Astro Boy

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!

Roots Backpack R.I.P.

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!

Holiday Ham

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

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...

Nation of Singers

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

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

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!!

Cockhouse

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

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!

Bee Farm

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!

Product Packaging

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.

Toilet Heaven & Toilet Hell

Now I'm not the kind of person who makes a big deal about toilets. You use them privately and you don't generally talk about the experience with others. I'm breaking the 'unspoken toilet rule' for this blog.

Upon checking into our hotel in Taipei I noticed we were given an executive suite. A beautiful and spacious one bedroom hotel room that had a separate living room area, bedroom area, walk in closet, and two bathrooms. The master bathroom even had an amazing shower with separate bathtub. If all this wasn't amazing enough I was totally blown away when I went over to use the toilet.
The toilet was computerized! It had a heated seat that was temperature controlled!

On the control panel you adjusted the temperature. Once you completed your messy business there was a choice between either a front or a back spout of water that came out to wash your backside. The water that came out of this spout was also temperature controlled with the added bonus of being able to control the pressure of the water. If that wasn't thrilling enough there was a temperature controlled blow dryer that dried the water off your freshly washed bottom. It's like a spa for your bum!

Normally all this awesome bum spa treatment is something I'd talk about privately with Aimee and only Aimee but I bring it up here because once we left the protective fortress of the posh hotel bathroom I had to use the toilet below:

What the hell is this? No heated toilet seat. NO TOILET SEAT AT ALL! No temperature controlled water kindly washing your nether regions. Nothing. The only water that comes close to washing your backside is the water that voilently splashes everywhere once you flush the damn thing.

The next time you're in a public washroom and the toilet seat is slightly dirty, consider yourself lucky my friends. You're in the world of luxury in comparison to THIS!

Sex Sells

Sex sells.

It's proven.

Stick an attractive model or actress (or actor for that matter) with your product and you will sell more.

Works wonderfully.

But here in the Philippines the chosen products are just a little bit weirder.

Using sex to sell cup noodles? Corned beef? Spam? FLOUR???

Just weird.

Look at the photo below:

Need a closer look? Okay, here you go...

Now I'm not much of a chicken eater but somehow this ad isn't making me rush out and eat more chicken. Isn't this kind of disgusting? I've always thought how attractive girls look so much more sexy when there's a huge chunk of meat hanging from their lips.

Slap on the bbq sauce baby because this meal is getting sexy!

Hobbit House

In a couple of months Aimee and I will be moving out of Aimee's parent's house and into a condo we're having built here. A few days ago we had the pleasure of inspecting the progress of the construction. When we walked in and started looking around there was something nagging me in the back of my mind. I couldn't quite put my finger on what the issue was but my brain was telling me there was something wrong. What was it? What in the world was bothering me? I walked into the the kitchen, then the bedrooms, and then the bathrooms. Once I walked into our master bedroom's bathroom that nagging feeling finally surfaced. Everything in the condo is built for someone with an average Filipino stature. All the counter tops are about 2 inches shorter than what I'm used to in Canada. And this includes the toilet in our master bedroom's bathroom. Imagine a toilet that can't just sit down on. It's so low you have to carefully lower yourself down on to. If you're not careful, you'll lose your balance and fall in! In the kitchen the hood fan in built above the stove at a height where a shorter person can reach up and turn it on. For me, it's lower than my eye level. I stood in front of it and it blocked my view of the stove. If I can't see the stove how am I suppose to cook? All the counters require me to bend down lower than normal and I'm sure this is going to be murder on my lower back eventually. Some of these issues will be altered (like the toilet and hood fan) and some will remain the day we move in. I was just surprised that construction blueprints are altered different from country to country depending on the average height of its citizens. There are tall Filipinos, I've seen them. So I don't know what they think about this hobbit house construction. So, the next time you see me I might be permanently stuck in a stooped over position because of all the bending I need to do!

Ooooh my poor aching back!

Meow Supplies

You may remember a blog from the past about cat supplies - or the lack thereof - here in the Philippines. I have been able to locate a few necessary supplies for our kitty but for the most part, the pet supplies in Canada are far superior to the ones you find here (I'm sorry to admit that Philippines ... really I am. I love you and all but it's the truth). So during my three week Christmas holiday in Vancouver I stocked up on as many cat supplies as I could find. Not only did I buy almost a year's supply of cat food (no, you can't find her brand name here; and yes, she's spoiled), but I also bought play things, scratching posts, vitamins, and pills, powders and creams for illnesses she may, or may not acquire in the future. That's right! I bought medication for presently nonexisting diseases - how's that for cat owner insanity? With all these supplies I'm wondering if I should open up my own pet supplies store. A store dedicated to the well-being of cats only (hey, there are stores here specifically dedicated to dogs; shouldn't cats get there time in the spotlight too?). Although, if I do that, poor Daphne (yes, my cat's name in Daphne) will have to share her supplies with the tiny Filipino cats I see hanging out everywhere. Hmmmm, sharing or hoarding, sharing or hoarding? I'll ask Daphne!

Daphne says hoarding. Sorry Pinoy Cats, this Canuck Cat doesn't want to share!

Smeg

A good friend of mine, Evan, is coming to the Philippines in a few days with his girlfriend. When I saw this sign I immediately thought of him.

Smeg is a brand of kitchen appliances from Italy. They have a few stores here in the Philippines. The word 'smeg', as Evan and I know it, isn't kitchen appliances but a playful swear word used in the British TV show Red Dwarf. It's interesting that Smeg products are shipped to the UK as well. I wonder what the British fans of Red Dwarf thought of these Smeg-named products?

But yeah, I know what you're all thinking; why is this funny? Well, it probably isn't funny to you, but it's funny to Evan and I and that's all that matters! :)

In Case Your Rooster Gets Dirty...

I was at a grocery store the other day and I decided to see what selection of petfood they had for our cat. I found this:



This has got to be the single most funny thing I've seen in a long time!