, gum, dehydrated mango slices, luggage lock, voice recorder, Rolleiflex twin-lens camera, lightmeter, deep yellow filter, pocket tripod, small traveling tripod, film (24 rolls B+W, 18 rolls color), chinese herbs for tummy troubles, inflatable travel pillow.