Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Metamorphose 2005


Soon after returning to Japan, I went with a few friends to an insane electronic music festival called Metamorphose in Izu, Japan.

It was held at bicycle race track with three stages set up around the grounds.

The main bands that played were mostly Japanese acts like Hifana, ROVO, DJ Krush, and DJ Ey3, but there were big names from overseas too.

I was most excited about Tortoise and Out Hud, but one of highlights turned out to be driving my friend's Hummer around the parking as we were leaving.


Check out a few photos and video clips of the festival here:
http://homepage.mac.com/heyheygig/PhotoAlbum14.html



Ps. Blogger is not working properly at the moment so this post is a little skewed.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Boracay




Leaving Tagbilarin I hopped on the back of a scooter and sped off to the port to catch a speed boat back to the big city of Cebu.

Daniel had given me several Peace Corps contact numbers of people in Cebu, but I opted to have some quiet time to myself.

After checking into a cheap hotel with air conditioning, I jumped in a taxi bound for SM City Mall to speak with a travel agent about domestic flights to Boracay. I booked a flight from Cebu to Boracay and a flight from Boracay to Manila.

Once all my travel arrangments were taken care of and I could rest easy, I decided to kill some time at the mall's cinema and watch The Island. I figured it would be suiting.

Early the next morning I took another taxi ride to the Cebu airport and boarded a small 30 seater propeller plane for the scenic puddle jump to Caticlan, and then I took a small outrigger boat to the small island of Boracay.


SouthEast Asian Airlines

It could be said that Boracay is the Panama City Beach of the Philippines. Tourism is a bit extreme because of the 9km long strip of white sandy beach lined with great restaurants, bars, dance clubs, and hotels.

I jumped out of the outrigger at Station 2 right in the geographic center of the beach and walked about 10 yards with my backpack on before I was escorted into a small hotel room across from the beach and next to a lively nightclub.

Everything seemed set, so I made my way to the beach just in time to watch the sun set.


Sunset

On the beach many artists were making giant, intricate sand castles. As people would come to admire their work, they'd ask for donations. I asked one artist if he did this everyday, he said yes. I asked him how long he worked on one sand castel, he said about 6 hours.


Sandcastle art

At night the sand castles are primed for viewing by placing candles inside and around the out side. It made for quite a spectacle.


Sandcastle by night

My first full day in Boracay I spent on the beach finishing the book I'd brought with me, Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachlor Pad.

The second day I decided to charter an outrigger, called a bangca, to tour me around the island.


Bangca

The tour itself was nothing special, but I chose to ride on the bow of the bangca for most of the day. It was really beatiful riding underneath parasails, next to sailboats & jetskis, watching people get pulled on banana boats & some contraption called a flyfish that actually got airborn when jumping the wakes.

First, we went to some small caves around the south side of the island called Crystal Cove, and then my guide took me to a nice section of coral to do some snorkeling. Last, we went to a smaller beach on the north side of the island to get a bite to eat, then back to my beach chair.


My foot

That night I walked down near Station 1 to an interesting little bar called Red Pirate. I actually met a guy from Dalton, Georgia named Jonathan who's working in Iraq as a firefighter.

He tried to tell me things there are pretty bad, but not as bad as the media makes it out to be. He said many locals are happy to have the American military there, and we're making progress building schools, hospitals, etc.

For my third day, Jonathon talked me into doing some scuba diving. We went just off the coast to a wreck called Camia. The boat was perfectly level underwater, and was perfect for wreck diving.


Polluted pink sky

That night I went to bed early because I had an early flight back to Manila.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Bohol




The bus from Bontoc to Manila arrived about 4am and parked in the middle of a large medical complex that looked like a college campus. I had to walk in total down pour through the entire complex to get back to the main road.

Luckily, I didn't wait long for a taxi. When I asked the driver to turn on his meter, he immediately went on a tirade about how other drivers try to rob foreigners and they should all use their meters because that's what they're for. He then proceeded to fly down back streets, side streets, and other paths I can't even call streets to get me to the pension in record time.

The following day I just hung around the pension reading and sleeping.

That evening my friend Daniel, also a Peace Corps volunteer, and his parents arrived at the pension. They were celebrating a Jewish holiday, so I didn't speak with them much before they went off to bed, but I did do some catching up Daniel in the courtyard of the pension.

Early the next morning Daniel, his parents Roy and Karen, and his younger sister Rebecca, and I all went to Manila port to board a ferry to Cebu.


Super Ferry

The security checks at the port were a little discomforting. First, we put our bags through an X-ray machine while we walked through a metal detector. Next, we were asked to line up all our bags on the floor, so a police dog could sniff each one.

On the boat, which was an old Japanese cruise liner, I got checked into my cabin only to find my roommates for the ride were a Korean studying English and very eager to practice conversation with me, and a 200lbs bleach blonde lady-boy sleeping in the bunk under me. Frightening.


Daniel

Needless to say, I didn't spend much time in my room. Instead, I spent most of the boat ride wondering around talking to Daniel. Under normal occasions we would've sat in the restaurant to drink a beer, but he and his family were still celebrating a Jewish holiday by fasting all day, so he was unable to intake anything at all.

At one point in the afternoon, we were allowed to visit the bridge of the boat. It was interesting to see all the GPS systems, short wave radios, and all the other gadgets, but we were not allowed to take any pictures.

To cap off the day, Daniel, his dad, and I booked two hours of a private jacuzzi on the deck of the boat. To our surprise the water was not even warm and the jets didn't work. Maybe a little spurt. After 45min of just sitting with our feet in the tub, the water actually starting draining out for reasons unknown.

We arrived in Cebu at 6am, and I was sent off to run down the pier to procure tickets for our next speed boat ride to Bohol. I didn't know how far to go and it was raining pretty hard, so I hoped in a bicycle taxi with a sidecar. By the time I arrived at the ticket booth, Daniel and his family came riding up in the back of a flat bed truck.


Roy, Daniel, & Karen

The speed boat was interesting because the usually show some kind of Hollywood action picture for the duration of the ride, but Daniel and his father gave them a DVD copy of The Corporation and asked them to play it. The screening process was simply, "Is it action movie? No nude? Ok, then."

We arrived in Tagbilaren and took a van taxi to the small island of Panglao where Daniel and his family checked into one of the plushest beach resorts on the island. I walked down the beach and found a more economical room that suited my needs.

That evening one of Daniel's Peace Corps friends named Casey came to visit. He worked on Bohol doing marine conservation.

Daniel's parents invited everyone to come dine at their resort out by the pool. Very classy atmosphere.

The following day we booked a boat to take us out scuba diving. Daniel, Casey, and I went diving, while Daniel's parents and sister went snorkelling around the boat.


The Divers


The Snorkelers

For lunch we went ashore on a very remote island with one small resort. After lunch, we took a walk to visit the local elementary school.

We interrupted one class while they were taking a test, but all the students greeted us with a, "Hello visitors!" They then stood up and went to the blackboard and performed a song and dance routine for us. Very sweet.

That evening we went to a resort down the road a ways where we asked the staff to make a table for us on the beach. We dinned by only the light of the moon and a few candles, and were eventually serenaded by a Filipino mariachi band. Daniel's father took out a harmonica and joined them.


Serenade

To watch, or should I say listen, to Roy's harmonica performance with the mariachi band, please click here: Roy's Harmonica Video

The next day I tagged along with Daniel and his family as we took a taxi to Daniel's place of residence in Alburquerque, Bohol just outside Tagbilaren.

Daniel lives in a nipa hut made of bamboo and palm leaves. There is a local market next to his hut where locals can buy fruit, vegetables, meat, clothes, and a variety of other knick knacks.


Veggies


Bananas

After touring through the market, I had to split to catch my next boat back to the big city of Cebu.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Northern Luzon


"Spirituality to me is water. Religions are like Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, wine, beer, or whatever." -- Carlos Santana


The past week I've been trying unsuccessfully to dodge typhoons in the mountains and terraced rice fields of Northern Luzon. I'm officially waterlogged and ready for some evening coconuts on the beach.

After my flight to the Batanes Islands was cancelled last week, I decided to take my friend Pam up on her offer to visit the mountains. Pam is a truly amazing individual that I met a few months ago when she came to Japan.

She is a graphic designer from San Diego who volunteered with the Peace Corps and is now teaching Environmental Education to high school students here in the Philippines.

We took a bus from Manila to Baguio on the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. We missed the moment of silence, but ironically the in-bus movie was Pearl Harbor . I dunno.

Baguio was an interesting city. Pam took me to a vegetarian restaurant called Oh My, Gulay, which was one of the most bizarre places I've ever eaten. The restaurant is also an artist event space somehow connected with a Filipino filmmaker named Kidlat Tahimik.

Inside the restaurant was the bow of what I assumed to be an old pirate ship with dinning tables on the deck, reconstructed houses; each featuring it's own room for customers to dine, various plants and trees, a few fish ponds, and lots of amazing artwork on the walls.

After eating dinner, while walking back to the hotel, Pam pointed out that the sidewalks were covered in mosaics by the same artists that run the restaurant. Really incredible.

The next day, we took a death defying bus ride from Bagiuo to Besao. The narrow, single lane road, which was paved in some areas and nothing but dirt and rock in other places, wove around the mountains with more twists and turns than an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture. We swerved around corners, other vehicles, and landslides with nothing to keep us from falling over the sharp edge but the drivers unbelievable skill.

In Besao, there were lots of infrastructure problems, but little else. No places to eat, no stores, no taxis, no roads... nothing. Just lots of luscious green mountains, a few ram shackle houses made of galvanised metal sheets, a school, city hall, and a 9pm curfew!

My hat's off to Pam for working in this small, rural community of subsistence farmers, and I wish her the best of luck as she helps the school build a restroom for it's students next week.

I hung out in Besao and listened to Pam's opinions of Filipino people and culture and how they don't work on normal time schedules. To pass the nights we watched a couple really interesting movies called Riding Giants & What the Bleep Do We Know? After a day and a half I hiked in the rain to the next town of Sagada.

Sagada was more tourist friendly with a various rest houses and restaurants. I stayed with another Peace Corps volunteer named Corey.


Corey with a chicken

Corey was a super solid individual that seemed to have McGyver skills for building things. I can't remember what his Peace Corps project was, but he was doing something about making rice husks into charcoal blocks for the locals businesses.

As soon as I arrived in Sagada, Corey recommended I go check out the large cave that draws lots of tourists. I walked up to the Sagada City Hall and booked a private tour with a guide in less than 5min.

The enormous cave was about a 15min walk from the city hall. I have never been in something so large and so absolutely dark. I'm talking BatCave big!

After the entry, the decent into the cave became tricky because there were no stairs and all the rocks were covered in slippery algae. Not to mention the chirping sounds of bats hiding in the shadows above.

Once my lantern guide and I got down into the depths of the cave and passed fossilized seashells, he told me to take off my shoes to go wading through an underground pool. I was shocked to find that we were so deep in the dark that algae can't grow and the rocks became much easier to walk on.

We eventually came to a kind of cross roads where the guide told me I could take a short cut or get very wet by crawling through a small hole in the rock. I was feeling adventurous, so I took the wet way and immediately regretted it when the guide bumped the lantern on the wall of the cave and broke the mantle causing it to go out.

I sat in pitch black night not able to see my own hand in front of my face while the guide tried to re-light the lantern using his sense of feel.

Out of the cave and feeling relieved to be back in the land of light, I returned to meet Corey for a bite to eat.

He took me to a local rest house where we ate Adobo chicken, and soon got invited to drink Tanduay Rum with a a group of three Germans and a Belgian. Next we were joined by a group of eight Aussie steak-head surfers who'd been making a beer pyramid on the table next to us with all their empty San Miguel cans.

The next addition to our cosmopolitan drinking circle was two more Belgians who'd recently finished working for an NGO accompanied by seven Dutch female archaeologists. Quiet the crew, if I do say so myself. We shut the place down and were asked to leave at midnight.

The following day there was an electrical black out all after noon, possible caused by the monsoon rains that continued to fall, which limited the days activities.

In the mid morning, Corey and I were joined by another Peace Corps volunteer named Teresa. She was a super smart MIT graduate with the maturity level of a 16 year old. Super genki, but flighty.

The three of us went out to eat lunch, drank Coke in a bottle, had coffee and cake, and tried to wait out the black out and rain.

As the power came back around 5pm, we were joined by more volunteers. Nancy, who worked in the Mountain Province capitol, Bontoc and Pam who hiked from Besao through the rain to join us for another volunteer named Dan's birthday party.

The party was supposed to be a Pinikpikan party. That means they take a live chicken, beat it with a stick to tenderize the wings, smack it on the head to finally kill it, blow torch it to burn off all the feathers, hack it up in lots of pieces, and finally stew it in boiling water.

Dan's Filipino host family was a group of born-again Christians, so they protested this as a pagan ritual. Alternatively, the chicken was spared the beating, and just lit on fire, cut up, and stewed.

The party itself was odd in that everyone sat silently in a circle around the living room until the food was served. After eating, everyone rapidly left to go sing Videoke, the Filipino knockoff of Japan's karaoke.

The following day Pam, Nancy, and I hoped in a jeepney to go to Bontoc, the provincial capitol. I originally planned to head to Banue to see the famed terraced rice fields, but the rain was still coming down so I opted for a long bus ride back to Manila.

While waiting for my bus to depart, I toured the Bontoc city museum and saw photos of Filipino head-hunters from the turn of the century. One provocative photo showed a hunter holding up another person's face as a trophy. Bizarre.

The bus ride from Bontoc to Manila was uneventful except the for frigid temperatures in the bus. Evidentially, the drivers can't control the air-conditioning inside these buses, so it cranks on HIGH the entire trip. All the local passengers were suited up in parkas and pull overs in the middle of August to guard against the cold.

By the time I got to Manila, I was half frozen and met by more torrential rains.

Friday, August 05, 2005

Manila



"You will never see such a wretched hive of scum and villainy."
- Ben Kenobi



Every adventure has a jumping off point. This time mine was Manila.

I don't like this city. It's the kind of place where whatever can go wrong will go wrong. From the overly crowed, dirty streets with muddy water filled potholes and no sidewalks to the crappy rainy August weather that greeted me when I arrived late Wednesday night.

After waiting about 30min at the baggage claim carousel watching the same pieces of luggage go unclaimed and block up any chance of new luggage from being added to the conveyer belt, I finally got my bags, went outside, and my friend Daniel's younger sister Nicole met me outside the airport.


Nicole

Even something simple like finding a taxi cab became difficult. The late night cabs refused to turn on their meter and asked 2x the normal fair. We eventually settled on the over priced official airport taxi simply because we'd exhausted all other avenues.

Luckily, the pension where Daniel had reserved a room for me was nice and clean with a very friendly staff that offered shelter from the storm.

Thursday, it was overcast and rainy, so Nicole and I decided to go see the re-make of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' at a nearby mega-mall.

Afterwards, we went out to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas with a group of Peace Corps volunteers while a Filipino band blasted Eagles & Whitney Houston cover songs at us with no harmony.

Multiple margaritas later we were joined a drunken Filipino muscle head that was looking for a fight. I started tequila talking with him, and the next thing I knew he's giving me the evil eye and asking me to step outside. His friends quickly escorted him out and nothing else came of it.


Early the next morning after a few hours sleep and feeling the tequila tomorrow sickness, Nicole and I went to the domestic airport to catch a flight to the northern Batanes Islands. We arrived with 10min to spare, rushed through the check-in, quickly bought some doughnuts for the flight, and sat down in the white walled waiting room near a portrait of the Bleeding Heart of Mother Mary only to wait for a half an hour for them to cancel our flight due to wicked weather.

I'm getting out of this city tomorrow. One way or another.