Manila 2011

I had a lot of fun in the Philippines not too long ago. The first night we stopped at the Mall of Asia and had some good food at the food court next to the ice rink inside the mall. It was good food but we still had a few hours of sunlight to explore so we did. Curious how the Mall of Asia compared to the Mall of America not far from my family home, my friend and I walked as much of the mall as we wanted to. There we saw a few play areas for children, the ice rink I saw before, and the bowling alley as well as the cinema and a lot of stores. I’m not sure which mall is larger although I do believe the Mall of Asia may win in size. However, the Mall of Asia is two stories long and spread over two or three blocks while the Mall of America is four floors tall.

The next day we went outside Manila to an abandoned naval base turned into a thrill area for people who love heights. There we did what they called a Superman ride where got strapped in tightly then sent across on a zip line for a few seconds and back again stretched out like Superman, or with your legs out on the bar and your hands tightly clenching the bar under your armpits, like I was. Quite exciting but really a short ride when it was over. Next we went on a ride where my friend and I stood on a few pieces of metal facing each other strapped on and sent across more zip line. That one was really fun because any little movement had a strong reaction to the metal that supported us. The next and last ride we went on was a freefall. Basically they strap you in to a tension line, you step out into the air about three floors out and can go head first, sitting, or Mission Impossible style. Then they release the tension and you freefall until they tighten the tension again about ten feet above the ground to slow you to a soft landing. Yeah, it was scary but fun and over really quick. It seems unsafe but all the people there that day landed safely although pretty shaken. Unfortunately I can’t post pictures of my fall because I only got video of it and even that was half missed by the amateur photographer that was nice enough to film it on my camera. I’ll try to post the video but no promises. Next we went on a hike through the trees and saw their version of poison ivy, the vines strong enough for humans to climb or swing on, and trees with roots up to my waist. We also had a lecture session on how to survive in the jungle including how to get water out of bamboo shoots, how to make fire from bamboo (no stones used), and how to make a spork jungle style.

For lunch we stopped at a lovely place overlooking a lake and ordered some good food. I ordered a soup but one of my companions ordered broiled squid and actually was served two small but whole squid. After a lovely meal we went shopping before getting on the bus to go back to Manila. Along the way our pit stop was called the Shell of Asia, which I found amusing as we had stopped at the Mall of Asia the day before.

The next day we again went to the Mall of Asia for lunch and found that the children’s bouncy playgrounds had been taken down and there was a martial arts competition in its place. After a few hours of shopping at the mall we got in a cab and went to a bar called the Hobbit House. The novelty of the Hobbit House, besides its selection of over two hundred international beers and the Lord of the Rings décor, is that all the servers are legal midgets. It was rather amusing to me because my companion was acting like they had met a celebrity just by being in the bar. Well, the peach flavored beer I had and the cherry flavored beer both of which were labeled from Belgium, may have added to the silliness of the night. The food there wasn’t bad although it wasn’t the typical version (my spaghetti had bbq sauce on it instead of marinara sauce) and it was a fun night.

All that said I had fun in the Philippines and can’t wait to go back. Well, until next time, have a nice life and check out my pictures on Facebook.

My thoughts on Manila

What do I think of Manila? It is definitely dirtier than the US or Japan, it looks a lot more gritty with more littering. Also there are a number of people who were really thin, especially in the inner city. However, my idea or a poor country was obviously created by those “sponsor a kid” commercials I used to see on television. Seeing a kid in the neighborhood H4H set up walking around with an IPod and hearing a number of radios in that community surprised me, as did the fact that all the people who got houses in the community were expected to pay back the $3000 dollars it took to build the houses in three years. Granted, that’s still really cheap and easily done in a few months by most families in the US, but it changed my view of a “poor” country some. I’m glad the kids there all have clothes to wear and food to eat, mostly (there was a comment made that some people can only afford one meal a day in some places in the Philippines). It just changed my view of a poor country from a super-poor country to a moderately poor country. That whole “dollar a day” thing wouldn’t have been much good for the kids of the community we worked in, though maybe in more rural communities. Oh well, I guess that’s why we travel to these countries: to see what life really is like instead of believing what the television tells us.
I apologize if these posts weren’t as interesting as usual. The days I was out I would much rather have been sleeping so I didn’t get to excited or adventurist while out. I guess I would recommend visiting Manila as long as you have a friend that can get you around safely and ignore the litter on the streets and the poor architecture lining most streets of family shops and homes. The city is designed for tourism and there are many interesting shops and amusements around the city.
That's all for this trip so this is Li'l B signing off and wishing you all a lovely week.

My last day in Manila

The second full day started much the same as the first with me not willing to get out of bed. However, I had set up a tour for the day, the second one I’d been on since getting on this ship, and couldn’t stay in bed. We met on the pier about 8:30 am and got in a truck, three people from the ship and me. The tour guide said it was too early for the museums to be open so had we eaten breakfast? We all had so we stopped at Starbuck’s for a snack and then went to an ATM. After that one of the girls wanted to see the Church of San Augustine so that was next. Apparently the church is one of three Basque churches in the Philippines and is on an endangered church list because the neighborhood can no longer maintain it. Most of the church, minus the sanctuary of course, is now a museum of Catholic history in the Philippines. It was interesting, although I’m not Catholic so I thought there was too much of it and the paintings were obviously not done by Western painters. However, the ceiling of the sanctuary was amazing. I took a few pictures to put up later but the ceiling looks like it’s intricately carved. The amazing part is that it is pure painting and shading to give that impression. Well done paint job. The next place we went was Fort Santiago. It was once the entrance point of the Walled City, or their old capital. At one point the capital was a large walled triangle with Fort Santiago as the seaside point. Now the area is a number of buildings in various states of disrepair. I took pictures but it was hot and I chose to sit in the shade rather than explore too much. After the fort we crossed the street to a store that sold native crafts and jewelry. Apparently pearls are very common here and rather inexpensive. After the store we got back in the truck and went to the Oceanarium for lunch and a trip through the aquarium. I had a spaghetti with chicken on top but the sauce was a native green thing, kind of spicy but not really hot and watermelon juice (hm, heaven). It was a good meal although maybe I should have gotten an appetizer like my companions. After that was the trip through the exhibits which were cool. I was starting to tire and after being at the aquarium under Mall of America and the aquarium at Monterey, this one wasn’t amazing, although the shark tank was cool.
Our last stop was the Mall of Asia. The type of stores were similar to Mall of America, as in designer names and more expensive than usual, but it was nice. The mall has a theater with about six or seven screens, an ice rink about the size of one at a park back home, and an open air center for concerts of such. I was there during a competition for martial arts involving sticks and only the one person, not an opponent. Interesting but not in my mood and with my lack of knowledge. One thing I should mention is that at least a fourth of the mall is outdoors. I ate at a popular fast food place called Chowking which served a mix of Chinese food and Filipino food. I had a mix plate that was rather good. When we were dropped off the tour guide gave us a balut to try and the others opted out so I got to try one. A balut is a chicken or duck egg fertilized and let to grow for a few days before being boiled. Luckily my egg hadn’t formed the fetus yet but the white stuff was definitely harder than the usual egg. Um, yeah, not trying that again.
That's all for today, come back tomorrow for my impressions of Manila. Until then: this is Li'l B signing off and wishing you all a lovely day.

First full day in Manila

One of the first things I should mention when starting this day was one of the first things my friends told me: traffic rules in the Philippines are mere suggestions. People merge left and right with no signals, they make lanes wherever there’s room, despite the street markings, and motorcycles and what they call tricycles travel between cars as if they are always seen, darting here and darting there. Because of this the coordinators decided we needed protection so the two buses, one for our group and one for a group of Filipinos, were sandwiched between a squad car in front and a SWAT car in back as well as a few cars from the Embassy since they had set it up. On the way I took a number of pictures of the poor conditions: the shacks the people live in, a pile if trash that almost looks like the recycle bin somewhere, people on bikes, people in jeepayes, some pictures of their tricycles, an interesting picture of a billboard for corned tuna… I’ll put those up soon as we hit home port again. Jeepayes are cars that lo k kinda like pickups but have a cover with open sides and benches inside. They seem to serve as the main city buses here, traveling a specified route but without marked stops anywhere. Thy see, to be privately owned as each one is decorated differently though many are merely “decorated” with brand names and advertisements. The tricycles are pedal bikes or motor bikes connected to a seat with a cover that rolled next to it. The tricycles seem to be the poor man’s taxis as there are actual car taxis around too.
I guess the project is actually a community H4H has basically built from the squatters up to actual cement homes. Apparently landowners get annoyed at squatters (people who live and work the land but don’t pay rents or such) when the land is doing bad and they need more land so they kick the squatters off. The H4H group in Manila got a large donation of land from a church and decided to build a community for those squatters. By the time we got there, over a hundred houses had been built in over twenty years by H4H and other houses had probably been built by the inhabitants. It was a nice community even if it was really poor. Most of the houses were one story and maybe ten by ten or fifteen by fifteen for an entire family. The project we were to work on was the daycare/preschool for the community. Some of the guys worked on shoveling rocks into the mixer while others passed the buckets of cement up to the second floor to lay it out and the rest of us painted black metal pieces red. It was an interesting morning. Did you know Tagalog is the main language of Manila (behind English) but that it’s not quite the main native language? If I understood the guy right, each province has its own dialect that is basically a different language. I hadn’t known that. Anyways, they brought lunch for us all and it was donated by McDonalds, the main pizza place in the area, and KFC as well as we were given samples of strawberry Oreos. (for the record, the Oreos were not disgusting. The strawberry filling was rather tasty and the cookie was the regular Oreo cookie, but they were not good mixed.) The food was delicious but I had been hoping for local cuisine. Oh well, it was what it was. Unfortunately I had two cups of soda. I had meant to only have one but didn’t want to be rude a decline another. Yeah, hot day, burning sun, and I always have trouble getting enough water. The soda was not a good idea. When I went back to painting it was to dizziness every time I straightened up. Luckily I only had two more pieces to paint to we got o sit down (the painters) and watch while the community kids finished a game. Then the other painters joined a game until it started raining and we dashed to the community center to avoid the downpour. Fortunately for the community the rain held off until a few minutes after the cement layers had finished so everything that was supposed to get done that day got done.
We ran for the community center as the guy in charge from our ship had a plaque to give the community members. Yeah, big group, small area, everyone talking over the pelting rain on the metal roof, people trying to get my email and while away the time talking. Forcing smiles gets really annoying after a while. Eventually I realized the bus was open and a few people were already in there so I made a dash. Hmm, silence, or at least order. Not long after that we headed out and made it back in time for me to get chow, do some work, and do my laundry.
Well, that's all for the second day so I'll sign out now and wish you all a lovely day until tomorrow.

My first night in the Phillipines

Okay, first day out:
Actually it was the night. We pulled in and the week had been stressful and the day chaotic. I had planned a night to rest and reboot. Instead my friend decided she wanted to go out and asked me. In all honesty, I just wanted to sleep, I was really dragging. However, I said yes and we went to a mall called Glorietta Mall. It turned out to be five separate buildings in one area. Section one was the cheapest, it had the movie theater and fast food places as well as the cheaper boutiques and the Asian version of Snyders. There I picked up three different packs of American candy (Gobstoppers, Pixie Sticks, and Runts) that should last me a while. They are excellent ways to stay awake, much like chewing gum but my jaws complain when I chew too much gum. We also found a store called Tickles that was just a random collage of useful or amusing things. My friend bought a lighter that looks like a light bulb (and glows too) as well as a lighter nearly six inches tall. I picked up a screwdriver with seven different tips and looked at a case with a fork, a spoon, and chopsticks you twist together so four pieces make two. It was an interesting store. We travelled through all but one of the buildings and wound up having Bubba Gump for supper. I know I’ve complained about going overseas and eating American food but when we saw Bubba Gump on the menu we didn’t really look at anything else. Sometimes good old American food just hits the spot. However, if you want food from every nationality to choose from, go to Glorietta mall. I saw a lot of Italian places, a number of local chains, and Bubba Gump was next to a “modern Filipino” restaurant and across from an Arabic/Persian/Indian place. Quite a lot for diversity. However, we were barely done with supper about 7 pm when I apologized but told her I was done for the night. I needed to get to bed so I could get up regular time to work on the Habitat for Humanity project I had signed up for the next day. We wound up waiting for the bus for about a half hour in which it was raining. The thing about many of these island countries is that it rains without warning and rains hard. We were lucky that the hotel behind the bus stop had a covered entrance so we stood there. We still didn’t get back until about 8:30 and then decided to take a quick look through the venders set up on the pier for us. Neither of us planned to buy anything. However, she got a house in a bottle and I bought a mother of pearl heart pendant and a large amber pendant for about twenty dollars together. Not a bad deal.
Well, that was my first experience in Manila, Philippines and this is me signing off and wishing you all a lovely night.