Buoyancy isn't something we'd worked on yet...

Something I’ve always wanted to do is learn how to scuba dive. Imagine my delight when I found out that not only does my cousin dive, but she was willing to take us out somewhere to go on an intro dive.

We drove out to Anilao in Batangas to a small resort. When I arrived, I looked out to the grey ocean and felt a bit anxious. It was a gloomy day and the water looked choppy and cold. Did I mention I am actually afraid of the ocean, and more importantly, putting my head under the water? It all stems from when I almost drowned trying to surf in Hawaii….but I digress… =P

I was a bit nervous during the briefing, I knew it was just an introductory course and that everything would be okay…but you know, the fear was there. So we get geared up, we get on the boat, and I’m told I need to fall backwards into the water (oh good lord, I thought!) Managing all the courage I could muster, I let the weight of the air tanks pull me backwards and…

Well, I entered a whole new world. If the sea looked grey and bleak from the surface, it was completely different below. I saw so many fish, and bright coral, and weird looking plants. You know when you go to an aquarium and you see all the neon colored anemone, and coral that look like brains, and weird stripey fish? Yeah, somehow I just thought all that stuff was fake and created for aquariums. But then I got to see it for real, and it was just amazing. All my fear washed away.

Hugh eating fresh uni out of the sea

After our intro dive, we went to shore with a bag of uni (sea urchin) which we had plucked from the rocks near the shore (apparently it is not illegal to get them in the Philippines.) I’m not a fan of uni personally, and I think I’m even less of a fan after watching the resort chef hack them open. It’s amazing how little meat is actually inside of those suckers! Anyways, Hugh and my cousin were both extremely pleased by the quality of the uni which they ate with calamansi juice.

We had so much fun we promptly decided to sign up for our certification. It took a week and with it came a whole new set of stress and tears (on my part) but when I actually accomplished the task I couldn’t do for days (clearing a mask underwater) I felt a very happy sense of accomplishment. Oh, and I also got stung by a firecoral down there so I guess now I have battle scars =P

It’s wonderful to have conquered a fear AND crossed something off my Life To-Do List!

Few people know that the Philippines has more English speakers than the United Kingdom. Many people know that Filipinos speak English, many people know that they speak Filipino/Tagalog as well in the Philippines–but what a lot of people don’t know is the extent that English is spoken. In Japan, as well as many other countries in Asia, English is used to puncuate or emphasize something like… “Aki no Trendy Style!” (Trendy styles for Fall) In the Philippines, they’d just flat out say “Trendy styles for the fall,”. I remember Japanese people being amazed when I told them that Filipino TV was 90% in English. To the Japanese, English is a language for Caucasian Westerners–nevermind the fact Singaporeans, Hong Kongers, Indians and Filipinos all speak English.

I remember on a trip to the Philippines one of my friends was stunned that street children could speak better English than the high school students she taught in Japan. How does that happen, we wondered? Well, it’s easy. They just use it. TV shows are often in English, not subtitled or dubbed. If they’re not fully in English, a good part of it will be. Especially if the show is about something technical like medicine or law. Hugh often understood the gist of what was going on around him simply due to liberal use of English.

Other examples? During a Filipino wedding, all the prayers and songs were in English, the priest’s sermon was also in English. During the reception, all speeches were in English despite the fact that out of the 500 guests only 5 people in the room didn’t understand Tagalog.  You would never see this stuff in Japan–not that this is the way it should be. Language is important for cultural identity, and the loss of language is something which I consider very sad. I found out that several of my cousins CANNOT speak Tagalog despite being born and raised in the Philippines. I find that very odd.

Yet, the question of how should Japanese people learn English continues to bother me. The only real way to make sure people learn it is to make it a requirement, more so than just something kids have to do to pass a test to graduate high school.

Chick on a stick...not actually very tasty.

While in the Philippines, my cousins and uncles have been trying endlessly to gross out Hugh with “exotic” Filipino food. I think this is a pretty common practice around the world, where rather than be embarassed about some local delicacies, most people consider Americans (and its usually Americans who are so grossed out by foreign delicacies) to just have boring diets. And honestly–with our health, who are we to be grossed out by what people eat? I’ve come to consider the giant bowls of fat they serve at restaurants back home to be pretty foul.

However, Hugh’s a pretty adventurous eater so he always ends up grossing people out in their attempts. In Japan we/he sampled such delicacies as: bees, sake with a dead snake coiled in it, raw horse meat, not to mention many of the more normal things like seaweeds and shellfish that some people would find repulsive. In Laos, we tried silkworms and water buffalo. I’ve had turtle-shell jelly in China and Taco Bell in America. It isn’t about trying to gross each other out, or be adventurous or anything. There are certain things we won’t do–I won’t eat anything killed before my eyes (like the snakes and their beating hearts in Vietnam) which are often done just to be grotesque for tourists and not because the majority of the population eats it. But we figure that if people in a culture eat this sort of food, then it’s certainly worth trying. At worst, just don’t eat it again. It PROBABLY won’t kill you. We rolled our eyes at tourists in Laos who would go on and on about how horrible it was that Laotians ate certain things (civet cats, random wildlife, birds), never realizing that certainly certain groups of people think the Western diet of beef is possibly horrible, or that Laotians are poor and hunting game in the forest isn’t about sport, but about survival.

Food is all very cultural anyways. I never grew up on fancy cheese (many Asians don’t) and as a result, I often find the cheeses that my European friends love smell and taste like vomit, or worse. I mean really, do you know WHY blue cheese has blue flecks in it? My point is–blood pudding or dog meat or whatever. Food is food.

Saddam Hussein pizza?!

In the Philippines there are delicacies such as dinaguan, a stew made of pigs’ blood, which isn’t really that strange to some cultures who eat blood puddings or marrow, but most infamous with non-Filipinos is balut, which is chicken embryo.

Somehow though, Hugh managed to finally put my family’s taunts to rest when he ate a day-old chick which are served whole on a stick and meant to be eaten as such–bones, innards, head, feet and all. My uncle who will eat balut seemed positively disgusted by the fact we ate it, though you could joke and call it overripe balut. My cousin Jean made him do it and he heroically did so, announcing “tastes yolky!” as he did so.

Bad photo, but you can see Hugh jumping, someone running for their life, a car being showered by sparks, and just how close we were to third degree burns ;p

After the wedding, we went with my cousins to Baguio, a mountain-top city which serves as a summer retreat for Manilans. I was told that it was very rural and provincial, but I guess after backpacking through rural Laos I had a completely different idea of what that would be. While it was certainly quite pretty in some parts, I was a bit disappointed to see how developed and urban it was. Most of the hills were covered with houses, developments, and/or shacks and a lot of the tourist areas had tribal people standing out in front of them trying to get tourists to dress up in traditional clothing for 30 cents. After seeing how tourism and hilltribes can successfully work hand-in-hand, it was a bit disappointing to see the more exploitative and sad side of it close up and more personal.

New Years was a mix of both kind of dull and fun, but the countdown was fun. We went outside and from the hill we were on we could see fireworks exploding all around us. Actually, all week we heard fireworks randomly exploding which was really pretty jarring since no one really likes hearing explosions in the middle of the night. The highlight of New Years was definitely seeing my life move in slow motion as fireworks exploded a couple of yards away from us. =P Good old Filipino safety standards

Ceremony in a lovely old church

We officially arrived in the Philippines on the 26th, worn-out and suffering from food poisoning (well, me at least.) However, after a few days of rest we were able to attend my cousin’s wedding. Although I’m ethnically Filipino, I was born and raised in the United States and had only attended one Filipino wedding prior to this one (and that one was sort of a blend of traditions since it was of a Filipina-American friend.)

The church ceremony was Catholic, but with so much pomp and circumstance that I’m surprised more people in America haven’t taken some of the traditions. First there were the dozen sponsors for the bridal party, then there were all the offerings. It wasn’t just wedding rings being brought up by a young boy, but also a bible. I had to fill in for a sick cousin, my role? I was to place a cord/giant rosary over the couple to symbolize them being joined together, but that was already after a veil was placed over them. Despite the ceremony, the church was surprisingly loud and chipper–some weddings I’ve attended have almost felt like funerals since they were so quiet, solemn, and often filled with crying people. Instead there were children running around, people gossiping to themselves, the doors and windows thrown wide open to keep the church from being stifling.

Men dressed in barong tagalog--a traditional formal dress shirt made of pineapple fiber

After the church ceremony, the reception was held at the Peninsula Hotel Manila where there was live music, professional dancers to keep the party moving, and a very international buffet with prime rib and other things like that. What was most amazing was the cost: a wedding in an centuries old church, a reception in a 5 star hotel, live band, custom made dress, 5 tier cake, and 500 guests cost approximately 1/10th of what it would cost in America. My family joked, “have the wedding here, just fly everyone over and you’ve still saved money!” What’s sad about that is that it’s completely true. :/

beautiful boracay

Originally uploaded by Janelle (Himene).

The Philippines was amazing. For less than the cost of my flight to America (it’s true, in total for flight, hotel, plus 10 days of expenses I spent $1500–75% of which was the travel cost to the Philippines) I and 6 of my friends experienced beautiful weather, hospitality, and wonderful food. Boracay was amazing. Yeah, it had annoying hawkers — but at least they were comical and polite. I’ve been to a lot of places with people harassing you for boat tours, but none of those dudes called you “ma’am” or just laughed when you said “sorry, scared of the ocean.”

Every single day in Boracay was picture perfect and I will have to say this is the best beach unknown to the Western tourist world (and I have been to Cape Cod, Virginia Beach, Miami, Malibu, Maui, Honolulu, Thailand, Bondi Beach, and the Carribbean to name a few world famous beaches–to be fair, I don’t surf and I prefer wave-less tropical beaches.) It wasn’t just the warm, clear water — but it was the atmosphere. Somewhere between a party and a relaxation paradise… oh, by the way, where else can you get a 2 hour massage for $15?

Anyways, discussing my spring break trip during the height of rainy season in Japan is depressing.

p.s. That photo has been touched in absolutely no way using any photo editing device, nor were there any tricks of light… Every single day looked exactly like that photo. It was almost overwhelming.

Hugh introduced me to this girl he knew from when he was a student in Osaka who was just so cool. I’ve never met a Japanese girl as cool as her.  Within an hour of meeting me, she was telling me things that fall into the realm of TMI–but you know what, I loved it. I loved that a Japanese girl could feel so comfortable with someone they had just met. It’s rare, really. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s half-Filipino? This is kind of weird, but the few half-Filipinos I’ve met in Japan have been so different…like you don’t know why, obviously, until they bring it up–but they’re so vibrant and outgoing compared to a lot of the Japanese people you meet. And you wonder, can having a Filipino mother really change the way you’re raised in this country? I need to meet more of these people to know for sure, but I just know that I meet these people and I’m immediately struck with how different they are. I met these two boys at one of my school vists and thought, “Wow, I haven’t seen children so funny and active and happy since…..well, America,” then they proudly informed me of their heritage.

Interesting.

The last days in the Philippines were spent visiting my mother’s hometown of Guagua, which needless to say is basically a tiny little town filled with poverty.  One of our relative’s lives in a shanty. Apparently, their real house had burned down and they propped up some corrugated steel to make a makeshift home that they had been living in. No water, no electricity, not even four walls. It would only take $3000 US dollars to rebuild the entire thing and no one has given that to them yet.

The past 6 months have been really eye-opening to me. I think anyone who travels abroad comes back changed (well, anyone who travels abroad and tries to learn from it). I’ll spare the babbling, but I had some very life-altering experiences, mostly in seeing the poverty in the Philippines and the complete apathy towards it by the middle and upper class.

So I’m back in the U.S., not sure for how long though. I have my interview with JET on the 17th, but I don’t believe I’ll get accepted since my Japanese is probably piss poor by now… but I’ll try. We’ll see…