Posts tagged current

I’ve been in San Diego for 1 week now. I’ve been looking for a semi-permanent place basically since the day I arrived and still have yet to find anything promising. Prices here are high ($700-1500/month for what I want) and my requirements for a place are limiting: large bedroom that I can fit a bed and a desk in (master bedroom, typically) + short term lease (3 months or less). The former is limiting, but the latter is the real killer. If I were willing to go to a 6 month lease, I could rent just about anything I wanted here… however I don’t know yet how long I will stay. Seems it doesn’t matter where you are in the world - nobody likes to rent short term.

I’ve been pondering an alternative which is to never rent long term and just hop from place to place, mostly via Airbnb. There are a few 1, 2, 3 neat ones here in San Diego, but I’m not sure there are enough “fun” ones to justify not having a space that I customize and can call home. Plus, doing that all the time adds up… $75/night = $2250/month.

Well, my car broke. I’m in Champaign, IL visiting friends and it just died on the road while I was driving around in town. $60 towing, $750 to fix a timing belt. Makes me wish I were back in the Philippines with it.. the parts themselves are hardly even a factor in that cost, it’s mostly just labor. In the Philippines I would probably spend less on the labor than I would on the parts - here in the US, I’ll spend 5-20x the cost of the parts on the labor.

Also makes me think, why do we build vehicles in this country with parts that commonly break where the cost of repair would be anywhere near 5-10% of the cost of the entire vehicle?

Anyway. It’s made me think about the near future - next few months to next year or so. Thinking about buying a newer vehicle if I’m planning to drive several thousand miles of highway. I got lucky here and was in town with friends. Would hate for this to happen on the way through the desert.

10 hours left here. What an amazing journey it’s been. I’ve spent almost 4 months here. 3 birthdays, 3 going away parties, 2 weddings.. a mugging.. a hospital trip.. a romance.. a month straight with my relatives.. a month straight in the sand, sun and ocean on the remote island of Palawan.. a month living in Cebu.. a month living in Manila.. local friends.. friends from every corner of the world.. met family I never knew I had.. amazing food.. amazing people.. and a culture that I could have never experienced through books and movies alone.

I did what I set out to do: discover more about the world and discover more about myself. This trip has brought me more clarity of mind and peace than I had even hoped for.

People ask me if I’ll come back - you bet I will. I don’t know when, but this is not my last trip here.

I feel like I’m ready to return to the US. There are tons of things that I miss, but I still wonder what all I will miss from the Philippines. Will culture shock happen the other way around? I remember arriving at the apartment of Arbie, my couchsurfing host, on my first night after one of the wildest cab rides of my life and thought, “What the fuck am I doing here?”. Hardly any of it seems foreign to me anymore though. My lifestyle, having sold most all of my things, feels familiar and comfortable now.

I’m all packed. Had to buy an extra bag. I’ve acquired some extra things and my extremely generous relatives have given me various gifts to return to the States with for me and my family.

Ready or not, United States, here I come.

Going to another wedding today! Since I arrived in the Philippines: 3 birthday parties, 2 weddings, 1 going away party.

I’ve changed hotels since the whole mugging thing. Now I’m in one of the towers in Rockwell Center, a 38 acre (15.5 hectare) area that is effectively roped off from the rest of the city. You could easily forget the entire culture of the Philippines by being here. No jeepneys drive through or even near it; the only tricycles I’ve seen are across the street in the neighboring village, but they’re all bicycle style ones - none are motor driven. It would seem there are restrictions around what types of vehicles can be in and around this area.

I actually booked this place before the mugging happened - I came here for the internet connection. The place I’m staying, Joya, has apartment-style housing and each room has it’s own modem straight to the ISP - no shared funny business here.

It’s different here… almost the complete opposite of the rest of the country. The people are cold, formal and standoffish. They don’t smile. They all speak English and even mostly sound like Americans, but you can hear a touch of misery in everything they say, as though it is painful to speak. They don’t walk, they drive. There is an added physical separation everywhere - less occupants per residence, no jeeps or buses, no street vendors.. the streets and even balconies are empty because people are couped up in their air-conditioned apartments, taxis and luxury cars.
There are no strangers who approach me here. Maybe reasonably so because there is basically a physical lack of opportunity to do so. The hotel staff and staff at the places I eat don’t try to make conversation or befriend me like they do everywhere else. There are few young people and hardly any children to be seen, even on the weekend. I went across the street to the village next to Rockwell Center to find the streets littered with children and their families.

Is this a taste of the reverse culture shock I might experience when I come back?

So, I haven’t posted anything in awhile.

I’ve been in Cebu for three weeks now. I haven’t done many touristy things. Mostly just exploring the area around my hotel. I went to Mactan island one day and checked out the Lapu-Lapu monument - mostly because I remember hearing from my Kali/Escrima/Arnis instructors about him and his army killing Magellan. Also toured some of the guitar factories on Mactan. I’ll post photos of all of the above later.

Most of my time has actually been spent inside my hotel room. I’m very tired of the beach and I’m rather weary from traveling. Moreso, I am antsy to work and study again. I’ve partially solved that by studying in my hotel for the past few weeks. On the work front, I can’t say much about it, but I’ve got some stuff going on. This means the following things:

- I’m coming back to the States in December
- I will be postponing my trip to New Zealand

As it is, my work requires me to be nowhere in particular, so I still have the freedom to roam about. My thoughts right now are: spend some time in areas of the US that I haven’t yet explored as deeply as I would like. I will be spending a lot of my time working, but getting to know people and places where I temporarily reside as I work.

Anyhow. In the meantime, I plan to go to Manila very soon here. The internet connection at my hotel here has worsened since I arrived and I need a fast and reliable connection for work. Makati has more choices than here. The plane ticket is $25 - that’s cheaper than most of the cab rides in New York City that I recall.

Today is November 1, 2011.

Today, most of the Philippines is celebrating All Saints Day/All Souls Day. Filipinos spend the day (sometimes overnight) in the cemetery at their relatives’ graves. The time is spent offering food and flowers to the dead and the living picnic there as well.

The streets are empty. Almost all businesses are closed. It feels like the apocalypse hit Cebu… or at least a very early Christmas. This is a pretty serious holiday here. Yesterday, Halloween in the United States, was not a very big deal here. There were a few costumes, but it’s nothing like the States.

Today, I’m celebrating my official 2 months that I’ve been out of the United States. This also marks about 3 months that I’ve been out of Austin, TX. I’m growing a bit tired of vacationing. I yearn to study and work again.

I didn’t find an apartment here in Cebu. The rents for short-term places are just way too high for what you get and internet connectivity can only be found in the form of the Globe Tattoo or Smart Bro (USB modems that use existing wireless networks which basically top out at 3G here in Cebu), both of which aren’t all that fast or reliable. Instead, I’ve just extended my stay here at my hotel, which has a decent wired connection. Seems that most hotels here will offer you a significantly discounted rate if you want to book for more than 2 weeks at a time.

So yesterday, somehow waking up at 8 in the morning to go look at one apartment turned into a 14 hour adventure that started in a bulletproof SUV.