Tagaytay

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything about my trip to the Philippines. Sadly thats because the last two weeks haven't really been all that exciting. Just work. I could post about work but that would just be boring. I will say that I have started my class and my students are awesome. I've gota class of 19 people and they are all well behaved and work together as a team. Things here are going to be very different than I am used to with my classes back home (no thats not a cheap shot at the people in my classes... its just a very different dynamic). However now that we've got a few more people from the US and Canada here we are doing weekend excursions. For example this past weekend we took a day trip to Tagaytay and Taal volcano. The trip there was very nice, we drove through some of the countryside and got to see some of the small stores that sold everything from fresh fruit to cellphones. We also got to drive by some of the rice fields and fruit fields. I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of them because we were driving and everytime we got a view a car would pass when I took the picture. After about an hour and a half we made it to the shore of the lake Taal. Once we were there we then had to take a boat accross to Volcano island (I'm not making that up... thats what it's called. Original isn't it?), and then we had the choice of walking up or hiring a horse for 500 pesos. It's apparently about 5km of trails, which are a combination of steep, sandy and rocky trails to the mouth of the volcano. They were trying to sell us surgical masks to protect ourselves from the dust for 50 pesos but most of us brough towels or extra tshirts which we wrapped around our faces. Once we were preppeed we took our horses and a guide and headed up the mountain. I'm not going to lie, my back hurts today because I haven't ridden a horse since I was a kid but it was totally worth it. On the way up along the trail I didn't see much live vegetation. There was alot of life on the island itself but the trail was pretty devoid of life. I also noticed as well that from time to time there would be the burnt remains of plants and trees. My guide informed me that it's natural and that hot pockets cause small fires occasionally. Once we were on the top it was breath taking. Looking out from where we came it didn't look so bad, but from the trek up, there were a few sections that were quite steep. At the top they sold drinks and souveneirs for the tourists. We also could look down into Crater lake (yet again I'm not just making up the names...) The lake was beautiful. It is made up of diluted sulphuric acid though and you could definately smell it. There were also a few hot pockets where you could see steam and smoke coming out of the ground and the edge of the shore inside the crater is stained yellow because of the high concentration of sulphur. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at one of the fruit stands by the side of the road. The smell was incredible. Everything was fresh and you wouldn't believe the prices. Back home if you want to buy a pineapple you'd spend $6 or $7 per. I picked up 2 pineapples for 50 peso's, thats about the equivalent of $1.10. They also had fresh mangos, mangosteen, multiple types of bananas, coconuts, and several types of fruit that I've never seen before. When we got back to the hotel we all crashed for about an hour before heading to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Makati. I was suprised to learn that just around the corner from where we had dinner was the apartment building, where the former first lady Imelda Marcos lives. At dinner none of us had much energy so we pretty much just had dinner then returned to the hotel to crash. Sadly nobody else is quite as adventerous in the food category as I am so when we go out it tends to be at american style restraunts. I did however get to try some new foods this week. I got to try isaw, pronounces e-sow. It's grilled pork intestines. It was pretty tasty I must say. Some of the people at work I think are a little suprised at what I'm willing to try. I also had ube icecream. Ube is a Filipino word for purple yam, because well, it's purple. It's taste is very different. I've tried the icecream and an ube pastry with coconut. It's pretty good, if I had to put a closeness in flavor I would say that its almost like sweet potatoes. Mark from work also managed to procure me some balut. I wanted to try it this past weekend but never got around to it. So we have agreed that we are going to go out at some point after work this week and have a few redhorse beers and balut. For those of you who didn't look balut up the last time I posted about it, it is an asian delicacy that is made up of a fertalized duck egg with a nearly developed embryo inside. The egg is then boiled and then eaten inside the shell like a hard boiled egg. It is going to be the toughest thing to eat (hence the beer) but I figure if I can eat this, I can eat anything.

Here's a picture of my class.

This is a picture of a security guard at a 7-11.... Yes thats a pump action shotgun. Every security guard here is armed. I've seen more shotguns and revolvers than I can count and a few assault rifles.

These are our two boat drivers. They made sure we got across the lake safe and sound.

A great picture of the types of boat that we took.

And this is our majestic vessel.

Here's us on our horses on our way up the mountain. I pulled the shirt off my face for the picture... It was quite dusty on the way up.

A hot pocket in the crater that was smoking.

Another shot of the smoke that shows a little more of how murky certain parts of the water were.

Probably my favorite picture. The group of us that made it to the top.

A burnt tree stump at the top. Apparently it's common for the hot pockets to burn plant life.

A look from the top down to where we began...

They had a makeshift platform that you could stand on to take a higher picture. Tyric and Ryan trusted it... I didn't.

Tyric looking like a bandit on our way down. I kinda regret not wrapping my whole face the way he did... I only covered my mouth and needless to say I'm sunburnt.

There are a lot of roosters around. Apparently cock fighting is a popular sport here in the Philippines.

A shot from back on the mainland. Bottom right you can see the are where we started and in the middle is the volcano that we went to.

Theses are trikes, not much more than a small motorcycle and a side car. However its not uncommon to see five or six people riding a single one.

Rice fields that we passed on our way back.




A couple shots of the fruit stands. Amazing prices and all of the fruit is picked fresh.

Post coming soon!

It's 10:10 on Sunday evening and it has been a busy day. I wanted to post a full post about our trip to Tagaytay today but I will have to do it in the morning as I am too exhausted. Please check back later tonight or tomorrow for an actual post. :)

It's been one week...

Well in truth it is just over a week that we've been here now. I must say it has been a fantastic week. We've made some awesome friends that I hope even when we go home will stay in touch. I won't go into too much detail about work as it simply is pretty much like home. The difference being a much nicer place. Our fellow trainers are awesome and have been very friendly and helpful. I've tried to be adventurous in regards to trying local foods and I think it has surprised a few of them that I am willing to try anything once. Grace has been nice enough to make a few suggestions. For example it's thanks to her that I tried chicken ass... no thats not a typo. It is called chicken ass and it's not a crude name for something plain, it is what it sounds like. I also tried dinuguan with puto. Puto is small rice breads that are very sweet tasting, where as dinuguan which tastes awesome sounds less appealing. It translated means pork blood stew. It's pieces of pork meat in a blood based gravy/soup with seasonings. Very tasty!!! I've also been told that I should try balut. I won't go into detail on what that one is as I will let you look it up for yourselves. I figure that even though they have the usual fast food joints, KFC, Wendy's, Dairy Queen, etc. I'd rather try local dishes, I mean I can get a big mac back home... granted back home its serves with fries instead of rice but I want the real experience.

So that was the week at work, then we had some real fun on the weekend. Our new friends Grace and Rome picked us up on Saturday morning and we went to Greenhills. We started off by going to see How to train your dragon in 3D. I couldn't believe the prices at the theater. For the four of us to see a movie in 3D it cost 1200 pesos... that's only about $27 CAD. Not only did it include admission but it also came with a drink and popcorn for each of us... after that we did some shopping. The best way that I can describe Greenhills is to put it in terms of the Stittsville flea market times a hundred. It is a combination of legit stores and knockoff shops. There were so many knockoffs that I couldn't believe it. Tara ended up picking up a Louis Vuitton bag for about $30. It even came with a certificate of authenticity. You name it they had it, Rolex watches, handbags, shoes, electronics, etc. Mind blowing and most of which were very high quality and only the trained eye could spot the difference. Then on Sunday we met up with Honey (whom Tara had met through Facebook and YouTube while researching the Philippines) and her husband Pirouz. They took us around to see some of the touristy stuff. We started off with Fort Santiago, which is where the Spanish inhabited during the 1500's and where the national Philippine hero José Rizal was executed. After that we visited a few of the churches in the area, one of which was used as a concentration camp by the Japanese during WWII. After that we went to the famous Manila Hotel. We were given a tour of the hotel, the archives, a suite, the spa, and the pool. I must say it is an absolutely beautiful hotel. After that we went to the Greenbelt, which is a very Americanized area in Makati. Once we had wandered around we went back and spent some time hanging out at Honey's house.

Well that's been it for the past week. We are now off on a long weekend as it's Holy week so I will try my best to try and write more often. But for now, here are pictures.

This ones for you Kasper. Enjoy!

This is a photo of Chicken Ass... Looks just like a normal BBQ skewer doesn't it?

Dinguan. Trust me it's good.

A couple of residents of Fort Santiago.

The entrance arch to Fort Santiago.

Grace and her trunk full of shoes at Greenhills.

Grace and Tara waiting for our dinner at Yellow Cab.

This is a river that flow's by Honey's house. It might look pretty but most of what you see in the water is really garbage. It was quite disgusting.

This is the courtyard by work. They share this area with a few other offices around as well as the University nearby. It's very beautiful with colour changing globes and fountains as well as several restaurants.

A sunset from Honey's balcony.

This is the bedroom of the suite at the Manila Hotel. Sadly the only shot I got of the room.

An outside shot of the Manila Hotel.