Batangas here I come

Right, just about to leave for Batangas and I have to admit I’m getting pretty nervous. Its been a very long time since I have seen a lot of my family and I’m not sure who is going to be there. Its a good kind of excited nervousness though and I think that as soon as I see them everything will be ok. I have also been txting a couple of my cousins over here and we are currently trying to lay some plans for an old reunion all of us that used to hang around together as kids. In my opinion that ranks very highly indeed on the list of things that I want to do while I am over here. Till next time :D

Jarhead!

Finally got my haircut!! Will try to take a pic later on after I’ve washed Makati off me. I’ve gone for the classic jarhead look but Ate Precy doesn’t seem overly impressed about it so I said to her that she can choose my next hairstyle(Im hoping that’s a good thing ;). Had another look at the shop thats being renovated as well and it seems to be coming along nicely. I took some before pictures to show what it looks like now and will take some more pics next week as well.

The preparations for the Fiesta here in Tejeros have moved up a gear. It seems half the neighbourhood is on the street and is helping tidy up or put up decorations and bunting.  Its nice to see the spirit and togetherness that runs through this community and through many like it up and down the Philippines. Judging by the effort being put in by everyone it is shaping up to be one hell of a party! :D

Basketball?? What’s that?

Just another day not doing much just trying to adjust to the weather. The time difference issue seems to be ok now and am getting up at around 7 AM. Some basketball has been arranged for tonight so I am currently trying to stretch out 3 years of laziness from my muscles and I can tell you they are resisting with every fibre. I've been stretching for the last 3 hours and been doing some light weights in the hope that will sort me out.  Its been a very long time though since I’ve played any basketball whatsoever let alone a game and it doesn't help that I had a reputation when I lived here as a child of being a very promising player. With my height(6’3”) it seems to be expected that I’m gonna be the Pinoy Lebron or Kobe so I'm trying to let them down gently which is not gonna be easy. Have you ever tried letting down a Filipino? They just don’t understand the word no!!!

I also cooked for everybody today, just some spaghetti but I actually started preparing the sauce at around 9 AM. It seemed to go down pretty well so I am very happy with that.

I’ve been struggling to get an internet signal today so I’m not sure when this will be posted but I will carry on writing anyway and just do a bulk upload once I get online again.

Damn you treadmill!

Had my first real day off today if you could call it that. Its the first day that there has been no plan to do anything so just stayed in and decided to give the home gym setup a try. Not the best idea . I started off with some push ups and sit ups which were ok. Emboldened, I then decided to progress onto the weights and within 10 minutes I was grunting like a pig rolling in the brown stuff. Last but not least I thought I would try the treadmill(Im still trying to figure out what possessed me to do that exactly) but after 15 minutes of light running I decided that enough was enough. I had cleverly decided to run without any shoes and now I am paying for that with blisters the size of my fist on both soles of my feet.

Had a nice relaxing dinner though, the first real one I've spent downstairs with everybody coming and going and the conversation loud just how I remember it. Im going to be cooking tomorrow for the first time since I got here and I cant wait. Its only spaghetti but with my twist and with some nice fresh local veg straight from the market so hopefully it will go down well.

The fiesta is only 6 days away now, the same day as the Paquiao Hatton fight which is airing at 10 AM here I think. Apparently the streets are going to be deserted here during the fight, that is how popular Manny is here. The fiesta should be fun though straight after, my first real one in years. I cant wait :D

Pampanga – Fontana & Clark City

Been a couple of days since an update but have been staying at the Fontana Leisure Park & Casino which is where Ate Precy works. If I were to describe it I would say it is an American Butlins but with a casino, top end Spa and restaurants, and water park thrown in. The resort itself is built on an old US air base so all the villas used to be living quarters for the American servicemen who were stationed here.

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As you can see later on in the photos it started to rain but overall the weather was pretty good. It was very busy there because it is the school holidays over here at the moment.

In the evening I was taken to Clark City, Angeles to be more precise by my brother in law and his cousin, which is widely known as the ‘entertainment’ capital of the area. I use entertainment in the broadest possible sense because from what I saw, this is not somewhere I would bring your family. Lets just say that the lights were brightly burning red ;P  We did visit a ‘club’ called Atlantis and I can say this is the first time ever that I've been to a ‘club’ where the men are outnumbered by ‘women’. I did take a couple of photos from inside the club but have decided not to add them here but if you wish to see them then just leave a comment or email me and I will share them with you.

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Im hopefully going back to my hometown in Batangas on Thursday to see all my other family there so cant wait! Im sure I will be taking some extra pics as well. Gotta try to find a good pic so I can show it to the barber so there is no ‘lost in translation’ nightmare scenario when it comes to my haircut. I also managed to catch a little bit of sun over the weekend so my colour is now an off-white. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would put myself at 1.2 now :D

Hello sunshine :)

Still waking up at a ridiculously early time, 0500 local time today. Luckily the breakfast bar opened at 0530 so I was able to just sit there and relax and read the papers with a coffee till about 0800 when Kuya Guilbert and Doc woke up and we all had breakfast together. A lovely breakfast it was too, buffet style(my favourite) with a good selection of food and fruit as well.

After breakfast we needed to find some sun block for my white skin so we went to the local shops only to discover that there are not 1 but 2 USS navy ships docked here in Subic. It took us over 1 hour and 6 different shops before we found a store that wasn’t sold out of sun block. We should be going to the beach later so hopefully I wont be white for too much longer :D  My plan for today is to find myself some Buko(coconut juice straight from the coconut) and maybe some Filipino Ice cream as well. I saw the beach earlier and it looks too inviting to pas up. If you get reports of a rare white beached whale being spotted off the coast of the Philippines then you will know that I was swimming lol.

1st trip…

Still struggling with jetlag, was up at 0400 local time today abd just sat on the balcony just watching the hustle and bustle of Makati till about 1100then managed to get some sleep again till about 1430. Woke up realising I was supposed to be staying away for the next couple of nights so had to rush a bit to get ready.

Arrived in Subic Bay which is just past Clark and it looks to be a pretty nice place. Very touristy and I think there is a USS naval ship docked nearby at the moment cause the bars were swarming with Navy boys. Had a surprisingly good Indian meal then took in some music(and 1 beer) at the local bar which had a fantastic Filipino cover band. The lead singer in particular rattled off 4 or 5 perfect renditions of modern and classic rock songs managing to copy the voice perfectly.

Im pretty sure that the plan for tomorrow is to have some fun on the beach so will try to take some pics then.

1st day proper in Philly

Well, I'm sitting downstairs at Ate Precy’s house in Makati and its just gone 6 AM local time. Im still struggling with the time difference I think and will do so for the next few days. The general hustle and bustle is gonna take some getting used to. I’m currently staying on the 3rd floor and my room has a balcony so when I woke up around 4 AM I thought I would see what the city was like when it was sleeping. How wrong I was, when I looked down at the street I saw 4 men sitting at a big wooden table chopping up what looked like meat, don't really wanna know what type of meat, and it was then I realised that there will always be something happening in these streets.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon just relaxing and trying to get used to the change in temperature. The heat itself has never really bothered me(it was 30 C btw), what actually hit me harder was the humidity which clocked in at an impressive 95%. Early afternoon came and the Filipino weather decided to roll out the welcome mat in it’s own unique way, sending rain down by the bucketload. I took a few pics to show you and also to test my N95’s camera to see if it could take photos like that with any quality. Let me know if the N95 is up to the task as I’m still in two minds about whether to buy a DSLR or not(I really want to but I think that's the tech geek in me trying to be heard ;P)

Im not too sure what the plan is for today but I think we may be heading over to Fontana in Clark and I’m quite excited about that. I’ve heard some great things about it so I should be taking more pics.

 

EDIT: Sorry about the pics being like this, the photo album was playing up. Once its fixed I’ll try to change it.

PS: not sure if this is even interesting in the slightest to anyone but I thought I would add it cause its quite a big thing for me:

I was only given the light version to help me ease back into being a Filipino. Please note that the lite version is still 5% lol.

Pics of HK Airport

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Random assortment I know and not too many but thought I might as well share them. If you think I’m weird then you are in the huge majority ;)

Im Home Baby!

WooHoo!! Finally landed in Manila at 0145 local time and was duly met by my wonderful sister Ate Precy. She then insisted that we go for something to eat and we found a nice wagamama-style restaurant open. Got to bed around 0300 and woke up at 0745 to the sounds of cocks crowing, tricycles beeping and the general mayhem that comes as part of the Filipino package, man its great to be home!!

HK BABY!

Landed in HK about a couple of hours ago and was talked into meeting someone @ a place called The Travellers Lounge I know, I know, it sounds like something you would find in a caravan in the middle of a field with only guys names mickey and patrick to keep you company. In actual fact it is the direct opposite of that. For an undisclosed sum you get to spend a couple of hours in a private lounge area feeling like a celeb, with free self service food, drinks, HDTV(6 of them!!) about a dozen PC’s with nice big screens and of course free WiFi access. The real clincher for me though was the fact that you could have a shower and a complimentary 15 minute massage thrown in for the price! Forget about the overpriced Duty Free and food courts, I think I’ve just found my little piece of heaven in HK airport.  Gotta go, my massage is about to start….. ;D

Oh what a flight!

I was jokingly saying before I left that when I got on the plane I would be sat next to the worst people possible and lo and behold, when I boarded and found my seat I was greeted by an apologetic Chinese lady and extremely grumpy old Chinese man. The man who was sitting in my seat turns out to be the lady’s father and I had supposedly ‘stolen’ their seat booking. I held my ground as the old man actually had the seat behind me and all was good with the world until take off. Every time I looked over I would get a puppy dog eyed look from the lady and her husband, who wanted to look after her father. I eventually relinquished the seat to huge thanks from the family and a few flight attendants. At least I knew that I would be looked after for the remainder of the trip being such a kind soul ;P

Im gonna leave the rest of this as a to be continued only because I feel that there is such a gem of a story that folows… Watch out for part 2… Till next time :) 

Heathrow Airport

Been here for a couple of hours now and just waiting for my flight to be called. Only place that I found which did any sort of half decent food for under a tenner was an O’Neils funnily enough. Duty free was a joke. I honestly thought that the guy was kidding when I asked him what the maximum amount of cigs that I could take to HK. Guess what his answer was?  60!!! 60 cigarettes!! 3 packets! I was standing there with 800 in my hand and he said 60 lmao! After a laugh about that he told me that I could buy as many as I wanted but its up to me whether to risk trying to bring them through customs at HK. So I just stuck with 400 ;)

Final Preparations

OMG! The day has finally arrived! My flight is at 22:35 from Heathrow and Im leaving St. Albans at around 5 PM to give myself enough time to wander around the airport for a while before boarding. Its still not really sunk yet that Im gonna be away from the UK for up to a whole year and I dont think it will fully hit me till im actually on the plane.

Anyway, here are a couple of pics of my attempt at some BBQ ribs from yesterday. This is also a bit of a practise at uploading pics :)

 

They dont look too bad if I may say so myself :D

 

Anyway this will be my last entry before jetting off but I will try to write something up while im in HK if I have the time. Take care everyone and wish me luck!

Last weekend in UK for a while

Just chilling out at home this weekend for the last time before the trip. Got a BBQ planned tomorrow hopefully depending on the weather. I'm starting to get that butterflies in the stomach feeling that I used to get before I played an important footy match or a pool tournament. Its a good feeling though and cant wait to be on the plane. Its been far too long since I’ve seen the rest of my family and now that wait will be over next week. I am gonna miss the UK mainly cause of the family I am leaving behind and the friends too( the important ones know I'm leaving) but apart from that I couldn’t honestly see any other reason for me to stay so it made sense to move back for a while to see what I could achieve over in Philly. Anyway I ramble again but will try to check in either at Heathrow if they have free Wi-Fi(I aint payin!!) or at Hong Kong when I land. I hope to have a couple of pics by then and will upload them too given the chance.

1st Post: Preparation

4 days till I leave now. Just trying to get organised with everything from luggage to travel documents to exactly how much shower gel I can take with me(100ml maximum by the way). Going to the Philippine Embassy tomorrow to sort out my Dual-Citizenship so I wont have to worry about any visa issues. I’ve just worked out how to use the webcam so hopefully I’ll be able to do some vids while I’m away. Also trying to sort out a flight from HK to Manila while giving myself enough time to do a spot of window shopping while I’m there. Anyway I’ll be playing about with posts over the next few days so expect to see a few pics, links and maybe the odd vid if you are unlucky ;)

PJ