Sunday, June 28, 2015

Feasting on Filipino Food

I've loved being in the Philippines so far and I have definitely enjoyed Manila but so far the thing that's been even better than the the stuff I've seen or done are the filipino people. They are kind, helpful, friendly, often smiling people and even the catcalling seems nicer - instead of "Hey sexy " or "I like the way you walk" I ended up getting "Hi Snow White". When I stayed at the Good Shepherds hostel the staff there were extremely nice and helpful and even the security guard Emmanuel who was stationed at the front of the building was friendly and I spoke with him a few times. I also discovered my first night that seemingly everyone here speaks great English. Since my grasp of the english is mediocre at best I'll even admit some people had better English than me, pretty sad since it's my first language. I actually feel guilty about speaking English here, normally I try and learn some language basics before a trip but since each country I'm visiting speaks a different language and I only had one week of trip preparation I have entered the Philippines as the ignorant tourist who expects others to speak her language.


After 3 nights at the hostel I tried couchsurfing for the first time ever and it's been such a good experience, so much so that I will definitely do it again. Jace was my wonderful host who lived in the West Rembos area of Manila and when I stayed there he had another couchsurfer Sabrina who was staying with him. Jace was so welcoming an easily one of the most generous people I've ever met, it sounds like he was a bit of a rebel kid a few years ago so has some wild stories.  Speaking of wild stories Sabrina, his other couchsurfer has spent the past few years travelling the world working as a journalist for  companies such as Time. She was working on a pretty intense sounding story and I even got to witness her in action. All I can say is anyone who thinks being a journalist is easy should try interviewing a filipino farmer who only speaks a regional dialect, has irregular hours due to Ramadan,  and bad cell service and may or may not even be the right person.

My couchsurfing friends Sabrina and ajace

After spending two days in Manila with Jace we ended up heading south to his family's home in Lipa where his grandfather lived and took care of his 3 wild grandsons while their mother worked in Canada. When I arrived it was such a contrast from Manila and the super touristy scene. Lipa is a small town consisting of mostly locals and the surrounding area is beautiful with forests of palm trees and mountains looming over it. Jace's family was extremely welcoming, when we got there we were first greeted by the beautiful Michelle and I Jace  translated the word maganda (beautiful) from when they were speaking tagalog, I sure hope she was talking about herself and not me because I hadn't showered in two days! Even Jace's little brother who started off shy was eventually asking to play plants vs zombies on my phone and telling me that he is secretly iron man and has 10 mansions. For a little kid he's certainly accomplished a lot! As foe Jace's grandfather,  he is such an incredible sweetheart who may possibly be a saint too after watching the unruly boys. When I entered the house I was immediately offered 3 kinds of desserts by Jace and Michelle and each time a new family member entered the house I was offered more food. Even after finishing heaping plates of food I'm being told to eat more and more. The part that makes their offers so dangerous is that everything seems to have coconut which is near impossible to resist.
Lipa Countryside

In Lipa we mostly hung out, Jace apologized that we didn't get to do the hiking he'd recommended we go there for but I honestly just really enjoyed hanging out there with the family in Lipa. We went jogging one day and saw the surrougnding area, we were invited to join and outdoor cardio class when they saw us walk by  (I would've joined but I'm pretty sure ladies cardio class isn't Jace's style!),  I had homecooked  filipino food breakfast/lunch/dinner there and Jace's grandfather even taught us how to make bbq satay over coals.Our first few were on the crispy side but near the end I was almost pro at it. Sadly I think Jace and I should swith nationalities, he prefers western food and I currently am loving filipino and Asian food. Though if other travelers are to be trusted I'll be sick of rice by the end of this trip. Luckily I'm not there yet. Now I'm off to Baguio for a night so that I should reach the layog Country Farm by Monday afternoon.

Words cannot describe my jealousy of these kids with a mini bike taxi

Jace's little brother helping us out with BBQing

 Things I can cross off the list: Filipino street food (fried hardboiled egg, some panacotta soy dessert in a cup, empanadas), plenty of delicious filipino foods - okay I didn't find the sugared tiny fish too great! Using a crowded jeepney with my pack, learning what a tabo is, wishing I never had learned what a tabo is.

Lessons learned: Cheese candy may not be bad after all. I have a sneaking suspicion the yellow candy I'm falling in love with may be cheese flavoured based on the yellow colouring...

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

My Very First Bribe

Before my trip started I was worried about the fact I would probably not see a gym for months while eating lots of delicious Asian food. After 7+ hours of walking my first day that worry is pretty much gone I spent nearly 3 hours wandering around Makati and back at the hostel when I was ready to melt into a liquified pool of Christelle I heard there was a great AND free  walking tour so I of course signed up and spent nearly 6 hours around Manila with our awesome guide and some cool people from the hostel.

I learned some filipino history, then learned some geography from the islands at riza park, we watched the harbour view over our bucket of beer at a burrito place, tried adobo chicken for the first time and learned that cheese is an ice cream flavour. Then I promptly learned cheese should never be an I've cream flavour. I'm no history buff but I certainly learned a ton on that tour. I can also understand why there are so many catholics here. In WW2 during the bombing of Manila nearly all the building were destroyed and miraculously one church in Intramuros survived, the sight of that probably would have converted some people seeing it Standing among the rubble.  Plus other surviving building was the brewery which probably would've had me believing in some higher powers too!

The infamous cheese popsicle

The church that somehow survived the  1945 Battle of Manila

Later that evening I went out for drinks with two guys from  the hostel and while walking we opened a beer on our way to our next destination. Now I have so far checked with 6 Filipinos who have all said you are allowed to drink on the street, however that night some opportunistic traffic cop saw two white faces and decided to enforce this unknown rule. Ta da first bribe paid. Now let's check that off the list and avoid from having it ever happen again. At least the 500 php is only around $15 CAD....

The following day I messaged someone about couchsurfing and he responded almost immediately so I found myself spending the day with Jace, a fun guy who even has family in Canada and his current couchsurfer Sabrina who has been travelling and writing some pieces (some I've actually read) for 2 years. We hung out around Makati for a bit and ended up at Jace's house in West Rambos where he made us us a great fish dinner. Safe to say I'm looking forwards to officially couchsurfing with him tomorrow.

At the Riza monument

The Makati night market

Things I can check off my list: Paying off my first cop, eating adobo chicken,  riding in a fx taxi (basically an unmarked white panelled van taxi you jump into and share with strangers), and riding a jeepney ( crowded public transit that was built frankenstein style out of jeeps the american soldiers left behind).

Lessons learned: Manila isn't really a city, if anything it is a bunch of smaller cities (Makati, Intramuros, etc) mashed together

Monday, June 22, 2015

From Shepherds to The Good Shepherds Hostel

The flight to Manila took about 29 hours and despite 3 hours worth of delays the trip was decent with no mishaps. I was feeling pretty emotional at the start of the trip, happy and excited for my new adventure, sad to not know when I'll see my family next, and terrified because this type of travel feels so foreign to me (luckily the exciting scary things can lead to the best experiences in life), however there is nothing like 29 hours of transit with 4 airports and 3 planes to beat all the worry out of you and leave only a strong desire to arrive at the final destination.

Green kit kats (yes green) in the Tokyo airport and then Japan Airlines served us a dinner that included sashimi and personal hagen daaz cups.

I plan to finally try couchsurfing however since my flight arrived near midnight I figured it'd be easiest to stay in a hostel my first 2 nights. I was torn between two hostels so I figured I had just left working for the Shepherds in Ottawa, an organization that had been great to me so it seemed like a good sign to start my journey with the hostel named Good Shepherd.

I have almost no words to describe how much I loathe getting airports taxis, if there is a way around it or public transit I'll take it in a second. Sadly Manila but at least I seem to be getting better with the airport taxi situation. It felt like i wandered for ages trying to find the yellow taxis that only had about a 40% chance of ripping me off, instead I keep getting swarmed and get quoted 750php from the first person who kindly offers to lower it to 700php, and 560 from another person. The hostel had told me the price should be 500 so just as I'm about to give up o find the yellow taxi line and get end up with Elmer who was super friendly, great English (I feel guilty not knowing any of the language here yet). The good news is the taxi was 250php, the bad news is I may have promised him that while I'm here I'll try balut, something all filippinos apparently love. Google balut at your own peril.

I arrived in the Good Shepherd neighbourhood and it's safe to say I will always be able to find my way back. I'm in the red light district where the neon lights re so bright you might see us from space. I'm loving the change in scenery from sterile airports and security guards to neon lights and a row of stunningly beautiful ladyboys. The hostel seems to be prerty nice, sadly its fairly quiet here but then again it is 1am on a Monday night. On that note it's time to go fight jetlag.

How this crazy trip began

For years travel has been an obsession of mine where I made sure every single  of hour of vacation time I had was put towards travel. Every trip I'd book a return flight and would have my entire itinerary pre planned and all accommodations already prebooked. I'd get there and since I rarely had much vacation time I was constantly on the go trying to see everything. I can honestly say I loved almost every second of those vacations but I was constantly meeting backpackers who were spending months backpacking across Europe/Southeast Asia/South America at a leisurely pace with no return trip booked and I would instantly become insanely jealous of them. I'd find myself tempted to quit my job and travel like they did, then once I was back home I'd dismiss the idea since it was too impractical. While it sounded nice in theory I couldn't just walk out on my job, I had an apartment that needed a minimum of 2 months notice to end my lease and I had a great relationship and was not willing to do long distance for months at a time.

Well fate, divine power or something must have heard all my excuses and took care of it for me. My boyfriend and I had dated for nearly 5 years and when he went back to school we had decided we would move to southern Ontario to be close to his family (who I adored and saw as my own family) once he graduated. He graduated May 2015 so we gave the 60 days notice to our landlord, I gave 3 months notice to my employer and was able to spend 2 months training my replacement and then on May 29th we moved our stuff into storage - we were planning to stay with his family till we had a place - and immediately after the moving was done he dumped me. In that moment I became single,  jobless and homeless  which meant I had lost all my boring responsible reasons that I should not chuck it all in and go travelling.

I believe in life we are responsible for our own happiness. I got a shitty situation and I could have chosen to focus on all the negative things about my situation  but instead I chose to take the trip of a lifetime. I chose to buy a one way ticket to Manila to start a Southeast Asia trip. I chose happiness!