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.

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.

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.

LightHouse

Now is an exciting time.

A few months ago, a few companions and I brain stormed an idea to publish a FREE, bi-lingual, monthly, underground newspaper to promote independent music, art, and cinema around Nagoya.

The past few weeks we've been hard at work gathering information for various events and trying to sort out the layout for the paper.

This past Tuesday night saw our combined efforts come to fruition at a succesful launch party in Tokuzo with Nagoya's very own Acid Mothers Temple!

We are currently distributing our June issue around town and trying very hard to get a blog with very similar content up and running.

You can download our current text efforts here: June 2005

Feel free to print it out, copy it for friends, burn it, smoke it, or wipe your ass with it. Whatever you fancy.

Also, please check out the blog here: LightHouse

More multimedia content, including audio interviews & music samples, should be coming soon!

Webshots - Images of Oshino Dead Festival 2005

Webshots - Images of Oshino Dead Festival 2005

Please click the link above to see my friend Jason's Webshot photo gallery of the Oshino Dead Festival we went to together over Golden Week (May 3rd - 5th) in Shizuoka Prefecture near Mt. Fuji.

Majestic Circus

Spring

It was a long, hard, cold winter, but the light at the end of the tunnel is finally showing.

CHERRY BLOSSOMS

It all started with the Cherry Blossoms a few weeks ago. The Japanese have a tradition called Hanami, which means flower viewing. Most people here have a picnic underneath the blooming Cherry Blossoms to celebrate the arrival of Spring.

My friends went to Tsurumai Park in Nagoya at 9am to get a prime spot under the Cherry Blossoms. I got there around noon and found them on a tarp in the middle of a walking path because every where else was full.

The weather was absolutely perfect without a cloud in the sky and everyone in the park was drinking. My friends and I were no exception. This was a full on party with food stalls set up all over selling everything from popcorn to fried squid.

Every once in a while the wind would pick up and scatter pink snow all over the crowds and draw a light applause.

Will

As the day went on, with karaoke blasting out of a giant speaker setup from the spot just next to us and the live music sounds of Sushi Caberet, a local group of strum rock extrodinaires, coming from somewhere else in the park, everyone began to feel a little tipsy and started intermingling with everyone else. Amidst all the craziness, my friend Will evidently dressed up like pink bunny.

Cherry Blossoms at night

When night rolled around and the lights came on in the park, lighting up all the trees and providing a kind of dreamy atmosphere, most of the children and families had gone home. It was only the heavy weights and obliterated salary men left. Everyone was three sheets to the wind.

Spiderman & Me

Evidently, Spiderman showed up and gave me a beer. After that, I think I crawled back to my buddy Will's apartment, a couple subway stops away, to get some sleep.

The next day, Will and I got right back in the saddle again. We joined some friends in a remote section of Tsurumai Park for nice quiet, sit down, tempura party.

Group photo

The weather was overcast, but it never rained. It was a great way to come down from the previous days debauchery and hang out with some really cool people.


HEIWA ENGLISH SCHOOL BBQ PARTY

Josh & Mihoko

The following week I hosted a BBQ at my house for all my new students. I'm glad I did it because it created a buzz around town about my newly christened school, but I will never do it again at my house. Ever...

The intial idea was to have a small house party with a few students and a few friends. Then I started promoting the idea to my students, not realizing every single one of them would come... and bring their friends.

Luckily, my friends, who I will be forever indebted to, stepped up and helped me.

I have tried to write about this event in detail, but nothing I say can express my gratitude to the numerous people that helped make this happen. For that reason, I'm just gonna post some pictures taken by my friends.

Calm before the storm

Party Started with about 100 attendees

Line Cooks

There were some initial problems getting the grills fired up, so there was no food ready when the crowd arrived. I was scrambling to get drinks poured, hot dog buns prepared, and everything became a blur when my stress factor reached astronomical proportions and the Locos T-shirt I was wearing became a frame of mind.

My only clear memory of that scene was Cem holding up cooked hot dogs in front of the ravenous kids all chanting "Me, me, me!"

At some point, my buddy Will suggested I get out from behind the drink table to mingle with all my guests.

Now, before the party started, I anticipated the adults would come inside my house to get out of the hot sun, and the children would run around outside, but the reality was completely opposite.

The adults were too nervous and uncomfortable to enter the house, so they took all the chairs outside while the kids ran amok inside my house.

Student

When I walked in my house to check and see what was happening, I saw a three year old baby girl beating on my new computer keyboard like she was Charles Bukowski playing the piano. Next, I spotted a group of 6th grade kids running in and out of my laundry room laughing at my underwear hanging up to dry.

I almost snapped.

Enter Fumio.

Fumio

My friend and guardian angel, Fumio, was nice enough to prepare some games for the kids to play. He brought over a bag of various materials like ping pong balls, balloons, and bingo cards.

We got all the charges outside and off to the side of my house and began playing various games.

Gorilla Team vs. Bob Sapp Team

We divided all the kids into two teams, the Bob Sapp Team and the Gorilla Team. We started by playing Rock-Paper-Scissors games and eventually got into a few different relay races, like carrying ping pong balls with spoons.

Will hanging with the Moms

Bingo Game

The bingo game was a success partially due to the electronic gizmo that choose the numbers to be called out.

Every kid wanted to push the button to choose the next number.

Swarmed

By the end of the bingo game, I was dead tired and ready for a chance to relax.

Bingo Card

This Bingo card sums up the way I felt once all the kids had gone home.

I was all punched out.

Cosmopolitan Hooligans

Once all the kids left, the rock n' rollers showed up to keep the party going late into the night and left an entire landfill outside my front door.

But the hits just kept coming...

Big Frog & Moe

The Bottom Line

Not two days after the big BBQ Party, my friends Big Frog from Tokyo rolled into town on their current tour to play an after party for the American jamband Moe.

Moccos' guitar

Big Frog started their set at the BottomLine around midnight and played until sunrise.

Rob & Moccos

To start their second set they were joined by two members of Moe for a cover of Ween's Voodoo Lady.

Sato, Shimi, & Al

After a couple hours sleep, I woke up and drove five hours with friends Jason, Tyler, and two girls that Tyler knew.

We dropped the girls off in the middle of Shibuya crossing and met our good friend Mark, who lives only a few minuets away from the mass craziness.

We all went to see Moe play in the new Liquid Room in Yebisu, and afterward came back to Mark's house to get some much needed rest.

Jason & Mark

After a good night's sleep and a pleasant afternoon throwing the frisbee in Yoyogi Park, also short walk away from Mark's new house, we said goodbye to him and drove to Yokohama for more Big Frog & Moe.

More Moe

Big Frog joins Moe

Big Frog & Moe

Big Frog opened for Moe, playing a short 45 minuet set, but they were also invited onstage for a rollicking version of the Blue Oyster Cult's Godzilla.

Moccos & Al

Oh no, there goes Tokyo...

Godzilla

It was the perfect way to end an amazing two weeks.

Hybrid Car Sales Soar in U.S. in 2004

Yahoo! News - Hybrid Car Sales Soar in U.S. in 2004

DETROIT - The lure of the Toyota Prius and other hybrid cars helped drive healthy sales of electric and alternative-powered vehicles last year, according to new data that shows the hybrid market has grown by 960 percent since 2000.

New hybrid vehicle registrations totaled 83,153 in 2004, an 81 percent increase over the year before, according to data released Monday by R.L. Polk & Co., a Southfield-based firm that collects and interprets automotive data.

Even though hybrids still represent less than 1 percent of the 17 million new vehicles sold in 2004, major automakers are planning to introduce about a dozen new hybrids during the next three years.

One small step...

My English school officially got underway on Tuesday.

Not much else to report at this time, except that all the gears are now moving, and the horizon seems to be clear.

Peace Town now has an English School.

Japan's Expo of Contradictions

Asia Times Online :: Japan News and Japanese Business and Economy

NAGOYA - Two green plant-like cartoon creatures of Japan's long-lost natural woodlands, Kiccoro, the "Forest Child", and Morizo, the "Forest Grandfather" - cute and ubiquitous official mascots - are overrunning the 2005 World Exhibition, known as Expo 2005, dedicated to "Nature's Wisdom". That wisdom, however, has been thwarted and perverted with concrete coastlines, cemented riverbeds, concrete and ironclad hillsides and man-planted commercial forests that afflict many Japanese with tearful pollen allergies. They - perhaps as many as a third of the population - could be weeping for Japan.