The Philippines...Part 2

Batangas was a real beaut...NOT! It was definitely my least favorite place...here's a picture of our hotel room. Oh and by the way, this place, the Travelers' Inn it was called, was RECOMMENDED by Lonely Planet!?! Anyway...that night Ronan had rented 2 tricycles for our gang, yep, you read it right, 2 TRICYCLES for 8 people! They're these dirt bike like vehicles with a sidecar for 2 and room for 2 behind the driver. They were SO FUN! Don't worry Mom and Dad, they only go about 30 mph. So for like 200 pesos a person or something (which is like $4USD?) our drivers stayed with us the whole night, dropping us off at places and then waiting for us. Wild! They were so silly though. We asked them to take us to a bar with pool and a TV so we could watch the "match" (as the Norwegians would say talking about soccer) and 4/5 times they took us to hooker bars! At dinner, Laura and I were smart and ordered chicken fingers and cheesesticks while everyone else decided to get steaks. The steaks were gray and the empty restaurant had somehow managed to run out of knives (?) so everyone had to cut their meat with forks and spoons! Obviously still rather hungry, we girls had ice cream at McDonald's while the boys ate "spaghettis," as Ronan would say, at the local fast food place, Jollybee's. By the end of the night we finally found a cool outdoor bar with live music and toilets with toilet seats!



The next day we were supposed to leave Travelers' Inn by 5:30 AM to catch a 6 AM boat to White Beach in Puerto Galera. Of course, 5:30 rolls around and who's still sleeping after I banged on the door 5 times? Yeah...the boys. So the half of us that are ready by 5:45 speed over to the seaport to make sure the boat doesn't leave. About 10 minutes later the other 4 show up and through some miscommunication, we find out that two of the guys ended up paying twice since Ronan had already paid for them in the first place! They were pissed...but we're talking again...$4USD. Whoops! In true Filipino time, our boat didn't end up leaving the dock until 7:30 and we arrived at our destination around 9:30. We spent the day on the beach with all the vendors and massage ladies..."Hello Ma'am, do you want a massage? When you want massage you let me know, I am Baby, remember my name when you want massage." And Man! were they persistent! Laura got so fed up with them bothering us all day that she refused to have a massage at all, but Maud and I gave in and for 200 pesos (~$4USD), we had 45 minute full oil body massages on the beach...beautiful. At 3, the boys said they had rented a boat and we were going to go to a place to go snorkeling. I had no desire to snorkel, but was under the impression we were going to a more private beach where we would still be able to lay out if we didn't want to swim. Unfortunately, that was not the case. They dropped anchor a ways off shore and said, "Go!" I didn't want to be the baby that stayed on the boat (and after all, I was paying 300 pesos!), so I put on that nasty mask that I was sure had never been cleaned and jumped in. Owww! Something had wrapped around my wrist and it hurt like a bitch! I was sure something had stung me, but I didn't see anything. So I shouted to everyone, "There's something in this water that stings!" And everyone said back, "Nah, it must just be the salt on your sunburn." So I kept swimming and damn! my legs were burning like hell! I had had enough. I started to swim toward the ladder on the side of the boat, saw a jellyfish, and turned around immediately. I got out on the other side of the boat and saw red lines all over my legs. Then, of course, everyone starts going, "Ow! Ow! Ow!" And now they believe me. Needless to say, our snorkeling didn't last long and there were no fish anyway! Being the Philippines...there were unfortunately no refunds.

We ended our time in Puerto Galera with a good dinner of bbq pork and rice and a crazy Philippine rum shot drinking game that I fortunately did not take part in because man that game went fast!

The next day the 8 of us rode for hours in a 4Runner size SUV back to Manila. Our driver was nice enough to stop frequently to let us eat and use the toilet and thank goodness because for one of our travel mates it was a "photo finish" at Jollybee's after an unfriendly hot dog from the last seemingly well-kept gas station shop.

Back in Hong Kong safe and sound, I'd never appreciated the luxuries of a first world country so much in my life - toilet seats, toilet paper, and hand soap. But something I did notice and love about this country was the genuine happiness and enjoyment of life of the local people despite their apparently desperate situations. They maybe "developing" in the economic sense, but they sure seemed to have a better handle on other aspects of life us "developed" people are still working on. That trip certainly prepared me for my travel adventures to come.

The Philippines...Part 1

At 6:30 PM on Friday, Laura, Maud, and I head up to the big red bird/ruler sculpture thing at the front of the school to meet the people we were going to the Philippines with. First, we met Ronan, the French surfer dude that had already been to the Philippines 3 times; he was our "guide". The last time he was in the Philippines, he got arrested by the Filipino police because they thought he was a rebel since he had been walking up this hill toward the rebel camp , unbeknownst to him. The police then had to call HKUST to make sure he actually was a student and everything! So that should give you a pretty good idea of the kind of journey on which we were about to embark. Afterward, Matt, a cool British guy, and the 3 Norwegians showed up.

The adventure began right away as we were chasing after buses with all our luggage. The mark of a true virgin of a traveler, I brought a freaking duffle bag without a shoulder strap, a backpack, AND a purse! We finally arrived at the airport after like 4 modes of transportation, had some Burger King and hopped on our CebuPacific Air plane. The flight was fine for me as I've learned the wonders of Dramamine - I went right to sleep, but poor Laura was getting hit on the head by this 4 year-old that was screaming and growling...yes growling, like the whole way there.

At midnight, we got in the van Ronan had "negotiated" that would take us to our first stop, Talisay. We arrived in this dark town around 3 in the morning, and some how, we found an open "resort." The toilet was interesting, to flush it, you had to turn on this faucet that ran into a bucket, then flush, then dump the water out of the bucket into the drain on the floor. Oh yeah, there's just a shower head, no shower surrounding and it's just cold water...but it was all part of the adventure! The next morning, I woke up to one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. We were right on this beautiful lake - Lake Ta'al. Everything was green and the birds were singing! Our "auntie" (the hotel owner) had even cooked us breakfast! (but I was too afraid to eat much since it was my first meal in the Philippines and about 2/3 of our friends that had already been had gotten severely ill...so I ate the 2 pieces of white bread) We took this cool wooden boat with a crazy loud motor across the lake to the volcano in the middle - the Ta'al Volcano! When we stepped off the boat, these local girls were jumping all over us trying to sell us stuff and people were trying get us to hire these poor donkey/horses to take us up to the top, but Ronan said we were "trekking." We sure trekked. It was incredible and incredibly hot! When we finally reached the top...WOW! Gorgeous. There was another lake IN the volcano we'd just hiked up. Unfortunately the pictures don't capture the real beauty.

When we got back to the hotel, we had to pack up in like 15 minutes because apparently they were trying to charge us extra or something. That afternoon we traveled to Batangas by jeepney and bus. Jeepney's are these crazy trucks that were brought over from America during some war and now they use them for public transportation! (To be continued...I have to go to sleep.)

First Day of Class

My first day got off to an okay start in my Finance class. I was lucky to arrive on time considering this place is like impossible to navigate. To find your classroom, you have to enter it into the "Lift Selection Advisor" which then tells you which elevator to go to. Then you have to look up the elevator because by the way there are about 30 of them. So my first class was Lift 25-26, room 4503 or something. My professor has a lot of experience in the industry and seems like she's going to be really good, but she kept trying to scare everyone out of the class saying, "I'm mean and horrible!" She succeeded with some. About 5 kids just got up in the middle of the class and left. They do that here during drop/add. It's so weird. I think she just wants less grading. Then I went to Musical Theater which was a blast! We just watched clips of musicals. I even sang along when we watched Rent's "Seasons of Love".

My management class was the best. I walk into this big lecture theater, sit down. I'm a little confused because Beethoven is playing and and all the kids have these little remotes in their hands and they're pointing them up at the screen. And I'm like, "What the hell is going on?" So I ask the kid next to me, "Hey, is this MGTO 120?" He says yes, so I start getting settled and start checking out the scene more. My professor is wearing a double-breasted pin stripped suit and I'm thinking, "Yes...this guy is going to be the shit." And he is. He is such a character! He's from California so he's always making these jokes about America. My friend Alex, a guy from Michigan, and I are the only ones who get his humor; all the locals are always looking at each other like, "what's he talking about?" It's great.

So anyway, Alex and I head to lunch afterwards. We get to one of the dining halls, or the "canteen" as they call it here, get in this line for what looks kind of like Panda Express. We get up to the front and get yelled at in Cantonese (seems that happens a lot, doesn't it?). Luckily, someone in line spoke English and explained to us that we needed to go buy some sort of ticket at this other desk and then get back in the line we were in and then give them the ticket and then they'd give us the food. So we did that. Then we're trying to find a table and there's no open table. So we see this guy sitting alone, Thomas. Thomas is nice enough to let us sit with him. He's got this lunch in a plastic box of a cold chicken leg with a ton of rubbery skin, rice, a hard-boiled egg, and some black like vinegary stuff (it was NOT soy sauce). So we decide to engage him in a bit of conversation. He tells us he lives at home with his parents, it takes him 1 hour to get to school, he takes 9 classes (?? I was confused, maybe he misunderstood our question), he's a first year student, and he doesn't like dessert - he specifies definitely not chocolate. So as we're starting to talk about his major, Alex picks up his bowl of soup to take a sip (we didn't see the spoons) and as he's setting it back down on the table, he spills it all over Thomas' laptop bag! Like I said before, napkins are scarce. So Alex and I are running around trying to find something to dry it up with and Thomas is trying really hard not to get mad, frantically moving his stuff out of the soup stream. It was really awkward. After that, conversation kind of ended.

Afterward I headed to the "Computer Barn" where I ran into Maud and Laura. Maud looked very excited. "Do you want to go to the Philippines this weekend?" she asks me. I'm like, "Hell no!" It's just NOT like me to just do something so unplanned. So then I thought for a second and was like, well okay I guess I'll think about it. So after I was done with class, Laura calls and says the plane tickets are only $150 US and that we weren't leaving until Friday night (it was Thursday night), so I said, oh what the hell, let's do it! So the airline's website (CebuPacific Air) was so sketchy that none of our credit cards would go through so we had to have this guy, Ronan, a full year student who was going to be our "guide" in the Philippines, buy all of our tickets for us. And so, as Maud would say, we were "going to the Philippines!"

The Not So Ladylike Market

The other day my friends and I decided to go experience the Ladies Market. The Ladies Market is an outdoor market just like the swap meet, a bunch of vendors selling a ton of cheap stuff, none of which you really need. For instance, I came away with a Hello Kitty handkerchief which I tried to tell myself was going to be my napkin, since... (oh yeah! I don't think I've mentioned this. They don't have napkins here. It's really bizarre! If you're lucky, they'll leave a box of Kleenex on the table like that's supposed to get the shrimp juice off your fingers.) Nevertheless, it's an experience "you just have to have" in Hong Kong. Part of that experience is supposed to be haggling.

At first, I was really intimidated by the whole scene. There were SO many people and so much shouting in Cantonese and oh the peculiar smells...I kept losing my friends and with a "death-clutch" on my purse, I was so sure someone was going to "just slip their hand right in and snatch my wallet!" Pretty soon my friends were getting good at the bargaining thing, so I decided okay, if I find something I like, I should try my hand at it. Sure enough, I find this awesome bracelet, one of those painted bangles that they sell at J.Crew for like $40 a piece. This one was great! Blue with little white and red flowers and green leaves. And...it fit my wrist which is like a miracle! So the vendor woman walks up and says, "$89HK okay for you?" Now $89HK is about $11 USD. While that doesn't sound very expensive, for the Ladies Market, it was. So I say, "Uh...no..." trying to bargain a bit, you know, and the next thing I know, she's shooing me out of her shop shouting, "Den okay BYE BYE!" I was shocked! Here I thought I was SUPPOSED to do that and the one thing I want, I can't have now!?! I mean, I even would have spent the $11, but I was just so appalled at how rude she was, I couldn't bring myself to go back. I think that's what prompted my Hello Kitty impulse buy.

At another shop, my friend Kristen was trying to look at a pair of leggings. She accidentally knocked 2 off the rack while she was looking and the shopkeeper grabbed the leggings and yelled at us in Cantonese!

So now I can say I have had the Ladies Market experience, but it's not one I plan to have again.

Yay for a Roommate!

On my third day here, I came back to my dorm room one afternoon to find someone sleeping. "Uh oh...she's here," I thought. When we officially met about a day later when finally neither of us were sleeping, we really hit it off! So like I said, I had thought I had it bad with all that stuff, but man, did she make me feel better. She had had it even worse! Having to fly from Texas to San Fran before she could get to HK, she missed her connecting flight in San Fran because of a delay in Texas and had to stay over night without extra clothes. By the time she got to HK, she'd been wearing the same clothes for 3 days! She was somehow able to still smile and laugh about it by saying, "It's all part of the adventure." So I decided to adopt that too and that's how we've been getting through all the craziness that is the first few weeks abroad...in Asia.

So far there have been 2 cultural differences that have been especially hard for us to get over. One, there is no sense of chivalry in Asian culture. Two, it seems no one was ever told not to stare.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the public transportation here is incredibly efficient and clean! I absolutely LOVE the MTR! The system that is. The experience as a whole sometimes I am not quite as in love with. If you're not moving quickly enough or aren't willing to shove a little to get on/off, you will get pushed aside by men and women alike. When on the train, I've never seen a man offer his seat to a woman, despite the signs on the train that read, "Show you have a loving heart. Let's care for others!"

Last night, in fact, I was doubled over from a crippling stomachache that obviously had me in a lot of pain, and not one person even attempted to offer their seat. Then when we were arriving at the station, a man just stepped in front of me so that he could get out first, so out of frustration I shoved him aside so I could get out first! Oops! I know that wasn't very nice, but I couldn't hold it in! And it's SO rare that anyone apologizes for ramming into you! And on the occasion they do, I smile, applaud and thank them!

Another thing on the MTR is the starring. The other day, this old man in a suit was watching Laura and me. We thought, maybe if we stare back, he'll get the picture that we don't appreciate him looking at us. We tried, but man did he win! We just felt so awkward looking at someone like that, though he apparently did not. Then we noticed that even when someone else's body would obstruct his line of sight, we would just move so as to continue watching us. Very very uncomfortable, but "it's all part of the adventure!"

It's all part of the experience!

So my buddies up at the Hovey House neglected to mention that when they said English is spoken in Hong Kong, by that they meant, not much at all. I arrived at my dorm around 7:30 AM (it's the one in the picture with the red triangle top) after my 15 hour flight only to be greeted by the Hall manager who tried to explain to me in Cantonese how to check in. I tried to throw some papers at her and make some motions that I thought indicated I was an exchange student. That wasn't working so thankfully Enoch, my airport pick up buddy, came to the rescue. I threw on some clothes and tried to figure out how to get to the meeting place for the tour of the "New Territories." Like a gift from God, I saw a Caucasian person. I asked with desperation, "Are you an exchange student?" And thankfully! She was! She had a heavy French accent so I had to have her repeat her name like 3 times before I even attempted to repeat it back to her. Maud. To this day I'm not sure when I say her name whether I should say it with a French or American accent. As of now, I still use the French one and I think I sound kind of silly, so I hope I'll make up a good nickname for her soon. Making a friend always makes things better.

The New Territories were interesting...When we arrived at our first stop, our guide, Cecilia, led us through the backyards and alleyways of some small village's shacks. Then, out of no where, a temple would pop up and with no explanation as to what it was we were looking at, she would say "Ah, okay! Go take picture! Take picture!" So the day went from 9AM-4.

The next day, we were supposed to go on a tour of Po Toi Island and Lamma Island. Unfortunately, we were given no warning that this may not be the best tour for those with a weak stomach. When we first got on the boat, all was fun! 75 minutes to the island? Okay! But about 25 minutes in, things were not so okay. The water got REALLY rocky and pretty soon everyone was fighting for space on the front deck, trying to focus on something stable, and some, unfortunately had to pray to the "porcelain Gods." Needless to say, I was rather disappointed when we arrived at Po Toi Island to see some rocks. By the time we got to Lamma Island, it was raining and all we had to look forward to was a second day of "traditional Hong Kong seafood restaurant!"

So my first few days in HK were a little rough. I was really homesick. I missed BC, warm weather in California and western food! My cell phone service sucked so I could barely talk to friends and family. Skype doesn't work well because the broadband is not strong enough or something. My electrical converter blew up because I think there maybe something wrong with the socket. It is FREEZING here because China is having the coldest winter in 100 years and there is no central heating in the dorms, so I have to blow dry my sheets and wear sweaters and socks to bed. I take 2 and 3 showers a day to stay warm! The local students are super shy and don't always like having to speak English with you. One time, I was introducing myself to some people and when I went to shake this local student's hand, she said "Oh, no thank you! I'm good."

So I felt kind of lonely without anyone to help me through the transition, but then I got a roommate!!