I have been back in the Philippines for almost a week now and back on Mindanao since yesterday. The flight from New York to Hong Kong was uneventful, had to stop in Alaska again for a disorienting 20 minutes as they topped off the tanks and vacuumed the cabin. The airport in Anchorage is a bit strange. They have glass cubes of the sort you see in museums, floor to ceiling high and maybe 5 X 5 meters in area. Inside they have stuffed wildlife in natural poses. Nothing like stumbling off of an overnight flight and making eye contact with an erect grizzly bear as it takes a bite out of a raging moose. I will try and remember to photograph the dioramas next time I hit Anchorage.
Unfortunately I don't drink. China Air and Cathay Pacific, the 2 airlines I usually use, are very liberal with wine. Somehow I always end up next to grumpy, elderly Chinese men. I haven't met too many Chinese who can handle their liquor but at least they aren't angry drunks. At worst they just make a sour face and segue into snoring with pig-like grunts and whistles...that or insist on doing kareoke despite the fact that there is no kareoke on any plane I have ever been on. Me? I just listen to my various 4GB memoury cards full of music (each has like 2,000 tracks) or watch the various films they have. They say more and more flights will have internet available but to date I have only been able to enjoy it a single time.
Hong Kong is a great airport. Like Bangkok it is brand new and unlike Bangkok it has some great freebies. There are free internet terminals! Before I had International Plans for my mobiles I used to have to buy 10 HK worth of over-priced groceries to get 15 minutes of internet time in 7-11-like minimarts.
Hong Kong to Manila is 4 hours of nervously happy people since the flights are invariably filled with OFWs (Overseas Foreign Workers-Filipinos exported by their government on multi-year labour contracts) and would be internet lotharios arriving to meet their cyber girlfriends for the first time. OFWs only get home once every 4 or 5 years and lotharios? Well sometimes they have been chatting for 2 or 3 years without ever seeing the girl (I say "girl" but a fair number of "girlfriends" are actually Ladyboys, as cross dressers are called in Southeast Asia.
Joysa had taken a taxi from Pampanga Province, almost 3 hours north of Manila, to be able to meet my plane. I never travel with more than an overnight bag so I am off the plane and out the door as soon as I clear Customs and Immigration, usually 30 minutes or less since I am a white skinned foreigner. It is sad but if you are dark skinned you can be there all day, especially if you are a black African. Since China executed 3 Filipinos for heroin smuggling a couple of months ago the Bureau of Immigration has been fucking with Africans big time. Of course it is true that virtually all air-smugglers are run by West Africans but it is also true that not all West Africans smuggle coke and dope.
Joysa was waiting at the airport's pathetic arrivals kiosk, a cinderblock building with a Jollibee takeaway counter. Jollibee is the Filipino fastfood giant that sells soggy burgers (almost certain that they are half-soy) and a fist full of boiled white rice with every meal. As usual Joysa looked fantastic, and as usual everyone stared at us. The assumption naturally is that I am one of those would be lotharios meeting my Asian squeeze for the first time. We love to shock everybody by ramming our tongues down each other's throats as soon as we touch. Southeast Asians are anal retentive about public displays of affection though those in Manila are nowhere as bad as they are on Mindanao where you can't hold hands unless married. Onlookers are aghast imagining I have just met this girl who is groping me and won't let me stop kissing her...
We went to my studio and spent 5 days house hunting. I prefer to stay in Makati which has the only Jewish Community in the Philippines, as well as the Israeli Embassy but Joysa cannot get her mind around cost. In her home province of Bulacan, just north of Metro Manila, 20,000 Pesos (650 US) a month gets me a marble floored mansion with indoor/outdoor pool, manicured grounds, in home office, etc. 20,000 Pesos in Makati is a 1 bedroom flat with no utilities or a/c. My studio is the equivalent of 260 US a month, more or less, but it is tiny. I just used it as an alternative to hotels in my travels in and out of the Philippines.
For 5,000 Pesos (140 US) a month I can rent a 2 bedroom townhouse in a gated community in Bulacan, community pool, security, etc. Therefore Joysa has her heart set on a townhome in Bulacan. I told her that it must be far away enough from her family that we only see them once a week at most. Luckily for me she agrees whole heartedly but still, I don't see myself living in Central Luzon (Luzon being the island holding Manila, Bulacan, etc.).
I will continue this in a following post...
Unfortunately I don't drink. China Air and Cathay Pacific, the 2 airlines I usually use, are very liberal with wine. Somehow I always end up next to grumpy, elderly Chinese men. I haven't met too many Chinese who can handle their liquor but at least they aren't angry drunks. At worst they just make a sour face and segue into snoring with pig-like grunts and whistles...that or insist on doing kareoke despite the fact that there is no kareoke on any plane I have ever been on. Me? I just listen to my various 4GB memoury cards full of music (each has like 2,000 tracks) or watch the various films they have. They say more and more flights will have internet available but to date I have only been able to enjoy it a single time.
Hong Kong is a great airport. Like Bangkok it is brand new and unlike Bangkok it has some great freebies. There are free internet terminals! Before I had International Plans for my mobiles I used to have to buy 10 HK worth of over-priced groceries to get 15 minutes of internet time in 7-11-like minimarts.
Hong Kong to Manila is 4 hours of nervously happy people since the flights are invariably filled with OFWs (Overseas Foreign Workers-Filipinos exported by their government on multi-year labour contracts) and would be internet lotharios arriving to meet their cyber girlfriends for the first time. OFWs only get home once every 4 or 5 years and lotharios? Well sometimes they have been chatting for 2 or 3 years without ever seeing the girl (I say "girl" but a fair number of "girlfriends" are actually Ladyboys, as cross dressers are called in Southeast Asia.
Joysa had taken a taxi from Pampanga Province, almost 3 hours north of Manila, to be able to meet my plane. I never travel with more than an overnight bag so I am off the plane and out the door as soon as I clear Customs and Immigration, usually 30 minutes or less since I am a white skinned foreigner. It is sad but if you are dark skinned you can be there all day, especially if you are a black African. Since China executed 3 Filipinos for heroin smuggling a couple of months ago the Bureau of Immigration has been fucking with Africans big time. Of course it is true that virtually all air-smugglers are run by West Africans but it is also true that not all West Africans smuggle coke and dope.
Joysa was waiting at the airport's pathetic arrivals kiosk, a cinderblock building with a Jollibee takeaway counter. Jollibee is the Filipino fastfood giant that sells soggy burgers (almost certain that they are half-soy) and a fist full of boiled white rice with every meal. As usual Joysa looked fantastic, and as usual everyone stared at us. The assumption naturally is that I am one of those would be lotharios meeting my Asian squeeze for the first time. We love to shock everybody by ramming our tongues down each other's throats as soon as we touch. Southeast Asians are anal retentive about public displays of affection though those in Manila are nowhere as bad as they are on Mindanao where you can't hold hands unless married. Onlookers are aghast imagining I have just met this girl who is groping me and won't let me stop kissing her...
We went to my studio and spent 5 days house hunting. I prefer to stay in Makati which has the only Jewish Community in the Philippines, as well as the Israeli Embassy but Joysa cannot get her mind around cost. In her home province of Bulacan, just north of Metro Manila, 20,000 Pesos (650 US) a month gets me a marble floored mansion with indoor/outdoor pool, manicured grounds, in home office, etc. 20,000 Pesos in Makati is a 1 bedroom flat with no utilities or a/c. My studio is the equivalent of 260 US a month, more or less, but it is tiny. I just used it as an alternative to hotels in my travels in and out of the Philippines.
For 5,000 Pesos (140 US) a month I can rent a 2 bedroom townhouse in a gated community in Bulacan, community pool, security, etc. Therefore Joysa has her heart set on a townhome in Bulacan. I told her that it must be far away enough from her family that we only see them once a week at most. Luckily for me she agrees whole heartedly but still, I don't see myself living in Central Luzon (Luzon being the island holding Manila, Bulacan, etc.).
I will continue this in a following post...
