The Kenniverse is Pinoy

Nathaniel's 4th Month

2009-11-11T10:42:00.002+08:00

Okay okay okay... I know I haven't been writing any blogs lately. Fatherhood seems to be really sucking my time away from other things in life like ... oh ... blog writing. But, we're now on the fourth month of Nathaniel's wonderful life and although I can't say things are getting any easier, I will say they are getting more familiar to handle. I'm confident, within time, I'll be back on the blog writing scene. But for now, please enjoy this fourth month photo of Nathaniel!

Happy 4th Monthiversary Little Buddy!

My Pinoy Shop

2009-09-15T15:16:00.011+08:00

Apparently I have a chain of gift shops here in the Philippines. I'm honored the Philippine people love me so much to open these Ken-branded gift shops but don't they know my name is trademarked? Well, I suppose I'll let this pass. No need to call in the lawyers especially considering they left out the extra N (IE: Kenn).

There's a fleet of taxi cabs here called KenKen.

Like the Ken Gift Express I think these taxis are swimming in dangerous legal waters. In both cases if either of these businesses were to slap on that additional N I'd sue their pants off. I don't want money, I just think that if you're naming a business after me you should represent me in some way. The best way to do this? I think adding a life-sized cardboard cutout of me in front of each store or in the passenger seat of every taxi should suffice. It's all about fairness!

If you look at the top right of this blog you will see a photo of a jeepney called the Kenspanker. I think, legally, I should own that too. My sales pitch would be, 'free spanking with every ride.'. Now, wouldn't that be something for the tourists to talk to their friends and family about! 'Those Filipinos are really friendly, I got a free spanking from some white Canadian guy!'

Two Monthiversary

2009-09-12T18:26:00.001+08:00

Nathaniel turned two months old on September 5th! To celebrate this amazing day he rewarded us with one of his first smiles!

Happy second monthiversary 'Lil Buddy!

Baby's First...

2009-07-22T21:33:00.002+08:00

Baby's first Starbucks? I guess Aimee and I are brainwashing him early about corporate greed. Drink your frappé my son, it's more nutritious than breast milk!

Obsession

2009-07-22T11:13:00.001+08:00

I seem to have developed a minor obsession. No, it’s nothing that requires counselling or treatment. I’m not a danger to myself or the people around me; It’s not an addiction, just an innocent obsession. My obsession occurred the moment I put socks onto my newborn’s feet for the first time. I am obsessed with baby socks. It’s an interesting obsession considering I never think twice about adult socks. I find them rather boring. I own black ones and I own white ones. Nothing fancy, nothing interesting, just plain ordinary everyday socks. Baby socks on the other hand go well beyond the world of ordinary. Baby socks are, well to put it simply: cool. They come in a range of awesome designs and colours. My son Nathaniel is only two weeks old and he already owns a better socks collection than what I’ve acquired during the last five years. I think I might be slightly jealous of the little guy and it makes me wonder why we live in a world where adults are forced to wear bland black socks to business meetings. Even casual Fridays in offices only allow us a certain amount of flexibility when it comes to our sock choices. The closest thing I could have to having cool socks like my son is to wear one of his socks on each of my toes. It’s not the same as owning cool adult baby socks but I suppose it’s close enough. Anyway, enough with this rant, here’s some photos of my son’s wild socks!

My son is cute and cuddly. I’m being objective here. His outfit says so therefore it’s a fact. Never question the written word, that’s what I always say, Even if the said written word is printed on a baby’s onesie (baby bodysuit). You can see here his awesome socks with a happy sheep motif printed on top. If this isn’t enough to make you feel jealous the next socks will drive you crazy…

Imagine going to a job interview wearing these monkey-inspired socks. I bet you could royally screw up the interview and still get the job. Giant multinational corporations love employees with good hygiene, good fashion sense, and hip monkey socks.

Ever wake up in the morning and find yourself really confused about whether you should be wearing socks, shoes or both? Funky Feet has solved this daily dilemma for babies by created an ingenious ‘sock’ that’s part sock, part shoe, and all fabulous. My son is a touch too small to fit into these sock-shoes at the moment but I can tell every time he’s crying that he’s not wanting a diaper change, a feeding, or a cuddle, what he really wants are these socks. I can’t blame you son, I want a pair of these socks too!

Fresh From the Womb

2009-07-17T11:26:00.001+08:00

Welcome to our big, bright and exciting world Nathaniel! Our charming little boy was born here in Manila on July 5th, 2009 @ 16:15 in the afternoon. He entered the world screaming (as most babies do) but seemed quite happy to be free on the confines of his tiny bachelor apartment womb.

The question people always tend to ask is, ‘who does he look like?’. An odd question I think considering a freshly born baby looks exactly like that, a freshly born baby. Nathaniel was wrinkled, pale white, and covered in an unappetising gloop. His inhumanly huge testicles were a surreal neon blue colour (which thankfully turned a normal red soon after birth). He has lots of hair even though the gloop made him look like a Greaser from that movie Grease. Speaking of movies, when you watch movies or television commercials and they show newborn babies THEY ARE LYING. Newborns aren’t that pretty. But you know, honestly, and objectively, Nathaniel from the first minute I saw him is, and always will be, the sweetest and most beautiful baby in the world.

Welcome to our lives my little prince. I’m very excited to see what adventures our future holds together

I’m posting two pictures here: straight after birth, and his first close up.

So, who does he look like??

The Nursery

2009-06-27T14:38:00.001+08:00

Yeah yeah yeah, I know lately this blog has become less about the Kenniverse being Pinoy and more about our future son’s approaching birth but I promise you this blog is forever dedicated to the wacky world of the Philippines. Just think of the baby blogs as a pleasing commercial break between the regular scheduled Pinoy programming. This blog today is no different: a pleasing commercial break about our baby’s nursery. The nursery is 100% up and running! All we need now – something that’s pretty darn important for a nursery – is a baby! Aimee is officially full term so the baby can come at any second. Maybe … even … NOW! Nope, not then, false alarm … but soon I promise you. While you’re waiting for the birth of our first child ever, please enjoy the world premier broadcast of his nursery:

Our son’s toybox! If you look closely you will see Quatchi, one of the mascots of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. I’m trying to bombard my son with as many Canadian influences as possible. You won’t see this from these photos but there are two small Canadian flags in his room as well as a moose wearing a Canadian hockey jersey. Whether I’m bombarding him with Canadian stereotypes or not is unimportant, all that matters is that he’s fully aware of Canada’s existence. I’m still debating if Canada’s Nation Anthem, ‘O Canada’ will be repeated constantly in the room. It would probably drive me nuts after a while so probably not.

My son’s brave and gallant steed: the Bugaboo Cameleon! A beast of a stroller that could put most Ford 4x4 trucks to shame. What you see here in the bassinette attachment. It also comes with a seat attachment for when the kid gets older. This stroller is becoming a family tradition since my niece also uses one. Maybe when my son is old enough him and his cousin can race them!

A kid-friendly bean bag cube. I’m sure it has thousands of uses but sitting on, kicking around, throwing, and pooping on are the only things that come to mind. My son officially owns it now so he can do whatever he wishes with it. If he’s anything like Daddy he will probably just end up secretly selling it off on eBay.

The lamp is from Italy. The weird lizard on the left and the hot air ballooned animals on the right are from Ikea. It must be the German blood in me that’s subconsciously brainwashing him with European products. Since he’s also part Chinese, Aimee and I really need to throw more Chinese-related products into the nursery… Oh, wait a minute… I bet most or all of this stuff was made in China anyhow … okay, moving on…

Hat rack. It came with the set. An odd thing to add to a nursery. Do babies wear enough hats to justify owning a hat rack? Currently we’re using it for hanging the odd piece of clothing. Since I took the pictures I also took the liberty of displaying the ‘Daddy Loves Me’ shirt in the front. Because, well, it’s true: I love my little poop machine. I can’t wait for him to come out!

Buck & Co. was a comic strip I was developing about 15 years ago about a group of British Columbian forest creatures who run a dam building business in the forest. Although I stopped drawing these guys when I got into the film and video industry they’re still close to my heart. I thought it would be a nice touch to add them to the nursery. From the left to right let me introduce Ricardo, Babberwally, Jacque (yes, he’s a French Canadian squirrel) and Buckley, the beaver who owns and operates the dam building business. You can’t get anymore Canadian than a beaver living in British Columbia can you?

Cute dog on the left, laundry hamper for diaper stink fun on the right.

Various shots of his crib and Quatchi making another appearance(Damn Quatchi always stealing the limelight).

Bowling pin animals. I … er, ugh, I mean our son can’t wait to play with these.

So there you have it: our son’s room! Hip, happening, awesome and fun! Aimee and I can’t wait for him to arrive and share our world. The countdown continues…

Happy Father’s Day

2009-06-22T12:39:00.001+08:00

There are many Fathers in the world!

There’s my dad, then there’s Aimee’s dad. The dads don’t stop there though, there’s several other dads in our collective families as well as many of our friends are dads. Those dads are all fine and dandy but there’s one important addition to the world of dads: Mainly, ME!

I’ve never been on the receiving end of the Father’s Day celebrations. I’ve always given the love but never gotten the love. I couldn’t complain back then because, quite simply, I wasn’t a dad. Only dads get treated like kings on Father’s Day. But as of today, and every other day in the upcoming future I too, am worthy of the Daddy Day party! I have a son. Sure, he’s not born yet but in his tiny little womb condo he’s currently designing me an awesome little Father’s Day card. I can see he’s a optimistic thinker because he always paints the sky blue and draws happy faces on the clouds. I’m not quite sure how he managed to get crayons into the womb but I think it’s better if we don’t ask. Thank you for the card son (he requested I don’t post it here. He’s still embarrassed by his artistic abilities. He’s overly modest, just like his Daddy). Your daddy loves you and is looking forward to meeting you for the first time.

Here’s the latest ultrasound. Our son at 37 weeks!

Messy Birthday

2009-06-02T15:13:00.005+08:00

I sit here on June 1st, 2009 celebrating my 38th year on this wild and crazy planet Earth. Yes, today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...and how does this great land of the Philippines help me celebrate this wonderful day? By giving me food poisoning no less. Why, of all days, do I have to get food poisoning on my birthday? I don't really ask for much on birthdays. I don't expect gifts but when gifts do happen I prefer them to be pleasurable and not something that keeps me sitting on a toilet all night. A nice happy gift, is that too much to ask?

Dear sweet and compassionate Philippines, why do you treat me so badly? We used to be such great friends but what happened in our friendship? Is it something I said? Is it something I did? Is it something I ate... well, yeah, it's definitely something I ate; perhaps sashimi is the most likely villain here but who knows, I ate in three different places that day.

Thankfully, I'm feeling a little bit better now but we shall see what evils the Philippines has in store for me next birthday ... dropping a coconut on my head is a likely possibility. Or maybe a salamander will bite me. Those little creatures are constantly hanging off walls secretly spying on me. I don't trust them, nor the coconuts! I'm watching you coconuts, YOU HEAR ME!! BEWARE!

(hmmm, I appear to be getting a touch insane in my old age...)

Guangzhou Safety

2009-05-28T16:00:00.001+08:00

Subway safety is an important matter to think about and the subway system in Guangzhou, China is no different. It’s pretty common to find the subway systems of the world plastering warning and rules signs all over the place telling you what is and what is not allowed. The sign below from Guangzhou is pretty firm with its rules:

NO SMOKING

NO POISONOUS OR FLAMMABLE LIQUIDS.

NO PETS…

NO BALLOON…

…

???

Huh? And it’s not just any balloons, it’s apparently Mickey Mouse balloons that are the real dangerous threat! How is it possible that something as pure, happy, and exciting as a balloon can get such a bad reputation? How did this happen? I know from my own experience I’ve always had an issue with balloon animals but it’s not the balloons that were the issue but the clown mutating those poor balloons that frightened me. Maybe this is Guangzhou’s reasoning: if you keep the balloons away then you keep the creepy clowns away. Clowns are frightening; there is something unnatural about anyone forcing you to be happy. Keep those freaky clowns off the subway, that’s what I say! Well done Guangzhou!

God Books

2009-05-18T21:38:00.006+08:00

What I love about traveling to other countries are those small little differences that you may not notice unless you pay close attention. A good example of this is concerning books about religion. Most hotel rooms I've stayed in only have one religion book: the Christian bible. Our first hotel room in Japan, on the other hand, had not only the New Testament bible but also The Teaching of Buddha.

So many bedtime reading choices!

After debating which one I should read I opted to read a science fiction novel. Sorry God, no offence, but I really like robots!

Little Boy Spooky

2009-05-18T17:24:00.001+08:00

Aimee has been getting ultrasounds once every month and each of these never seem to produce a picture that actually looks like a baby. Sure, you may see an arm here, a leg there, the top of the head, but collectively, never a whole complete image of our baby. The ultrasound image below is no different; it's still bits and pieces of our baby but at least it's the most complete, and clear, image we've have of our baby's face so far.

You can see his head, face and his hand/arm raising beside his cheek. It's really hard to get a true sense of what he's actually going to look like with this image but it's still really awesome to see nonetheless. I see he's inherited my fat baby cheeks. If you think my cheeks at pronounced now you should have seen me as a baby.

Ultrasounds are pretty spooky aren't they? I've read enough science fiction to automatically think of images of babies floating in cloning tanks with I see this picture. Ignoring my creepy imagination I guess you could say he really is floating in a cloning tank. Instead of a tank there's a womb, and instead of being a copy of either Aimee and I he's a beautiful potpourri of both our DNA.

As the time gets closer (two more months!) I can't believe how excited I am about the whole thing. I mean, obviously I'm excited but I'm so excited I want him out now! Waiting two more months to see his little face seems like an eternity away. I'm sure Aimee can add a slightly different viewpoint of the 'waiting time' since she's the one currently carrying the baby and not me.

His nursery is coming together nicely. The crib is built as well as other secondary furniture. The crib set came with a hat rack which still confuses me even now. Do babies actually own enough hats and justify owning a hat rack? I assume we can hang other clothing off of it if he ends up lacking in the hat department. Maybe it can become a diaper rack? I'm designing artwork for the room. I figure with my graphic arts experience - something I've stopped developing sadly - I'm sure I can paint something a baby will appreciate. He is, after all, my biggest fan/critic. Once the nursery is 100% together Aimee and I will post pictures here on the blog.

Time is a ticking ... I'm totally psyched!

Where’s Johnnie?

2009-05-15T15:35:00.003+08:00

The Walk In Kyoto, Talk In English tour been privately operated since 1996 by Mr. Hajime Hirooka, better known as Johnnie Hillwalker. He is considered one of the best tour guides in Japan, with 48 years of tour guide experience. His walk has been acclaimed worldwide as one of the most unique tours in the world. With all this positive publicity surrounding the Johnnie Hillwalker tour, Aimee and I thought taking one his tours would be the best way to start our holiday in Kyoto, Japan. Once we arrived at the meeting place we knew we were in the correct location when we saw a horde of non-Japanese people standing around looking confused. Johnnie showed up and the tour began:

If you’re thinking, ‘Wow, Johnnie looks pretty young for someone with 48 years of touring experience. What’s his secret?’ Well, the secret is simply this: this man isn’t Johnnie. We arrived on the day, the only day, that Johnnie decided to take a day off. Talk about bad timing. I mean, Johnnie has been doing this particular tour for 13 years and of all the days he decided to take off it happens to be the day, the only day, that Aimee and I are able to take the tour. Talk about the unfairness of life! After I got used to the idea of taking a Johnnie Hillwalker tour with a non-Johnnie I found the tour to be quite interesting and educational.

The tour visits:

Higashi-Honganji, the biggest Buddhist temple.

3 Shinto shrines, Ayako Tenman-gu, Ichihime shrine and Toyokuni shrine.

Shinto shrines are places of worship and the dwellings of the kami, the Shinto gods. Sacred objects of worship that represent the kami are stored in the innermost chamber of the shrine where they cannot be seen by anybody.

People visit shrines in order to pay respect to the kami or to pray for good fortune. New born babies are traditionally brought to a shrine a few days after birth, and many couples hold their wedding ceremonies there.

The purification trough is found near the entrance, the water of these fountains is used for purification (I assume you guessed that already given the name…). You are supposed to clean your hands and mouth before approaching the main hall.

Shrine visitors write their wishes on these wooden plates and then leave them at the shrine in the hope that their wishes come true. Most people wish for good health, success in business, passing entrance exams, love or wealth.

Different shrines offer ‘good fortune’ for different things in life. This particular shrine specialized in good luck charms for school kids who want to do well in their classes. If you spend 500 yen on one of these good luck charms you’re guaranteed to ace your final exams in school – well, at least that’s the theory. Aimee and I bought two good luck charms: one for the safe delivery of our baby, and another for the long and happy life for our baby. We don’t necessarily believe in good luck charms but it can’t hurt right?

Johnnie, the real Johnnie and not our replacement Johnnie, donated money to this shrine so he was given a lantern out front in his honor.

We also visited a former geisha area, Gojo rakuen which Replacement Johnnie told us, in a whisper, is now a prostitution area. REAL geisha’s still exist in Japan. Aimee and I saw a few but they’re incredibly difficult to take a picture of. Ever since that movie/book Memoirs of a Geisha Japan has had an increase of foreigners camping outside geisha houses trying to get a photograph. Because of this, all geisha now have bodyguards and personal chauffeurs who quickly pick them up and race them away before any pictures can be taken. There was even an article in the local newspaper pleading foreigners to leave the geisha alone. Man, it really makes me hate those damn tourists … but, of course, I became one those annoying tourists when I saw my first geisha. I pulled out my camera but she was super fast. She zipped passed me using her magical geisha powers and I missed out on getting a shot of her. Anyway, enough about geisha.

We visited graveyards in Renkoji and Chokodo Temples. Those long slender boards you see in the photos are, in a way, a guestbook signing of who visited the grave and when they came. Many of these boards were old suggesting no one has visited most of the graves recently. Monks visits the graveyards almost everyday but they don’t leave the boards.

The tour was good because it took us into areas normal guide books never tell you about. We went to four workshops in private homes and along back alleys where such things as Buddhist prayer beads, paper fans, tofu, paper lanterns, rope decorations, green tea containers, Japanese pastries and pottery are made.

We spent ten minutes watching these two make paper fans by hand.

It was a great tour and an awesome way to start off our Kyoto holiday. I often wonder though how different an actual Johnnie Hillwalker tour would have been. Replacement Johnnie was great but you’re always left wondering what you missed right? Below are some additional pictures I took during the tour:

The Golden Pavilion

2009-05-11T11:40:00.001+08:00

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, formally known as Rokuon-ji, is the most popular tourist attraction in Kyoto. The pavilion was originally built as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu in the late 14th century, and converted into a temple by his son. However, the pavilion was burnt down in 1950, by a young monk who had become obsessed with it.

Although all of the buildings on the temple’s site have been reconstructed, the garden remains as it was in former days and can be enjoyed as it was hundreds of years ago.

Rokuon-ji Temple was inscribed as World Cultural Heritage in 1994.

Ryoanji Temple

2009-05-04T17:05:00.001+08:00

Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto, Japan is famous for its Zen garden, which is considered to be one of the most notable examples of the "dry-landscape" style. Look up Ryoanji Temple in any travel website or tour guide and you will find excited ravings about how amazing the Ryoanji Zen garden is. So, I don’t know if I had my expectations too high but honestly, I was a little disappointed. Let’s take a look:

Walking up the steps of Kuri, the main building of the temple. Our exciting Zen experience awaits!

See this picture? Imagine 15 rocks artistically placed randomly in white gravel and you’ve pretty much summed up the Ryoanji Zen rock garden. No trees, barely any grass, no trickling water, just rocks and gravel. Sure, they’ve drawn some nice pretty circles in the white gravel but it’s pretty much just rocks and gravel. Wow! And apparently this Zen garden has been wowing the masses since 1525!

Speaking of the masses, people come from far and wide to see these rocks (we did after all). They don’t just look at the rocks, they sit and contemplate the rocks for hours! During our brief visit to the Zen garden (which we had to pay 500 yen to see by the way) I started looking at the faces of the people sitting and admiring the rocks. I’ve never seen so many blank-faced-zoned-out people in my life. It was like an alien spaceship came down to the Ryoanji temple, landed, sucked out the brains on the poor tourists and locals that were there, and left a few rocks as payment. These people were seriously pondering the meaning of life, the universe, and everything while sitting with their Zen rock spirit guides. I have nothing against this of course. I think it’s awesome these people were finding the Zen garden to be filled with so much peace and tranquility. I just found the whole thing rather surreal. Surreal but pretty damn peaceful!

There’s a famous vegetarian restaurant on the temple grounds called the Ryoanji Seven Herb Tofu. The “O” on the noren curtain above signifies affability and an earnest hope for peace and harmony in the world – one cube of tofu at a time (oh, in case you’re wondering, I added the last little bit)!

The name, Ryoanji Seven Herb Tofu is not only the name of the restaurant but it’s pretty much a spot on description of the menu. Seven Herb Tofu…that’s pretty much it. The tofu is boiled in plain water and served to you with a dipping sauce made out of soy sauce and seven herbs (mystery herbs just like KFC). Some people may find it too simple and too bland tasting but since I’m a fan of tofu I loved it. It was a nice refreshing lunch.

Especially when I washed it down with great tasting hot sake!

Astro Boy

2009-04-30T15:35:00.001+08:00

Astro Boy is a Japanese manga/anime character first introduced in 1963. I remember in the 1970s they were broadcasting English dubbed versions on a couple Canadian television stations so as a kid I was well aware, and excited by, Astro Boy’s existence. Because of this early childhood fascination with Astro Boy it was quite fitting for him to be the first character I saw once we exited the Kyoto train station. Memories of running around the house in pulled up red socks flooded back to me when I saw our robot friend here:

Since we’re on the theme of manga (Japanese comic books) and anime (Japanese animation), I had the pleasure of going to the Kyoto International Manga Museum.

Beyond Japanese manga the museum also featured several exhibits dedicated to other forms of comics books internationally. My personal childhood favorites, Tintin (Belgian) and Asterix (France) were featured as well as the original Smurf comics from Belgian. The international selection of manga was small in comparison to the Japanese offerings. The Kyoto International Manga Museum is essentially a huge, multi-floored library where you can go in and read comics. If you’re a comics fan, this place is a dream come true. A annual membership allows you unlimited access all the manga in the building. As you can see by the photographs below, the walls are lined with thousands of manga!

Thank you Kyoto for bringing back that carefree, excitable kid in the silly red socks!

No, I’m not wearing my Astro Boy red socks in this photo but if I remember correctly, I was wearing some pretty snazzy red undies!

Cherry Blossoms

2009-04-30T14:59:00.001+08:00

April is cherry blossom season in Kyoto, Japan. It seems every tourist in the world had the same idea as us to go to Japan during this time. Hotels were impossible to book but finally, after a week of searching, we located a hotel in central Kyoto. I’m glad we were able to book this one hotel because without it, we were debating on altering our travel plans and go somewhere else. I’m glad we didn’t, Kyoto, Japan in April is an amazing and beautiful sight to see! The photographs below were taken in various parks, streets, and temples throughout the greater Kyoto area. Beyond the stunning cherry blossoms in the photos you may also notice another important happening: Aimee’s pregnant! That’s right, our son isn’t even born yet and he has already been to Kyoto, Japan. Not only Kyoto, but also Canada, Philippines, China, and Hong Kong. Lucky kid! He’s been to more international places as a fetus than I was within the first 25 years of my life! I hope he enjoyed the cherry blossoms; Aimee and I certainly did! Take a look:

Kyoto Cute

2009-04-30T11:37:00.002+08:00

Japan is the land of cute! Every where Aimee and I went in Kyoto we found overly cute and obsessively-happy cartoon characters staring back at us. Something as simple as ‘please clean up after your dog’ becomes a happy frolic in the cutesy theme park where there’s a never-ending supply of Prozac to go around. All signs are cute; it doesn’t matter if it’s a personal shop owner’s sign or a government issued sign: everything is damn cute in Japan. Since I found myself constantly being surrounded by cuteness I decided to start taking pictures. Here are some of the photos I saw while there:

Beyond cuteness there is also sadness. Sadness because the poor English language sometimes gets a little abused in Japan. While in Osaka I saw this in our hotel room:

You would think that before they printed out several hundred of these sheets for the hotels rooms that they would run the spelling by at least one fluent English speaker. I mean, how is it possible for a business to get a translation so badly wrong? I mean seriously, MICHLOWAVE? VANDING MACHINE?? NON SMORKING ROOM??? Sad sad sad. Sad yes, but extremely funny too! Aimee and I were giggling about that all day. Or maybe it was the Prozac cartoon characters that were making us giggle?

Roots Backpack R.I.P.

2009-04-29T13:05:00.007+08:00

It's a sad day for us all in the world. It's a day of sadness and regret but also of reflection at the exciting times we had with our ... Roots backpack.

Let us pray...

It will be an open coffin funeral. You may look lovingly at the dearly departed now:

Our dear friend backpack has had quite an interesting life. It has joined us on our travels in over 10 different countries over the past 7 years. It has been an exciting life but it hasn't been an easy one. During our France trip both straps snapped off because of the weight of the travel books we were carrying. Most backpacks would have given up at this point but Roots backpack is quite the little trooper. It asked to be repaired rather than giving up. We took it in for repair, not once, but twice. The first repair was an odd one. Rather than stitching the straps back onto the body the seamstress stitched the straps together making it rather useless. The second repair was more successful.

In Australia our Roots backpack got a little embarrassed when it discovered the Australians use the word 'root' as a slang for 'sex'. Our backpack asked to be left in the hotel during this time because it couldn't handle the constant giggling from those crazy Ozzies.

Beyond the injuries and embarrassments our beloved Roots backpack has been a wonderful addition to our lives. But sadly, our current trip to Kyoto, Japan will be its last. Like in France the travel books were too much for our backpack to handle. It ripped from the top and the bottom and although a repair is possible we feel it's time for retirement. So rest in peace our loving cloth friend we will miss you greatly.

As much as we're sad to see our Roots backpack go we've already replaced it with a Diesel backpack I purchased at Stanley Market in Hong Kong. And beyond the Diesel backpack I have this bag on standby:It's a cool messenger bag with plenty of space for my notebook computer, cellular phone and other masculine-type things likes beer, breast milk and diapers. The beer is for me obviously but the other things are for our son who will be born in three months. This bag, if you haven't guessed by now, is a diaper bag made specifically for men. It's called Diaper Dude! I'm sure Diaper Dude bag and I will have many exciting stinky diaper adventures in the future!

The chapter of the Roots backpack might be closed but the new chapter with Diesel and Diaper Dude is now open. Oh what great times lie ahead!

Homesick

2009-03-26T14:37:00.018+08:00

Every once in a while I experience homesickness from Vancouver. And when this happens I look around me here in the Philippines for references of Canada to fill that homesickness void. I'm often amazed how many Canadian references are surrounding me here. Some, in the most unlikely of places.

The local transportation is called the jeepney; and often they are great sources of Canadiana! It's an odd place to look but I always see Canadian flags painted onto the sides of jeepneys. I don't know why, but I see them all the time. And what's even more perplexing is I see more Canadian flags on jeepneys than American flags. It fills me with pride because most of the time, people here just assume I'm American. Canada always seems to be treated like the USA's misunderstood wimpy younger brother. If the jeepneys are proudly displaying our Canadian flags then I guess we're no longer misunderstood. Or, better yet, just naming a jeepney Canada is always nice too!

Across the street from me there's a mall. And in that mall there's, of all things, a Telus call center. Plastered on the side of this mall is a huge billboard advertising employment opportunities at Telus, 'The Canadian Telecommunications Company!' Telus may be Canadian, but the employees are definitely 100% Filipino. They have an open air employees' lounge on the roof of their office. And in that lounge there's a karaoke machine. And this karaoke machine spits out the typical cheesy love ballads we've all learned to love and hate. But, as I said, it's open air; and it's right across the street from me. Do you see where this is going? The Telus employees are call centers employees; they're not professional pop musicians. So, knowing this, you must realize their singing abilities are, well, to be nice, god awful. So imagine going to sleep one night and being awoken by the screeching sounds of a Filipina singing 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' at the top of her lungs. It's not a good way to awaken from a pleasurable dream. Your pleasurable dream has just become a nightmare! Needless to say my neighbours complained and got the lounge shut down. So no more bad singing during the wee hours of the morning. I often wonder if my neighbours are secretly blaming Canada for this bad singing. It is, after all, coming from 'Canada's Telecommunications Company.'

Blenz, the 'Canadian Coffee Company' is also here in Manila. Having Blenz here really creates an internal conflict in my mind. I'm really big on supporting and buying the local product. So generally, I'll go to a local coffee chain like Bo's Coffee or Figaro and have my coffee there rather than going to a Starbucks or Seattle's Best Coffee. But having a Canadian coffee shop here screws with the patriot parts of my mind that wants to support and do all I can for Canada. So what do I do in this case? Drink caffeine for Canada? Or drink caffeine for the Philippines? It's a hard decision to make. I may have to drink two coffees every day: one from Canada and one from the Philippines!

Oh, in case you're curious, coffee is massive here in the Philippines. Filipinos love their coffee! In my neighbourhood alone there's 10 coffee shops. 5 of which are Starbucks! Crazy!

A trip to the local grocery store is a trip to the who's who of Canadian exported products. Most of these exported products I've never seen in Canada! So it's somewhat amusing seeing a product line that claims to be a famous brand from Canada when I've never heard of it. I don't claim to know everything, but if it's really that famous wouldn't I know about it? I'm referring to a can goods brand called 'Selection.' Have you heard of it? I never have. What's even more interesting is that well-known brand from the Real Canadian Superstore called 'President's Choice' is available here. It's refreshing knowing I can shop here for Real Canadian Superstore products and not have to bag my own groceries (for those of you that don't know, Real Canadian Superstore keeps their prices low by having you bag your own groceries. Not only do you bag your own groceries, you also don't get any bags - unless you buy them!).

Buying Canadian brands here makes sense. Most things are internationally understood. A can of beans here is the same as a can of beans in Canada. Sure Filipinos eat different things than Canadians (except Filipino Canadians!) but canned vegetables and fruits can be utilized in every country. But what about those rare products that are 100% pure Canadian? I'm not referring to maple syrup cookies here; Filipinos would yum those up (remember they have a sweet tooth!). I'm referring to that infamous Montreal delicacy called ... poutine!

I was shocked when I saw this in the grocery store. This can as well as ten of his poutine brothers were sitting lonely at the bottom shelf of the canned vegetables section. I think it's been there for a while. It was dusty and if you look closely there's rust forming at the top of the can. Why is this here? Seriously, why is this here? Does the average Filipino off the street even know what poutine is? It's such a surreal product to find in a Philippines grocery store. Why market it here as 'poutine sauce'. Wouldn't it make more sense being marketed as something universal like say, chicken gravy? So odd. I felt sad for the can like I would feel sad for a kitten or puppy locked in a cage in a pet shop. It needed a home so I bought it. I not only bought it, but I also made it pose for this photo in front of a small Canadian flag. I wonder if it misses its poutine brothers? I wonder what a gathering of poutine cans is called? A flock? A school? A litter? A murder? A gaggle? The Bloc Québécois?

O CANADA!

Annual Report

2009-03-25T12:24:00.009+08:00

When I first moved to the Philippines I was given an ACR (Alien Certificate of Registration) card which allows me to stay in the country indefinitely. Not everyone can get this card; I only received it because I'm married to a Filipino citizen. If you are curious about the process of getting the card I wrote about it several years ago in one of my first blogs (if you click on the title of this blog you will be redirected there). The card has my picture on it as well as fingerprints and other personal information all readable via a data chip. So it's pretty well documented in government files about who I am and how long I've lived here. It's all pretty high tech but it's amusing with all this technology how certain things get either forgotten or misplaced. A good example is this is something called the 'Annual Report'. The Annual Report involves me going down to the government immigration offices at the start of every year and paying a small fee to remain in the country. It's mandatory, as in, I have to do this. What's amusing is I was NEVER told I had to do this. On the day I picked up my ACR card no one sat me down and said, 'Kenn, you need to report to the immigration offices at the start of every year and pay a fee.' Also, the government has my mailing address, did they ever send me a letter reminding me to do this? No, they didn't. How did I finally find out about it? Through gossip, that's how. I heard a rumour that ACR card holders have to do this so I went down to the immigration offices to investigate. I discovered upon arriving there that the rumour was true: every year in January I need to report to the government immigration office and pay the fee so they can update my records. Every year. Every darn year. No skipping a year here or there, every bloody year. So now I know! Knowledge is power! But, as always, knowing something ends up opening more questions. First question: if this is so important why wasn't I told every time I tried to leave or enter the country that my ACR status needed to be updated? I've lived in this country for more than two years now, that's two years of never reporting to the immigration offices and paying the fee but no one ever told me it had to be done. Why is that? I think it's because every month I don't pay the fee I get FINED! We're talking two years of fines here. The Annual Report fee is only 300 pesos. That's a mere $7.64 CAD PER YEAR! The fine, on the other hand, is 200 pesos ($5.09 CAD) PER MONTH. So needless to say, after two years of not paying the fee it was a lot more than 300 pesos. At least I know now for next year! It's funny how cheap this Annual Report fee is considering the other fees I need to pay as an ACR holder are much more. Every time I leave the country I have to pay an exit fee/tax at the airport. I hate this fee. First of all I don't understand why I have to pay a fee just because I'm leaving the country. Secondly, and this is the part that really annoys me, since I have to go to the cashier to pay this fee, they slap on an additional 500 peso fee on my exit fee (which is 770 pesos) and call it an EXPRESS LANE FEE. What? Okay, I understand why they think that makes sense ... really I do. By going to the cashier I get to bypass the regular immigration lineup therefore it takes me less time to go through immigration. But here's where I need to slap them on their collective faces because YOU'RE FORCING ME TO DO THIS!! Why are you charging me an EXPRESS LANE FEE when there's NO OTHER LINE UP YOU'RE LETTING ME GO INTO??? Let's steal some more money out of the poor expat's pockets. I grind my teeth in annoyance every time I leave the country because these fees defy logic.

So, to summarize it's 300 peso per year to stay in the country and 1270 peso every time I leave the country. I leave the country at least twice per month so that exit fee really adds up.

I'm trying to stay positive about this. I'm trying to rework it into something pleasurable. The way I'm thinking about this now is the reason it's so cheap to stay here and so expensive to leave is it's obvious the Filipino people really really love me and want me to stay. Why else would they charge me so much to leave?

From now on, we shall call this the LOVING KENN TAX, or KENN IS AWESOME TAX. You can invent your own tax title if you wish...

Happy 100th Post!

2009-03-20T16:31:00.004+08:00

I'm please to announced that my 'Sugar' blog was my official 100th posting in the Kenniverse! Let's all collectively celebrate together no matter the timezone nor the country we live in! I'll bring the San Miguel!

Sugar

2009-03-20T14:43:00.006+08:00

I'm sitting in a local coffee shop chain called Bo's Coffee adding a tiny bit of brown sugar to my iced americano went I noticed the guy beside me has already added five packets of sugar to his coffee and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Watching him has really reminded me how Filipinos seem to have a very avid sweet tooth. This sweet tooth goes well beyond adding insane amounts of sugar to coffee.

I've heard about Filipinos having chocolate cake for breakfast. I can barely tolerate chocolate cake in the evening let alone for breakfast.

When you order any mixed drink here, iced tea is a good example, it tends to arrive at your table oozing in sugar. Even after all this time I keep forgetting this, so when I order, and it arrives sickly sweet, I either kindly ask for a less sweet one or tolerate it, drink it down, and go through the rest of the day with a sugar-rush headache.

I remember this one time I was in a restaurant and I ordered a glass of sugarcane juice. I actually like the taste of sugarcane juice. It's surprisingly not as sweet as you would expect. It has a very nice flavour. But, for some odd reason the restaurant added what tasted like a pound of extra sugar to the sugarcane juice. What the hell? Whose bright idea was that? It's fucking sugarcane juice. It's made out of pure sugar? Why add extra to sugar to something that is already sugar? That's like forcing a sheep to wear a wool sweater. After that first taste I could feel my teeth quickly rotting away.

I just don't understand why everything here has to be so bloody sweet. If you think adding sugar to sugarcane juice is odd how about sitting down to a nice plate of sweet spaghetti. That's right, they add sugar to spaghetti sauce too. Isn't anything sacred in this world? I used to work with an Italian guy once who was fanatical about keeping Italian foods as close to old world as possible. Old traditional recipes, no modern fusion. We had many debates about the allowable ingredients a pizza should have. Being a traditionalist he thought 95% of the pizza restaurants were destroying Italian traditions (yes, he was a bit of an insane freak). I often wonder what he would think regarding Filipinos adding sugar to spaghetti sauces. He might go postal!

But you know, having Filipinos adding extra sugar to things it quite consistent with their other culinary habits. They seem to like extreme flavours. Filipino food is a combination of extreme saltiness, sweetness, and sourness. The best example I can think of that defines the Filipino palette is Bagoong Alamang with green mango. This dish effects almost every taste bud on your tongue all at once. Bagoong Alamang is shrimp paste. Think of it as the most fishy fish you've ever eaten then add lots of salt. You add it on top of green mango, which is unripe sour mango. What you end up with is an odd, but surprisingly tasty, combination that confuses your taste buds into submission. When I first tried it I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. My first impression made me think of what a sour crab apple must taste like if it was floating (and rotting) in ocean water for a few days. But, after a few more bites I found myself hooked. I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried to add sugar to the Bagoong Alamang and green mango mix. Imagine a food that effects all your taste buds at once. Your body might go into a hemorrhagic shock and you'll find yourself waking several hours later from a Bagoong Alamang coma. What a rush that would be!!

Missing in Action

2009-03-16T12:52:00.028+08:00

I'm back! Yes, it's been a while since my last blog posting. You may wonder why I've been so lazy with the blogs lately. Looking back, when I first started this blog I was writing several blogs a week. As time went on it became several blogs a month. And now, sadly, it's become one or two blogs a month if YOU'RE LUCKY. What is the reason behind this total lack of responsibly when it comes to blog writing? Well, to be honest, I really don't have a reason. I guess I've just been lazy. I think it has a lot to do with familiarity of my experiences here in the Philippines. The longer I stay here the more familiar my experiences are; the more familiar things become the less I find them interesting; the less I find them interesting the least likely I am to write about them. It's an odd excuse I agree but I think that's the reason. My viewpoint has become so Filipino living here that I just don't see the unique Canadian perspective I once did. But, I'm attempting to work on that so hopefully within the coming weeks the Kenniverse is Pinoy blog will be teaming with fascinating and exciting experiences in the world of Pinoyness!

Now, onto the blog...

Let's see if I can summarize what has been going on in my life over the last few months. I won't bore you with basic things, IE: on November 10th, 2008 I awoke at 09:00 AM and brushed my teeth. Seriously, who really cares about that stuff (well, maybe a dentist would...), just the experiences that are noteworthy.

In November I flew back to Vancouver (without Aimee). It was my first time back in almost a year. I spent a great three weeks visiting family and friends. While there I attended Hopscotch 2008 (scotch and beer festival) with a few of my good buddies:

This photo was taken even before we started sampling all the great scotch and beers. Imagine sixty minutes later? Sixty minutes later things got a little - well - silly:

Yes, there are several rude finger profanities going on in this photo. Please don't judge us; we can't help it! We're five grown men out on an evening of drinking without our wives around to keep us sane and respectable! The book Lord of the Flies comes to mind...

Beyond drunken silliness with friends (and family) I spent the three weeks catching up with Vancouver. It's amazing how much of the city is changing with the upcoming 2010 Vancouver Olympics on its way. Olympics tourists shops are popping up all over the city and the Asian-inspired mascots (see below) seem to be plastered everywhere. In Richmond, they have already completed the Olympic speed skating rink and the Skytrain, our rapid transit rail system, finally has a station at the airport. It's not open yet but within a short time it will be.

I doubt Aimee and I will make it back to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics but this may not be a bad thing. It's going to be impossible getting tickets for the events and imagine how insanely busy the city is going to be during that time. So no tickets to the events and sadly, no cable in our house to watch the events! We might as well stay back here in the Philippines and watch the events on the internet! We'll wave around a little Canadian flag as we do this of course!

Regarding the Vancouver 2010 mascots: I say 'Asian-inspired' because, well, to be honest, they are! Take a look:

Imagine if Hello Kitty had a birthday party and wanted to invite only characters that looked like her; the Vancouver 2010 Olympics mascots would definitely be getting an invitation for that party! I'm sure Hello Kitty would be mailing off some invitations to the mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics too!

What an interesting party that would be. I wonder what all the characters would talk about? What would the Vancouver mascots bring to the party? Maybe a huge slab of smoked salmon? Maple syrup cookies? BC Bud (AKA marijuana)? If Quatchi, the Vancouver Sasquatch character, were to give Jingjing, the Beijing panda character, a Vancouver magnet would he put it on his fridge? It's an interesting debate that I'm sure will go on for years.

What do I think of the Vancouver mascot characters? Personally and honestly, without any impact on the fact I live around little Asian characters everyday, I love them! I think if you're going to create a mascot for anything, make it cute. Cute mascots sell more merchandise. And if you want cute, go Asian! Hello Kitty started a trend in cuteness we've never looked back from. You can't deny it! Hello Kitty is a billionaire! I'm glad the Vancouver design team who created the mascots considered Asian cuteness! Vancouver and Asian cuteness has had a long standing relationship. Look at Expo Ernie from Vancouver's Expo 86 World Fair:

I think there's a bit of a conspiracy here. Expo Ernie isn't actually a real robot. I think Expo Ernie is actually Hello Kitty in a space suit.

See, absolutely no difference!

Since you're probably bored of mascots (and my disturbing addiction to Hello Kitty) let's get onto other things...

After my 3 week Vancouver stay in November I returned back to Manila. I spent Christmas here and was treated to a visit by my good buddy Mark. Mark is a Canadian like myself but he now lives in London, England. During his stay he took that Kenspanker jeepney photo that's now posted on the middle right-hand side of my blog. Within 5 minutes of taking that photo we saw another jeepney called the Ken&Mark. It was truly a magical day!

What a charming pair we are!

Christmas ended and Mark left. The fun didn't stop there because within a few short weeks I was back in Vancouver (with Aimee this time) for my Dad's 70th Birthday!

HAPPY 70th BIRTHDAY DAD! (now if only I could get my Dad to use the internet so he can see that birthday greeting...). Beyond the usual visiting while in Vancouver we did some shopping. Some very specific shopping. Some shopping not for us but for someone else. Someone small. Very small. Small and fleshy (I say fleshy because most of you are probably thinking I'm talking about my cat). Small, fleshy and living inside a dark place. A dark wet place. He kicks occasionally in this dark place but most of the time he sleeps. Sleeps in a fetal position... Okay, if you haven't understood what I'm talking about there's no hope for you ... ever. For the rest of you, I'm proud to announce that Aimee is 23 weeks pregnant! And it's a boy! We are both extremely overjoyed! I could go on and on about how awesome this feeling is but then I would have to change the name of this blog from The Kenniverse is Pinoy to The Kenniverse's Baby is Awesome! Maybe one day that will happen, but for now, we'll still stay in the world of pinoy!

So now that you know the news, you probably also realize I have three solid months of blog writing left before the baby zaps all my time away! Hopefully writing this blog has killed off any writer's block I had in the past! Will write more soon ... I promise!

T.P.

2009-01-06T14:16:00.004+08:00

Public washrooms aren't usually the most pleasurable places to go. They're dirty, they're smelly, and they lack the comfort you're used to from your own personal 'relief space'. That being said, sometimes duty calls and you're forced to use a public washroom.

Public washrooms here in Manila are like playing that 'game' Russian Roulette. But instead of using bullets, you're playing with a roll of toilet paper. Sometimes the toilet paper is there, sometimes it isn't. But unlike Russian Roulette, you want the toilet paper to be there during your turn. It's not a very fun game when it isn't. Most of the time it isn't there; either people are stealing it or the cleaners have stopped refilling it altogether. Maybe they stopped refilling it because people were stealing it? It's hard to say, but all I know it's not always there and it's completely annoying to anyone, like me, who finds themselves in an emergency situation where having a nice friendly roll of TP would be helpful.

There seems to be various levels of TP non-existence. On the base level, there's no TP, never was TP, never ever will be TP until the end of time. On the next level there's the public washrooms that were generous enough to give you TP but for some odd, sick, and demented reasoning they put it OUTSIDE the stall. How is that suppose to help you? I guess they figure if it's outside the stall, in the plain view of everyone, you're less likely to steal it. Okay, I understand that logic but there's one very important thing they didn't consider: people will waste more TP this way. If you're forced to take what you need before you go into the toilet stall isn't it human nature to take more than what you need? Of course it is, you will always take more. There's no way to estimate how many sheets you are going to use so just to be safe, you grab an insane amount. It's better to have too many sheets than not enough right?

On the next level we have the washrooms that are nice enough to give you TP and they are logical enough to put it inside the stall but then they forget this very important thing called the toilet seat. These places annoy me because I feel like they're teasing me; they give me something I want and need but take something away in exchange. You cheeky bastards!

Some places charge you to use the washrooms. For a mere 5 pesos you can have the luxury of an exclusive paid washroom experience. Sounds good eh? Sounds like paradise huh? Nope, these places oddly are worse off than the non-paid toilets. I've paid to use washrooms in parks that not only lack TP and toilet seats, they also lack doors on the stalls. What is my hard earned 5 peso going to? I was in a washroom last week that charged a 5 peso entry fee but 10 peso per TP sheet. Gotta love that business empire!

To be fair though, some malls have semi-nice free washrooms with TP in the stalls. There's one mall I go to that not only has semi-nice free washrooms but also slightly-nicer paid washrooms. For 10 peso you can relax and do your business in a slightly cleaner environment with free-flowing toilet paper. Ah yes, luxury! I do wonder though what's stopping people from paying the 10 peso and then stealing 20 pesos worth of TP? Maybe no one has ever considered this. Maybe it's only me and my demented Canadian criminal mind!

Merry Pinoy Christmas 2008!!

2008-12-25T10:51:00.001+08:00

Holiday Ham

2008-12-19T17:03:00.004+08:00

It's Holiday Ham time here in the Philippines! Holiday Hams are individually wrapped hams in decorative Christmas-themed boxes. And for some odd reason, most of the Holiday Ham kiosks are manned by homosexuals! I'm not kidding here. They're manned by gays that are the spitting image of what a homosexual stereotype is! They sing, they dance, they giggle, they wiggle their little gay asses trying to tempt you to purchase more holiday ham. I don't know what the correlation between homosexuals and ham is, but there definitely seems to be some sort of connection here. How did this happen? Did the homosexual's involvement in the ham industry happen overnight or has it been something that's been slowly building every Christmas? I wonder if in the beginning one homosexual was hired and his ham sales were so impressive that the meat company decided to hire more homosexuals the next year. Soon, 10 years go by and nearly all ham salesmen are gay. That's one theory. Another possible theory is the top executives from the meat industry got together one day in their boardroom and tried to come up with ways to sell more ham. Imagine a bunch of overpaid suits throwing out nonsense ideas and one says, "HEY, I have it! Let's hire homosexuals to sell our ham!" In response the other executives look at each other for a moment, consider this idea, and then all in unison decide this is the best idea ever. They all pat each other on their collective backs and congratulate on a job well done. And as with most board meetings, there's always one guy who only speaks up when it's obvious everyone else approves the idea. This guy would probably say something like, "Great idea! I would buy anything from a homosexual!" The homosexual ham revolution was born! All kidding aside, I actually really DO wonder why most of these ham salesmen are gay. Is there some sort of cultural thing I'm not understanding here? Whatever the reason, this sales technique doesn't work on me. I don't eat ham; and I'm not gay. So flirting with me by making kissy noises and wiggling your ass isn't going to make me buy more ham. But, weirder things have happened in this world; if the Philippines turns me into a throbbing homosexual ham eater you may see me buying truckloads of ham off our happy gay ham friends!

I wonder what the pigs think of all this...

Price Checkers

2008-11-03T13:09:00.004+08:00

In this crazy fast-paced world people tend to think faster now, talk faster now, walk faster now ... everything is now now now. Well ... in most places. I notice things here in the Philippines aren't necessarily 'now now now' but more 'sometime sometime sometime.' I often find myself wondering about the concept of speed here. Filipinos seem to live in a slow-paced and relaxed world. They walk slower and they take their time when doing things. I actually respect this way of thinking. More people need to slow down, and, as the saying goes, smell the roses. But I also think there is a proper time and place for this relaxed slow mindset. And one place, in my opinion, that should never ever be relaxed and slow is the world of supermarket price checkers. Let me explain: The supermarket price checker's job is to quickly check the prices of things that the cashier cannot find the price for. In most cases there's going to be a large lineup of people waiting behind you so the faster the checker finds the price and tells the cashier the better. In Canada there's a supermarket chain called the Real Canadian Superstore that understands the need for quick price checking. They've equipped their price checkers with roller blades and full roller blade body armour. This allows these guys and girls the ability to zip from isle to isle at warp speeds to get your price fast. Super fast. Quick price checking means less time for you to wait at the cashier and less grumpy people waiting behind you. Makes perfect sense doesn't it? Sounds like a system that should be globally understood right? Well ... no ... not here. Price checkers here are a completely different animal. A race between the turtle and the hare comes to mind. Price checkers here are, you guessed it, the turtle. Whenever I go to the supermarket here and I notice a barcode on one of the products I want to buy isn't scanning properly I immediately grind my teeth knowing I'm going to have to wait forever for that price to get checked. First it takes forever for the cashier to locate a price checker, then once one is located, it takes an eternity for him to return with the checked price. I honestly don't know where these price checkers go. Part of the problem is none of them seem to think checking the price is really that important. Once they're asked to check the price they don't zip, nor run, nor even walk to the price. They amble. They stroll. They sloth. They slug their way to some remote location not even close to where the product is they need to check. There was one time I saw the product that required checking two isles down from the cashier. Did he go there? No, he went somewhere else. Where did he go? Why does it take so long? Was he trying to work up the courage to check the price? Was he heading over to the local karaoke booth to sing a few love ballads before checking the price? Did he bump into a friend in one of the isles and drink a few bottles of San Miguel before checking the price? Where the hell is the damn price checker? It's an insane situation because no product is ever worth wasting 10 minutes of my life waiting for. Most of the time I just get frustrated and give up waiting. Obviously that means I didn't buy the product therefore the store didn't make that money off of me. These slugs are bad for business. Doesn't the store understand that? Please, oh please, hire some fast price checkers. I'm not expecting roller blade fast, or even rabbit fast, but please, at least, at the minimum fastness of a new born kitten (actually, come to think of it, a new born kitten still unable to walk with its eyes still shut is probably faster than these guys). At any rate, I think in the future I may start offering to check my own prices. If they allow me... I'll even put on my roller blades to do it! Oh wait, I don't have roller blades ... no matter, even if I had to leave the supermarket, buy roller blades, put them on, zip back to the supermarket, and then quickly check the price I would still be faster than them. Tsk tsk, they give slugs a bad name...

Pet Blessing

2008-10-03T11:10:00.004+08:00

You know you're in a Catholic country when...

Coming up this weekend two places in Metro Manila are offering 'Pet Blessing'. One of these places is actually within walking distance from my condo. When I saw this sign I found myself wondering if my cat, Daphne, would appreciate getting a blessing from a Catholic priest. Although the blessing is happening within walking distance from where we live the act of getting her there isn't the most pleasurable in cat terms. I would have to shove her into a cage (which she hates), carry her outside into the loud traffic (which she hates), and stand up in a line up of dogs (which she hates) to wait for her blessing. That's a lot of effort from both Daphne and me. But then there is also the question of religion. Is Daphne religious? I have no idea. I've never seen her praying. I've never seen her reading a little cat-sized bible. And if Daphne is religious I don't even know what religion she is. I'm not Catholic so maybe Daphne isn't either. But since Aimee is Catholic maybe Daphne has decided to be Catholic as well. Or, maybe, Daphne follows a special cat religion. I think a cat religious bible would be rather short. The first first pages would talk about how Kitty God created Earth and all its comfortable places to nap. This Earth also has an over abundance of delicious kitty meals to eat and beautiful gardens to poop in. Kitty God then created humans to act as the personal slaves for the cats. And that's it; that's the Kitty Bible. I'm sure the kitty clergy originally intended to have more chapters written but since they spent most of their time napping, eating the occasional mouse and getting high off catnip the rest of the kitty bible never got finished.

I like the idea of a pet blessing. It gives pet owners the peace of mind that their pets are being cared for by God as well. Even if you're not Catholic it's an intriguing idea to think that some greater power is keeping your pets safe when you're not around. But shoving my frightened cat into a cage and dragging her down to the Pet Blessing? I don't know ... I doubt my cat would appreciate that. So no pet blessing for Daphne this time. Maybe next time but until then, I have faith that Daphne's own personal Kitty God will keep her safe.

Kitty God blesses you all (maybe not the dogs)...

Nation of Singers

2008-09-25T14:34:00.007+08:00

The Philippines is a Nation of Singers. This isn't a term I invented but I will gladly borrow it for this blog because it's a perfect description for the people here. Filipinos like to sing. It's impossible to go through a day without hearing the sound of humming or singing. Sometimes, when I'm walking through a crowded area I'll hear either individual people, or groups of people break out in song. The groups of people singing are a little disturbing to me because they seem to just start singing without discussing the song first. It just happens. One moment they're quiet and minding their own business, the next moment they break out in song. I often wonder if I'm trapped in some odd science fiction musical film where all the inhabitants share a collective mind when it concerns music. Sometimes I think the singing is a nervous twitch ingrained into the Filipino subconscious. The people here seem to sing more loudly during stressful situations. A good example of this is when I had a minor disagreement with a shop owner concerning the price of something. The sign said, "Sale 40% off" but the shop owner wouldn't give me the sale price. He said the sign was lying. How could a sign lie? Signs don't lie. I was so annoyed I left without buying anything. This exchange between me and the shop owner produced a fit of loud singing once I turned my back. He was stressed and the singing made him feel better.

Beyond singing to yourself in public another big thing here is karaoke. Or, as the call it here, KTV. You can get together with a bunch of friends or family in a small private room and sing songs together. In some of these places you can even food and drinks and spend the night singing to your little hearts content. KTV places come in all shapes and sizes. They range from small shacks to huge businesses with private rooms. But what if you can't make it to a KTV place and singing to yourself without music isn't good enough? How about a coin operated karaoke hut?

These little huts always make me laugh because although they can comfortablely seat six people, I only ever see one person inside. Isn't it lonely singing by yourself? I guess when singing in the shower isn't good enough these things come in handy.

The next step in KTV enjoyment is singing in the privacy of your own home. The cheapest of these home karaoke units is called Magic Sing Xtreme. It's essentially a microphone with a built in collection of songs and images. You select the code of the particular song and up pops on your TV screen a selection of random images, the words to the song, and the music to sing along to (Aimee and I actually own one but never use it). When you go into malls there's always a person promoting the Magic Sing Xtreme. And what's the best way to promote a karaoke microphone? Singing of course! Imagine that being your job. Singing everyday, eight hours per day, nonstop. What I love the most about the people that promote the Magic Sing Xtreme (let's call them the Xtreme Promoters) is how they really put their heart and soul into the singing. You really feel the emotion of the song. It's like going to a concert. Only at this concert the main singing act gets ignored by the audience. What I find totally surreal involves the images used for the background while you're singing. When they aren't from Philippines destinations they're oddly from places in Canada. Specially, Vancouver. I'm still trying to figure out what the connection between Canada and addictive singing is. Maybe, secretly, behind closed doors, when no one's looking, with the curtains drawn shut and the doors securely locked, Canada too is a Nation of Singers.

Post Office - Sending Mail

2008-09-15T16:07:00.007+08:00

Mailing a letter here in the Philippines isn't an easy task. There are no public mailboxes conveniently located anywhere. That's because there aren't any mailboxes ... period. If you want to mail a letter, you need to mail it at the post office. This may seem convenient enough but considering each city only seems to have one or two post offices, and if you live outside the post office area, you're a bit out of luck I'm afraid. Your only option if this is the case is a post office kiosk located in some malls. These kiosks may, or may not be connected to the real government run post office. Some, it seems, are privately owned small businesses that take your mail, charge you an inflated price that includes the mail cost as well as their commission, and then delivers your mail to the real post office for you. I was forced to use one of these post office kiosks today. I've mailed letters from numerous countries (Canada, the US, Hong Kong, France to name a few) and there's always a system these countries follow when it involves accepting, processing, and delivering your name. A Global Postal System if you will.

The system goes like this:
1) You enter the post office and present your letter to the clerk.

2) The clerk looks at the mailing address and then based on the letter's destination he/she will inform you the cost of mailing said letter to the listed destination. This cost is determined by a pre-organized and country-wide approved rate for the processing and delivering of mail.

3) You pay the clerk said price and he/she immediately attaches a stamp to the letter, takes it, and files it efficiently into one of numerous bins organized into various destinations and/or delivery speeds. For example, if I'm mailing a letter from Hong Kong to Canada to the bin would be labelled something like, 'international'.

4) Quite frequently, you're also given a receipt documenting the post office service you requested.

This is the system. This is the rule. Never deviant from this rule. The Post Office Gods will be very angry. My experience today must have really ticked off the Post Office Gods. Using the Post Office System/Rules listed above as a guide, I will now describe my post office kiosk experience.

1) I walked up to the post office kiosk and presented my letter to the clerk.

2) After what seemed like 5 minutes she mumbled out the price. I asked her to clarify because I didn't understand the cost she mumbled. She repeated her mumble but this time it sounded like a completely different mumble therefore the possiblity of a completely different price. After three more 'excuse me please repeat' I discovered the cost to mail a letter from the Philippines to Canada is 26 pesos.

3) I paid the clerk the 26 pesos. She took the money and I waited for her to take the letter and attach a stamp. This didn't happen. The letter just sat there on the counter. I stood there confused why the letter was still sitting there lonely and stamp-less on the counter. The Global Postal System declares that once the money for postal services are given the next step is always accepting the letter into the post office's loving arms and then concluded with the romantic relationship of a stamp being beautifully attached to the letter. It's almost like a wedding. This is the rule, and why would anyone ever want to fuck with this rule? So I stood there rotating my confused glance between the depressing naked stamp-less letter and the clerk. Letter, clerk, letter, clerk... In some ways I'm a creature of habit and order. I like things to make sense and it drives me nuts when things don't make sense. This didn't make any sense. After what seemed like five minutes the clerk asks, 'is there anything else sir?'. I reply 'no' and slowly turn and walk away. From the corner of my eye I kept looking to see if she ever took the letter off the counter and attached the stamp. No such luck; the letter continued to sit unhappily on the counter. My imagination took over: I started wondering if this post office kiosk was just a clever ploy to steal mail. I imagined the kiosk clerks opening the letter I was mailing, taking out the photos I included, framing them and decorating the kiosk with photos of Aimee and me. Thankfully I snapped out of this demented imaginary world and got back to reality. But the reality is, I still have no idea if my letter will ever make it to Canada. I'll have to keep you posted on this.

4) And oh, by the way, I was never given a receipt.

This is about sending mail. Stay tuned for an exciting blog about receiving mail!

Umbrellas

2008-09-12T14:54:00.006+08:00

It's funny how you can get to so used gender specifics. Simple concepts like 'blue for little boys' and 'pink for little girls' gets ingrained into your psyche even as an adult. Men act certain ways and like certain things and woman also have their gender specific attitudes and interests. Obviously the study of the psychological differences between the sexes isn't any thing new. Whole libraries could be filled on this topic. My purpose of writing this blog isn't to complete with John Gray and his Men Are From Mars, Woman Are From Venus series of books but rather to talk about one small gender specific attitude towards ... umbrellas. On a rainy day in Vancouver (which, if you're a Vancouverite you're quite familiar with) it's quite easy to know the sex of the person by the umbrella they are using. Men's umbrellas are very masculine: they're long, sturdy looking, and always a manly colour like black or something equally dark. Women's umbrellas are petite, can fit comfortably into a purse, feminine looking and always happy bright colours or patterns. Women can get away with using a man's umbrella but a man caught using a woman's petite flowery-patterned umbrella may find himself mocked and/or ridiculed. Or at least, this is how the mindset is ingrained into the male psyche. So imagine my horror recently when I looked out the window, see pouring rain here in the Philippines, and realize there are no manly umbrellas in our apartment. All our umbrellas here are happy bright and sunny colours that would be at home in a baby girl's nursery and never ever in the closet of a man. I want ... no ... I NEED, my black manly umbrella. So on realizing my choices were either the mocking and ridicule brought on by using a woman's umbrella or getting drenched with rain water I opted, rather grudgingly, to stay dry and use the woman's umbrella. So I exited the building and waited until the last possible second before opening the umbrella to the rain. The umbrella opened and I walked onto the street. I embarrassingly hid my face from the passers-by knowing full well a white guy with a girl's umbrella is probably more humorous to a Filipino than a local man and his Barbie-like umbrella. I walked down the street and finally lifted the umbrella away from my cowering face so I could see the cars approaching at the intersection. What I saw shocked me. No, not only was it shocking but also Earth-shattering. 37 years of male conditioning melted away in mere seconds. What I saw was a sight no Vancouverite would ever think possible. This may shock you also. Are you ready to find out? Okay, here it is: I discovered that Filipino men don't care what sort of umbrellas they use. As long as it covers them from the rain that's all they care about. I saw men using flowered umbrellas. I saw men using happy neon yellow umbrellas. I saw men using hot pink umbrellas. I even saw one guy walking around joyously (more like skipping actually) with his bright pink Hello Kitty umbrella lifted proudly above his head. Can you believe it? No black masculine umbrellas any where. I felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz clicking my manly boot hills together screaming 'there's no place like home, there's no place like home.' Dammit Toto, we're definitely not in Kansas anymore!! It's the Twilight Zone of the umbrella world! It's strange but you know, it's almost comforting to see this. It's about pure logic; you need shelter from the rain and you use anything you can. Who cares what it looks like! Once I understood this logic I too proudly skipped around with my happy girl's umbrella. If the men of this country can ignore umbrella gender specifics so can I!!

Fat Wallet

2008-08-22T16:25:00.003+08:00

When I left Canada and moved here I had a skinny wallet. It was skinny because I removed all the unnecessary junk that was weighing it down.

When we made the decision to move here I went through the process of cancelling most of my credit cards. I figured what good is a Canadian department store card in the Philippines? I had lots of cards. Too many actually. It's amazing how easy it is to get more cards and get yourself further into debt. Heck, I even had credit card companies offering me cards to move my debt around. Why have debt on only one card when you can have it spread across 20 cards? I over exaggerate when I say 20 credit cards; I didn't have that many but I did have at least 6. 6 cards add a certain amount to fatness and weight to your wallet. And if 6 credit cards weren't bad enough it's those damn points cards that add even more obesity to your wallet. Airmiles cards, points cards for departments stores, Subway sticker cards that take you forever to fill up but continuously tempt for with a free sub, cards from coffee shops telling you your 10th cup of coffee is free if you buy the first 9... the list goes on and on but what it all boils down to is a really fat wallet. So without all those cards my wallet was nice and skinny. It was really liberating burning off all those wallet pounds. I could gently slip my nice skinny wallet into my pocket and no one could tell it was there. No bulge. No huge wallet that makes my ass look 10 times larger. Sweet sweet skinny!

That was then... let's talk about now. When we arrived here I got myself a Mastercard attached to a Filipino bank branch. That's the first card. From there I found myself being offered various points cards for various stores. When I wasn't offered points cards I stupidly began applying for them. I'm not sure why. I don't think it was the promise of great discounts that tempted me. Most of these cards have a points system I don't even understand. You start off with points and then the points turn into e-cash and then the e-cash turns into discounts and finally the discounts turn into free stuff. So basically, after 4 decades of using the points card I may, or may not start getting free stuff! I guess it was the promise of free stuff that tempted me. So here I now, once again, with a fat wallet. It's not only fat, it's obese. It's larger than it was in Canada! You think I would have learned from the fat wallet mistakes of my past but obviously I have not! I guess I am forever destined to a world of fatness....

Cheap Booze

2008-08-08T14:13:00.003+08:00

When you do comparison shopping between the cost of things in Canada and the cost of things here in the Philippines you'll notice how inconsistent some things are. You would assume, for example, that things produced in Canada would be cheaper in Canada and more expensive here. This isn't always the case. A good example of this is Canadian Club Whisky. Canadian Club Whisky, when purchased in British Columbia, will cost you around $30 CDN. I recently saw a bottle of Canadian Club being sold here for 400 pesos. If you're quick on the global currency conversions you're probably shocked at the huge difference between these two prices. Canadian Club, here in the Philippines, is insanely cheaper. 400 pesos works out to $9.50 CDN. MORE THAN TWENTY DOLLARS CHEAPER CANADIAN! What the hell? Canadian Club is distilled in Canada and it's more expensive in Canada. I know the liquor taxes are inflated in Canada but this is just plain silly. The fine Filipino folk can get drunk off Canadian liquor at a cheaper rate than the poor overtaxed Canadians. It's a sad sad world.

Maybe I should start up a Canadian liquor store online that sells Canadian Club back to Canadians but at the Philippines price point. I could call this reverse importation or exportation to home soil. Better yet, the next time I travel back to Canada I should fill up my suitcase with bottles of Canadian Club. When Canadian customs informs me I've gone over the allowable limit for alcohol importation I'll just tell them they're 100% wrong. I'm not importing alcohol at all, I'm just bringing these poor depressed bottles of Canadian Club back home. They didn't like the humid climate of the Philippines and wanted to come home to Canada. The customs officers will understand. Being homesick isn't a crime. Plus the customs officers should thank me; I'm feeding Canadian liquor back to Canadians. There's nothing more patriotic than that!

Kiosk Yummy!

2008-07-25T19:49:00.006+08:00

I'm often surprised by the diversity of food kiosks here in the Philippines. If you're hungry, and craving something, it's pretty safe to assume you'll locate your desired craving in a tiny food kiosk.

I've been slowly collecting photos of food kiosks and fast food stands during my many travels here. Some were taken with my cellular so that accounts for the less-than-perfect quality. Some of the kiosks offer food you've never heard of before and others offer food you see on a daily basis. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the exciting world of Filipino food! Or, at least, enjoy the names these kiosks have been given. They're either quite clever or downright silly. You decided which is which!

Chicharific!!! Not two but three!!! exclamation marks!!! With that much energy put into the writing it must be good!!! Chicharific!!! sells chicharon which is deep fried pork skin. Not completely uncommon; people in the US or Canada know it as pork rinds.

BibingKinitan! What a mouthful! Bibingka is a Filipino dessert made from rice flour. The dessert is baked in a specially-made clay oven, with hot coal as a source of heat, placed above. Before being served, butter or margarine is spread and sugar is sprinkled over the bibingka. It is typically served with grated coconut.

Megamelt. Megamelt sells various Filipino bakery delicacies like cheese ensaymadas (it's a tastey bun-like-thing with cheese on top).

Now I understand why they designed the Megamelt logo that way: It's to give the appearence of melted cheese. But in my warped viewpoint of the world the first thing I thought of when I saw the logo was dripping blood. Maybe I'm a little twisted but the logo reminds me of the kind of font you would see in a horror movie.

Burger Machine, not technically a kiosk but since I see these little burger shacks all over the place I thought I should include it in this blog.

Schatzi’s German Sausage!

This sausage master at Schatzi’s German Sausage even looks the part. So German-esque! The thing is, although I don't eat German sausages anymore I ate a whole lot as a kid (having a German father will do that to you) and I know that their claim of offering 'Famous Delicious German Specialties' isn't 100% truthful. When I looked over the counter all I saw were standard, traditional, basic, bland, everyday wieners. Wiener's that were sausage-sized yes, but wieners nonetheless!

Balut Eggspress! Balut, for those of you unknowledgeable about the delicious Filipino delicacy is a semi-formed duck embryo eaten whole after being steamed or boiled. Perhaps a picture is necessary with this description:

Yum-o-yum!

If semi-formed duck embryo isn't your thing, Balut Eggspress also offers semi-formed chicken and quail eggs too! Steamed or boiled aren't your style? How about deep fried with a side of rice? Balut Eggspress isn't the only balut kiosk on the block, I've seen others. Sometimes a kiosk isn't even necessary. On occasion I've had people come up to my car at traffic lights trying to sell balut. People yum it up here!

KISS: King of Balls! If you like balls, KISS is the place for you. If KISS isn't good enough for you (which is pretty highly unlikely, KISS IS the KING OF BALLS after all), you can walk about ten feet to:

MORE BALLS! I often wonder if MORE BALLS really does have more balls? But how is that possible? How can MORE BALLS have more balls than the KING OF BALLS? Kings hold the highest court in the land; wouldn't they be the master of everything that is ball-plenty. To add to this ball competition, we have other kiosks with the clever names: Odd Balls, Quick Stix Squid Balls, Rolling Balls Fishball, Streetballs, and my person favourite: Wang Balls (no, I'm not kidding here. Balls are a serious matter).

Oh yes, ham. Everyone loves ham. Especially when it's a Majestic Ham! This ham isn't elegant, epic, grandiose, impressive, magnificent, splendid, or even stunning, it's simply, majestic!

You know you live in a tropical country when... Mr. Coconut for all your coconut-related needs. I wish the sales clerks had to wear coconuts on their heads. I think that would go along way with the public. People would really take you seriously if you wore a coconut on your head. I'm coconut and dammit I'm proud of it!

It's fast but is it really NACH-O FAST? I was shocked when I saw this Nach-o Fast restaurant. Usually you only find Nach-o Fast in tiny kiosks. I guess the Nach-o Fast business is doing really well. Next stop, Nach-o Fast the Canadian Edition! I wonder how they got so successful when their main competitor is called Nacho King? Just another example how being the King of something doesn't mean you're the best!

Peanut World! Isn't calling yourself the World even more egotistical than calling yourself a King? How can you claim to be the world of peanuts? Do the peanuts agree? Personally, if I want hot roasted peanuts I would buy from Peanut World's competitor: Believe It Or Nuts! Yes, I'm being serious. Believe It Or Nuts really exists! I want to open my own nuts kiosk right beside Believe It Or Nuts and call it To Be, Or Nuts To Be! Pretty clever huh?

Potato Cuddler! I don't know what a cuddler is but I'd rather not be thinking about cow udders when I'm chomping down on a french fry. I'm curious how they make the fries actually. I didn't see a deep fryer or even an oven for that matter? Rather than eating cow udder potatoes I think I'll frolic on down to...

Potato Corner! Look at those happy dancing potato guys. They're just begging to be eaten!

World Bangers! The world of all porn! It's not a hot dog, it's a haüte dog! Imagine an evening with Peanut World and World Bangers! Wow, party time!

I included this photo to show you how small these kiosk stands really are. I'm always surprised by the extensiveness of the menu items that gets produced from these stands. Don't be fooled but it's small size, these stands produce more food choices than regular restaurants!

I end this blog now with the famous Dirty Ice Cream Cart. The ice cream really isn't dirty of course, it's just a name affectionately given by the locals to describe ice cream that's sold on the street. Rather than the cream coming from cows, the cream comes from a caribou. The caribou, otherwise known as the water buffalo, is the national animal of the Philippines. Let's take a look...

So I wonder if you can call this a food kiosk? It produces a food product and comes complete with a sales clerk who really produces the food.

I wonder what Ms. Caribou would call her kiosk? Probably something like KISS: Queen of Milk, or why not just go for the whole damn thing and call her business MILK UNIVERSE!

"Mam sir would you like some really fresh milk?"

I See White People

2008-07-23T13:01:00.002+08:00

I've lived in the Philippines for almost a year now and I've gotten pretty much used to being the only white person in the village. Of course, I'm not really the only white person in the village (village being neighbourhood) but sometimes I can go several weeks without seeing another Caucasian. At first this bothered me. Not because I'm white and Filipinos aren't but because being white means I really stand out. I stand out, and people stare at me because of it. Especially kids because they don't know any better. They stare, and continue staring even when I stare back. At least with adults once I stare back they quickly look away and pretend they weren't staring in the first place. I hated standing out, and I hated being stared at. In Vancouver I liked blending in with the crowd. Sure, Vancouver is a mosaic of several races/cultures but it's still so easy to blend in with the crowd. Here in the Philippines, I can't blend; they treat me like some odd celebrity which to this day I still don't understand. So imagine being a shy guy who hates standing out in a crowd who ends up moving to a country where blending is impossible. Let's just say my first few months here were rather awkward. The staring really bothered me. But as time went by I got used to my odd celebrity status and now although I don't necessarily revel in it, it definitely doesn't bother me as much anymore.

Now that you've read above, I can tell you about a new development in my life here: I've become like those staring Filipinos. Since I hardly ever see Caucasians anymore it actually freaks me out when I see large groups of them. I'm not used to it. I'm used to the happy, friendly Filipino faces, not the like often serious and grumpy looking Caucasian faces. When ever I see Caucasians I find myself wondering if I should stare at them, smile at them, or ignore them altogether. Maybe this is the same thought patterns a local Filipino has when they see me. I think like them now so I'm one step closer to being pinoy!

"Mam Sir"

2008-07-21T16:52:00.003+08:00

People are always greeting me here. No matter where I go, people are always greeting me with a soft spoken, "Good morning Sir," "Good afternoon Sir," "Good evening Sir," or a simple "Hello Sir," or an even simpler plain old "Sir." But, I find when I go into stores where it's become second nature for the sales clerks to greet the shoppers they hardly ever pay attention if you're male or female. It seems as soon as they see someone walking towards them in the corner of their eye they will automatically say, "Yes Mam Sir." Not ma'am, but mam. Many times I've been called this androgynous (or would that be hermaphrodite?) term. It's not a direct reflection of my masculine sexuality; I'm not really both a ma'am and a sir, I'm just greeted this way because I guess some of these shop clerks are too lazy to look up, see what gender I am, and then adjust their greeting to fit my masculine form. I'm happy to say that so far, I've never been just a 'mam.' It's either Sir, or Mam Sir. It gets really funny when a sales clerk even after looking up and seeing your gender continues with the 'Mam Sir' greeting.

Maybe Filipinos are just preparing us for the inevitable evolutionary next step. In a couple million more years we might all be androgynous anyhow and reproduce via cloning rather than man and woman intercourse. In a world like this, where you're neither man nor woman, then the 'Mam Sir" greeting is spot on. Filipinos are smart; they think ahead!

Siesta

2008-07-07T17:04:00.005+08:00

Filipinos, like every good Spanish influenced people really enjoy, and are serious about, their afternoon siesta. Around lunch time it's quite common to see people sleeping in the oddest of places. I was at Aimee's office once around lunch time and saw people, as soon as the clock turned 12 noon, pull pillows out of their desk drawers, plop them down onto their desk tops and immediately face plant their heads into the pillows. The face plants were instantly complimented by a round of snoring. Sleeping at your desk is a pretty safe thing to do. What are the chances that you could do some bodily harm to yourself while sleeping at your desk? Pretty nil. But imagine a little siesta in places much more dangerous; like perhaps a construction site. I took these two photos the other day of construction workers having a little afternoon siesta:

The guys sleeping on the ground are pretty safe. Safe from falling that is. But look at the guy sleeping above them. Let's take a closer look:
This guy is a true, seasoned professional siesta master. I would be terrified sleeping on a flimsy board twelve feet off the ground. But yet, this guy does it! He seems pretty relaxed and not worried one bit about the board breaking or him rolling off onto the ground below. Amazing. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by this. Filipinos are always doing death defying stunts like this. I see construction workers all the time doing things like welding without a protective mask or lifting heavy toe breaking machinery without protective boot wear. Protective boots? Heck, they only wear flip flops most of the time.

They are a brave fearless people these Filipinos!

Cockhouse

2008-07-07T16:10:00.006+08:00

A few months ago I wrote a blog talking about the number of cocks here in the Philippines. Cocks are everywhere! So now that you know this, then you shouldn't be overly surprised when I tell you about a chain of cock-related stores here called Cockhouse. They sell a number of exciting cock-related merchandise for your daily cock needs.

A brief product list:

Cock hats
Cock shirts
Cock clocks
Cock cups
Cock puzzles
Cock key chains
Cock DVDs
Cock books...

...and when you're finished dressing yourself up in cock-related goodness then it's time to pamper your cock. They sell:

Cock feed
Cock shampoo
Cock clippers
Cock clothing
Cock medicine

Cock medicine? Yes, cock medicine. Cock fighting is sadly still legal here.; so people treat their cocks like little lightweight champion boxers. And like boxers, they need to be pumped up full of vitamins and medicines to keep them fighting longer, faster, and more efficiently. Some of the products even sound like cock steroids!

I swear that there are more products for cocks in this country than for cats. Poor pussy, being overshadowed by a bunch of cocks...

Cheap Labour

2008-06-13T22:04:00.006+08:00

Labour is cheap here in the Philippines. Anything that involves actual manual labour of some sort is way cheaper in comparison to Canada. Visits to the dentists are cheaper. Haircuts are cheaper. Massages are way cheaper. Installations of things are cheaper. A current example of cheap labour regarding installations happened to me today. In Canada when I wanted internet hooked up in my home the internet company sent me one guy. This one guy dealt with the hardware installation, the software installation, and the product testing. One guy. Today I was getting internet hooked up in our condo and the internet company sent three guys (or at least I think it was only three: the first visit consisted of two guys and the second visit consisted of three guys. I'm 89% sure the second group of three included the first group of two. I might be wrong and if that's the case, my internet experience consisted of five guys!). These three (or five) guys consisted of the hardware, hardware (yes, two hardwares) and product testing. One job per technician. The first technician tested the phone lines to see if they were working. The second guy took the router out of the box and plugged the cabling in. The third guy tested the internet connection. By 'testing' I'm referring to him calling me over to show me an exciting rap video he was playing off YouTube. Three guys! I wonder if the last technician, the testing technician, picks the same rap video for every customer or if he mixes it up a bit. Maybe he picks a video that best represents - to his knowledge - the interests of the costumer. If that's the case, I'm curious why he thinks this white boy from Vancouver, Canada is down with the homies. Yo Brotha, I'm down with the Pinoy!

You would think having three technicians would make the job more fast and efficient but oddly enough, it was less efficient. My appointment for the installation was suppose to be yesterday morning but when they didn't show up and I had to set up a new time of 11am today, they decided to show up at 8am when I wasn't at home. 11am rolls around, I get home, call them, and discover they've not only left the building but left the city too! Thankfully, eventually, amazingly, they showed up around lunch time which to a Filipino is a very important siesta time (blame the Spanish influence for that one). I'm honoured they sacrificed their little afternoon nap for little old me! Thank you Gentlemen Technicians, this Canadian boy salutes you!

Hugs and the City

2008-05-31T11:52:00.006+08:00

I just came back from watching the movie version of Sex and the City and I must tell you, I feel totally ripped off. The version they're showing here in the Philippines is a badly edited 'de-sexed' one. Any of the steamy sex scenes that may have been in the original cut were left out of the cut here. And the way they edited out these scenes was terrible. They must have hired the meat butcher of film editing because the cuts were painfully obvious. Imagine a scene where a couple is about to have sex, they hop into bed and start kissing, all of a sudden the movie's music cuts out abruptly and the couple are lying in bed, sex finished, and talking about something unrelated to the pre-sex conversation. The editor not only cut out the sex scene but all the dialogue that went along with it. I found these slasher cuts very distracting. What I don't understand is why a movie with no swearing and no sex is till rated restricted? I guess the government/church really wants to keep the public away from impure sexual thoughts that this movie may, or may not, bring on. I suppose I'll have to watch the DVD when it comes out to see what I missed. But for now, I think they should retitled the movie here in the Philippines as Hugs and the City.

KKK

2008-05-22T14:37:00.006+08:00

Let's talk about the KKK...

... no, not that KKK you one track-minded people; I'm referring to the KKK here in the Philippines.

During my first trip here back in 2001 I saw this huge monument proudly being displayed in Manila (I know it's hard to appreciate the scale of a monument in a photo but keep in mind that all the people are life-sized - well, ignoring the giant dude on top of course!):

Now imagine my confusion when I first saw it. Obviously being from Canada and hearing constantly about the close-minded racial morons in the US called the Klu Klux Klan I was immediately speechless with dumbfounded confusion. My perplexed brain started wondering if their was some sort of connection between the KKK in the USA and the KKK here in the Philippines. I immediately discounted that possibility because, well, I highly doubt the fun loving Filipinos would want anything to do with the close-minded racial morons in the silly white hoods.
A couple to days after my KKK monument encounter I came across this restaurant:
Fun loving Filipinos eating in a KKK-branded restaurant? Does every kid's meal come with a little white hood? No, no that's not possible. There's no connection. There can't be! I figured this must be another exciting episode of "Lost in Transition," also better known (in my head) as "Cultural Confusion." I decided to read up on what the Filipino KKK actually is. To summarize what I discovered:

The Katipunan was a Philippine revolutionary organization founded by Filipino rebels in Manila, in 1892, which aimed to gain independence from Spain.

The word "Katipunan" comes from the root word "tipon", an indigenous Tagalog word, meaning: "society" or "gather". Its official revolutionary meanings are translated as Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (Supreme and Venerable Society of the Children of the Nation). The word were used by Filipino revolutionary rebel leaders. Katipunan is also known by its acronym, KKK.

So thankfully, there's no connection to the badly dressed cotton balls with pointed heads from the US.

What lesson did we learn here? Never assume what you think you know, or not know, or may know sometime in the near or far future is 100% correct the world over. An acronym of hate in one country could very well be an acronym for bravery and freedom in another!

That is my lesson students, you may, or may not be tested on this!

Restaurant Greeters

2008-05-22T11:51:00.003+08:00

When you find a row of restaurants here in the Philippines you usually find several people standing out front, menu in hands, trying to convince you to pick their restaurant over the others. I use the word convince very lightly. They generally don't seem as interested as they should be about getting you inside. This is their job after all so I don't understand why most of them seem to be so bored doing it. To help to understand what it's like think of it this way: you're in a mall and there are 10 restaurants in a row all offering either similar things or completely different things from various countries. What they offer is unimportant, it's all down to being a good salesman and convincing you, the possible customer, that the restaurant they represent is the only choice for you. That's what it's about - or at least - that's what it should be about. But here in the Philippines this particular job seems to have a different requirement. It's not about advertising. And it's certainly not about convincing. It seems the only job requirement is to be slightly informative and only slightly interested in talking to you. Let me explain: you walk by this row of 10 restaurants and each greeter takes one small step closer to you, raises the menu only slightly higher in your direction, and says the following words, "_____food Sir." The blank represents the style of food in the restaurant. "Italian food Sir," "Japanese food Sir," "Chinese Food Sir," "Thai food Sir," "Filipino food Sir..." But this is all fine and dandy, I can already see the type of the food the restaurant offers even before the greeter greets me. So how is saying, "Japanese food Sir" suppose to convince me that this is my best restaurant choice? Especially considering that there might be 5 Japanese restaurants all in a row. Each greeter only saying, "Japanese food Sir." And when I ask if the food is good, the only reply I get is, "Japanese food good Sir." Yes, I know Japanese food is good but is yours good? I never seem to get an answer. It gets really funny when you're approached by a greeter that represents a restaurant that has a wide range of international dishes on their menu. Rather than saying, "Japanese food Sir" you will get either a bored, "food Sir," or just them telling you the name of the restaurant. If I was to ask them what sort of food they offer I would get a, "many foods Sir." So I start looking through the menu and reading it under my breath saying things like, "Oh, I see pasta, I see sandwiches, I see pizzas...," followed by a bored reply by the greeter of, "Yes, pasta Sir, sandwiches Sir, pizzas Sir..." So far, during my life here, I've never, ever, been approached by a greeter who really convinced me their restaurant was the only one for me. It's always overly polite and bored sounding greetings that never, ever, describe the food.

On the other side of the world in Mexico these restaurant greeters really work for your business. They will not take no for an answer. They will run up to you, menu in hand, and say things like, 'best burritos in Mexico, sexy waitresses, the most fun you will have EVER for the REST OF YOUR LIFE. THESE ARE LIFE CHANGING BURRITOS!!!" If you try to walk away they will chase after you. "WE WILL COOK YOU ANYTHING!! ANYTHING!! OUR WAITRESSES WILL SERVE YOU FOOD IN THE NUDE. OUR RESTAURANT IS THE BEST PLEASE BE OUR COSTUMER!!

Quite a difference eh? Like night and day! Either Mexicans are better salesmen or Filipinos are just more polite people? I actually don't like either of these techniques. One isn't aggressive enough, and the other is too aggressive. Is it so hard to have a greeter who sits happily in the middle?

Unsolicited Texts

2008-05-20T14:25:00.005+08:00

I'm actually surprised at the number of unsolicited cellular phone text messages I receive here in the Philippines. I don't know how or where these people get my phone number from but the text messages seem to be increasing. The texts range from simple advertisements regarding sales at stores to asking if I want to purchase a new car or property. I don't know about you but every time I consider buying a new home the first place I look for good deals is through a text message! I'm sure the text messaging real estate agents are very trustworthy! On second thought, I think I prefer to buy my home from someone else thank you very much! What bothers me the most about these unsolicited text messages isn't that they're happening (which yes, is quite annoying) but how hard I find them to understand. The Filipinos text in an odd format I can't translate. It's a miss-mash of Tagalog and English words, cleverly called Taglish. This odd mixing of languages isn't the worse part, it's the crazy grammar and abbreviated spelling that makes translating even the English components impossible. Now, I'm a traditionalist when it comes to advertising. As a consumer I expect the advertisements directed at me to make sense. It's that the point? I want perfect spelling and I want perfect clear and concise grammar; is that too much to expect? But instead, even companies I shop at who I'm happy to receive information from sends me texts that I either can't read, or the frustration from the improbable grammar mistakes or cartoonish abbreviations makes me give up and delete the messages entirely. Now I know what you're thinking; you think I'm being harsh. You're probably saying to yourself that the reason these texts are badly written is because they're probably sent from people who use English as a second language therefore I should be more understanding. No, I refuse to be understanding because most people here in the Philippines speak excellent English. All the stores I shop in employ people who speak excellent English. But for some odd reason, this beautiful understanding of the English language never makes its way into a text message. Text messaging has just become a real lazy form of a new language here. Text Taglish we shall call it!

Here's the first example of a unsolicited text message:

Get 20k-2M loan,asLOWas 1.2%int/mo!Up to 48mos!NO COLLATRAL/COMAKA! 1mo PAYMNT HOLIDY!Call Helen... Pls dsrgrd msg f not intrstd.Tnx&God bless!

Now I understand the gist of this message but the part(s) that bother me the most are the ones where the words are so close to being correct but they got lazy and abbreviated them:

PAYMNT, HOLIDY, dsrgrd, intrstd....grrrr. Please, oh please, just add that last letter. Is that so hard to do?

Here's another example. This time from a store I shop at quite frequently called Healthy Options:

Gud eveng Sir! Dis is to infOrm u dat u are includ'd on our goldc'd list,d gOld card wil entitlle u a 10% discOun once u availed d required points, as such u hv until may 26,&d need'd amunt wud be ____ tnx&best of health.-luz/healthy OptiOns mall of asia/.

Is the 'luz' their business version of 'luv'? I don't understand. Once again, words that shouldn't be nor needed to be shorted get oddly abbreviated.

My final example shouldn't even have reached my cellular's inbox. It's not addressed to me so I don't understand why it was sent to me. See if you can understand the meaning of this one:

Pd pload 60 kc emrgncy lng. D2 kc ko bukid e wlng ngloload d2. Palitan ko nlng doblehn ko pa. D2 rn sa # na to ha laz ko lng 2.May ttmgn lng.

A perfect example of Taglish. A mixture of both English and Tagalog words, both abbreviated.

I'm tempted if these unsolicited texts continue to start sending my own badly written versions back to the senders. Maybe abbreviated insults will get them to stop?

U ashOle, stp txtng me. I am a canuck & im pis'd off by ur anoy'ng msg's. stop or i wil find u & brek ur fOne.piss off & God Bless. -Luz mE

"Pleasure To Meet You Mr. Ambassador"

2008-05-20T10:41:00.006+08:00

Today was one of those days where to say to yourself, "Wow, that was something I wouldn't have done if I was still living in Canada." And it's true, I did two things today that were completely outside the realm of normal day-to-day life if I was still back in Vancouver. The first thing, which happened in the morning involved taking a course. Now, as you know, going to school for a course is a pretty normal and average thing to do. Courses are something I've taken in Vancouver. But it's not the idea of going to school that's the unique part, it's the course itself. Today I went to a course called, 'Managing Your Household Staff.' Having a maid or a driver in Canada is a pretty luxurious thing. Only the richest of the rich can afford live-in maids, personal security guards, and drivers that drive you around all day, everyday. But here in the Philippines having household staff is pretty commonplace, even for the middle class. Now I'm not saying I took this course because I need to know how to manage my own personal body guard. I don't have a guard and I never plan to get one. I don't even like the idea of a live-in maid. I actually find it weird waking up every morning and seeing several maids running around cleaning things. The house we live in currently has several maids and drivers; and although I've gotten used to it as time went by I still like having a bit more privacy. So once Aimee and I decide to move we're not having live-in maids; especially in an apartment. Call me old fashion but I like walking around in my underwear if the desire hits me and with live-in maids I feel like I have to dress up somewhat respectively just to leave my room. Your home is your castle so it's all about what do you prefer: a clean house and no personal privacy or a semi-dirty house with hours of pleasurable underwear dancing. We may have one maid - a part-time maid - so I guess taking this course is somewhat relevant if I need to know how to manage her. I won't bore you with the details but let's just say the course taught me how to locate possible staff, how to interview them, how to manage them once they're hired, how to keep them happy, and how to punish them (non-violently obviously) if you caught them stealing or such. The course also went briefly into cultural differences between us western types and the Filipinos. Some Filipinos are very superstitious about certain things so our instructor said it's a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the customs just in case you find yourself in a situation where the maid refuses to wash dishes on a Friday because evil spirits will possess her through the sink drain (I made this one up but some of the superstitions are actually quite close on the silly meter). When the course ended I found myself walking away with new and exciting knowledge on how to be a boss. I also found myself thinking about the bosses I've had over the years and how they should be taking the course I just finished. Most of my ex-bosses had no idea on how to deal with employees and I think this course - although talking about Filipinos - would be a good and positive educational experience for them. Maybe I should fax my course booklet to my old places of employment?

Did you know that the stanard wage for a live-in maid in the Metro Manila area is only 3000 to 4000 peso per month? That's - only - $69.10 to 92.14 CDN. You're probably sitting there thinking to yourself, 'Holy crap, I would feel guilty paying someone only $69.10 a month.' and you wouldn't be alone. Most of the expat families here thought the same thing and started paying their employees on a pay scale closer to the one a North American would earn. So imagine being a Filipino, getting hired by an expat family and finding your wage going from 3000 peso per month to, say, 2000 peso per week or more. Needless to say this discrepancy in wages has caused a bit of an issue in the household staff labour force. Any maid that has had an expat employer in the past now expects a rate much higher that the labour code suggests. I wonder if the non-expat families - the Filipino families - are annoyed at the expats for paying their staff so high?

The course ended, I had lunch, headed home and got ready for my evening out. My evening consisted of attending a general meeting for the Canadian Club of the Philippines. We're a group of Canadians who get together on both a social level and a charitable level. The Canadian Club raise funds for local Filipino charities and try to help out the poor as much as possible. The general meeting, this time, was held at the house of the Canadian Ambassador to the Philippines. I've met the Ambassador before, during Christmas time but I wasn't 100% satisfied with our meeting. You see, when I first heard I was going to meet a real Ambassador my mind started to fill with scenes from movies - usually James Bond-type movies - and how meeting an Ambassador is such a big deal. I thought to myself how I need to do this properly; I need to greet him in the most respectable way possible. I had my greeting practiced and ready to go. I would say, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador," smile, and shake his hand. It didn't actually go that way. When Aimee and I arrived at the Ambassador's house we were greeted by two people at the entrance. A woman, and a man. I shook the woman's hand and then moved over to the man's hand. He didn't announce himself as being the Ambassador so I didn't immediately think to blurt of my, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador," line. We finished the hand shaking and just as I was about to ask him if he's the Ambassador a waiter comes up and offers me a glass to wine. I grab the wine and turn back only to see a new guest shaking his hand and saying, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador." What??? Are you kidding me? That was MY line! I missed my chance and sadly at the end of the evening I also missed my chance to say, "It was a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador." So Christmas with the Ambassador was a complete write off. No dramatic James Bond styled secret agent scenes for me. I was just another face in the crowd for the Ambassador. So imagine my pleasure when I heard the next Canadian Club meeting was going to be at the Ambassador's house! "It's a pleasure to meet you again Mr. Ambassador." I can do this! We arrived at his house and went though the entrance. There were two ladies greeting us at the door: the Ambassador's wife and a member from the Canadian Club. Where is the Ambassador? How am I suppose to wow him with my rehearsed greeting if he's not even here? I grabbed a glass of wine and started to mingle. An hour went by and I still didn't see the Ambassador. Finally the meeting started and out popped the Ambassador. He said a few words and disappeared again. I didn't see him for the rest of the evening. Second chance: failed! I hope I don't have to wait until the next Christmas party to say my amusing and cunning greeting. Knowing my luck I'll finally get the chance and accidentally blurt out something like, "Pleasure to eat you Mr. Assador." Oh, the horror ... I shiver in fear at the likely possibly of that happening.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Ambassador ... one day, soon, in the future, when ever you have time, let's have coffee ... and some maple syrup eh!"

Singapore

2008-05-02T11:05:00.021+08:00

Aimee and I spent a few days exploring Singapore. Singapore, the home of Tiger Beer and Tiger Balm!

Singapore is an island nation located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres (85 mi) north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At 704.0 km (272 sq mi), it is one of the few remaining city-states in the world and the smallest country in Southeast Asia. Singapore became a self-governing state within the British Empire in 1959 with Yusof bin Ishak as its first Yang di-Pertuan Negara and Lee Kuan Yew as its first Prime Minister. It declared independence from Britain in August 1963, before joining the Federation of Malaysia in September as the result of the 1962 Merger Referendum of Singapore. Singapore left the federation two years later after heated ideological conflict between the state's PAP government and the federal Kuala Lumpur government. Singapore officially gained sovereignty on 9 August 1965. Yusof bin Ishak was sworn in as the first President of Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew remained Prime Minister.

Although Singapore's laws are inherited from British and British Indian laws, including many elements of English common law, the PAP has also consistently rejected liberal democratic values, which it typifies as Western and states there should not be a 'one-size-fits-all' solution to a democracy. There are no jury trials. Laws restricting the freedom of speech are justified by claims that they are intended to prohibit speech that may breed ill will or cause disharmony within Singapore's multiracial, multi-religious society. For example, in September 2005, three bloggers were convicted of sedition for posting racist remarks targeting minorities. Some offences can lead to heavy fines or caning (caning is a physical punishment consisting of a number of hits (known as "strokes" or "cuts") with a wooden cane, generally applied to the bare or clad buttocks, shoulders, hand(s) (palm, rarely knuckles) or the soles of the feet), and there are laws which allow capital punishment in Singapore for first-degree murder and drug trafficking. Amnesty International has criticised Singapore for having "possibly the highest execution rate in the world" per capita. The Singapore government argues that there is no international consensus on the appropriateness of the death penalty and that Singapore has the sovereign right to determine its own judicial system and impose capital punishment for the most serious crimes.

Reading this you might be thinking, "wow, Singapore is a pretty harsh place". The laws are extreme, the punishments for crimes are extreme but when you take these things into account, and if you're a law bidding citizen, Singapore is probably the safest place I've ever travelled to. Or at least, Singapore feels like it's the safest place. I read the newspaper every morning while I was there and saw no articles or news about crime. Nothing. I'm sure it exists but from my viewpoint I didn't see any. Singapore is also an insanely clean place. You can practically eat off the sidewalk. The fines/punishments for littering are so extreme that no body seems to do it.

I really enjoyed my time in Singapore. It may not have the ancient history of other Asian countries but it does have its own quaint personality. From a tourist perspective I noticed Singapore is pretty much made up of sightseeing, places to eat, a few museums, and a whole mess of theme parks. Singapore's main income comes from tourism so they've built various themed places for tourists to go. Here are some things we saw while there:

This is the Merlion, Singapore's national symbol. Half lion, half fish. There are five official Merlions in Singapore approved by the Singapore Tourism Board. The largest is on the island of Sentosa.

The building behind Aimee and I is called the Esplanade. There are two of these duplicate buildings side by side. They are used for live theatre and performances. The locals affectionately nicknamed these buildings the Durian Buildings because of their close appearance to the fruit. Don't believe me? Look at the photo below:

Ah, great durian ... the stinky rotten cheese fruit passionately loved in Asia!

Aimee and I decided to take a walking tour of Little India. Walking around Little India really opened my eyes about how multicultural Singapore is. They call it 'Little India', and it is primarily Indian, but you still see a wonderful mosaic of other cultures. This photo is a good example of this. In the middle of Little India I saw this Chinese-themed display. Actually, the only thing in this photo that shows it's Little India is the two Indian fellows in the foreground.

The following are several photos taken around Little India:

Our travels in Little India brought us to this mosque.

We took off our shoes, screamed as our naked feet hit the frying pavement, and walked quickly to the inside of the mosque.

While inside we were treated to a short tour and a summarized lesson about the Muslim faith. It was an educational experience but sadly due to the Imam's (Muslin Priest) thick accent I only understood 75% of the lecture. After he finished talking he quickly left leaving me wondering what the missing 25% was. I scratched my head in confusion and decided to try to fill in the blanks. Maybe it's this 25% of blanks being filled that's causing all the religious issues in the world?

Next stop, Sentosa Island!

Sentosa, which means peace and tranquillity in Malay, is a popular island resort in Singapore, visited by some five million people a year. Attractions include a two-kilometre long sheltered beach, Fort Siloso, Underwater World, two golf courses and two five-star hotels.

To get to Sentosa you have to take a gondola ride from the mainland. As you approach the island you're welcomed by this giant Merlion. At 37m/121ft, this is the tallest version of the half-lion, half-fish.

We decided to join a bus tour to see some of the sights of Sentosa. Our bus tour included a guide and I must say, our guide was more entertaining than Sentosa itself. Our guide was extremely gay, and extremely stressed. Do you remember the movie Father of the Bride (the remake) and in that movie Martin Short played an overly stereotypical gay wedding planner? If you were to take that character, make him Malayian, and then give him a Singaporian accent, you would have our guide. He was stressed because it was not only a weekend but a holiday as well so they were overloaded with tourists. As he attempted to collect every person part of his tour together he screamed out in a high and squeaky voice, "Everyone with me here, everyone who's with me here." We all gathered around him and then he quickly walked us to the bus. And I mean quickly. I saw old Grandma's running to catch up with him. We got on the bus and were taken to our first stop: Dolphin Lagoon. Dolphin Lagoon is basically an outdoor dolphin show. Did I say it was outdoor? Oh yes, outdoor and pouring rain. It's hard to enjoy a dolphin show when you're getting drenched wet in the rain like a dolphin. I ran into the gift shop and paid an insane amount of money for a Singaporian themed umbrella which sadly broke as soon as I opened it. I ran back to the gift shop, got a replacement, opened the umbrella, located Aimee and attemped to enjoy the dolphin show while being smacked in the head by the umbrellas attached to short people. Needless to say, Dolphin Lagoon wasn't going to go down in my travel book of favourite places.

The show ended and we met at our designated meeting spot. We were greeted with another round of, "Everyone with me here" and followed our guide back to the bus. During the bus ride I could tell our guide was relaxing a bit. He started to tell jokes and odd jokes they were. Our next stop was going to be an oceanarium (the new hip way of saying aquarium) called Underwater World and our guide jokingly asked us all to go see the manatee and tell him who is more sexy, him or the manatee. Obviously he was joking but it seemed he was the only one laughing (giggling obsessively actually). We stopped at Underwater World and got off.

Underwater World is Asia's largest tropical oceanarium showcasing some 2500 marine life from 250 species from around the regions and one of Singapore's most popular tourist attractions. Once you reach the bottom level of the oceanarium you step onto a moving sidewalk that takes you through a 83-meter long underwater tunnel. I stood there in awe of all the species of sea life in front of me and then I was greeted by the prize of my visit: the manatee...

Hello Miss Manatee! I remembered back to what our travel guide said, who is more sexy. I couldn't decide given the choices I was given: a sea mammal or a homosexual tour guide? Who is more sexy? I figured it was best to just play dumb if our guide repeated the question. After all, it was probably just a one-off joke right? He wouldn't ask that again would he? Well, once we got back to the bus he did ask. The bus went quiet. Deadly quiet. I noticed I wasn't alone in my quest to play dumb. Everyone was playing dumb. After what seemed like an eternity of uncomfortable silence are bus started up and we moved on to our next destination: The Extreme Log Ride!

No wait, you need to say it like this in a deep voice: THE EXTREME LOG RIDE!

The Extreme Log Ride is a 4-dimensional ride that will tickle all your senses. In theory at least; that's if it worked properly. While we were waiting in the line up I saw a poster advertising the ride this way:

Sit tight! These Super-Trees that are grown in a 'Super World' will rush down ravines and gush through deep caves, crocodiles and danger awaits you at every turn! Will you make it to the harvesting plant? Hang on and find out!

Finally after 40 minutes of waiting we were at the front of the line and it was our turn to go inside. We found ourselves in yet another waiting room only at least this time they entertained us with a music and light show. After 15 minutes of that we were finally allowed into the coveted area of the EXTREME LOG RIDE. We were given 3-D glasses and rushed to grab our seats. The seats were inside these little spaceship-looking-things that sat 6 people per car. Aimee and I weren't fast enough so we ended up sitting in seats way at the back. Mostly because we were following a group of 4 people who couldn't seem to decided who they wanted to sit beside. Their group kept reorganizing themselves while Aimee and I waited. After they were finally happy with their seating arrangement Aimee and I noticed they sat in a way that didn't allow us to sit together. We politely asked them to reorganize themselves again so there would be two seats side by side. Thankfully they did. Aimee and I sat together, buckled up our seat belts, and excitedly waited for the EXTREME LOG RIDE. A female host came out and gave us all a brief list or rules and once that was complete she lowered her voice into a deep growl and said, "All aboard the EXTREME LOG RIDE". The lights dimmed, and with our 3-D glasses on the show started.
In the show you're sitting on a log as it goes through various areas of a forest. You're cut in half by saws, you're rushing down rivers, you're being attacked by crocodiles... While all this is happening, in 3-D, our spaceship-thing moves with the motion you see on the screen. It was an amazing ride - well - until it started breaking down. The first viewing went on for about five minutes. I noticed after the five minute mark that our spaceship-thing stopped moving. I looked at the other spaceship-things and notice they too had stopped. The lights came up and the host came out and said there was a minor error and the EXTREME LOG RIDE will start again - from the start. The lights dimmed and we were brought back to the beginning of the show. This time we got through three minutes of the ride when I noticed everything on the screen was going blurry. My first thought was my contacts were dry and I wasn't seeing properly. I took off the 3-D glasses and looked around. Everything else seemed to be in focus (from what I could gather sitting in the dark). I whispered to Aimee, "Hey, do you see something weird about the screen?" She replied, "Oh yeah, I thought it was my contacts." Once again the lights came back up. The host came out and said, "Sorry, there was another error please stay tuned we will restart the EXTREME LOG RIDE from the start." The lights went down again and we were once again we were brought back to the beginning. We got through four minutes this time. This time she said, "it looks like someone detached their seatbelt during the ride. Please keep your seatbelts fassoned. We will restart the EXTREME LOG RIDE shortly." The audience were all looking around trying to figure out (and beat) the person who unfassoned their seatbelt. Finally, the ride started up again. This time we got through two minutes before everything stopped and the lights came up. The host came out again and this time she said in a pissed off tone, "you SEE what happens when you remove your seatbelt. Now we need to start from the beginning again." I could see the audience all suspiciously looking at each other. But I could also see a 'People Power' movement forming. Everyone, almost in unison, started up blurting out things like, "It's not us, IT'S YOU", "We're not doing anything", "We're all innocent, really", but the main thing I heard was, "Can we please just leave now?" Unfortnuately our spaceship-things had a door that locked you in once you entered. We were all trapped. The lights dimmed and the show started again from, you guessed it, the beginning. Two minutes this time before it stopped. The lights came up and I saw a small man in a red jumpsuit run into the theatre and slide under the spaceship beside us. The people who saw him were all saying things like, "hey you, what's happening?" or "What are you doing, can we please just go home now?" You could barely see him under the car and he didn't answer, The doors to the spaceships remained closed. The lights started to dim and this time the error involved the spaceship doors opening just as the show started. Aimee and I saw people taking advantage of this by rushing through the doors and sprinting towards the exit. Aimee and I followed. As we were running we heard the host say, "you are free to leave if you wish but if you stay, get ready to be thrilled by the EXTREME LOG RIDE!!" I could see the expression of most people. The expression was, "Screw you lady," and we all bolted out the exit. I did notice though that 20% of the audience remained. I guess they truly were enjoying the EXTREME LOG RIDE!!

The EXTREME LOG RIDE was the last sight of our Sentosa tour. We hopped back on the gondula and headed back to the mainland. That night we went and saw the Night Safari.

Indiana Kenn says, "I really enjoyed the Night Safari."

Nestled in 40 hectares of lush secondary forest, the Night Safari offers guests the unique experience of exploring wildlife in a tropical jungle at night. Through the use of subtle lighting technique, guests are able to view over 1,000 nocturnal animals of 100 species in vast naturalistic habitats. It's the first in the world apparently. You are given the choice between taking one of the walking tours around the safari or riding on a tram that covers more area than the walking tour. We decided to do a little bit of both.

All aboard!

The trouble with a safari at night you see is it's at night right, so it's dark right, so unfortunately, I couldn't take a whole lot of photographs. Flash photography was banned understandably because it annoys and scares the animals but that still didn't stop the odd person from trying to sneak a flash shot by when the guide wasn't looking. Obviously the morons didn't realize that's it's impossibe to 'sneak' a picture with a flash by in a dark area. Everything lights up! One person tried three times and each time our guide told them to stop it. The flashed was blinding and if the animals weren't annoyed I certainly was.

The tram ride took us passed lions, elephants, wolves, and sorts of animals. Most of the dangerous animals were separated from us by only a ditch. The more peaceful animals were allowed to walk up to the tram if they wanted. Everything about the Night Safari reminded be of the movie Jurasic Park. Thankfully during our trip there, no one got eaten.

During one of the walking tours I found myself face to face with a fruit bat. I've never seen on so close before. I looked at him, he looked at me. He seemed to nibble on his apple more agressively the close I got. I was able to stare at this guy from a distance of only 2 feet. Amazing. Say what you will about bats, but I think they're kind of cute.

Aimee saw this hat and begged me to take a picture of her. Begged me! It was uncomfortable actually. I don't know why she was so passionate about wearing this hat....

...oh, okay, I admit it, I was the one doing all the begging. But I really wanted a photo of her in an elephant hat. It's a bit of a dream of mine actually.

Elephant hat photo with wife: check!

Bye bye Singapore, you were a great place to visit and we loved everything about you except the...

... EXTREME LOG RIDE!!

Tiger LIVE: The Experience

2008-04-26T19:25:00.007+08:00

Singapore is the home of Tiger Beer, and they're proud of it! I've been to many beer brewery tours in my time but Tiger Beer is the first brewery tour that truly was an EXPERIENCE. So it make perfect sense that they called their tour Tiger LIVE: The Experience. Unlike other brewery tours that just show you around and give you a brief description about the beer brewing process, Tiger Beer takes it to a whole new level. We're talking a full multimedia 4D extravaganza performance!

Here's me posing out front. I may look calm but my insides and all excited in the anticipation to find out what The Experience it all about!

You enter the front of the building and are greeted by several girls in tight little Tiger Beer outfits. We bought our tickets and were led to the first of many tour rooms. Our guide, a girl, talked about the beer making process. The first room was decorated with hops, barley, running water... all the necessary things required to make a nice cold glass of beer. The room was filled with Tiger Beer logos as well as beer bottles being transported along a conveyor belt. Once the beer making process tour was complete a gush of air filled the room and a secret door on the right opened. The gush of air was an interested addition. I felt like I was entering a space airlock and not a brewery tour. We went through the newly appeared door and once we were all through, the door sealed behind us. I could have sworn I heard the sound of a lock locking itself into place. Were we being kidnapped by Tiger Beer?

The second room was decorated like a small town. There were three buildings with large windows. The lights in the room went down and one of the windows lit up revealing two guys loading boxes of Tiger Beer into a warehouse. I guess they were the comic relief because their personalities were way over the top and silly. Think of the movie Dumb & Dumber only with gay Singaporeans. They talked about how working in the warehouse is hard work but well worth it because, well, it's for Tiger Beer after all! After several minutes of silly banter and some on the job drinking (Tiger Beer of course), the warehouse worker's window went black and one of the other windows lit up. This time it was a beer master working in a lab trying to create the most perfect glass of beer. He was overly excited about his job; a little too excited. I think, like the warehouse workers before him, he was drunk. He talked about the importance of fresh ingredients and patience to make the most perfect beer. After a few minutes his window went black and was replaced by a third window, this time with two older ladies knitting. I kid you not: old ladies knitting. I couldn't quite understand how old ladies knitting related to Tiger Beer but as they talked I saw the connection. They were talking about a brief history of Singapore. From their standpoint it was the early 1960s. After several minutes of this history lesson a third woman excitedly ran up to the two other woman and explained that Singapore has just become an independent Republic. The time frame here was back in August 9, 1965. All three ladies were extremely excited! Guess how they celebrated? With a tall cold glass of Tiger Beer of course! This windowed presentation went on for several more minutes rotating from window to window. During the last bit all three windows came on at the same time and the people said good bye. They toasted us with bottles of Tiger Beer and once the windows went black, another gush of air filled the room and another secret doorway slid open. This is where The Experience starts!

We walked in the third room and noticed a very industrial looking landscape of metal and wiring. We were led onto a large circular metal platform and were told to sit down. We seat belted ourselves in, put on the 3D glasses given to us, and sat back to take in Tiger LIVE: The 4D Experience! The lights went down and the whole room started to shake. Smoke shot out of the walls and a huge screen in front of us blipped into existence. On the screen was a 3D computer generated cartoon representation of wheat. Yes, wheat. Our hero in this story is a piece of wheat. The wheat, called Charlie, was harvested from a farm and found himself in a container with another piece of wheat, female this time. Our two heroes were brought through the whole beer making process. Somewhere along the line the two wheats had sex ... I think that was referring to the chemical reactions produced during the yeast fermentation process of beer but it was hard to understand since this 4D show kept blasting us with smoke, air and lights. At one point the whole stage lifted itself up and twisted us around so we were facing a different screen. Imagine the money thrown into this show? All this for beer! The show ended and we were led into a pub: our final stop. At this pub the bartender showed us the proper way to tap a glass of Tiger Beer. He asked for volunteers and I jumped to the challenge!

First I'm instructed to wash the glass. Make sense, who wants a dirty beer glass?

Secondly, I pour the glass. Gently Kenn, gently... don't spill any of the nectar of the Gods (the Singaporean Gods that is)!

Finally, here's me displaying my kinship glass of Tiger Beer. I look like a proud father don't I?

Here's Aimee proudly posing in front of the Tiger Beer sign. During our tour Aimee sampled Tiger Beer for the first time. She took a sip and said, "Mmm, it's pretty good", and then immediately handed her glass to me so I could finish it. I'm not quite sure what that means... she likes it enough to give it away? Girls perplex me... I'm so confused.

On our way out there was a photo booth. The booth had a big sign that read, "Give us your best Tiger pose. Pick your background and we'll superpose you on it." After the photo was taken a message appeared on the screen that read, "Tell us your e-mail address and we'll clean up the photo and send it to you." What's interesting about the line "we'll clean up the photo and send it to you" is the photo they ended up e-mailing me was worse than the first example photo taken. Oh well, bad photo or not, at least it proves we were happily enjoying our Tiger Beer Experience!

After this experience I feel I need to fulfill my Asian beer experience by taking the San Miguel brewery tour. Hopefully I can write a blog about that in the coming months...

Cheers! Toast!

Bangkok - Random Thoughts

2008-04-19T13:18:00.010+08:00

I've collected together a series of random photos I took throughout Bangkok. This post is to compliment the other Bangkok posts I wrote previously. Only this one, as I said, is completely random stuff that I wanted to put into a blog but didn't know where. So here you are my Blogging Buddies, random Bangkok photos:

Taxis. I loved the colour of the taxi cabs in Bangkok. Unlike other cities that seem to stick with the standard yellow taxi cab norm Bangkok brightens things up a bit. Their cabs are bright pinks, neon greens, and bright sunny orange colours. Driving in these cabs was quite the experience too... not due to the bright colours of the cabs, but the interaction we had with the cab drivers. Taking a cab within the Bangkok city central is a pleasing and uncomplicated experience. But, on the other hand, as soon as you tell the cab driver you want to travel outside of Bangkok's city limits it became an endless battle involving the price of the cab fees. Most of the time they use the meter. Easy: the meter tells you what you owe. But if the destination you were requesting is far away, the cab drivers would start quoting prices and refusing to the use the meter. The reason behind this? Well, in the cab driver's mind they see the trip as a one way fair. They think that once they drop you off at that far destination then there's no one to pay for the trip back. The prices they quote cover both trips. A good example of this is driving to and from the airport. The airport is far from Bangkok central so the cabbie always, in my experience at least, refuse to use the meter and start yelling out fees like, "300 baht, pay 300 baht." I found out later that if the meter was used, the price was slightly over 100 baht. It was annoyingly funny how the cab driver who was taking us back to the airport was justifying the fee by saying, "Oh, airport so far. So very far. So so far ... tsk tsk ... no meter needed ... 300 baht, it's good for you, it's good for me!" I don't know how it's good for me if I'm being ripped off. If he was trying to ease my mind he wasn't doing a very good job.

This is a tuk-tuk (pronounced took-took). The tuk-tuk is the Southeast Asian version of a vehicle known elsewhere as an auto rickshaw or cabin cycle. It is a widely used form of urban transport in Bangkok and other Thai cities, as well as other major Southeast Asian and South Asian cities. It is particularly popular where traffic congestion is a major problem, such as in Bangkok.

Tuk-tuk parking lot!

Aimee proudly posing by a tuk-tuk.

National Museum Bangkok.

The National Museum Bangkok in the city of Bangkok features exhibits of Thai art and history. The museum was established and opened in 1874 by King Rama V to exhibit relics from the rule of King Rama IV's rule. Today the galleries contain exhibits covering Thai History back to Neolithic times. It is stated as being the largest museum in Southeast Asia.

The museum consists of a large courtyard that houses various ancient and recent buildings and architecture. In these buildings are 19 galleries showcasing all areas of Thai history through information and artifacts. Most of the photos I took were from outside the buildings since interior photo taking was forbidden in most galleries.

These creatures, called the Garuda, is a mythical figure with a human torso and arms, a demonic face and a bird's legs, wings and tail. They are the National Emblem (National Symbol) of Thailand. The Garuda is a figure from both Buddhist and Hindu mythology. In Thailand, this figure is used as a symbol of the royal family and authority.

Although there was a huge sign beside this Buddha statue telling me not to take photos, I quickly took one anyhow. Why did I brave such villainy? No reason, I just liked the statue and wanted a picture ... no villainy intended.

The main building at the museum told the story of Thailand's history. The history was told through the use of Thai action figures! Yeah, I know they're called miniatures or better yet, dioramas, but in my world they're called action figures!

Thailand, like most countries, has had a bloody history (which I can't summarize for you here). Lots of wars, lots of battles... But what I found so intriguing about their battles is the involvement of elephants! Imagine that, elephants! Forget the horses, bring in the elephants!
Let's add a few elephants to a Western movie. There's nothing more satisfying than riding your elephant off into the sunset.

Aimee and a Garuda.

After the National Museum we took a boat ride on the Chao Phraya River...

The cities along the Chao Phraya are Nakhon Sawan, Uthai Thani, Chainat, Singburi, Ang Thong, Ayutthaya, Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi, Bangkok and Samut Prakan, listed from north to south. These cities are among the most historically significant and densely populated settlements of Thailand precisely because of their access to the waterway.

Touring Bangkok via the Chao Phraya River is an excellent way of seeing the city from a completely fresh new viewpoint. From the river you can see 10 different Wats (temples) as well as the Grand Palace.

While travelling down the river I saw this huge sign. Okay, let's see how many of you know Thailand ... which extremely famous person is featured on this sign?

Tick
Tick
Tick...

Okay, times up! If you guessed Thailand's King, King Bhumibol, you are correct!

King Bhumibol rose to the throne in 1946, after the unexplained shooting of his brother, King Ananda Mahidol. At 18 and with no training for his new task, Bhumibol promised to "reign with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese people." He has done so. And the response he gets from his people in rural Thailand today is almost beyond the understanding of the Western mind: Thai villagers lay down handkerchiefs for him to walk on and then they save the scraps of cloth with his footprint in shrines at their homes. He is a beloved king in Thailand, and you will see photos, billboards, signs and references of him all over!

On many streets you will see images of him.

Asiaweek magazine recently described the place of the Thai royal family in the life of the nation:

"It is probably safe to say that no monarch in the world is as popular as King Bhumibol. Or so revered. Or so present. His portrait hangs in virtually every home and office in the land, a kind of benevolent father watching over his children. Every night all TV channels run footage of royal family members attending official functions. Some, such as visits by foreign heads of state, are clearly significant; others would make little television sense anywhere else. But, as former premier Anand Panyarachun says, over the years the King has earned the admiration of his people in a manner that cannot be fully comprehended by foreigners.

We leave Bangkok now with a photo of two cats. Why cats? Why not I say ... why not ... there's always room for a few cats in every blog.

Next stop, Singapore!

Thai Food

2008-04-17T16:38:00.011+08:00

Thai food: Delicious, satisfying, tasty, spicy, and possibly even orgasmic. I love Thai food. It's definitely up there in my list of favourite foods. Not a minor favourite either; it's at the top. It's a food choice that's possibly number one on the list; and I don't take food eating lightly. Heck, I eat more Thai food here in the Philippines than I do Filipino food. How's that for being a fan? I love Thai food so much that it's a dream to strip down naked and swim in it... Oh wait, that's too much information isn't it? Okay, sorry, moving on...

Needless to say I was excited when we started to plan our trip to Thailand.

Here's the Idiot's Guide To Thai Food. I can't include every recipe obviously, but I can include a few examples of the food we ate while we were in Thailand.

Curries. Specifically Thai green curry. Yum. The name "green" curry derives from the color of the dish. Other Thai curry dishes are identified solely by their colors, such as yellow and red curry.

The main ingredients for the sauce consist of coconut milk, green curry paste, eggplant, sugar, fish sauce, kaffir lime leaves, and thai basil leaves. The consistency of its sauce varies with the amount of coconut milk used. Green curry paste is made by pounding in a mortar green chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal, fresh turmeric, shrimp paste and salt. The paste is briefly fried in a wok and coconut milk is added, then meat and vegetables added along with a pinch of brown sugar. Finally, kaffir lime leaves and thai basil are added just at the end of cooking for fragrance.

Thai green curry can be made with meat, duck, chicken, fish or vegetables and is usually eaten as an accompaniment to rice or round rice noodles known as khanom jeen.

Pomelo Salad. Yum-o-licious. Pomelo salad isn't found only on a Thai menu, the Philippines as well has their own version. In Thailand we found ourselves subconsciously ordering pomelo salad for every meal. I say 'subconsciously' because our original plan was to order something different for every meal but somehow, pomelo salad always ended up as part of our order. After a while we became connoisseurs of pomelo salad. Every restaurant we visited became an exploration of pomelo salad and which place served the best of the best. The recipe changes from place to place but the standard ingredients include pomelo (obviously), dry-roasted peanuts, prawns, grated coconut, fish sauce (Thais love their fish sauce), lime juice, and other ingredients to taste. Yummy yum!

Pad Thai. I'm sure you know of it. Even non-fans of Thai food (are there such a thing?) know of the delicious pad thai. Pad Thai is a dish of stir-fried rice noodles with eggs, fish sauce (see, fish sauce), tamarind juice, red chili pepper, plus any combination of bean sprouts, shrimp, chicken, or tofu, garnished with crushed peanuts and coriander. It is normally served with a piece of lime, the juice of which can be added along with the usual Thai condiments.

There have evolved two different styles of Pad Thai: the version most often found in the streets of Thailand, which is relatively dry and light; and the version that seems dominant in many restaurants in the West, which may be covered in a red oil and can be heavy tasting.

Yum-tastic!

Tom Yam Soup. It is perhaps one of the most famous dishes in Thai cuisine. It is widely popular in neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, and it is now also globally popularized.

Tom yum is characterized by its distinct hot and sour flavors, with fragrant herbs generously used. The basic broth is made of stock and fresh ingredients such as lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, shallots, lime juice, fish sauce, tamarind, and crushed chili peppers.

In Thailand, tom yum is usually made with prawns (tom yum goong), chicken (tom yum gai), fish (tom yum pla), or mixed seafood (tom yum talay or tom yum po taek) and mushrooms - usually straw or oyster mushrooms. The soup is often topped with generous sprinkling of fresh chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves.

While in Thailand we were impressed by how delicious the food was everywhere. And I mean everywhere. From street food and the smallest of shack restaurants to the most expensive high class restaurants, everything was deliciously cooked and very very satisfying. I can't stress enough about how yummy all the food was. Why, I'm even salivating as I type this. Hold on, let me get a tissue... ok, I'm cleaned up ... moving on. The food listed above are a few of my personal favourites. But are they examples of true amazing Thai food? Well, let's see...

This street vendor claims to be selling Amazing Thai Food. You know he's serious about his claim, he's even named his stall 'Amazing Thai Food'. But what's so amazing about his food? Is it really more amazing that the food I listed above? Let's take a closer look...

What is it and what's so amazing about it? Okay, I'll cut to the chase here, what you're looking at is deep fried insects. That's right, insects. We have cicadas, locusts, mantises, crickets, water bugs, weaver ants, dung beetles, grasshoppers and even tarantula spiders.

Yum.

Yummy-o-yum.

Okay, I confess, I can't claim to be a member of the Fear Factor generation: I didn't eat any. At the time I wasn't interested, but later on I had second thoughts. I figured it's pretty unfair for me to write a blog about something I didn't try. Well, I apologize, I didn't try it. But from what I understand the taste isn't that bad. Think of the flavour of popcorn, roasted peanuts or even chicken (I add chicken because really, doesn't most things taste like chicken?). Or if you really want chicken how about a healthy serving of fried baby bird (head and all)? Yum. Interested? Why not? Insects are a rich source of protein, calories, vitamins and minerals. I think you should drop what you're doing now, get outside, and collect as many insects as you can. When your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend comes home simply tell them it's Thai Food Night! After their first bite they'll probably say, 'Wow, that's the best fried chicken I've ever tasted.'

Yum-dee-yum!

Reclining Buddha - Bangkok

2008-04-17T13:23:00.007+08:00

Wat Pho, also known as Wat Phra Chetuphon or The Temple of the Reclining Buddha, is a Buddhist temple in Phra Nakhon district, Bangkok, Thailand. It is located in the Rattanakosin district directly adjacent to the Grand Palace. Its official full name is Wat Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklararm Rajwaramahaviharn (gotta love that name). The temple is also known as the birthplace of traditional Thai massage. Let's go inside!

Like most places in Thailand, you need to remove your shoes before you can enter the inner area.

The Reclining Buddha is massive. It's a massive reclining golden Buddha statue housed in a hall that's only slightly larger than the statue itself. There are also support pillars for the structure lined right in front of the Buddha. This makes picture taking a tad awkward. It's impossible to get a picture of the whole statue at a good angle. Because of this I was forced to take photos in sections. First off, here's the head.

Now here's the feet.

Here's a photo of the Reclining Buddha from his feet to the his head in the distance.

And finally, here's a photo of the Reclining Buddha's backside. You can get a sense of the size of the Buddha by looking at the little people standing in front of his massive bottom.

While I was walking around the Reclining Buddha I kept hearing the echoed sounds of pieces of metal hitting other pieces of metal. When I reach the feet of the Buddha I saw where this sound was coming from. Along the wall, at the back of the Reclining Buddha, were a hundred metal pots. Exactly one hundred. In these pots, one by one, people were throwing in coins. I found out that these pots are for making wishes. Or more precisely, making one hundred wishes. I figured, why not, let's make a wish! I cashed in one of my Thai baht bills for a cup of coins and started, one by one, making my one hundred wishes. It took a while but I was vigilant. Nothing could get in the way of Kenn and his one hundred wishes. I succeeded in my wish wishing but we'll see in the future if my wish actually comes true.

On the way out after I collected my shoes I saw another statue of Davy Jones from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean (remember the first one from the Grand Palace?). But what is this I see in the background? What is that monk doing? Could he possibly be texting on a cellphone? Wow, cool. These Thai monks are hip and high tech!

Jim Thompson

2008-04-15T15:46:00.006+08:00

Now I don't usually write blogs about people. At least, I don't usually write blogs about one particular person especially one who's American. I love Americans and all but they don't usually fall within the scope of this blog and its topics of Pinoy-ness. Jim Thompson, although not Pinoy, does fall within the scope of this blog because he's connected with a country I visited recently: Namely, Thailand.

Jim Thompson's story is a fascinating one. He's pretty famous; have you heard of him? If the answer is no, don't fret my fine Pinoy friends, I too was oblivious to the existence of a certain Jim Thompson. I find his story fascinating not because of what he did, but of what he didn't do. First off, here's some brief information regarding what he did do:

Jim Thompson (born March 21, 1906 in Greenville, Delaware - unknown) was an American businessman who helped revitalize Thailand's silk and textile industry in the 1950s and 1960s.

Thompson devoted himself to revitalizing a cottage industry of hand-woven silk, which had for centuries been a household craft in Thailand but was dying out. Thompson located a group of Muslim weavers in the Bangkok neighborhood of Bankrua and provided to them unavailable color-fast dyes, standardized looms, and technical assistance to those interested in weaving on a piece-work basis.

Besides inventing the bright jewel tones and dramatic color combinations nowadays associated with Thai silk, he raised thousands of Thailand's poorest people out of poverty, making millionaires out of his core group of weavers by giving them shares of the Thai Silk Company. His endeavour showed a profit from its first year of operation. Thompson's determination to keep his company cottage-based was significant for the women who made up the bulk of his work force. By allowing them to work at home, choosing their hours and looking after their children while weaving, they retained their position in the household while becoming breadwinners.

Jim Thompson is a big name is Thailand. I saw several stores displaying his name. You can either buy full rolls of fabric or individual household items made from the silk.

Wow, there's even a Jim Thompson bar and restaurant!

As Thompson was building his company, he also became a major collector of Southeast Asian art, which at the time was not well-known internationally.

He built a superb collection of Buddhist and secular art not only from Thailand but from Burma, Cambodia and Laos, frequently travelling to those countries on buying trips.

In 1958 he began what was to be the pinnacle of his architectural achievement, a new home to showcase his art collection. Formed from parts of six antique Thai houses, his home (completed in 1959) sits on a klong (canal) across from Bangkrua, where his weavers were then located. Most of the 19th century houses were dismantled and moved from Ayutthaya, but the largest - a weaver's house (now the living room) - came from Bangkrua. The Jim Thompson House, now a museum, is the second most popular tourist attraction in Bangkok, surpassed only by the Grand Palace in visitor attendance.

They handed out babies at the entrance! Just kidding, this is my niece. When we went to Jim Thompson's house we took part in a tour that explained who Jim Thompson was, what he did for Thailand, and showcased his artwork and home decorations.

The house is amazing and the garden is even nicer. The pathways are lined with small statues that greet you at every turn.

When you take all these things about Jim Thompson into consideration it's hard not to respect the man. But as I said above, I'm not fascinated by what he did do (which is pretty amazing) but what he didn't do. When I say didn't, I'm referring to this story:

Thompson disappeared mysteriously after going for an afternoon walk on Easter Sunday in the Cameron Highlands in Pahang, Malaysia, on March 26, 1967. It was unusual that he left his cigarettes and a small silver "jungle box" on the chair outside Moonlight Cottage. This suggests that he didn't expect to be gone long. He was never found, and the theories for his disappearance are many, some plausible and others ridiculous. The most likely are probably that he was the victim of a robbery and accidental murder or that he fell into an aboriginal animal trap (a pit with a spike) and was buried by the Orang Asli when they discovered what had happened.

He didn't come back. What a mystery. And what's even more amazing is his silk empire continues to thrives even though he's been missing since 1967. He has stores, restaurants, and his home has become a museum. Pretty amazing for a missing person. It funny actually, when I was first introduced to the name Jim Thompson I was only slightly interested in his story. But as soon as I heard there's a possible murder mystery involved I jumped on the Jim Thompson band wagon. It really makes you wonder what happened to him out there in the jungle...

Here's a little trivia for you:

Thompson's disappearance inspired the 1986 entry into the Choose Your Own Adventure children's book series, The Case of the Silk King by Shannon Gilligan.

The Grand Palace - Bangkok

2008-04-10T13:41:00.013+08:00

The Grand Palace (Thai: Phra Borom Maha Ratcha Wang) is a complex of buildings in Bangkok, Thailand. It served as the official residence of the king of Thailand from the 18th century to the mid-20th century. After the death of King Ananda Mahidol in the Baromphiman Palace, King Bhumibol moved the official royal residence to Chitralada Palace. Construction of the palace complex began in 1782, during the reign of Rama I.

The palace complex sits on the east bank of the Chao Phraya River. The other approaches to the palace are protected by a defensive wall of 1,900 metres in length, which encloses an area of 218,400 square metres. Further out from the wall is a canal, which was also created for defensive purposes, making the area surrounding the palace an island, known as Rattana Kosin.

Here are a selection of photographs taken inside the Grand Palace:

Once you walk through the main entrance you're greeted by this guy. From here you turn slightly to your right and are greeted by two huge statues...

These two huge statues are Dhosa Kiridhorn. They are half elephant half demon (Yaksha). They guard the entrance/exit to the Grand Palace.

Another view of Dhosa Kiridhorn.

The sunlight reflects strongly on all the gold buildings at the Grand Palace. Sunglasses were a definite necessity.

One of the many walkways of the Grand Palace that leads to various buildings.

More walkways.

Behind Aimee and I are gold statues called Kinnorn. They are mythological creatures, half bird, half man. They guard one of the entrances to a building called Phra Mondop. This building was built by King Rama I that replaced the original building that was destroyed by fire. The original Canonical Library was surrounded by water which was customary at the time to prevent damage to the manuscripts by fire and termites. Ironically, the original building was destroyed by fire on the day of its inauguration caused by fireworks. However, the manuscripts and the mother-of-pearl inlaid cabinet that contained them were miraculously saved. The King had the pond filled in and built a high platform to house the first fully revised edition of the Buddhist Canon of the Rattanakosin Era know as the "Royal Golden Edition". The revision of the scriptures was one of the first tasks undertaken by King Rama I on his accession to the throne.

The four pairs of demons that stand guard on top of the stairways, a pair at each entrance, are the work of the King Rama I period and regarded as the most perfectly proportioned of all existing classical sculptures of Rattanakosin craftsmanship. The floor of the Phra Mondop is lined from wall to wall by a woven mat from strips of pure silver.

This is me doing my best Kinnorn impression. Sadly my impression looks more like a silly rapper pose than the pose of a mythical creature.

Before you could enter certain buildings in the Grand Palace you had to remove your shoes. There is something liberating and relaxing about walking around museums and other tourist sites in only bare feet. In my mind it felt like everywhere we went was an extension of my home since home is the only place (besides the beach) I have bare feet. Try walking around a Canadian museum with bare feet. You will probably get kicked out. In Thailand, you will kicked out for not being in bare feet.

Giving myself a little blessing... I remember what I was thinking here: I was wondering why they asked you to remove your shoes where they did. It was 12 noon, bloody hot, and the shoe removal racks were placed over the top of an extremely blistering hot concrete sidewalk. I took my shoes off, squealed in pain, and hobbled up into this building. The marble flooring here was cooler than the concrete but the damage was done. I took this flower, dipped it into some water (as I watched everyone else do) and blessed myself, and more importantly, my feet in the hope the pain would go away.

On the left, a statue of Demon (Yaksha), a character from the Ramakien epic, at golden chedi. Beside him, is me, your friendly Kenniverse is Pinoy correspondent, and beside me are more characters from the Ramakien epic.

A close up of Yaksha.

Here's me with another Grand Palace statue. This one reminds me of the Davy Jones character from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

The Phra Si Ratana Chedi anchors the west end of the upper terrace. It was built by Rama IV in the mid nineteenth century at the same time as the Royal Pantheon. The chedi essentially balances the structures on the upper terrace, but it also recalls the monumental chedi of the old capital in Ayutthaya. The chedi is faced with small gold mirrored tiles, making it a bit shinier than other chedis that are 'just' gilded. The chedi houses a piece of the Buddha's breastbone.

I end our grand tour of the beautiful Grand Palace with ... monks! Monks are everywhere in Thailand so no blog is complete without them.

Blood Compact Site

2008-04-08T18:06:00.005+08:00

While in Tagbilaran City in Bohol, Philippines we visited the Blood Compact Site.

The Blood Compact Site commemorates the spot where Datu Sikatuna, a native chieftain, forged a blood compact with Don Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, representing the King of Spain, for the purpose of fostering friendly relations between the two countries. The blood compact on March 16, 1565 is considered as the First Treaty of Friendship between the Filipinos and the Spaniards. This statue represents a very important piece of Filipino history. What I found perplexing about the Blood Compact Site was the total lack of information concerning the history. There was no plaque, no guides, no signs, no write-ups whatsoever that informed tourists why this statue (and the event it represents) is so important. The information I wrote here I had to research later on the internet because the site itself told me nothing. So odd. Come on Tourism Philippines, get with the program. Inquiring minds wanna know!

I wanted to get involved with this Treaty of Friendship. With my imaginary cup in hand I rewrote history - in my own silly image. I stood back away from the statue because I wanted to respect this important piece of Filipino history. After this photo was taken though I notice a few local Filipinos jumping up and down on the statue and practically sitting on Don Miguel Lopez de Legazpi's lap. I felt, if the locals can get close so can I...

This time I posed and pretended to drink from his cup. Sadly there was no wine, only a dead spider.

Aimee was so jealous of my superior posing that she had to get involved as well!

Ati Tribe

2008-04-08T10:46:00.012+08:00

Back in Bohol, Philippines ... yeah, I know I promised you upcoming blogs about Thailand and Singapore but for now we're still talking about Bohol.

When we arrived in Bohol by ferry we were immediately approached by several drivers/tour guides trying to sell us their services. We needed a driver so we spoke to one, negotiated a price and then hopped into his van. In the morning he took us to see the tarsiers and the Chocolate Hills (previous blogs) but once lunch was getting closer we asked him if he knew of a good place to eat. He replied simply with, 'floating restaurant'. Okay, sounds interesting; off to the floating restaurant we go! Once we arrived at the floating restaurant we noticed all the staff there seemed to know our driver. I figured this was one of those circumstances where the tour guide brings tourists to certain places and then gets a cut of the business. Normally I don't care about this as long as I feel I'm not getting ripped off. In this case, the buffet lunch was reasonably priced and after looking at the food we felt it was good enough to fill our bellies after a busy morning of monkey watching. We paid the lunch fee and walked towards the floating restaurant.

Wow, it really is a 'floating restaurant'

As you can tell by this photo it was jam packed with people; mostly around the buffet table. This floating restaurant consisted of a bar, a buffet table for the food, and tables and chairs for the guests. Do you notice there's something missing here? A kitchen! I had no idea where all this food was coming from. It was certainly wasn't cooked on the boat. It must have been coming from somewhere close though: the hot food was still hot, and the cold food was kept cold. Maybe there was a hidden kitchen in the forest?

While eating I heard the coughing sounds of a small gas guzzling boat motor. I turned my head in the direction of the sound.

Okay, what is this guy doing? He attached his boat to our floating restaurant. Before I knew it, the whole restaurant was floating down the river (incidentally, it's called the Loboc River).

As if on cue to the boatman stealing the floating restaurant with all of us on it this man pulled out his guitar and started singing overly happy American songs from the 1960s. Was he trying to distract us while the boatman kidnapped us? The songs were so happy and the singer was so overly animated I found myself wooed into his playful sing song. I wasn't alone, one old lady after dancing at her table for 10 minutes started dancing around the floating restaurant trying to get everyone into a congo line.

The boatman drove us up the river for about 15 minutes.

Along the way I noticed some interesting vegetation growing alongside the river banks. I saw no land, just giant palms that seemed to be growing directly out of the water. The water colour here was unnaturally blue. This photo is a pretty good representation of that colour.

Suddenly I heard drums in the distance.

I ran to the front of the boat/restaurant and saw this in front of us. Were my eyes deceiving me? Could that possibly be a tribe in grass skirts? The boatman parked our floating food festival at a small pier. Most people looked pretty confused; I was one of them. After several minutes of confusion the congo line lady grabbed her camera and got off the boat. Everyone, including me, followed.

The pier brought us to a small path. The path brought us to this sign. 'Welcome to ATi TRIBE". Wow, it really is a tribe. Perhaps a long lost tribe of Filipinos lost in time and forever waiting to be rescued by the floating god known as 'Restaurant'. Our short walk down the path was complimented with the loud banging of tribal drums. How authentic. How primitive. My first lost tribe. A new experience in pinoy-ness.

The path ended and I was standing in their village.

The drumming was coming from these guys banging on this bamboo log. There were girls in the background doing an odd dance that involved them wiggling their hips and looking bored. The whole thing was pretty amazing. It really did feel like a lost civilization. I see the village even comes complete with a traditional tribal tip box.

Here's a video of our bamboo drumming tribal friends.

Some of the tribesmen were impressing us tourists with displays of their brute strength. Imagine breaking open a coconut with your bare hands? Impressive, even if it does take you at least ... four tries.

After watching this I walked around the little village a bit. It consisted of two huts, a broken cage that read, 'Beware the Tarsiers,' and around 25 tribes-people. I took some pictures, tossed some peso into the tip box and walked back to the boat. I thought to myself, what a truly amazing and authentic presentation. Maybe they really do live like this still? No phones, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury!

I got back to the boat and noticed congo line lady was behind me. I saw everyone else was walking back to the boat as well. I don't know if they were following me or congo line lady. I think it was probably the congo line lady because - wait, she deserves capitalization - Congo Line Lady is a natural born leader!

The boat coughed on its motor and after a huge disgusting cloud of black smoke engulfed the restaurant we were on our way. I took one last look at the ATi TRIBE. The men (and boys) were still drumming on the bamboo log and the girls were still dancing their bored dance. I was about to look away when I saw something at the back of the village. It was hard to see because it was hidden behind the trees. Can this be? Are my eyes deceiving me again? Can this possible be a little house with people sitting on a couch watching TV? What? TV? If it wasn't the TV that opened my eyes about this less-than-authentic tribal village it was the Radiohead t-shirt hanging on the clothes line beside a drying grass skirt. Bah, the tribesmen tricked me! I debated on swimming back and taking my pesos out of the tip box but figured, fake or not, the villagers put a lot of effort into this tribal experience so they deserve it!

We floated back to where we first started. Along the way our overjoyed singer once again grabbed his guitar and began his onslaught of pleasing American classics from the 1960s. I leave you now with a little entertainment...

Sing it for me my Pinoy Brother!

Temporary Passport

2008-04-04T12:23:00.004+08:00

I was issued a temporary Canadian passport. What is a temporary passport you may ask? Good question; a few weeks ago I didn't even know they existed but now I was forced to use one. The Passport Canada website says this about the temporary passport:

Description

To meet immediate needs of Canadians, Passport Canada has introduced the temporary passport, a highly secure and internationally respected travel document.

The temporary passport is an eight-page, machine-readable passport issued by a Canadian Mission for urgent, proven travel situations or residency requirements. It is not intended to replace a regular, diplomatic or special passport; it is designed for interim use only. The decision regarding issuance of a temporary passport lies solely with the Government of Canada Passport/Consular officer.

The temporary passport features a white cover, a bio-data page, four visa pages, a digitized image of the bearer and various security features.

A white cover? It looks pretty fake. But why did I need one? It's a silly story: A month ago I saw that my passport was getting dangerously close to that six month expiration time. Most countries will not allow you beyond immigration if your passport expires in less than six months. I thought, now is the time to renew and get a new one. I filled out the passport application form, collected my requirements, and took everything to the Canadian Embassy in Manila. According to the application the embassy requires 15 working days to get your new passport to you. I checked my calendar and noticed I wasn't leaving the country again until 20 workings days. So with this knowledge I knew the embassy had plenty of time to get my new passport to me.

Within 10 workings days I was called by the embassy informing me that 'there's a strong possibility the passport will not arrive within the 15 working days. There is also a strong possibility it will not arrive within 20 working days.'
'But I'm leaving the country in 20 working days,' I said.
'No worry sir, we can offer you a temporary passport for your travels for an additional 70 Canadian dollars.'
'But,' I asked. 'Why should I have to pay when it's not my fault the new passport is going to be late? And where is the real passport?'
The consular replied, 'It's policy sir and your new passport is still currently somewhere in Ottawa.'

currently somewhere in Ottawa.

I was asked to 'wait and see' because there was a slim chance the real passport would arrive in time. A week later I got another call from the embassy. They told me the passport has left Ottawa and will arrive in Manila on the Saturday - the day I'm leaving the country. I got excited because my flight wasn't until the evening so there was plenty of time to pick up the passport. Guess what? The embassy is closed on Saturdays so although the passport would be sitting there screaming out my name there was absolutely so way I could pick it up. The solution: the damn white fake looking temporary passport. I went to the embassy the next day and sat in the waiting room listening to the same four Lorreena McKennitt songs played over and over. My number flashed on the screen and I walked in the consular office. I grumpily paid the 70 dollars Canadian and within 30 minutes received my temporary passport. 30 minutes! You can get a temporary passport in 30 minutes but a real passports takes almost a month. Doesn't seem right does it? I left the embassy and wondered if the two countries I was going to, Thailand and Singapore would give me a hard time with this crazy cartoon passport. What ended up happening? Well, amazingly enough, everything went fine. Thailand let me pass through immigration with no problem. Singapore, on the other hand, held me back for 10 minutes while they tried to figure out if the temporary passport was allowed. Eventually, none of them could decide so they just let me through (thankfully it wasn't, 'none of them could decide so they just threw me into a prison cell).

My trips to Thailand and Singapore were amazing experiences. I'll be posting blogs about both in the coming weeks.

As I type this I have my shiny new REAL passport sitting beside me. It's a beautiful thing!

Chocolate Hills

2008-03-28T16:59:00.007+08:00

Bohol is an island province of the Philippines located in the Central Visayas region. Its capital is Tagbilaran City. It is the 10th largest island in the country, located in the heart of the Visayas. To the west of Bohol is Cebu, to the northeast is the island of Leyte and to the south, across the Bohol Sea is Mindanao. Besides the tarsier (see my previous post), Bohol is also famous for the Chocolate Hills.

The best viewpoint for the Chocolate Hills is located at this tourist spot. You have to climb 210 steps to the top.

Once you reach the top you're greeted by this sign explaining what the Chocolate Hills actually are and how they were formed.

The Chocolate Hills are composed of around 1,268 perfectly cone-shaped hills of about the same size, spread over an area of more than 50 square kilometres. They are covered in green grass that turns brown during the dry season, hence the name.

There are a number of geological proposals regarding the formation of the hills. These include simple limestone weathering, sub-oceanic volcanism, the uplift of the seafloor and a more recent theory which maintains that as an ancient active volcano self-destructed, it spewed huge blocks of stone which were then covered with limestone and later thrust forth from the ocean bed.

Geologists have actually long debated about the formation of the hills, resulting in various ways the origin of the Chocolate Hills are stated or explained. The one written on the bronze plaque we saw eariler states that they are eroded formations of a type of marine limestone that sits on top of hardened clay.

The plaque reads:

“The unique land form known as the Chocolate Hills of Bohol was formed ages ago by the uplift of coral deposits and the action of rain water and erosion.”

Whatever the origin might be...

...the Chocolate Hills are an amazing site.

Aimee agrees!

Tarsier

2008-03-28T16:29:00.005+08:00

I spent some time on the Philippine island of Bohol. While there I had the pleasure of finally seeing the Philippine's only species of monkey, the tarsier.

Tarsiers are the world's smallest primates. They have enormous eyes and very long hind limbs. Their feet have extremely elongated tarsus bones, from which the animals get their name. The head and body range from 10 to 15 cm in length, but the hind limbs are about twice this long (including the feet), and they also have a slender tail from 20 to 25 cm long. Their fingers are also elongated, with the third finger being about the same length as the upper arm. Most of the digits have nails, but the second and third toes of the hind feet bear claws instead, which are used for grooming. Tarsiers have very soft, velvety fur, which is generally buff, beige, or ochre in color.

They're cute in a furry alien kind of way. They are nocturnal creatures so I was able to sneak up to them while they were sleeping. They heard me approach, opened their eyes, stared at me for a few seconds, then closed their eyes and ignored me. I've never been ignored by something so small before. Silly monkeys.

Manila Metro Rail Transit System

2008-03-12T11:49:00.007+08:00

The Manila Metro Rail Transit System, popularly known as the MRT, Metrostar Express or Metrostar, is part of the metropolitan rail system in the Metro Manila area of the Philippines.

Now you're probably asking yourself why I'm doing a blog about something as common as public transportation. Especially something as common as a subway system. You may be wondering what's so special about this train system. Every major city in the world has one. What makes Manila's system worthy of a blog? Well, the only reason I'm writing a blog about it is because I've never been on it. I've been coming to the Philippines since 2001 and I've never, ever, taken their train. I just think this is odd since every other major city I've been to in the world I've always made the effort to take the train. So here I am, living in the Philippines, my new home turf, and I've never taken the train. Well, today, I've decided to fix this problem! I'm taking the train!

I bought my ticket from the teller. The route I chose will take me from the first station all the way to the end. That's a total of 13 stations and 16.95 km. How much did the ticket cost? A mere 15 peso (that's 13 cents CDN. Wow!) My travels start at Taft Avenue Station.

I noticed while I was waiting for the train that there is a dedicated section on the train for elderly, female, children or disabled passengers. I found out the dedicated area was implemented after several groping instances occurred on the packed trains during rush hour. Now women can be in their own section. I do wonder though if 'elderly' refers to older men as well. What's stopping a dirty old man from going into the woman's private section and start a little groping?

The train arrives and I get on.

Here's a picture of me overjoyed to be finally on the Manila train. The ride was smooth. It's a nice train system. I was happy to see me and my train whizzing by all the traffic on the street below. If you were to take this same route by car it would probably take you close to an hour and a half during normal insane Manila traffic conditions. How long did the train ride take?

I arrived at my final, North Avenue Station, stop and got out. I took this photo as I walked up the stairs to leave the station. I looked at my watch and noticed the ride took just under 30 minutes. Taking the train is definitely faster than by car. Once I reached the top of the stairs I noticed another train arriving in the direction I needed to go in order to get back to Taft Avenue. I ran down and hopped onto that train.

Here's a picture of me on my way back. It's not the best photo of me but the only reason I'm including it in this blog is because of all the people behind me. Look how they're looking at me. Isn't it disturbing? It's almost like they're never seen a Canadian guy on their train system before. Or maybe, just maybe, I've been oblivious to the stares all this time. Maybe people are always looking at me this way? Could it be possible, I've just never noticed this before? So disturbing... I feel a little paranoid. First the cocks are staring at me now the Filipinos. It's enough to make a poor Canadian guy go buggy.

When I finally arrived back at Taft Avenue Station I discovered I was able to leave without paying for the return trip. Since I never left the station at North Avenue Station my ticket still worked. That's 13 cents CDN for a roundtrip train ticket. So cheap!

Bee Farm

2008-03-11T22:09:00.011+08:00

We went to a bee farm last weekend. The Ilog Maria Honey Bee Farm is located in Cavite. Here's some brief information about Cavite: Cavite is a province in the Philippines located on the southern shores of Manila Bay in the Calabarzon region in Luzon, just 30 kilometers south of Manila. Its capital is the city of Trece Martires. Cavite is surrounded by the provinces of Laguna to the east and Batangas to the south. To the west lies the South China Sea.

Got that? Okay good, moving on.

It was about a three hour drive to the bee farm.

Once you park your car you walk down this path leading to the house. The path is lined on both sides by bee hives. From a distance this house looks almost abandoned so needless to say my first impression wasn't a good one.

I walked up close to one of the bee hives and took this photo. I think the bees were rather annoyed I was interrupting their honey making chores. Several of them started buzzing around my head. One even flew up and head butted me. I took the hint and moved on.

Once you finish your walk down the path you reach the house. The house is actually broken up into a store, a factory, offices, and various social areas. It's actually quite busy with staff and customers moving around. My first impression about the house being abandoned was incorrect. This place is popular! Here's me standing in front of an enclosed bee hive. Obviously since these bees were behind glass I didn't have to worry about an angry mob of evil bees attacking me.

Without the glass I highly doubt I would have been able to get this close to the bee here. He looks innocent enough but I can see it in his eyes, he's evil, and he wants blood.

The path leading up to the house isn't the only place that has bee hives. They're located all over the property. This photo was taken in behind the house.

And this photo was taken along the front. The path in the far distance is the one we walked down to get to the house.

Let's go into the store.

They make a wide variety of products from the honey and the bees wax.

Among these products are a wide selection of cosmetics like the soaps shown in the photo.

They also sell a huge variety of bees wax candles. Besides the standard everyday candles they also sell religious shaped ones. Look, you can make your very own nativity scene out of bees wax candles!

As I walked around the store and picked up various things to buy I noticed one very important component to a bee farm was missing: honey. There was no honey in the store. How can a bee farm not have any honey? It defines logic. I discovered later that all the edible honey products were kept behind the counter. I suppose that makes some sense. In the bee farm world honey is your gold bullion. Honey is liquid gold! And gold needs to be locked up!

Beside the store is where the magic happenes. It's here in the factory that they make all the bee related products. These girls are cutting and packaging soap.

Besides bee products the Ilog Maria Honey Bee Farm also grows it's own coffee. They grow it, dry it, charcoal roast it, and sell it in their store. This photo shows the coffee beans, still in their skins, drying in the sun.

Remember my post about cocks? Remember I said cocks are everywhere here in the Philippines? Well, to prove it to you, look, cocks hanging out with the bees. See cocks are everywhere!

Hey, what's this giant bee hive? Let's go inside and find out.

Now I know I posted a blog before about toilets so I don't want you to think I have some wierd toilet fetish but I do think this is pretty cool. A toilet in a bee hive, how original! It's like having modern comfort and the natural outdoors all in one!

When we left the bee farm and started our drive back to the Metro Manila area I saw fields upon fields of pineapple crop plantations. Along the roadside of these plantations were small stores selling the pineapples and other fruits. This photo shows a few pineapples in the foreground and the pineapple plantations in the background.

So many pineapples to choose from. We chose the best four pineapples we could find and continued our long trek back to Manila! A great day with the bees!

Cocks

2008-03-08T21:44:00.005+08:00

There are a lot of cocks in the Philippines.
You see cocks in parks.
You see cocks by the side of roads.
You see cocks on people's property.
You see cocks in parking lots.
You see cocks on trucks.
You see cocks on public transportation.
Sometimes you see dirty cocks.
Sometimes the cocks are clean, freshly washed, and shiny.
You see cocks all over.
Sometimes you see cocks hanging out with other cocks.
Sometimes you see cocks hanging out alone.
Sometimes the cocks are tied up.
Sometimes the cocks are free.
Sometimes the cocks are in cages.
So many cocks.
Cocks all over.
You can't go through a day without seeing several cocks.
Cocks cocks cocks.
Why are there so many cocks?
Who owns the cocks?
Sometimes I get the feeling the cocks are staring at me.
Maybe they're spy cocks?
Cocks hired by the Filipino government to watch the Pinoy people.
Big brother cock.
The cocks make me paranoid.

I think all of these cocks are fighting cocks. Cock fighting is legal here in the Philippines so everyone seems to have a trained fighting cock. I don't necessarily agree with this, but you can't deny the fact that legalized cock fighting translates to a country filled with cocks. And they're all angry. Angry pissed off cocks. If the cocks were motivated enough I think due to their great numbers they could take over. A country run by cocks. Imagine that!

Don't touch the cock. It's angry!

Honking

2008-03-08T19:33:00.003+08:00

I've written a few blogs about the insane traffic conditions here in the Philippines, but I've never written anything about car horns. Car horns are an interesting topic. The horn itself isn't that interesting but the meaning behind the honk is worth looking at.

Honking in Canada seems to be connected with aggression. People that honk tend to be annoyed, or worse, suffering from road rage. If you get honked at in Canada you tend to immediately go on the defensive. You start wondering why you're being honked at. If you can't figure out why the honk happened you automatically assume the honker is an asshole. There's no debate here, the honker is an asshole.

If horns could talk, here's what they would be saying in both Canada and the Philippines:

CANADA: "You asshole. You cut me off. You're driving too slow and I hate you. I HATE YOU."

See, it's all about aggression.

Now let's look at the Philippines:

PHILIPPINES: "Excuse me friend, how are you? I can't help but notice that you're driving a touch too close to me. If you don't mind, and if it isn't any trouble, please move slightly to the left. Thank you Sir, have a wonderful day and God bless."

If you were to do a study of traffic conditions in the world and pick a place where road rage should be happening it's here in the Philippines. People don't follow the lanes. People swerve their cars constantly. People run red lights. People tailgate. People cut you off. People block traffic entirely by doing a U-Turn. People drive slowly while texting on the phone. Busses and jeepneys stop in the middle of the road to left people off which causes huge traffic jams. All these things are incredibly annoying. It annoys me just thinking about it. But here's the funny thing: road rage doesn't exist here. Not at all. Why is that?

I think it's all about the mindset. Filipinos use the car horn as an extended form of communication. It's like a 'hello'. They honk even when it's not necessary to honk. They could be the only car on the road in the middle of the night and they would still honk. The horns add a happy vibe to your driving experience

Canadians only honk when it's absolutely necessary to honk. Someone cuts you off and you're angry. You place you hand on the horn but don't apply the pressure at first. You start debating if you're 100% correct for honking at this person. You need to be correct. If there's any doubt here, either from you or the receiver of the honk then you may, most likely, be classified as an asshole. Who wants to be an asshole?

I think Canadians need to adopt the Filipino style of honking. Sure it adds unbearable noise pollution to your morning commute but at least everyone on the road is your friend. Personally I prefer a world where I have hundreds of friends on the road rather than that one annoying asshole.

Pearl Farm Resort

2008-03-04T11:09:00.009+08:00

I often wonder if Filipinos think the same way about tropical beach resorts as Canadians do. Canadians treat tropical resorts as the closest thing to paradise. I guess we think this way because there's no such thing as a tropical beach resort in Canada. At least, I've never sat on a powder white sands beach in Canada sucking back coconut juice out of a straw. It's the uniqueness of the experience that makes it like paradise. But if you're a Filipino, you must be used to this stuff. I know from my experience over here I'm starting to get used to this stuff. Before, if you were to offer me a coconut with a straw sticking out of it I'd be like, "OH WOW COOL, hand that over!" But now it's more like, "Oh, another coconut. Gee, how original, thanks." The resort experience is getting familiar but that doesn't mean it's still not fun to do!

Our travels for a beach resort brought us to Davao. Davao is located on the southeastern portion of Mindanao here in the Philippines. It consists of four provinces, namely: Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental, and Davao del Sur. The region encloses the Davao Gulf and its regional center is Davao City.

We saw very little of Davao City. Once our plane landed we immediately took a cab to to where the resort's boat was waiting for us. The resort is called Pearl Farm Resort and it's on an island called Samal Island. In this photo, the boat behind my motley crew of resort hoppers is the boat that took us to Samal Island. As we approached the island I found myself thinking about that TV show Fantasy Island. Instead of a private plane taking us to the island we had a private boat.

Unlike the show Fantasy Island there wasn't a midget named Tattoo ringing a bell yelling, "Da plane, da plane." Or in our case, "Da boat, da boat." What we heard on approaching the island is some interesting jungle trance techno music. I loved the sound of it. Or at least, I loved the sound of it THEN. More on that later...

When we got off the boat we were immediately greeted by the Pearl Farm staff with a pineapple drink in a bamboo cup.

Here's Aimee standing in front of the Pearl Farm Resort sign. Incidentally, here's the write up about the resort of their website:

Nestled on the quiet side of Samal Island, The Pearl Farm Beach Resort is a mere 45-minute boat ride from the wharf. This fourteen (14) hectare spread was once a pearl farm, where thousands of white-lipped oysters transported from the Sulu Sea, were cultivated for their pink, white and gold pearls. Today, the resort beckons with the promise of a relaxing, private retreat, under the care of its friendly and charming staff.

Sulu Sea? Wow, it's taking a lot of effort not to say a Star Trek joke right now.

When you arrive at Pearl Farm Resort they not only hand you a pineapple drink but also a baby to guide you during your stay.

Seriously.

Okay, I'm joking. In behind Aimee and my niece are rows of bamboo built cottages. They are built over the water on stilts. We stayed in one of these. It's an interesting experience waking up in the morning to the sound to water splashing underneath you. Okay, I'm going to say it ... it's p-a-r-a-d-i-s-e.

Davao is known for many things. One of these things is the fruit pomelo. It's similiar to a grapefruit only larger and sweeter. During our stay at Pearl Farm we ate pomelo in numerous ways: freshly picked and peeled, blended into shakes, chopped into salads, you name it.

Obviously resorts mean relaxation. We did plenty of that.

At night we were serenaded by a band of three musicans who seemed to have endless knowledge of every song in the universe. My personal favourite of the band is the guy in the middle. I love his shades! He's so cool. Only cool people can wear sunglasses at night (IE: Corey Hart. I shall call my favourite man Pinoy Hart!).

This is a view from our bamboo cottage. You can see behind me in the distance the place where the boat dropped us off a day before. The boats arrive every 30 minutes. And every 30 minutes they play the jungle beat trance music. Remember that music? The music I loved? Every 30 minutes people. Every damn 30 minutes. It starts playing in the morning and continues playing into the evening. Every 30 minutes. 30 boom boom boom minutes boom boom boom. After a while I wanted to find out where the music was played from, go there and break the damn CD.

Hey, who let the pasty white guy into the pool? Behind me is that building again. The building that plays the jungle beat music. The second level up is the bar. Obviously we spent some time there since we're all drunks.

Here's Aimee and I practicing for Amazing Race Asia Season III. I discovered that time moves slower when you're paddling in a boat. We rented the boat and paddled to the island across from Samal Island. Once we reach that island we docked the boat, got out, and hung out for a bit. Once the novelty of being on a different island wore off we got back in the boat and paddled back to Samal Island. Our time in the boat seemed like an hour and a half but the time in reality ended up being thirty minutes. Either I'm out of shape and the pain in my arms from paddling made it seem longer or we were trapped in a time warp. I'm sticking to the time warp idea.

So what is my impression of Pearl Farm Resort? I liked it, but I think we stayed a day too long. We stayed for two nights when one would have been enough. The trouble with the resort is you're trapped on an island and you have to depend on the resort for everything. They had only one restaurant and after eating the same type of food three meals a day two days in a row it was getting boring. I think the resort needs to jazz the place up a bit. Bring it into the new millennium. That tiki bamboo look worked well in the 70s but I think it's old school now. Mix some modern stuff with the bamboo. And please, oh please, mix your music up a bit. The jungle trance music is going to make someone go postal one day.

Product Packaging

2008-03-03T10:41:00.005+08:00

Product packaging is an important thing. If not only helps advertise and sell the contents inside the packaging but it also helps you recognize what what the product actually is. When you walk down the aisles of a grocery store you can usually tell the difference between the juice section and the cleaning products section. Here in the Philippines it's pretty much the same but there are a few exceptions. Here's a good example:

Two bottles: one contains a delicious beverage that will quench your thirst on a hot and humid Philippine summer. The other, if drunk, will KILL YOU!

You have a 50/50 chance of selecting the correct bottle for your drinking pleasure. But you also have a 50/50 chance of swallowing back some poison and killing youself. Are you willing to take a chance with these odds?

Let's start turning the bottles towards the labels. Halfway there. Some of you with a keen sense of product labelling may already know which bottle you're going to drink. Some of you may wish to keep turning the bottles to see the whole label.

Paint Thinner and Sugar Cane Beverage. Did you choose correctly?

The Sugar Cane Beverage is a delicious alcoholic drink that when chilled really makes you feel good during a hot and humid day. Like most alcoholic drinks moderation is is the best policy. Too much of this could make you sick but not as sick as...

Paint Thinner! For a bottle of paint thinner it definitely looks delicious and refreshing. I like how the label isn't even glued on probably. It's starting to peel off. Imagine if the label fell off; you would really be screwed. It's like playing Russian Roulette with a beverage. I suggest never storing your paint thinner in the same place as your liquor cabinet.