Time Out: San Juan (La Union)

This is a retrospective on a recent trip to the Philippines.  Chinese New Year came and went - and once again I got the hell out of Dodge.  A brief aside, Hong Kong is bizarrely still for a few days during this massive Chinese holiday.  Everything closes with the exception of a few restaurants serving traditional New Year meals.  Living in Central, there is rarely a day I am not raging against a mass of people - a veritable salmon swimming against the current, wary of old ladies carrying wheelie bags and knocking shins.  Stepping outside was ethereal:

There was space.
It was quiet.
The streets were empty.
There were no cards, no horns, no hydraulic pounding of constant construction.
Peace and quiet.

 I worried shortly that I made the wrong choice.  That the relaxation was here - in Hong Kong - not travelling the world busting out road trips to isolated beaches, with burning sun and ice cold beers.  But the travel bug runs deep and ten days in the Philippines beats a few quiet days in HK any time - also ice cold beers and burning sun sounded amazing.

I turned off all electrical appliances (as one does - got to do my part to limit my carbon foot print), watered the plants and ate as much as I could of the food left in the fridge. 

As it turns out, chugging 20 oz of milk followed by 20 oz of orange juice does not taste like an orange creamsicle.  In fact, if you ride on a bus shortly afterwards, it churns it up in a weird and horribly uncomfortable batch of curdled milk - word to the wise. 

So with that delightful concoction rumbling in my gut, I locked up, and walked out into the world.

45 minutes later, I hopped off the Airport Express, the artery that links my Central MTR station to the booming HKG airport.  2 hours after that, I found myself sweating in Clark International Airport of the Philippines.  Clark has recently been utilized as the budget airpline base for the the Philippines, and while it is a little more difficult to catch the island hopping planes from here (they all leave from Manila Ninoy Airport) the North of Luzon is easily opened up to cheap travel - with good surf and trekking all around.

Also of note, Angeles City was created in response to Clark US Airbase.  As a result the industries that abound are geared towards taking care of the one time economy consisting of American GIs. I might go so far as to say the entire industry of the city is hookers and alcohol.  So unless you have a nice resort to get away in, you do not want to spend any more time than is absolutely necessary in the town.  I did manage to find a hotel that did not rent by the hour - it only took two hours to find.

An old college friend arrived late that night (you can read her stuff here - its good)  so after a few beers and a final walk down the main drag, we decided to try our luck in San Juan.

6 hours later our bus drops us in San Juan La Union. All I needed was a bed and a beer. The next day, saw us sitting on the coast, renting a surf board, and trying out the swells.  The surf was pretty consistent -  nothing really savage during our time there, but good enough to be able to stand up a couple of times ( I am still learning - and quite slowly I may add).  A contributing factor to the slow curve, my first day in the sun resulted in the most vicious of burns I have yet to experience even with regularly applied SPF 50.  It forced us into the shade for the next 3 days as aloe and sun lotion slowly brought us back into the land of the light and living.  Also, be wary of the weekends - a bunch of Manila City Dwellers arrive for a few days on the beach making it real difficult to find any space on the water.

The Filipinos of San Juan were kind and welcoming.  The beers were cheap.  The food was... well... pretty good... I did pull a staple out of my spicy chicken pasta - but I blame roof repairs for that being around and the pasta itself, aside from metal objects, was just delightful.  Expect everything to run on Island Time - which is ironically - glacial.  But also expect there is be plenty of friends made and stories told as the city is a great little place to meet fellow travelers and get in some surfing at the beach.   

Topia de Beer 2013

Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women comes to mind when looking out at the weather. It's been raining for the past six weeks. Likely to continue for the next. Good thing everyone's getting stoned. Helps keep me from feeling alll alooonee. Thank God rain isn't rocks - or we'd all be dead as well. 

Welcome to Hong Kong and Spring is in the air. Breathe it in, deeply, but not too much lest you fill your lungs with fluid and Nitrogen Dioxide. It seems as if breathing in water is possible. Jacques Cousteau must have lived in Hong Kong for a spring or two in his lifetime. Google it.

Yet in a brief respite we had, on this past Saturday, a touch of sunshine.   So, what do we do?  To the BEERS!  Saturday marked the Second Annual Beertopia in HK, and my first attendance.  The place was freakin amazing.  Set up on Kowloon West Promenade, same location as Clockenflap, My Lovely Lady and I went to the evening edition, and were shocked to find ourselves victims some sort of newfangled, ass-backwards, ticketing system.

In order to get into the land of many beers, we first had to line up in the online ticket collection line.  This line ran about 100m.  I began the walk to the end, but my better judgement and lack of patience overwhelmed this upstanding mode of action.  I walked about 15m, and then sidled up next to a random group, where the wait was minimal - only 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, Courtney had waited in the second and similarly sadistic line for the drink "tokens."  Why weren't the lines combined? you might find yourself asking.  Why not just give the tokens and the tickets together you ponder?  Having lived in Hong Kong now for a year and a half - I don't ask these questions anymore.  Logic absconded with frugality and left chaos and consumerism to run the show.

Once in, we were surrounded by beers and people.  It was hard to tell who had the greater numbers.  In the end, I would say the beers were outnumbered, but for each drink consumed, two more were there to take its place. I pictured myself Hercules fighting the Hydra.  The reality of the story is that the Hydra only had one head and good old Herc just got hammered and couldn't get it - so he made up a better story about a crazy creature with tons of heads that grew back.  Consider that Greek Myth explained free of charge.

The beer list included over 200 different beers and marks a stark departure in Hong Kong from the regular beer selection - namely Carlsburg, San Miguel, Asahi, and Tsing Tao.  The big beers of HK have got some fresh competition - based on quality, not quantity.  Some of my favorite beers came out of Seoul from Craftworks Brewing Company. The Moon Dog IPA and the Oatmeal Stout were some of the top contenders in winning my palette - a prestigious award.  My patronage in our next trip to Seoul is assured.   

New distributors here have opened up the world of Craft Brews to the populace of HK.  now, through the helpful endeavors of Hop Leaf and Americraft,  access to the delightful brews of Imperial Stouts, American IPA and Anchor Steam among others abounds.  The success of Beertopia excites me to think that soon there might be microbrew bars springing up all over the SAR , bringing a little bit of something from home to the far east.

and the sun for a day was an added bonus. 

A Philosophy of Travel: a manifesto

This one will be written over the course of the next few years. I have decided I'll try and do something more than just write an online journal if you will. When rambling the world, one comes across a lot of things so drastically different yet inherently the same, we are all humans after all, it can't be helped. and in looking, i have found that of these truths, there are a few that are overwhelmingly dominant.
be a good person.
happiness isn't money.
the partiers are young and restless.

Hong Kong

Made it to Hong Kong. Its busy, bustling, madness. But the food is eclectic. One can buy anything one wants in this place - if one is willing to pay the price. For taco seasoning, thats 13 HK$. Not too shabby. But we have taken to making our own taco seasoning - using fresh garlic and onion with some chinese parsley (aka coriander) I think tonight we make pasta. I've been getting ill, so I took today off. I think I;ll use the time to make some tasty sauce - let it percolate for hours, building flavor, a crescendo of aroma and taste.

happy festivus

Another Christmas come and gone. My 25th annual christmas.
it isn't quite the same to not spend it surrounded by the family and friends i hold near and dear to my heart. I missed the traditions and regalia of the holiday in the United States. Korea does not really celebrate this holiday. and the foreign population in the country is scant enough that our presence here does not warrant any kind of special treatment. though the churches that dot the landscape are numerous, i assume that the christians in the country do not care as much as those of us hailing from english speaking countries. we get the day off. i worked on the 24th. it was the last day of "classes" for the school. Saturday was Christmas, so school was not cancelled, so to speak. it was already no school.

i am now back in the office, following boxing day. the 27th. back at my desk. missing the long vacation that typically accompanies an american Christmas. or the life of a student. my korean students are back in their classes, though not for classes. today, they are cleaning and preparing for the break. they have the next two months (with the exception for a week in February for classes and graduation) on vacation. I have three weeks out the next two months to take for myself. i have to teach for another three weeks. and then, two solid weeks give or take, to desk warm. watch Youtube, scour the web for new music, read the news, update blogs, write letters, purchase visas, and plan trips to thailand, india, and maybe Indonesia to boot. the last place still is a maybe. i have a week in february that im going to take, but i may just use it here in Seoul to prepare to go home, packing, buying souvenirs, and all that jazz. save my money for the long trip after i leave here.

the end is in sight here. 15 more days of teaching over the next 9 weeks. the number is small when you think that with only 9 weeks left, i have been here for 43 weeks. out of 52. and ive been teaching for 40 of those weeks. or at least sitting in this office. watching some Youtube, jamming to some tunes. speaking with students on breaks, lunches, and every minute between classes, being swarmed.

i wonder if i have had any success with them? I wonder if any of them learned anything from me or my classes? With no testing, no homework, no nothing outside of class, it is hard to guage improvement or progression. i have noticed that those with talents have excelled and those who were already struggling now are REALLY struggling. I guess my class is most beneficial for intermediate to advanced. makes sense... i speak at a slow rate, but my dialect is english, not korean, so some kids have difficulty there, and my class focuses primarily on conversational english. that means the kids already are suppsed to have a solid foundation of grammar... what words are nouns, verbs, subject, direct object, all that jazz. preposistions. but most kids dont know that stuff. its bizarre.

wishing i still had my mustachio from november. it was quite savage.

it would have been a real contender in the mustachio contest.

winter camps COMMENCE!

a little catch up

wow.

no updates since august. it's been a long long time, I'm not sure what exactly happened, guess i just got swept away in the hustle and bustle of living in a large metropolitan area.

so let's see... where to begin... My last entry, I do believe was in the Philippines, so it is just to be writing again today.



I have just bought a ticket to Thailand. There was a sweet deal, but its only for a 12 day trip. I had to cut the first and last weekend off of the vacation. so i leave here on a monday, and i get back on a friday. but the savings are about 400 bucks. so..... i think i can live with it. here in Korea, I have been moving about a bit, Courtney and I had a couple of excursions out of the city again, we went to Busan for Chuseok. Chuseok being the Korean Thanksgiving where the families all reunite for a long weekend (3 days) and they make these delicious little rice balls which i ate in large numbers from local stores for a few days after.



in busan we spent the last of the warm weather on a beach, and wandering the coast in the rain. we had sun on our first and last day there, but the second day... it was cold, windy and miserable. we managed to find a little buddhist temple, but not without a fight. the fight was what made it worth it though, we walked along the coast, seeing both the beauty and the desecration of the land in korea. trash littered the coast, as a family gave offerings to the sea right in the midst of it. a stunning juxtaposition of modern and traditional values.

we were tourists at the temple, i was unaware of all the traditions, but Courtney kindly filled me in with the details... don't point my toes at the idol, take my shoes off, maintain a kind, courteous and respectful attitude in the place. most of those tips i recognized and knew from examples of previous religious locales... the pointing of the toes... that was new..

we ate out the second night we were there. it was a gastronomic adventure of raw and squirming sea food. we knew the sea food to be epic and delightful there. its a coast town. its got a world famous fish market you know.



we searched the fish market, looking for a something delicious. but settled with a small restaurant across the street from the market. they had fresh wares, and a matronly lady accosted us, explaining how we should sit and eat at her place, or so i assume... i couldn't and still cant really understand a great deal of korean.
we sat down, began eating some scallops. an older korean gentleman was seated across from us. at a seperate table. he began jovially bantering with us. we obliged, but didn't have a clue what he was saying... not. a. clue.







scallops


after a while, he had a plate brought out to him. it was squirming and moving. and i realized it was the baby octopus, that they chop up and serve, still moving in its final throes. i asked him if it was good. (our entire conversation that night consisted of Delicious? delicious. - we placed emphasis on it in different ways to get different meanings. "masheesahyo." quite versatile). i just wanted to try a piece, but koreans don't share food. in fact it's very impolite to eat something off another person's plate. i realized this in hindsight.

but as i sat back down after looking at the squirming pile of legs and body, i saw the manager/owner who had also joined us get up and walk over to the fish tank - cutting board area. he was behind a red barrier, but he was looking at us, and talking in korean.



Courtney and i knew something was up. i gathered that he was cutting up a fresh live octopus that very moment for us. i was right. it was a squirming raw octopus coated in sesame oil and some sesame seeds. on a plate, right in front of our faces in no less than..... one minutes, yes minutes. in the heat of the moment i grabbed a big piece and ate it. chewed like hell - you have to or else the suckers stick to you throat and can choke you to death... crazy, a chopped up octopus can still kill you. it was pretty tasty. Courtney gobbled up a big ole' piece as well. impressed, the manager dumped all the still squirming pieces that we hadn't ate after a couple of servings of it raw into a tin on the grill. he comes out with a big pile of squirming eel. dumps it in, it writhes for a bit, before becoming still. then some weird things that look like.... sea penises. those squirmed for a bit too in the mix before becoming eerily silent. he also chopped up some kind of raw mussel... it had spikes on it, but it was very tender and delicious. he fed it to us raw. of course.



as we continued eating massive amounts of raw food and cooked fresh sea food, we began, as most people do, to grow full. i was almost done eating. couldn't do any more. he walks out.. and throws into the mix a whole, medium sized live octopus into the tin, in front of us.


it was very much alive. and i am assuming throwing it into a cooking tin of boiling hot seafood and broth wasn't exactly an ideal environment for it. it was dead within a minute, but that was pretty miserable to watch. it being totally alive and healthy just a minute before and dead the next not only set my mouth agape for a minute, but when the guy started chopping it up, we realized it still had all its parts inside. he lopped off the brain-head region with some scissors - its brains and ink slowly dribbled out. i put my foot down.

"no possible way am i going to eat those brains. i mean a guys got to draw the line somewhere right?" i said to Courtney.

"you're totally right." she says. rolling her eyes a bit, as she knows those brains are going to be eaten sooner or later, and that its going to be me that does the eating.



she was right. wisdom of a woman. the guy looks at me, snips the brain in half, says masheesahyo and mimes the consumption of it. i was thought to my self. "DAMN IT!" but i ate it. im a push over sometimes. they probably laughed their asses off afterward. no way does anyone eat that stuff. it was foul. sandy, gross. and filled my mouth with ink and filth. i have never come closer to yakking while eating than i did on the patio of that place. i was finished eating there. donezo. i chugged a beer, stuffed some kim chi in my mouth, and ferociously devoured anything and everything in my sight in an effort to get the overwhelmingly foul taste out of my mouth. it didn't help.



but it was super generous of the owner. all of the fresh and raw seafood, aside from the scallops we initially ordered, and some rice, and two beers we had, the rest of the rawness was on the house. super kind. super generous. maybe he was proud to have some foreigners in his place, maybe he was astonished one of them ate the brains of an octopi, but either way, he was the bee's knees.

another trip was to Jinju. a Lantern festival. We made the trip down to jinju following julian's last weekend in korea. I went out with Julian and crew Friday night to celebrate and shipped out saturday morning to Jinju. i was in... rough shape. tried to make it the whole night through, 4 taxis later, all of whom did not drive me to the proper location, i made it to the subway stop where the bus was scheduled to meet. i was 20 minutes early. the dunkin donuts was not open, so i sat down to rest on the side walk directly in front of where the bus would arrive.
i woke up a few minutes later, climbed on the bus. it had magically appeared. and i had slept on the street for 15 minutes. chalk that up in things i never want to do again.

the bus ride was about 4 hours. i passed out for most of it. when we arrived, we wandered about the river, up and down. it was pretty beautiful. there were stalls set up all about, food, ice cream, wares, clothes, games. it was a carnival of lights and lanterns, games and music.



the lanterns filled the river on floats, with tigers, castles, athletics and dragons being just a few of the motifs. children fired roman candles up at the sky as the sun set. we sat down in a soju tent, and ordered some pahjeong. a pancake like food filled with some vegetables and green onions. magkolei is the drink of choice with this food, a kind of unfiltered rice wine, tastes a little like grass, sweet and milky. and as it was raining, the meal was specifically catered to the weather ( on rainy days Koreans eat pahjeong and magkolei). we drank the rice wine for a bit, before switching to beers. we had a large group, and after a while, the group grew loud. i began to feel slightly embarrassed by the stereotypes we were fulfilling here, as we became the loud, obnoxious foreigners in a quiet Korean Soju Tent.



I only left the table occasionally to buy a kebab around the corner. they were most delicious.



we left the next morning and went to the coast, we climbed down onto a large rock, and basked in the sun. i climbed a little on the rock faces, and then took some pictures of another offering the the Goddess of the Sea.




we climbed of the huge rock in the sea, and went to the beach. it was similar to Nice, with large black pebbles making up the ground. my friend Ash and I began trying to throw up a rock and hit it out of the air with another, thrown pebble. it proved to be far more difficult than we imagined, but like children we were absorbed and did not desire to be beaten by so simple a task.
i was the first to succeed at it. and fortunately, there is photographic evidence of the success. the second rock thrown shattered on its impact with the first, and it split off in multiple directions... i retired content.

lets see... what happened next. Halloween arrived. Courtney and I purchased costumes of a Korean Couple. Its pretty hilarious. tight jeans, Korean couple "t-shirts" some hipster glasses. spot on Koreans.

then I had my large open class. my school opened up to the entire state of Gyeonggi-do. my co-teacher and i practiced the same lesson for two weeks. the kids were dead tired of the lesson. it was not a typical class. the kids were far too trained, I was not involved a great deal in the teaching process, and it carried a general aura of ...... not sure what the word is. but it was real fake.

I cannot understand why, when teaching, using the co-teaching method, I create the lessons, the material, the worksheets, games, and PowerPoint. but for the open classes, i am excluded from the process, i do not teach the class, and i do not have a roll in the instruction of the class. i am, for the most part, a big puppet at the front of the class, that speaks in English occasionally, and helps to decrease the xenophobic tendencies of the children in the classroom. This may not be the original intent of the school, but in the end, its what it feels like. it the open class is supposed to be indicative of what my teaching is like... one would think they would allow me to do the class as i have been doing it for the entirety of the year.

the open lesson, once complete though, lifted a weight off of my shoulders as well as the shoulders of the rest of the English staff. it was the completion of a two year research development program for English curriculum in Korea. funded by the federal government. my boss was stressing out like crazy. but once it was over, we went and had a huge dinner at the Shabu Shabu place. it was spot on. spicy, hot, amazing. a kind of hurricane tornado rain storm hit on the way there. i got soaked. but the food was good. my co teacher min kyung, to celebrate ordered a beer. it was the first beer i have ever seen any of the female teachers drink at my school. so it must have been a big deal to finish up the day.

the next week I had thursday off. i spent it going to a palace, and taking some pictures, that i hope turned out ok. the palace was really peaceful. the day off was a result of high school testing. not sure why the middle school didn't have class, but i'm not really complaining. a day off is a day off. ill take it.

we now have three weeks left before winter break starts.
i'm in the process of creating a winter camp, 15 classes, 3 classes for 5 days, administered two times. and maybe i will have to give two more classes, everyday, after lunch... but they wont let me know if i ave to do that until its the last possible minute. i certainly hope that isn't the case. I already have planned the winter camp right now. its harry potter themed. i think its gonna be pretty baller.



Think ill come back through and put in photos with this when i get home and have access to my computer.

typhoons and sand miguel

flew in a few days ago. the typhoon that came with us was insane. it poured rain on us as we waited to try and get into our locked up hostel. the lights were off and the rain was coming in sheets. a crowd of filipino men gathered on the far side of the road. standing both in the rain and in the shelter of a small ice cream tienda kind of store.
it was a shady establishment, although the owner was kind and generous, the beds were out of the rain and the geckos all about would take care of many of the mosquitos floating about. we drank a few san miguels, which cost 25 pesos a piece. 45 pesos is a dollar. the beers were cold, we were the only people at the hostel. there was no place to go out to in the area. but in hindsight, we proabbly should have just walked about and seen what there was. the rain was not cold, tropical at best.
the next day we went to a different part of town, in manila. called malate. we met a german named daniel. he was travelling around the world, and spent the day with us. he recommened the palawan islands, where we are already planning on going. said it was the most beautiful thing hes ever seen/ we are going to rent out a boat, and island hop. explore reefs, lagoons, beaches, snorkle. im so stoked. its gonna be amazing.

also the couple staying in the bungalow next to us have a sweet little set up. they live here, but stay in the hostel to meet travelers and sell them real estate here. for very very little. a large, beachfront building here, think they said like 150 square feet maybe 200, not sure. was like 250,000 dollars. to buy a house, here, looks nice, beach front, 180. insane. thinking about buying some land here (proabbly not on boracay - but some other island, and set up a hostel, bar, resturant, activities - life goal achieved).
we walked about that night, in between the typhoon bands that plagued the city with periodic down pours and high winds. the bars int he are were though, unfortunately, filled with women of the night. we could not find a normal bar in the area. and we searched extensively. it was a really interesting experience. the moment we stopped walking, a crowd of soliciters would swoop in.. push women on us, or bar literature where they would try and push more women on us. we went to a hookah bar. but the searchfor it caused for us to pick up and elderly woman of the night who was followed us for upwards of 20 minutes, making cat calls, winks, blowing kisses and generally lewd behaviour. it was pretty funny, her persistence was laudable. albeit misguided.
we flew into boracay monday. and have spent the past two days lounging on the beach. a storm blew in today, (yesterday was clear skies and scorching heat. an amazing day).



so we sat and watched it come in on the porch of our little hut. the rolling thunder and downpour was interesting, a great way to start the day. i didnt even mind that it was thundering and raining. afterwards i went to the beach. julian took a nap. iwatched some locals start to build the evenining sand sculpture.

they build sculptures every night to celebrate the occasion of another beautiful day here. i love it. tomorrow, we will explore the rest of the island. mostly we have just been exploring white beach and the surrounding roads. the people here are the nicest people in the world. all so jovial and merry. wish i lived here. the pace and style of life is so simple and laid back. priorities are in a line with the people here. they know what is good.
best friend one. over and out.