Singapore: Day 1

Jesus, my last post was September of 2012!

Anyways, Singapore. (I'll make up for the lack of posts sooner or later. I still have a Hong Kong post and a Batangas post pending.)

So just last week, my mom, Toni, Karina, Gabriel, and I went to Singapore! Amazing thing too since we had just recently gone to Hong Kong last Christmas. However, unlike the previous vacation, I did not lose my shit in anticipation and excitement. I guess all the thesis work that came before it as well as the Theo Orals made it impossible to see anything beyond those things. God, remind me to make a dedicated Theo Orals blogpost. One of the darkest hours of my life...

Where was I?

Singapore. So on the eve of March 24, I packed my stuff and got ready to leave for another country. This was totally not as exciting as the Hong Kong trip packing. I just picked up a few things from closet and stuck them in my bag.

We left for NAIA terminal 2 at 3 in the morning and proceeded with our checking-in and waiting. I wish I could have gotten some sleep but sleep was impossible since there were no comfy places to sleep and I was already pretty excited to get on board. So I busied myself by enjoying the free internet and munching on a rather buttery coffee bun.

When we did get on the plane, managed to score a seat next to the aisle and two other empty seats. This meant that I had a lot of room for my legs since I didn't need to stuff my laptop and other carry-ons under the seat in front of me.

The flight there was pretty pleasant. Managed to get some delicious chicken (or fish?) curry for lunch and watched an episode of the first season of Dr Who c/o Andy Go.

Being a former flight attendant, my mom always has former co-workers chatting her up for extended periods.

Activity books for the little boy

We then made it to Changi Airport. Woohoo! I had mixed feelings about this because of the way the last travel agency meetup went. I'll have a dedicated blogpost for that but in the meantime suffice to say that we could have ended up taking down a few travel agents and getting thrown into Hong Kong jail if the situation had escalated any further. So for this occassion, we were wiser and I was on alert to keep things cool. I was the Sheriff of Abacantown.

Keepin' it cool

We made our way down to immigration and all the while I was documenting the first few minutes of Singapore. As I was very touristly filming everything, an immigration security guy comes to me and tells me to keep my camera. He points to a sign saying no picture-taking and he asks to see what I've been filming. Like it's some big fucking secret. Like I'm gonna use it to smuggle in drugs. It wasn't bad though, I have to admit. The guy was real nice about it. Just told me not to do it again. God. MAJOR difference from the goddamn Hong Kongers!

Okay not all of them... Just this one guy...

Anyways, we found our driver who would be taking us to our hotel and then we were off. One the road we made some nice conversation with the guy. We talked about durian and about what language people spoke. He said that people mostly spoke Mandarin but he was part of the minority who spoke Malay. Real nice guy. Not bad.

The surroundings were really clean and pristine just as everyone made it out to be. It looked like I was still in one big country club and for a while I was wondering when we would be leaving whatever compound we were in and entering the public highway. Turns out we were there already.

I have to say though, people should stop hyping up places like they're fucking paradise! I mean Singapore IS really clean but I was still able to catch cigarette butts and empty wine bottles in their reservoir! I also caught a man spitting some chewing tobacco on the street. And, yeah, he was a local. Moral of the story: no place is perfect. That isn't to say that Singapore is not a big deal. Far from it as I will elaborate on further in this blogpost.

So we made it to the hotel. Parc Sovereign. It wasn't very far because Singapore is so very small. They identify places by street which still amazes me. As me made our way down the van, the bellboy (I should say bellman or doorman), whose name I forgot, helped us with our stuff and he was a really upbeat and happy to help. My mom asked him how he was doing today and he just beamed and said that he was doing great.

We got to the hotel room and set our stuff down. While we waited for our scheduled city tour, we made our way to some local shops down the road to get some food. On the way we saw this really amazingly designed college campus. It was Lasalle College of Arts and the whole place looked like a designers dream. The students were sitting around doing some yoga on artificial grass and the building was so full of angles that defied traditional non-angular buildings. I couldn't help but think about how boring the Ateneo Campus was in comparison.

Click for a better view of the campus!

Here's another panorama pic. Notice Toni and the rest of my family to the left of the pic.

After a heavy dose of admiring, we came upon this foodcourt with lots of different kinds of food. and Each stall was labeled according to the type of food. There was "Chicken Rice", "Indian Food" and even the aptly named "Pig's Organs" stall. We all got different dishes and I settled with some Indian food. And oh man. Let me tell you. This shit was something else. I got the lamb biryani with two pieces of naan bread. The owners told me that the biryani was only "medium spicy"... God. Never in all my years have I had food that was so amazingly sweat-inducing, face reddening, throat swellingly hot. It was so hot that I was crying and my jaw muscles were literally swollen. You could see it on my face and feel it because they were hard to the touch. I sweat so much that I looked like I had run a marathon. I mean. It was delicious food but GOOD GOD!!! WHEW!!! I'd definitely go for a second round the next time I go there. Great first meal!

Even just looking at it makes my mouth go all watery and mucus-lined. Also there was a non-spicy version available but it was a boring brown color.

After I recovered, we made our way back to the hotel to get picked up for the city tour. The city tour itself was pretty okay. We went over to the Merlion, a Taoist temple, and then a jewellery shop. It is interesting to note that the singaporeans do not have the marketing powers of the Hong Kongers or the Chinese. On our trip to HK and Shenzhen, China, we visited some jade factories and the people were so aggressive in their attempts to take your money. They would talk about fortune and mystical energy and whatever. They had whole spiels prepared. The efforts of these Singaporean jewel sellers were lackluster and really easily defeated. There was this one display full of badly carved jade animals and a woman approached me. She said that the animals ward off evil spirits and they're good for your office and stuff. That was the end of her spiel. In China, the saleslady went on about how the thing she was selling, a baby dragon known as a Pichou, symbolizes good fortune and yadda yadda. She even went on about how it has no asshole (or if you prefer, anus) because good fortune goes in and never leaves your home. She had a good 1:30 minute speech. This Singaporean lady was like "Okay..." when she finished. This was a good thing because after that trip I was so fed up with people trying to sell me bullshit fortune products!

Here's a pic of her pathetic product

This one looks like something from the Nightosphere!

There were some nice things though. Like this pagoda which was part of a giant mural  made from semi-precious stones.

Here are some Merlion and Temple pics.

The next stop for the tour was the National Orchid Garden. Not a big deal actually. Just lots of orchids. The best thing about it was that I saw real life squirrels! They were so cute and so inquisitive looking and adept at climbing! I was so close to them and they looked right at me. I was afraid that one of them would jump me but they just hung out on their branch, hugging themselves. D'awwww.

The last stop was Little India, a place that I wish I could have explored more thoroughly. We couldn't find any nice shops to buy from (probably because we didn't actually see the Little India marketplace but we did manage to find some nice buildings and a lot of pigeons.

Trippy

And that concludes the City Tour.

Since my writing gas has been depleted, I'm gonna go continue the rest of the Singapore trip in the next blogposts to come!

Like whatever, y'know?

Palawan Post

Just arrived from a delayed flight to Manila from Palawan. Time to post while the memory is fresh!

DAY 1

Woke up at 4 a.m. and got ready for the trip of a lifetime! Getting up is less of a bitch when you're excited. So I got dressed and packed my retainers, toothbrush, deodorant and some books which I would never read on the trip. I wore my famous lame cargo shorts and a shirt. Topped it off with my grey jacket that makes me look even baggier. Then wore slippers for footwear. (I'm sorry for all the boring clothes details.) I also brought my buff which I was reminded to do so by means of a prophetic dream. (I will discuss the significance of this later on) Then I had to decide if i was going to bring a laptop or not. I was thinking that I might need internet and movies during the idle times at night before bed or maybe at airports. On the other hand, Jules did tell me that he didn't even bring his phone with him because of his firm resolve to bring his full attention to Palawan.

I ended up bringing it. Not such a bad idea anyway.

The drive to the airport was uneventful. My dad called me up to check in as usual. We had this weird conversation on the way there.

Dad: Mag-ingat kayo doon. May mga umiikot doon sa tubig tapos humihigop.
(I imagine perverts roaming the waters and slurping up unwary swimmers)
Me: Okay...

Turns out he was talking about the under current. -___-

We got to NAIA termina 2, one of the nice looking terminals. It was my first time flying through that airport terminal and I was totally excited. At the airport I had to remind myself to not say any bomb jokes. I couldn't say that this donut was the bomb or that I had a fucking bomb. I will have to find some clever loophole for this in the future.

We boarded the plane at about 7:30 in the morning. We felt like noobs looking for our seats because we couldn't see where the numbers were on the seats. A random guy had to tell us where our seats were. When we did find our seats Gabriel took the window seat.

Take off is always awesome. You go superfast and everything starts to shake. Toni would get nervous every time.

The whole plane ride was uneventful. A little turbulence. Meh.

I am sorry for boring you with the details.

When we got off the plane I felt like we were in some uncharted land full of exotic animals and strange customs. I would take deep breaths like the air there was ultra fresh. For a while it did seem that way. Even just outside the airport. When I saw some butterflies I was like, "Woah... wildlife..." And I thought that was it for the trip. I didn't know that we had to take a fuckin' two hour ride going to the resort. This ride was terrible. The road was full of zigzags and the car was cramped. I wanted to hurl but then I just held back. Toni let 'er rip twice. When we were getting closer though the view did get better.

Cool craggy lookin' mountain

When we did get to the resort I was just happy to get out of the car. We were welcomed with cucumber-pineapple shakes. I swear those shakes are the nectar of the Gods. They were refreshing and hydrating at the same time. My nausea instantly left me. I should make them over here too.

*Continuing thing blogpost after several weeks*

We have those shakes all the time now. I just had them with my lunch. They are still really refreshing.

Okay, we got to the resort and it looked pretty good. Very classy hotel vibe. There was a pool with a bar in the middle. There was also a gym for peeps that wanted to work out. I thought about going over there to work out but then I decided to keep the chilling vacation feel. The shore looked pretty standard. The sand was unusually soft and powdery. That was pretty amazing.

While we were standing there looking out at the sea a giant black and red butterfly fluttered against the wind and into the sea. I was like woah... Palawan wildlife.

We had a choice that day to go swimming or go to this cave. I would have really wanted to go over to the cave but we did not have the proper footwear for hiking. So we went swimming. Which was too bad because the pics of the cave looked really cool. Who knows what other specimens I would have seen over there. Sigh...

So we went swimming at the beach. It was alright. The waves were medium sized. In the mornings they would be huge. If you walked along the shore, you would see schools of tiny little fish. Occasionally you'd see the slightly larger brown and white ones. The tiny fish I'd try and corner into the sand. I never did get any though.

The next day we went into the caves. The trip going there was pretty cool. Almost like a storm at sea. The waves were pretty big and it was especially tough to walk get ashore. The waves kept pushing the boat towards me while I tried to get Gabriel off the boat. I could have had my food crushed underneath the boat. Gah. I did not want to lose a toe.

The island looked like the island from Jurassic park and if you were facing the forest, there were giant stony cliffs on either side of you. It was pretty beautiful especially with the stormy weather. I felt like Tom Hanks.

We stepped into a forest and followed a path to the underground river. When we got there there were lots of other tourists too. That kind of made me lose that sense of being one with nature. When there are lots of people and you wanna see the forest, it kind of sucks.

After much waiting and observing how the clear seawater was differently colored from the brown brackish water from the caves. We finally got into a boat. The boatman was a man named Joy. "As in Joy to the world!", he said. He took us to the inner parts of the cave. Closer to the entrance, you could see lots of swallows flying around. They would screech and chirp as they flew all over the place. I thought they were pretty neat especially considering that you get Bird's Nest soup from their nests.

The bats were even cooler. It was the first time I ever saw bats actually hanging from a ceiling. They would huddle together to form cute little clusters of bats. And if you shined the light on the they'd fly away one by one leaving one bat going, "Hey where'd you guys go???"

I was in charge of the flashlight in this case. There's only one high powered lamp aboard the boat. It was hooked onto a car battery and to turn it on you had to pinch alligator clips to the positive and negative ends. It was kind scary especially considering that we were on a boat.

Boatman Joy pointed to us the different rock formations on the inside of the caves. He would describe them in very Filipino ways. Calling them by names of vegetables and saints that they resembled. There was even a giant male mushroom. And why was it a male mushroom? It had a giant erect penis on top of it. Classic. There were also really high up ceilings in the cave some probably about 150 feet up. Also, it is a good thing to remember to always keep your mouth shut when you look up. You never know if what you get in your mouth is mineral water or bat shit.

Cold, dark and wet.

We had dinner at some lame restaurant. The problem with the restaurants at Palawan were that they didn't have a lot of Palawan specialty food. Also they use cabbage in their sinigang. WTF!!! The number 1 specialty food that I really was craving for the whole time was Tamilok. I wasn't really craving in the sense that I really desire the taste of it. I didn't know. I just really wanted to try. I almost thought that I would never get to try some but eventually we did. That was for the next day after the Mangrove tour and zipline.

Kinda sad to have to leave...

*This blog took too long*

The mangrove tour took us to the other side of the shore that we could not inspect the night before due to the lack of streetlights or awake people in the area. We talked to the tour guides in the area and we talked to them about ziplining. Karina was freaking out already because she was afraid of a lot of things. Eventually though we'd get her on there. It was so funny.

Anyways, we got the the mangroves and I was pretty excited to see a mudskipper along the banks of the river. I was like HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIT!!! I saw a whole bunch of them too hanging out along the waters edge  among the tree roots. Woohoo. Nature.

The water was brown due to the decaying plant matter that was in it. It was brackish water according to the tour guides, a mixture of fresh and saltwater. On both sides of the river were the mangroves everyone was talking about. They certainly delivered. The place looked so pristine and untouched by the civilized world. Thinking about it now makes me happy that there are still places like this where the air is fresh and the water is teeming with life. It's no surprise that everyone's so excited about mangroves.

We met our tour guide when he brought his boat ashore. The first thing I noticed was that he was pretty old to be doing a tour and paddling the boat. The second thing I noticed was that his big toe was bleeding. Turns out he was missing a fuckin' toenail due to a boating accident. Muhuuutherfuckerrrrrrrr... He didn't make a big deal out of it too. He was like, "I'll finish the tour now and take care of this later." Like a fuckin' boss. Jesus Christ... He didn't even bother keeping the thing dry. He put it in the water while he waded to the shore. No big deal..

Business as usual for this tough mofo.

We made it into the river system and he began to tell us about the mangroves. I learned a lot and I appreciated the value of these mangroves to the ecology and the communities that lived here. It felt like I was in an episode of Man vs Wild. The mangrove episode. We also got to see a couple of mangrove snakes coiled around branches of trees that hung right over us. The whole thing felt very serene and the rain made it only better. It was nice and cool and there were no mosquitoes around because of the salt content of the water.

At the end of the tour the old man sang us a song about the mangroves and about taking care of the life at Palawan. It was pretty heartwarming and it made me sort of fall in love with the place. Sigh. Maybe I'll upload the video sometime.

After the tour, we took a boat thing to the other side of the river. We walked to this beach which was right next to this mountain covered in thick forest. The sand at the beach was extra soft and was littered with cuttlebone (kept one as a souvenir). That was exceptionally beautiful. It was like island paradise. Man...

Toni at the island paradise part. You can see me and Gabriel at the center left.

We hiked up some of the mountain and I felt even more like Bear Grylls. Thank God I had my buff with me. It is the perfect thing to have when you go to Palawan. Or any hike or nature trip. Never leave home without it. I used it as a hat to keep my head warm. As a scarf to keep my neck warm. As a pirate hat to look cool during the stormy sea part. As a headband during that hike to keep the sweat out of my eyes.

It was a long hike up through the forest. When we got to the top we stopped at the end of the zipline. There were lots of people there and lots of foreigners too. Just waiting for our turn, Karina was already crying and trying to back out. My mom told her to suck it up because the hike back down was wayyy too long and she might trip which would have been worse for her. So she did go on it. Even when she was strapped up and ready to go she still didn't want to. The zipline guys pushed her off anyway. YEEEHAWWW!!!

I went before her and it was kinda scary looking at it from the top. When you get pushed off it was really cool looking down and watching the forest beneath you go by. I was a hundred feet of the ground and I could see the waves crash against the rocks on the shore. That part was cool. The start. The rest was kinda boring right after.

Anyways, I landed and made the walk back to the resort. Along the way I found an iridescent blue-green butterfly and tried for a few minutes to take a picture of it.

 We ate some food at a restaurant which served nothing but regular old Manila food. No seafood even! WTF!!! However, they lady that sold tamilok was there and she SOLD US TAMILOK. OH MY WORD. After all this time... Finally... ;___;

It cost about 120 for that bowl of tamilok (if I remember correctly). I looked at the grey mass in the bowl and noticed that they looked a lot like elongated oysters. When I did try one though... Man oh man...
It tasted like oysters. Very very fresh and very very sweet oysters. They did have a milky taste to them along with a very slighty briny taste. It reminded me of the sea. It was something not to be missed. If you go to Palawan, you cannot leave without try this out. Fosheezey.

That kind of ends the Palawan adventure part. I feel like I didn't do enough of the stuff that I imagined that I would do. No snorkeling near coral reefs. No eating delicious and exotic seafoods and fruits. No eating of crocodile meat. No walking through the forest and observing wildlife. I guess if you plant vacations to Palawan, you better be sure beforehand about what kind of tour you want. I really would have wanted to go for like a biologist/ food trip/ with friends kind of tour. But then I got a lot from this already. Maybe the next time I go there, it will be better. This trip has made me see the country in a different way. I hope more people come over here and see this. And I hope the country learns to develop all the other beautiful places it has to visit.

Even the parts that aren't tourists spots are pretty...

I wish I had some tamilok right now. Sigh.

P.S.
You have never lived until you have taken a dump on a plane. Especially with turbulence.