This evening I strolled downstairs to the hotel lounge by myself before work. And this is the Shangri-La so instead of imagining a smokey room with show tunes, imagine an expansive room with comfy elegant chairs, candles, 3 story high windows with a view of the garden, and an ever present ensemble of musicians on the balcony up above. Speakng of music the piano is currently rocking a masterful rendition of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. I'm tempted to chime in after having sang it at Kareoke this weekend, "I'm just a little silohetto of a man, skadamusche skadamusche when you do the vandango, thunder bolts and lightning, very very frightening to meeeeee, tooo meeeee!"
There isn't much in terms of food or drink that you couldn't ascertain here in the lounge. Anyway, the waitress shows me to my seat and asks in a serious voice, would you like to try a liter of Vodka. All other points aside a seemingly odd question considering I asked for a table of one. Regardless a prime opportunity for a witty joke. So I say, "I wish, but I have to go to work in an hour". Nothing. Not a smirk, smile, raised eyebrow. Just an expressionless, "what the fuck are you talking about." In fact she kind of stood there waiting for an actual yes or no. She thought that meant I was pondering the idea of blacking out before heading in to the office.
Make no mistake, this is not a language barrier. She like everyone else at the Shangri-La speak fluent English. In fact most of the Filipinos I come in contact with speak fluent English. But there is just some disconnect. Here in the Philippines I am not witty, I am not funny, I am just a guy who makes odd comments that nobody understands.
Example number two. For the first time I got an extremely talkative masseusse. She was grilling me with a variety of questions. Somehow we got on the topic of movies. She could reel of the name of every blockbuster and the corresponding actors and actresses in each film. The key term in that last sentence is 'Blockbuster'. She asked me what movies I liked, so I said that I enjoy Indie films. Her response, "what's an Indie Film". My initial thoughts are no problem I can explain this. I tried a variety of angles and avenues, "well it's a film that is just more artsy than the movies you get here (blank stare)....um so it's a film that has better dialogue amongst the actors (blank stare)...each avenue was very much blocked. There is not a doubt in my mind that had I spent another hour on this topic, she would still have no idea what I was talking about. And this is someone who for all intensive purposes is fluent in English.
These little defeats definitely wear on me throughout the day. Not the end of the world of course. Just frustrating.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Anddddddddddd I'm Back
As you woke to your morning coffee last Saturday Carrie and I were strolling down the white sandy beach, full moon illuminating this crisp night in Puerta Galera. With our ever present swimsuits on underneath our clothing we decided to slip into the water for a little night swimming. As Michael Stipe of REM so eloquently states, “night swimming, deserves a quiet night”. And I don’t think it ever gets any quieter than a Sunday night in this relatively quaint beach community 2 hours (bus and boat) outside of Manila. 
I kid you not when I say the water was maybe a few degrees warmer than the pool at the Shangri-La hotel back in Manila. Maybe even more impressive to me was that it was nearly as clear. With the full moon I could easily make out the color of Carrie’s red swimsuit from ten feet away. Making it all the more breathtaking, an isolated thunder storm hovered patiently over a distant island. Horizontal and vertical lightning strikes so long they stretched the height and width of my vision.
Still glossy eyed from a few moonlit kisses we trudged from the ocean. Funny thing though, I no longer had any pants. While disappointing it was not so sad until I realized the pants also held my brand new camera as well as the only hotel key. Not something you want to encounter at 1 in the morning. While nice, this hotel was no Shangri-La, you couldn’t just approach the front desk for a new copy. In fact there was nothing remotely close to a front desk. The open air restaurant served as front desk, housekeeping, concierge, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Everyone had long been asleep. As I stood in sandy hotel courtyard facing the beach pondering my course of action, it began to rain. Hopefully the rain destroyed the camera now in the clenched fists of the Filipino thief. That was my first thought at least. Next thought was that it’s time to start knocking on doors. I had no idea where anyone of authority slept in these cabanas. So I knocked on the nearest door I could find. A young man answered.
He had no idea as to Fred the managers whereabouts but was a long term guest with his phone #, so he graciously offered to text message him. During the text his lover, a young man of equal age, emerged from the bathroom once he realized it was an American and he was safe.
After an hour and a half I located the door of another long term guest in dredlocks. I figured that this would be my solution, and it was. He knew where the employee on hand would be sleeping and yelled to him from an open window. So at least we got back into the room from the rain. Gone are a collection of pictures that rank among the best I’ve yet to take. Gone, the picture of Laila and the rest of her transsexual bartenders performing with much pride their dance routine just for Carrie and I.
Gone, the picture of the local 7-year old boy who climbed onto the side of the boat in his swimsuit and snorkel mask, staring at me as I stared at him through my camera lense. Gone, the pictures of Coco Beach, Sabaang, and White Beach taken from the boat surrounded by dark blue water, with a backdrop of lush green mountains. Now they only exist in the memories of myself, Carrie and the memory card headed to the black market.
It was this incident that has delayed my blogging.
As previously mentioned these pics were the best yet, and I had even in my head elegantly scripted the 
first 2 paragraphs of the blog. The disappointment at being unable to share the adventure with you all sent me into hiding. I’m back and I now have an airtight grip on the new camera.
On Carrie’s second to last day we
headed down to the University of Philippines to walk around. I had been there previously to play Ultimate Frisbee but
didn’t get much of a view of the expansive campus. We walked around for several hours through this jungle campus and still didn’t come close to
covering the entire grounds. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
On Carrie’s final day we finally got up the motivation for the San Miguel challenge.
I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the beer selection here in the Philippines. There is quite an array so prepare yourself, San Miguel Light, San Miguel Ice, San Miguel Pale, San Miguel Dry and San Miguel Red Horse. {Catching my breath}. Portland’s one hundred micro-brews pales in comparison to this massive beer list. 
So we bought four varieties which you can see lined up on the bar in my room. Beer was poured into each of four glasses, the contestant then tastes each of the beers, stating which variety they think it is. Contestants were allowed to try each type more than once. Sadly I must come clean that Carrie took me down in this competition. She correctly guessed two of the four and myself one of four. 
Our overall poor performance can be attributed to one of two things, either our poor beer tasting or minimal difference between the beers. Considering I could without hesitation taste and name all six of the McMennamins brewery beers back home I have my opinion. But I’ll let you decide that for yourself.
With my poor track record pertaining
to cameras Carrie and I decided it best we not take it out for her last night on the town. 
We had no crazy plans as her flight left in the morning. 
But again given my track record and dwindling bank account we left it at home. 
It’s going to be strange not having a traveling and eating partner for the duration of my trip. 
On the bright side with nobody to talk to I’ll inevitably take out that frustration on my keyboard in the form of blogging. 
My new camera is bigger and badder than the rest. The Cannon Powershot A630, 8.0 Mega-Pixels (aka good). 
It also has a viewer screen that pops out and can turn around. So even without Carrie to take pictures of me while I travel I will be able to adeptly take them of myself. I leave you with a variety of pictures from the hotel pool and my room at Carrie’s request.
I kid you not when I say the water was maybe a few degrees warmer than the pool at the Shangri-La hotel back in Manila. Maybe even more impressive to me was that it was nearly as clear. With the full moon I could easily make out the color of Carrie’s red swimsuit from ten feet away. Making it all the more breathtaking, an isolated thunder storm hovered patiently over a distant island. Horizontal and vertical lightning strikes so long they stretched the height and width of my vision. Still glossy eyed from a few moonlit kisses we trudged from the ocean. Funny thing though, I no longer had any pants. While disappointing it was not so sad until I realized the pants also held my brand new camera as well as the only hotel key. Not something you want to encounter at 1 in the morning. While nice, this hotel was no Shangri-La, you couldn’t just approach the front desk for a new copy. In fact there was nothing remotely close to a front desk. The open air restaurant served as front desk, housekeeping, concierge, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Everyone had long been asleep. As I stood in sandy hotel courtyard facing the beach pondering my course of action, it began to rain. Hopefully the rain destroyed the camera now in the clenched fists of the Filipino thief. That was my first thought at least. Next thought was that it’s time to start knocking on doors. I had no idea where anyone of authority slept in these cabanas. So I knocked on the nearest door I could find. A young man answered.
He had no idea as to Fred the managers whereabouts but was a long term guest with his phone #, so he graciously offered to text message him. During the text his lover, a young man of equal age, emerged from the bathroom once he realized it was an American and he was safe. After an hour and a half I located the door of another long term guest in dredlocks. I figured that this would be my solution, and it was. He knew where the employee on hand would be sleeping and yelled to him from an open window. So at least we got back into the room from the rain. Gone are a collection of pictures that rank among the best I’ve yet to take. Gone, the picture of Laila and the rest of her transsexual bartenders performing with much pride their dance routine just for Carrie and I.
Gone, the picture of the local 7-year old boy who climbed onto the side of the boat in his swimsuit and snorkel mask, staring at me as I stared at him through my camera lense. Gone, the pictures of Coco Beach, Sabaang, and White Beach taken from the boat surrounded by dark blue water, with a backdrop of lush green mountains. Now they only exist in the memories of myself, Carrie and the memory card headed to the black market. It was this incident that has delayed my blogging.
As previously mentioned these pics were the best yet, and I had even in my head elegantly scripted the 
first 2 paragraphs of the blog. The disappointment at being unable to share the adventure with you all sent me into hiding. I’m back and I now have an airtight grip on the new camera. 
On Carrie’s second to last day we
headed down to the University of Philippines to walk around. I had been there previously to play Ultimate Frisbee but
didn’t get much of a view of the expansive campus. We walked around for several hours through this jungle campus and still didn’t come close to
covering the entire grounds. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
On Carrie’s final day we finally got up the motivation for the San Miguel challenge.
I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the beer selection here in the Philippines. There is quite an array so prepare yourself, San Miguel Light, San Miguel Ice, San Miguel Pale, San Miguel Dry and San Miguel Red Horse. {Catching my breath}. Portland’s one hundred micro-brews pales in comparison to this massive beer list. 
So we bought four varieties which you can see lined up on the bar in my room. Beer was poured into each of four glasses, the contestant then tastes each of the beers, stating which variety they think it is. Contestants were allowed to try each type more than once. Sadly I must come clean that Carrie took me down in this competition. She correctly guessed two of the four and myself one of four. 
Our overall poor performance can be attributed to one of two things, either our poor beer tasting or minimal difference between the beers. Considering I could without hesitation taste and name all six of the McMennamins brewery beers back home I have my opinion. But I’ll let you decide that for yourself. With my poor track record pertaining
to cameras Carrie and I decided it best we not take it out for her last night on the town. 
We had no crazy plans as her flight left in the morning. 
But again given my track record and dwindling bank account we left it at home. 
It’s going to be strange not having a traveling and eating partner for the duration of my trip. 
On the bright side with nobody to talk to I’ll inevitably take out that frustration on my keyboard in the form of blogging. 
My new camera is bigger and badder than the rest. The Cannon Powershot A630, 8.0 Mega-Pixels (aka good). 
It also has a viewer screen that pops out and can turn around. So even without Carrie to take pictures of me while I travel I will be able to adeptly take them of myself. I leave you with a variety of pictures from the hotel pool and my room at Carrie’s request.
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Splendor of Boracay
From the moment I arrived in the Philippines I kept hearing over and over and over, "have you been to Boracay yet?" And now I know why they were so inquisitive. Boracay is even better than I could have imagined it. It was how I wish Hawaii was. 
Rather than book something advance, essentially meaning it would have to be a resort big and corporate enough to have a web presence, I took my friend Trevor's advice and decided to wing it. Instead of a $100 over the top resort Carrie and I found an amazing bungalo right in the heart of the town. For $40/night we had A/C, hot water, a very nice room in the best of locations. One step out the door of the room and our feet were already being caressed by the warm white sand. A mere ten feet away sat the open air hotel bar, filled with interesting characters from all over the world.
From our seat at the bar we could hear the waves crashing. That's because they were only about another 15 feet away from us. As serene and relaxing as it gets. San Miguel beers were just shy of a $1/beer. But given the tropical locale I had no choice but to stick to my Mango Daquiri's. They cut the mangos fresh for each and every drink. And I'm not saying in the morning. I'm saying you order, they grab three whole mangos, then slice them right there before blending with ice and rum. Delish. The fish was of course fresh and fantastic. Sadly our time was short as I needed to get back to work the following day.
So the trip consisted mainly of relaxing, drinking mango daquiris and walking along the beach. I imagine anyone reading this will shed a tear, and believe me it's much appreciated.
Given that Boracay is just a 35 minute flight and $125 round trip, this will not be our last meeting. Which is good because I didn't get to snorkel and I dropped my camera in the ocean right before heading back to the airport. Doh!
Fetching a new camera has been much more difficult than I had expected. Unlike everything else here in the Philippines, electronics are the same price, if not more. Unless of course you locate some sort of black market. Which I intend to do and already have a few leads as to where I need to go.
In the meantime enjoy the only pictures I have left. And hopefully I'll have the means to share more with you very soon.
Rather than book something advance, essentially meaning it would have to be a resort big and corporate enough to have a web presence, I took my friend Trevor's advice and decided to wing it. Instead of a $100 over the top resort Carrie and I found an amazing bungalo right in the heart of the town. For $40/night we had A/C, hot water, a very nice room in the best of locations. One step out the door of the room and our feet were already being caressed by the warm white sand. A mere ten feet away sat the open air hotel bar, filled with interesting characters from all over the world.
From our seat at the bar we could hear the waves crashing. That's because they were only about another 15 feet away from us. As serene and relaxing as it gets. San Miguel beers were just shy of a $1/beer. But given the tropical locale I had no choice but to stick to my Mango Daquiri's. They cut the mangos fresh for each and every drink. And I'm not saying in the morning. I'm saying you order, they grab three whole mangos, then slice them right there before blending with ice and rum. Delish. The fish was of course fresh and fantastic. Sadly our time was short as I needed to get back to work the following day.
So the trip consisted mainly of relaxing, drinking mango daquiris and walking along the beach. I imagine anyone reading this will shed a tear, and believe me it's much appreciated.
Given that Boracay is just a 35 minute flight and $125 round trip, this will not be our last meeting. Which is good because I didn't get to snorkel and I dropped my camera in the ocean right before heading back to the airport. Doh!
Fetching a new camera has been much more difficult than I had expected. Unlike everything else here in the Philippines, electronics are the same price, if not more. Unless of course you locate some sort of black market. Which I intend to do and already have a few leads as to where I need to go.
In the meantime enjoy the only pictures I have left. And hopefully I'll have the means to share more with you very soon.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Erik versus the VolcanoI'm frantically writing this blog from the hotel lobby on my work laptop which is a PC. And for some reason it's giving me one heck of a time. But anyway yeah I've been to heaven and back this weekend. Carrie and I went to Lake Taal in Tagatay, just 1 1/2 - 2 hours from Manila.
Last week I made a positive connection with my cab driver on the way back from Ultimate Frisbee at the Univ of Philippines. His name was Bert, he wears long black gloves and has a lot of spunk. He said to call him if I ever wanted a ride out of town. So I did. For the equivalentof $40 each way we had our own personal driver. For just a bit more we could have setup a driver from the Shangri-La in a nice air conditioned sedan, but what's the fun in that? There's a lot more excitement in a beat up old taxi with a wiley cab driver who grew up just a short distance from Tagatay.
The one picture sans-people is the view from the Taal Vista Hotel. Obscenely gorgeous. The lake is actually a crater created the last time this highly active volcano bursted it's top. And the island is actually another volcano. In fact I'm told it is truly the smallest volcano on the planet. Carrie's horse guide informed her that it is teetering on a level so volatile that if it gets even slightly worse, they will be forced to evacuate the island.
Some other high points would be my first ever ride in a little motorcycle buggy. I've avoided them in Manila due to the insanity of traffic and the availability of cheap taxis. But in Tagatay there were no taxis and the traffic wasn't so bad. So we went for it. Then we went for it again, and again. That was it. Three times the charm.
The picture of the cabana is our table for dinner at Leslie's, it hangs out over the ledge to the lake. When we saw it earlier in the day I knew we needed to dine there, so we made the reservation. There are a few pictures of us sitting at the table. I can say all around the best dinner of my life. Garlic mushrooms, creamy scallops, local tawhili fish (which you can see Carrie eating live), prawns and tuna and an unparalleled view.
Finally before heading back to Manila on Monday we took a boat ride over to the island. Totally to our surprise they mounted us on a pair of trusty steeds shortly after we hit the shore. At the top we had a birds eye view of yet another lake within the main crater, viewable on this page. The water has an unmistakeable sulfuric odor. With a squint you can even make out some of the smoke in the picutres. If not check out the larger more detailed versions at http://picasaweb.google.com/sstarlinus/LakeTaalTheAngryVolcano
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