Dumaguete in Pictures (from KK)

GREAT NEWS: After much skepticism from everyone we asked, we are climbing Mt. Kinabalu (the highest peak in SE Asia) in two days! We talked to a number of people who had climbed it/are booked to do it, and the consensus response was "Good Luck" (what the Albanian sex kidnapper tells Liam Neeson in "Taken", our de facto mantra over the last 10 days)

Apparently, though, good luck is what we had, because you're usually supposed to book weeks or months in advance. Pumped!

Anyways, we did 12 hours of travel yesterday (including waiting at the KK airport for 1.5 hours for a bus that never came) and a day of hanging out in Kota Kinabalu, we are now safe and sound at a Coffee Bean with free internet in KK, Malaysia (and thankfully away from the hustle of Manila). Goodbye, Manny Pacquio!

Life is on an even keel and KK is very cool with the urban grit of night markets and street vendors without the rampant filth and scammy-feel of Manila --- there's not too much to do, though. Case and point: we got sucked into a mall food court (which actually has great food) and since it was raining, ended up seeing a movie and saw...wait for it...Avatar (how American)! It was only 15 ringeets or $4.50 US and Logan is still giddy and beaming about beating out the US prices and saving $12 since he never saw it in the states.

Anyways, the sunset on the walk home was pretty epic (KK is right on the water and the sunset sets over a nearby island right next door, apparently the city is famous for them). As we walked home to get my camera, it just kept getting better and better (typical) and I got home, ran up to get my camera, walked the block back to the waterfront...and by that time, it was pretty much dark (also typical). Logan got some cool shots, so I'll upload em when I get the chance.

For now, I'm gonna throw up some pictures from our time in Dumaguete, trying to be in chrono order.

Mural of the founding Sinco, the original king of Dumaguete

The main lawn at Foundation, right at the front door of the Lola's house/Sinco compound

Day 2: Farm and FU/Silliman scrimmage: We spent like 3 hours our second day in the afternoon at the Sinco family farm. It's pretty massive and very green for all you hippies out there -- these huge water buffalo (below with Logan) take massive dumps and they collect all their waste and put it into chambers to create methane gas that essentially is the power to make the farm run. It's sustainable!

Beside that, there's pigs (Logan's new BFFs) and chickens (they lay eggs and then they get eaten, just like the pigs). On the second farm that we checked out, there's a bunch of mango trees (like 1000) and more sustainable stuff (like a fat box with worms that they sell to people). The farm is a serious, sustainable factory. It's big time.

We make it to the farm, the clouds descend

Our feast at the bamboo hut, with fat bottles of Coke (standard Filipino beverage), Jack fruit (good name, okay fruit), and those banana leaf things are this Filipino dish that's essentially a rice tamale (kinda bland but good)


Me being Asian leavin the hut, ready to hang with the pigs

These methane gas making beasts were apparently imported from Belgium, so Logan kept asking him if they liked it better in the Philippines and they all nodded! Except one who took a dump when he asked (so he figured that meant he didn't like Belgium at all)...

Logan finds the only creatures on the Philippines that DON'T like eating pork and makes friends with his Star of David (they swarm him)..."I come in peace," he says

The Scrimmage: Below, that's Josh, the son of Kurtz, who was the score keeper of the FU-Silliman scrimmage.

The two refs for the game were from Silliman (the bad guys), so the assistant coach Kurtz (who is actually an ex-pat from Milwaukee named John and owns a bunch of Mr. Donut chains in Dumaguete now) asked if we would ref the second half. I kept complaining about how bad the reffing was (like I do in pretty much 99.9 percent of any basketball game) so I agreed. Terrible idea.

After about 30 seconds, I realized my error --- "I immediately regret this decision" or "I've made a huge mistake" --- and wished I was back in the rafters. Kurtz turned on me and started telling me that I was missing a bunch of foul calls for FU (typical coach), so I made even less calls to spite him. I forgot how annoying people can be when you ref.

Filipino basketball is essentially lawless, anyways, since everyone travels about every time they touch the ball and there's an insane amount of contact on defense that is generally accepted, which makes calling games by the book totally difficult. It made me indifferent, so I stopped making calls entirely (I compared it to how a police officer will stop being a good policeman in a lawless, crime-riddled country -- nothing you can do!)

Anyways, after a lot of complaining, eventually FU won on the final basketball like 45 painful minutes of reffing later. But again, I got another check off my bucket list ("Ref a college basketball game in SE Asia and almost call a technical on a whiny assistant coach who owns a donut chain.") Done and done.


Logan is waiting patiently to go eat and hit the food market for dinner, so I'll stop there... Will check in with more Dumaguete days tomorrow.

PS Send me an email or a text! I love hearing from y'all and I can receive texts for free on my American phone (doesnt cost you extra, either)... love, jack

See ya, Manila, Hello Malaysia

This country is not made for people over 5-foot-6. We're on our bus to Clark airport and I just went used the restroom on the bus and was too tall to stand up properly. On street posters for available jobs, it's common to see requirements of "MUST BE 5-FOOT-4 OR TALLER."

I can count on one hand the Filipinos I've been shorter than, not bad being taller than 99-percent of people you see. The only taller person than me is Logan (he's like 6'2, which is like 8'2 for Filipino standards) so I guess I'll just have to kill him.

Anyways, we got into Manila yesterday at about 11am. It's 24 hours later, we're on our bus to Angeles two hours north (Clark is in the former US military hub where our Air Asia flight leaves from) and the escape out of Manila couldn't come soon enough.

Definitely not willing to write the city off as a whole, especially considering how many pieces to the city's puzzle there are (something like 18 million in the greater metro area). Everyone I talked to who was pro-Manila said you needed weeks not days (and definitely not hours) to get to know it. So for now, I'll just write off the area we stayed (Malate), since it was on the whole dirty and touristy and funky. Not headed back there anytime soon.

We did get to see one nice section of the city yesterday for lunch, a totally overblown, ritzy mall complex called Greenbelt (like karate that is essentially The Bridge on crack. It's way bigger and way more confusing. But there were swanky, well-dressed people from all over (the most diversity I've seen in the Philippines), so it was a change.

Before lunch, we hit up this tourist spot called Fort Santiago, where the Spanish held down a military base for a quick second (400 years or so). It was also the spot where a Filipino intellectual/revolutionary turned martyr named Rizal was jailed and executed in 1896 before independence. Pretty touristy, minus the tourists (definitely off-season) it had a lot of cool writings from Rizal before he was to be executed, including his "Adios Ultimo" that he smuggled through a lamp to his family the day before he died.

Though there is a driving range literally right next door to his former cell that kinda kills the moment.

Other highlights included the other two western tourists we saw (a French and Lebanese flight attendants from Emirate Airlines, two friendly gay guys I talked with for a bit who took a lot of very dramatically posed pictures around the Fort, and who waved to us when we saw them at the airport later that day. The Lebanese guy was wearing an awesome cowboy hat, too).

Also, we took a bunch of pictures with Filson, me and Logan's new travel buddy. We met him last week at the supermarket. Well, technically we bought him at the supermarket, since he is just a 10 liter jug of water that we named, drew a face into and have been carrying around ever since (Filson is the name that Chris and Logan came up with for him, think Wilson from "Castaway" only Filipino).

He's been everywhere with us the last five days (he's even survived being left at a tiny village in Danao and the Bus Station about 30 minutes ago, got through Dumaguete Airport security with 4 liters of water and has endured frequent torture from Logan). Logan hates him at this point. I love him more every day (there will be plenty more of his story soon enough).

Anyways, yesterday was pretty low-key, we hung out at the Fort and the Greenbelt mall area until 3pm, when we had to go to the airport to drop off Dean, Chris and Patrick for their flight to Hawaii. After that, we got a ride to our hostel, checked in and took in all Malate had to offer (again, not much).

At night we settled in at the Sharwma Snack Shop because it was super big and clean with aircon and free wifi. Good place to get away from the grind of grimy, musty Malate. I stayed there for five hours until 3am, since it was far and away the nicest place we went in Malate.

Then we woke up early to watch the first half of the Lakers-Celtics final (dreadful), jumped in a taxi and shipped over to the bus station for our 1130am bus.

Now we're on to the next one (that Jay-Z song is locked in my head right now) 2 hours from airport before a 4pm flight from Clark to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia (everyone just calls it KK). We just met a girl from the UK (don't remember her name, super hard to pronounce) that's on our flight, whose been traveling for like a year. She's also staying in the same Step-In Lodge as us in KK (and stayed at the same place I did in Boracay, as well). Young people traveling know most of the same, good spots. Good things.

Anyways, my four hours of sleep is catching up with me (Logan's head is already bobbing asleep next to me) so I'll check back in a little while and hopefully throw down some words on Dumaguete and Boracay.

The Wide World of Dumaguete

The parking lot at Robinson's Mall in Dumaguete. Our time is done in Duma, so let's go with it.

Anyways, writing about stuff is inherently more interesting if it's done in the moment...which is why it sucks that I went 8 days without getting a recap in Dumaguete.

I wanted to, but something --- listening to reggae at Hayahay for too long, not having an internet connection on my computer, seeing Prince of Persia for about $2 USD, having monsoons knock out the internet/electricity when I did have a connection --- seemed to get in the way.

Oh well. Just more motivation to check in every day over my last few weeks of travel.

Anyways, it's now 9am on June 3rd and me, Logan (my travel companion for the next 4 weeks), Chris (our Dumaguete host, UW alum and Microsoft prodigy), Patrick (Chris' brother, soon to be U of Hawaii graduate, guitarist) and Dean (Chris and Patrick's dad, the man in charge at Foundation University) are on a Philippines Airlines flight from Dumaguete to Manila.

Frasier is on our inflight TV's right now. Filipinos definitely have the whole transportation entertainment thing pegged (we got to watch The Medallion and Taken on our ferry to Tagbilaran, couldn't have been happier).

Here's our group (Logan, me, Chris bending down, Patrick -- not pictured, Dean, my goatee)...

Recapping the last 8 days is probably impossible to do without 10,000 words or so. I'm just gonna get into a bunch of different parts of our experience and fill in the blanks, since recapping 8 days individually in retrospect won't work. Starting with...

FOUNDATION UNIVERSITY (aka Home Sweet Home): At Berkeley, I always wondered what Chancellor Birgeneau's house would be like, what his standard of living is. In Dumaguete, I got the Filipino equivalent. I had no idea I was actually signing up for University Administrator/Family Dynasty Fantasy Camp, though it couldn't have worked out better and life couldn't have been cooler.


I showed up my first day at the gate in the picture above after splitting up from my Boracay diving/French-Canadian buddy Francois. Chris told me to just let the guard know I was there, say his name and they would call him. This seemed odd to me at the time, but after 8 days, it seemed more than normal.

We met up that first day after lunch and he took me on a brief tour --- first stop was the library/main office...which had his family name Sinco on the door, as it was also the Museo Sinco, essentially a museum dedicated to his great grandfather (who founded FU in 1949). At this point, I started to realize the Sinco family was also a dynasty. If you wanna check out the school, here's the link: http://foundationu.com/

Today, the school is essentially run by two people --- Chris' grandma Mira (who was known to us as 'Lola,' which means grandma) and Chris' dad Dean (an architect who doubles as a tech whiz and extreme soccer coach/disciplinarian). Between the two of them, they run FU and in many ways, the entire city of Dumaguete.

For perspective, this morning, we pulled into Dumaguete Airport through some special gate, with a nod and hand-wave from Lola. Of course the guard knew who she was. And at dinner last night, she was lamenting that she doesn't go out much because "too many people recognize her." At lunch, the president of the rival Silliman University said that Dumaguete would "suffer greatly" without her. In short, she is an institution. Ditto of Dean. And we were lucky enough to be their guests.

Here's "Sir Dean" (as he's called by FU students) throwing a chair at a BBQ, aimed for some stray dogs that kept trying to eat our scraps...
Life at Foundation was pretty much the exact opposite of backpack traveling in pretty much every way. When you travel, you are constantly thinking about how you are going to be self-sufficient, get from place to place, find food, water, shelter, etc. At FU, there was nothing we had to worry about.

We always had a ride (two SUVs a few seconds from the Sinco home compound). We had aircon in our room. We had clean, made, comfortable beds. We had people in different places (anytime we talked about going somewhere, the conversation turned to "Which driver can we get to get you guys there?" and "Who do we know there?")

We always had food -- breakfast and dinner were full-spread affairs, served like clockwork. For breakfast, scrambled eggs, corned beef, bacon, endless buns, coffee, the works (and they even hooked up Logan with bagels and cream cheese for good measure). Dinner was a variety, from Chicken Curry on our first night to Panchit (traditional Filipino noodle dish kind of like Pad Thai) on our last. After every meal, we got mango, fresh off the farm mango. Best I've ever had.

And we had maids. In a lot of ways, maybe this made life almost too comfortable, since we had to get used to the concept of two live-in, working-student maids who helped us out. Obviously not an American custom, but a pretty sincerely Filipino one, Abby and Nar took care of everything for us, made our dinner and brought us our food, got us shampoo and soap, made sure our laundry was done and folded, woke us up in the morning, filled our water in our room when we left. It was bizarre at first, but you get accustomed to it fairly quickly.

And there was 'The Bell.' This was Lola's bell at the dining table, which probably got used about 6-12 times a meal, depending on stuff that went lacking. She would shake the bell and one of the girls would come in and take care of business. Again, not exactly an American custom, but after a few days, it became pretty much status quo to see. I forgot to get a good picture of Lola (or the bell), but there she is in the background (that's Chris smiling in the foreground) at the Sinco family farm and the accompanying bamboo lakehouse...

Anyways, for 8 days and about 15 meals, those comforts were our life --- great food, genuine people taking care of things for you, just overall ease, very little stress --- and life was good.

THINGS TO DO IN DUMA WHEN YOU'RE DEAD : First and foremost, Dumaguete is a college town. Granted, this still means by Filipino standards -- picture Ann Arbor or Bloomington, except with a few more shanties, a burning trash pile around every corner (the smell is awful) and replace taxis/cars with an endless stream of tricycles.

Since it's not enormous (small overall land with about 100k population), I think Chris was a little worried that we wouldn't have much to do there (which he made clear about an hour into hanging out at FU, saying "there is pretty much nothing to do here.")

But literally every day, we did something totally different, unique and fun. I'll describe every day a little bit, which ranged from (in chronological order): basketball, going to the farm/watching FU-Silliman scrimmage, indoor soccer tournament/waterfall, scuba diving, two-day trip to Bohol Island and adventure park, cave exploration. And last but not least, COCKFIGHTING. No joke. Anyways, I'll get to that shortly.

DAY 1 (Basketball):
Our first day there, me and Chris picked up Logan from the Duma Airport at around 4pm. By 7pm, we had gotten the full tour of the FU Campus (there were two parts, a main college campus and across the street, a high school/lower grades campus).

Dean (Chris' dad) took us to the HS campus where the gym/basketball court was to show us the kettlebells class they made the FU athletes do at night. Essentially its an hour long, intense workout using a tiny but extremely heavy steel ball with a handle and swinging it around for an hour. According to dean, the KGB or some Russian spies used it to train --- he was really into it.

Anyways on the walk over, we checked out the basketball court, where the FU team was practicing. Dean immediately mentioned that we could scrimmage with them if we wanted. Me and Logan hesitated, I don't think either of us wanted to step on anyone's toes (and playing against a bunch of 18- and 19-year old kids is the last thing I should do with my back, not to mention Logan had just arrived from 30 straight hours of traveling from Israel), but Dean walked over and had a chat with the head coach Cortes and after a few minutes, told us we'd be scrimmaging in 30 minutes. I thought, in Matthew McCoughney voice, "Well, alright."

By 8pm, me and Logan, with John, Neal and Arondoger were playing 5-on-5 against the next best five FU players (Cortes kicked two kids out of the game so we could play). It was pretty surreal, Logan had been in town for about 4 hours and here we were going at it, not to mention even at 8pm, it was still like 90-something degrees with insane humidity, so after about 10 minutes, adrenaline wears off and your lungs feel like that of the Marlboro man.

The FU guys weren't half bad and the opposing team ran NBA style plays (which was a little ridiculous and became a frequent complaint of Dean's, who is the de facto athletic director at FU, as well) and had some good skills, but maybe not quite as good basketball instincts as us Americans. But rather than get into a X-and-O's discussion of the game and sound like a dumb, bragging American dude, I'll just say that our side won by plenty (American 1, Philippines 0). But more importantly, we could both check off the "played basketball against a Filipino College team" off of our Bucket List. Done and done.

DAY 2 (Going to the farm/scrimmage):
In addition to being the President of FU, Lola and the Sinco family also have a number of farms located about 40 minutes north of Dumaguete. We got the full tour on the afternoon in our second day, but it's probably easiest just to describe it with pictures, so I'll lead off the next post with that.

(For the record, that's Logan in the picture above, at the farm showing off his Star of David necklace to the pigs to tell them he comes in peace. The pigs definitely appreciated the sympathy, especially since Filipinos are down with pork, which I'll get to later...)

QUICK UPDATE: It's, um, 8pm in Manila and it's just like home. There is a Santa Monica Street (I'm wearing my 5th grade SM basketball jersey from Franklin, which is getting some recognition from locals), a Pacific Palisades Condominums and... really, those are about the only similarities to home (wait, I just came up with two more: the traffic here is horrendous, way way worse than LA and everyone looks generally unhappy, kinda like LA, too).

We're staying in Malate, super over-crowded, polluted, tourist-scamming part of Manila. Really just filthy. After living in the lap of luxury, big culture shock (though our Malate Pensione hostel is really clean, tidy and friendly, so a little saving grace).

But the area is super seedy. I mean, we walked around looking for our Sharwma restaurant for an hour and we offered a combo-pack of Viagra and Cialis 6 TIMES!!! Really?? What do I need that crap for? We were probably offered cigarettes and girls 20-something times. A girl with a baby in her arms poked me and told me I was handsome. I walked away as quickly as I could. It was distressing.

Anyways, we're sitting down now in the sanctuary of this Sharwma place (finally found it) with free internet and aircon and they take credit cards, so we're probably just gonna live it up with hummus and sharwma to the max. Anything to stay away from the propositions of Manila. Check back in an hour or two....

Goodbye to Boracay

That is Boracay. It was tough to leave.

But I'm starting this post at 2:33am from Harold's Mansion Hostel in Dumaguete, Philippines. Meeting my friends Chris (former Dumaguete local and recent UW graduate) and Logan (who I'm traveling with for the next month) tomorrow afternoon, so I'll try to be snappy.

For now, just recapping today --- but let me say that I had an amazing, AMAZING time over the last 5 days in Boracay, which I should post about tomorrow (probably too tired for that today, and I'd like to do it justice). Met a group of killer, killer people and had a blast, in a way totally different than my awesome time in HK/Macau. Too good for words beaches, easy living, cliff diving, night swimming, dancing, excessive everything, etc, etc. Save it for tomorrow.

Leaving Boracay, though, probably wasn't AMAZING or anything. Definitely some word that I haven't come up with yet. Interesting? Unique? Painful? Hmmm. Here's how it started:

930am: Wake up. Eat breakfast.

1015am: Leave for Dumaguete.

130am, the next day (today): 15 hours later. Arrive in Dumaguete.

Giddy up! How did it take that long? Here's how:

-Tricycle to Boracay Port (20 min)
-Ferry to Caticlan Port/Bus Station (10 min)
-Bus to Iloilo City Bus Terminal (5 1/2 hours)
-Taxi to Iloilo City Port (30 min)
-Ferry to Bacolod (1 1/2 hours)
-Taxi to Bacolod Bus Terminal (15 min)
-Bus to Dumaguete (5 1/2 hours)
-Tricycle to Dumaguete hostel (5 min)

The only really, really painful part was the Bus to Duma, which left at 8pm and got in at like 1:30am. We were actually super fortunate to even catch it (the last bus of the day from Bacolod to Duma) since we got to Bacolod only thanks to Filipino lateness. The last ferry going to Bacolod "leaves" at 515pm, so when we got to the Ferry station at 540pm, we were happy to see that it wouldn't leave until 6pm. Good karma!

But, yama hama, those last 5 hours were pretty rough. I guess the bus itself was the toughest thing to endure. My French-Canadian buddy Francois I was traveling with (which was a total blessing by the way, having someone cool to bus hop with rather than go solo) complained about his ass hurting after 10 minutes and rightfully so. And literally every 20 minutes, we would fly over a pothole and the backwheels would fly off the ground and everyone on the bus (not just us unexperienced non-Filipinos) would lurch awake.

Here's what it looked it:


Also, we were accosted by begging kids for the first 5 minutes (pretty tough to watch this 5-year old tap Francois on the leg for a solid 2 minutes just to get 1 peso -- about $.02 US), it was air-con-less (shirt guaranteed to stick to you in 15 minutes or less) and the driver was totally out of his mind and honked approximately 46 billion times at anything from stray dogs to oncoming locomotives to drivers who weren't willing to sacrifice their lives to make it to Dumaguete in under 6 hours.

"This driver's pretty fucking something, man." Francois summed him up well.

And I forgot to mention that it smelled like BBQ sauce about every hour (still figuring that one out) and that there were roads being re-paved or re-constructed about every 30 minutes or so, bringing everything to a 10mph halt (like I-5 on Thanksgiving, minus pavement or seat cushions or just general comfort).

If that wasn't enough, probably the absolute, crazy, WHERE-ARE-WE? kicker came after about an hour at 9pm. We came to another halt in traffic, which looked harmlessly like any one of the construction slow-down spots...except this one was loaded with police, ambulances, etc. Then, as we start passing this accident, everyone starts to stand up, row by row, starting from the front. We are on the left side of the bus (the accident to our right), so we just sit there, hoping that nothing that crazy happened.

Well, after about 10 seconds of everyone standing, people started yelling "motorcyclo!" so we could figure it was a motorcycle crash. Then a few seconds later, everyone still standing and looking, the women a few rows in front of us start, wailing...."AYEEEE!!!" which to me sounded like laughter at first. It wasn't. More like cries of just, I don't know, horrificness.

At this point, anyone could figure that someone had died. I motioned to the dude in front of us and asked, making the universal gesture for death:

He responded with a nod, said "Dead" and then returned the gesture...but to make things worse, one of the ladies then started wailing louder and was just in shock and started motioning with her hand in pieces, first at her neck, then lower to her torso.

And it was at this point that we realized that the guy had returned my gesture not as a sign of death, but to say the motorcyclist was beheaded, I guess at the torso, though I'm still trying to figure out how they left the guy there to be seen by a full bus of onlookers. God. I took a picture of the aftermath just to recall the bedlam, that's her in the yellow in the lower right corner:

Then the lady in yellow shook it off with a four-points prayer, and a few seconds later, the conductor made a joke in Filipino. And it must have cheered her up because she smiled and laughed. I was a little shellshocked. And putting that in words, I realize how heavy it sounds now. But at the time, everyone was a little upset for a fleeting moment and then just moved back with their business. How it goes, sometimes.

But all and all, even the crazy bus trip was a good experience, at least to me. The middle 2 hours were relatively bump-free and I was happy just to check out the different Filipino neighborhoods we drove through.

Also, we got to watch 2012 (!!!) on our ferry from Iloilo to Bacolod, which was quite possibly the best movie I've ever seen (Danny Glover as the President!!!), and it was totally awesome (they definitely squeezed a lot of humor out of the end of the world) if you like watching monuments and people get owned for 2 hours.

But even though I enjoyed it, it was a little tough to watch a movie about the apocalypse-via-tidal-wave while on a boat... especially when it gets super stormy, there is lightning on the water all around you and the boat starts rocking profusely. My hands got semi-clammy (and not just because of Danny Glover).

Anyways, here are a couple more pictures of today...hopefully get back at the world tomorrow, barring a late sleep (which is a solid 80-percent chance of happening).

Chubby kid on a tricycle, aka a Filipino Rickshaw.


Speak softly and carry a big, dragon stick. And try to sell it to American tourists through the bus window at the bus station.


Mr. President.

More tomorrow, I hope. Thanks for stopping by, love y'all
-Jack

My Last Day in Macau

FYI (note after writing): This post is really, REALLY long. Maybe drink some coffee or a Red Bull and buckle up before you read it.

So, I've missed plenty of flights in my life (still upset about those punk women at Vueling Airlines who made me miss my first ever European flight from Paris-Barcelona, forcing me to sleep in Paris' Orly airport by myself for a night). And I've almost missed plenty and plenty more flights in my life --- but my last day in Macau was probably the most fun and certainly the most memorable time I've ever had trying to catch a flight. I'll start at the beginning:

12pm - Day 3 in Macau, just woken up (still catching up with sleep, thanks to poker two nights earlier) and ready for the last of Macau. Me and my hostel buddy Chetan (an Indian IT guy whose been living in Singapore and is likely moving to HK) head out walking for this famous Portugese restaurant, A Lorcha (translates to 'The Sailboat'). My Lonely Planet book was all about it and a couple of friends from the states had recommended it to me.

Thing is, my LP book is from 2006, which means stuff that they really, really recommend get really, really overblown in a matter of years. So instead of an authentic, cheap, local Portugese place I thought we'd get, we got the touristy, expensive, commercial version where there were only Cantonese people and 120 HKD dishes. And food looked pretty blah.

Naturally, Chetan wasn't down for this pricey fare, either, so we decided to bounce --- which was semi-awkward because a) they already brought us bread and b) the lady sitting next to our table was a little heavy and blocked my chair in, so I had to ask her to get up twice in a matter of five minutes. I felt really bad about this.

No matter, we peaced it. After 15 minutes, we settled on a kind of funky but local spot that looked Cantonese considering that the menus they gave away outside were all written in Cantonese with no english at all. Whatever, seemed cool.

We sat down and this place just what I had hoped for (pretty much the opposite of most of the other Macau/HK restaurants). Portugese, Macauese and Cantonese food, all fairly priced, all with pictures, free hot tea and a cool urban/local vibe (obviously none of the servers spoke english, which is literally all of Macau residents and 99.9 percent of visitors. I'll probably do a separate post about later).

I got the mutton chop in pepper sauce (aka goat, a first for me) because the guys in the booth next to us both had it and it looked good (well worth $5 USD), as well as the Chinese soup of the day (essentially broth with a few pork bones for $1 USD) and a bottle of coke. Chetan decided on the whitefish (pretty average) and a piece of toast with almond milk.

Then shit got hectic. It started to rain. Really hard. Which I'll definitely come back to in a few hours.

For the record, when I say rain, I mean POUR. Like cats, dogs, monkeys, elephants --- whatever. It was step-outside-for-two-seconds-and-you're-drenched stuff. We were definitely not walking back the hour to get back to our hostel in this monsoony nonsense. So we ordered a couple more glasses of almond milk and hung out for another hour or so watching awesome HK telenovellas hoping it'd stop. It didn't.

3pm now, stuff hadn't gotten any better, so Chetan suggested a cab (a thought which had literally never crossed my mind -- I always figure since I'm on a budget, I can walk anywhere). But a cab would be like a $1 USD each, two minutes well worth it (D2 reference). After about 20 minutes of trying to hail a cab, we finally got one. Again, the language barrier made it tough to communicate where we were going --- luckily I had a map to point to and the cabbie had his glasses with him --- but 10 minutes later, we were home at 4pm.

4pm. Perfect, I thought. Plenty of time. My flight for Manila was leaving at 1015pm, leaving ample time to pack, hang out, shower, etc before leaving to catch a couple casino shuttles to the airport. That gave me a solid 3-4 hours, more than enough --- but I'm never on time and always in a rush (especially for flights) so of course I would figure a way to make things interesting (which was a bad idea considering that my red-eye is the only flight Cebu Pacific Airlines has daily, meaning if I missed it, it would mean missing my connection to Boracay, meaning another day in Macau and a lot of heartache). Oh well.

I wondered if they'd cancel my flight given the weather, but my Filipino hostel owner informed me they'd only cancel in a typhoon. A typhoon! I thought. Ha. She also thought I'd have to get to the airport 2 hours before my departure time, so I didn't really trust her. But I think she may have psychic with all the typhoon talk...more on this shortly.

Chetal rounded up his stuff and took off for HK and a cool Swiss dude (from Basel, no less) Lukas moved in in his place and was staying the night in Macau en route to five weeks in China and Japan. We hung out in our hostel's tiny kitchen, had some tea and cigarettes and a lot in common --- he was just as into walking around cities and getting lost as I was, though we definitely agreed it was a good way to go a little crazy, as well.

Anyways, I decided to walk with Lukas to the Macau Tourist bureau (only five minutes away), figuring I had nothing but time. But what was supposed to be twenty minutes turned into two hours after we walked to the ruins of St. Paul, spent 20 minutes getting cookie and candy samples at a local joint (I got full), hit 7-Eleven and dropped by the money exchange to get rid of my Macau Patacas before I got to the Philippines (they only trade for HK Dollars). It was 6pm by the time we got back.

6pm. Okay, I thought. Plenty of time. I can shower and pack my things, get to my shuttles and get to the airport, no problem. So I decided to spend 30 minutes on the computer checking out Boracay (next stop) and chatting with the Filipino hostel owner, but still, plenty of time to get prepped. Then just as I was about to start packing, Lukas asked me if I wanted to go grab a beer and food at a Brazilian place around the corner with him and Tim (a cool Dutch dude, who had also just moved in and just finished 8 months split between New Zealand, Australia and China and was headed home to Holland in a day).

630pm. Sure, I thought. Plenty of time to grab a drink and pack. I'd have to take the bus instead of the free shuttles, but no big deal, I'll be done in an hour.

So we walked down to Caravela, a very cool and European-feeling Portugese place tucked in the same building complex as our hostel, about a 30 second walk away. We sat down on the covered patio, ordered a beer and settled in.

Then came the rain.

I don't know if God was just super angry that night or if Storm from X-Men was on leave vacationing in Macau for the week, but whatever it was, it was time for rain. It made the rain from earlier in the day look like drizzle.

In a matter of minutes, water was owning the ground. POUNDING the ground. Just obliterating it. We moved tables because even though we were in a covered patio, it was splashing so hard, we were getting wet. We were literally yelling to each other trying to talk over the rain.

After a few minutes, the ground was covered, blanketed in water. It looked like Nashville. There was a row of Cantonese restaurants right across across from us, literally 10 feet away, that Lukas and Tim refused to move to when Caravela closed at 8pm.

"It doesn't matter if you have to go into the rain for one hour or one second, you will get drenched," Tim said apologetically. He was right. We joked that perhaps they could float another beer over to us in the river that had formed in the walkway between us and them. I wasn't walking 30 seconds back to my hostel in this, let alone waiting for the bus or making my flight.

"You're fucked," Tim said, with a smile, sympathetically. I agreed. He was right.

Then things just kept getting better. Next came the lightning flashes, just blowing up the sky. Pure light. And then BOOM, thunder. A blast so insanely loud, we all jumped, a Portugese guy behind us dropped and broke his glass, and then CAR ALARMS JUST STARTED GOING OFF! I mean, like, really? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! CAR ALARMS?!? DID THEY GET STRUCK BY LIGHTNING?!? WHAAAATT??!?!?

I just started laughing. It was 815, I had two hours to get to the airport, hadn't packed or showered and figured that a) the bus was out and there was no way to even hail a cab with my bags in this monsoon and b) even if I did make it to the airport, they would cancel my flight. Murphy's Law, I said to Lukas and Tim (even though deep down maybe I figured stuff would probably work out, since it usually always does).

Finally, with Caravela long closed, we jumped across the makeshift river and sat down at the nearby Cantonese place. We ordered and predictably, in the next 15 minutes, the rain went from apocalyptic to hellacious to normal rain to light drizzles. Perfect. I now had hope. Finished my beer, jotted down the guys contact info and then took off running for the hostel.

845pm. No problem, I thought. Plenty of time to throw my shit in my bag, hail a cab and pray.

I got upstairs, threw my shit in my bag, triple checked to make sure I had all my junk and chatted with the hostel owner working at the time Cyril (a cool dude from Bangladesh), who told me about his plans to open a hotel there (I'm down to visit, I said) and quizzed me how to say "airport" in Cantonese so I could tell the cabbie. Every little bit helps.

Sprinted down three flights of stairs, ran to the main road and grabbed a cab in about 30 seconds. I tried telling him where to go in Cantonese (don't remember how to say it) but he looked at me puzzled. Luckily, I said airport and made a gesture with my hand to a plane --- he knew. And away we went. I motioned to ask if I could smoke a cigarette. He eagerly nodded, rolled down his window and smoked one of his own. Standard Chinaman.

Crossing the bridge, though the rain had stopped, there was multiple pockets of lightning shooting up all around the water, right over where the airport was. At this point, as we went over the bridge, I was pretty much expecting the cab to get struck with lightning, get hit by a rocket launcher or just spontaneously explode, just for the story's sake. But it didn't. And so, 20 minutes (and 60 Hong Kong Dollars) later, we made it, me and my Chinese shepard of a cabbie. If my life is "Children of Men," I guess this cabbie was my Clive Owen. Which makes me a pregnant African girl, but whatever, I made it.

I walked in the airport. Perfect, I thought. 915pm. Plenty of time to wait in line, get my boarding pass and make my flight. An hour. No problem.

And in the end, that's exactly what happened and I wouldn't have changed a thing. Because stuff usually finds a way to work itself out and beat Murphy's Law. It always does, even in Macau.

---

All and all, it was a pretty expensive hour, though, which was the only downside of my day. I had to pay 120 HKD to have my second bag checked (hate paying for stuff for no reason), and then they could only give me change in Macau Patacas (which I couldn't trade in the Philippines, meaning I had to buy a fat bag of Snickers at Duty Free for another 80)...add that to the 40 I spent on beer, 60 for the cab and my grand total comes to 300 HKD to get out Macau (which is still 40 bucks, so I can't be too upset). Mostly, I'm just angry at myself because I know I'm gonna devour a whole bag of candy in the next 24 hours. But as far as problems go, that's one of those good ones, I guess.

By 10pm, I pounded about six mini-Snickers, listened to some music and starting writing this DeMarcus Cousins' sized blog post. My flight didn't take off until 1045pm, but no matter. I was happy to wait, and for once today, not be in a rush.

It's 2:07am now and I'll be waiting in Manila's airport for the next three hours listening to some airport workers blast Closing Time (apparently Semisonic is big in the Philippines). Headed to Boracay (white beachs) at 530am. Will do some retroactive posting about my last days in HK and time in Macau when I get internet/sleep. As the Clive Owen references show, I'm running on fumes at this point and should probably stop writing for a while. So, hopefully will talk to you all soon. And if you ever feel like it, send me an email! iamjackross@gmail.com would love to hear from anyone that has a minute to drop a line. It will help keep me sane (or semi-sane) out on the open road. So please, please do!

On to the next one,
Love, Jack

HK - Day 2 (part 2)

4:00pm: Lunch at Po Lin Monestary. Touristy. Vegetarian. 5 dishes. Filling. I walked in alone to eat by myself and was hoping an asian Jonah Hill would be my host, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. "Do you want a magazine or something?"

Black bean and corn soup, bak choi and mushrooms, spring rolls and tofu with veggies, with infinite tea and rice. Most happy I've ever been eating veg, if every veg meal was this good, I could definitely see myself going vegetarian for at least one or two meals.

4:30pm: Ngong Ping 360 back to mainland. 25 minutes in a cable car in the air. Accompanied by a spanish couple and five HK'ers. One energetic elderly tan dude talking a mile a minute to his other old friend (who barely has the energy to stand or keep his eyes open, let alone talk). He doesn't stop talking for the last 15 minutes of the trip down. I'm starting to hate Cantonese.

They do Disneyland-type photos for this gondola. None of the Spanish or Cantonese noticed.

5:20pm: MTR (Subway) back to Central. Hoping to make a 6pm soccer game. Not looking good. Start a conversation with a big dude from Boston, went to Northeastern whose going to grad school for chemistry at Penn State for seven years. Ouch. Pretty awkward.

6:05pm: Arrive in Happy Valley (after asking two police officers, a sales lady and desk worker and walking through 1.5 miles of underground walkways), part of town where Hong Kong Football club. Lady tells me it is "to the left." Easy enough. I come out expecting to see it, only to find cars and freeways and taxis. No idea where to go.

Ask random HK kid, Peter (HK native and architecture student who went to U of O, who talks about how his football program is in shambles. I'm impressed). He's going there, too He has a secret subway shortcut and knows where he's going. But we still get lost and end up in the HK Jockey club. 20 minutes and a lot of sweating later, we make it.

6:30pm: Hong Kong Soccer Sevens. Old people tournament with 40-something year olds from UK, France, HK, Thailand, etc). One famous dude, Andy Cole, who used to play for Man U. Peter has three jerseys for him to sign, and he's definitely one of the less intense fans there.

Peter doin' work with Andy Cole, Football Superstar.

Pretty uneventful soccer (some of these dudes were old and/or tubby), most entertainment comes from the dozen or so HK soccer fans battling it out for autographs, pictures, memories, etc. Cole gets asked at least 50 times, signs 7000 things. Reminds me of beginning of Life Aquatic (old guy has about 15 albums for Bill Murray to sign -- "e questo") but no one will get those references, so moving on. "How many of these do you have?" And "Just forge the rest yourself." Love that movie.

Soccer in the city is cool though.

8:30pm: Supposed to meet Jed's buddy from LA Conor for a drink somewhere, but plans fall through. I'm on my own. Decide to wander around Happy Valley/Wan Chai area.

9:30pm: I'm lost.

10:00pm: Still lost. Decide to make most of it, get some street food --- 3 meatballs on stick and a couple of jumbo Tshingtao beers. 4 dollars American in all, good value.

10:30pm: Finally make it to the Ferry station in Wan Chai. Only took me 2 hours for what was probably a 30 minute walk, after I literally walked in a circle twice. Starting to doubt my sense of direction, but HK is all lights and buildings and not very walker friendly, so I won't write myself off yet.

11:30pm: Make it back to hostel tired. Talk to Ruben for a bit before packing in. Crash. Day 2 in the books.

DAY 3 and 4: Walking Tour of HK

The best way I know to get to know a city is by just showing up and getting lost. It's also a surefire way to lose your mind. Which brings me to my final two days in Hong Kong. Hopefully, I'll put that up later tonight or tomorrow.

And a quick current time update, it's dinner time here in Macau -- I'm headed to this Portugese place Caravela for food and then here for another night and then ship out for Boracay (White Beach in the Philippines) tomorrow evening...with a five-hour layover in Manila from 12am to 5am. Already hit the Wynn last night and checking out the Venetian tonight.

Double Update: Now it's 2am, I'm spend from sleeping like .5 hours after last nights session at the Wynn (a small loser), hardly anyone speaks English in the Venetian food court (or on like 99 percent of Macau, for that matter), I saw more late-night show type things and seen more enthralled Chinese than ever before in my life, I made friends from like my sixth new country and I don't know why I'm still typing right now. PS in case you were wondering, there IS a Fatburger in the Venetian Macau. I'm still confused how I didn't get a fat kingburger tonight.

Finally, pictures on the way --- something wrong with the site right now, but they'll be up asap.

HK - Day 2 (part 1)

Good morning, Hong Kong Island!

After really getting into the nitty-gritty yesterday and slaving away (and unnecessarily detailing my conversation with a conspiracy theorist German), I'm gonna take a more minimalist tact today to describe my second day in Hong Kong. Though let me say for the record, it's 10am again and I'm impressed with myself for blogging again. 2-day streak, Joe DiMaggio watch yo back. Here's my second day:

10am - Wake up. Blog.

11am - Decide my day. Day trip to Lan Tau island. Big Buddha is there. Po Lin Monestary. By 6pm, back to HK Island for HK Masters Soccer Tournament. At 8pm, meet Jed's friend Colin in Soho. Good plan.

12pm - Leave Garden Hostel. Walk 10 minutes. Forgot phone. Go back. Leave again. Ask HK 20-something businessman for cigarette. He laughs. Obliges. We walk away pleased with each other.

1240pm - Ferry from Kowloon to Central Station. 10 minutes. Meet 4 guys from San Francisco (one in Giants hat). Overhear they are going to Dumaguete, Philippines also. Make small talk. They are not interested.

1pm - Ferry from Central to Lan Tau (Mai Wo). 30 minutes. Write plans in notebook. Water is turbulent. My stomach is not pleased.

1:50pm - Bus from Mai Wo to Ngong Ping Village. 40 minutes. Green everywhere. Lush. Beautiful. Long drive, narrow roads. We almost hit cement truck. Twice. My first picture in HK from the bus. Not a good one.

2:30pm - Walk around Ngong Ping village. Touristy. Starbucks. 7-Eleven. Very cultural.

The girl likes her cotton candy a lot. It's bigger than her head.

Cool trolley system Ngong Ping 360. Maybe my way home. It's long.
3:00pm - Walk up to Big Buddha. He really is big. Amazing, even from afar.
He says what's up.


INTERMISSION: All the pictures I can put into one post, I'm off to explore Kowloon and go to the library with my friend from the hostel Bob. Be back with Part 2 later today.