August 24-27, 2007

Kuala Lumpur

This weekend would be the last weekend we could hang out with our friends Pete and Joelene while in Manila. They are leaving on Thursday for a five week trip back to the UK (five bloody weeks!!! Well done! ), so when they return, we'll already be back in Europe. So we figured we had to do something special. Kuala Lumpur has been high on my list of cities to visit. Pete and Joelene had been there in the past; they liked it and didn't mind going back so we got ourselves a nice package: Singapore Airline flights and a stay in the famed Shangri-La hotel, for a long weekend (Monday was a Filipino holiday) and all for a nice price. We left on Friday, Pete couldn't take time off of work (figures: he only just started last month and buggers off for five bloody weeks to the UK) so they would come a day later.

Getting there wasn't great. We had a stop over in Singapore, which for such a short distance really sucks as it suddenly doubles your flight time. On top, we spent three flippin' hours in the taxi from KL airport to the city!!! The driver, who had been doing this work for like five years, said the worst he ever experienced was two hours. Dammit!! When we finally arrived, 13 hours after we left home, we managed to still kick ourselves out on the street for dinner. And I'm happy we did as after dinner we went to the park outside the famous Petronas Twin Towers, and it was a beautiful sight to behold. We sat down for a while and just talked and watched before we walked home to crash into a soft, luxurious, five star bed...

The Petronas Twin Towers...	...very impressive at night!
Our hotel lobby...	...luxury day and night!

The next day we started off in the direction of the park around the KL television tower, which was right behind our hotel. As we approached the tower however, we saw people gazing at a couple of parachutes solemnly floating through the air. Turns out there was some international base jumping tournament going on and before we fully well internalized that piece of information, we saw people jumping off it. A truly breathtaking sight to behold. They wait long before opening their chute and every time it feels as if you're just watching live suicide - how's that for a reality show! There even were people jumping off in duos or even threesomes. Can you imagine how tricky that is??? You have a few seconds to pull your chute, and with two more jumpers around you you have to be REALLY careful you don't get entangled in each others wires... crazy!

I plan to put up a video but as long as we don't have internet at home that will have to wait... ###

After enjoying the show for a while we moved on to the 'tropical rainforest right in the city center'. Somehow the Malaysians managed to keep a functioning little ecosystem right in the heart of town - I read that they even maneuvered around a big tree when they built the TV tower. The forest is home to scorpions, snakes and even silver tailed monkeys! Fortunately all we saw were monkeys and at one point we were even chased by one!!! Or at least that's what it looked like as this one meter high primate jumped onto the path about 50 meters before us and started half walking half running right at us. We made a gracious retreat to the side and Mr. Monkey was kind enough to swoosh straight past us... phew! The forest was nice, albeit steep in some places (hot hot hot!!!); a lot better than the so called forest walk in The Farm! The funny thing is though that no matter how dense the foliage, we always heard modern dance tunes blasting from somewhere, no doubt the base jumpers were having a smashing time...

We did a bit more sightseeing; we saw a cathedral where Asians were practicing at the (electric) organ which was interesting to see, we saw one of the main mosques and even checked out some malls that, oh great surprise, were pretty much just the same as those in Manila. At lunch time we went back to the Shangri-La to meet up with Pete and Joelene. We ordered sandwiches and beer at the pool side, incidentally with a nice view of the base jumping madness next door. Unfortunately the weather turned south all of a sudden and we went from a gentle sunshine to a bad ass Asian tropical rainstorm in a matter of minutes. So we waited for the night to fall, and paraded around town a bit , gazing at places with crazy lights and even saw an army parade in the streets!

Fortunately the weather wasn't like this all the time!	Crazy lights
And the midnight army parade	Weird!!!

The next day we got up a bit earlier than Pete and Joelene, so we decided to head off to the park at the foot of the towers as we hadn't see that by daylight yet. Amazing! Makes you realize how far behind Manila is in terms of development of a liveable city!! The park was beautifully landscaped, quiet, green and with a full blown public pool right smack in the middle!!! All the kids were playing while the adults just relaxed a bit in the shade. Very nice indeed!

At the kiddy pool we joined up again with Pete and Joelene and we set off walking through town to take in the sights. We checked out all the nice architecture, from the colonial buildings around Merdeka Square to the mosques to Little India, where we bought 40s and 50s advertisement posters at a quaint little shop, flowing over with Chinese trinkets and a suspiciously large collection of Mao Zedong statuettes and even one of those original little red books from the 1940s! Meanwhile, the heat had gotten the better of Pete so we got him an umbrella at 7-eleven... NOW WHO'S A SEXY BEAST?!??!

A British gentleman in Malaysia... ;)	Me and the famous towers
Nice dolphin sculpture with the kiddy pool in the background	Close up of the kiddy pool

Having walked quite enough, we ended up at the foot of the Petronas Twin Towers for a cheeky beer and some sushi. Now, Malaysia is a Muslim country and my parents who had just visited had told me that outside KL it was nearly impossible to order a beer. Imagine our surprise that at this particularly popular spot they not only sold beer in pints, but even in jugs. And as if that wasn't enough encouragement to get drunk, they even when one step further and server a ... *drum roll* ... beer tower!!! That's right, a tower of beer. Never seen anything like that anywhere else. Not even in England or Germany or Belgium, all notorious beer drinking countries!!! So much for religion banning alcohol - not in the country's sparkling capital!!! Of course we ordered one. After two pints, sure why not?

Sushi didn't do for dinner so we freshened up and went to have a bite in a labyrinth of cool little restaurants in the basement of a flashy mall. For after dinner drinks, that special in-between time before you can really go clubbing, we decided to check out a swanky place called Luna bar: a pool side cocktail lounge on the top of an apartment building with spectacular views of the Twin Towers in the background. Why don't these places exist in Manila, I wonder?? A few vodka-tonics later we were ready to dance and took a taxi to a place called Zouk. It was supposed to be one of the hippest clubs in town, but to be honest I thought the dance music was so-so and the place was filled with foreigners either really drunk or just staring at the dance floor. The drunks were mostly whites, the 'starers' mostly Arab guys ogling girls. For a moment it felt just like Enschede, the place where I went to university and where the clubs were infested with frustrated geeks drooling over the only ten tomboys in the place.

Gorgeous girls at the pool bar...	...with matching guys, naturally... ;)

Speaking of which, it was apparently some sort of Arab holiday as it was full of Middle Easterners. I've never seen so many burkas in one city. Even our hotel had its fair share. I really don't like burkas (these black dresses Muslim women wear that cover up all except their eyes), you never know if a person is looking at you friendly or angry or sad. It takes away 95% of all communication and I'm definitely not a fan of that. What was interesting though is that most of these burka women do wear sexy high heels and have lots of make up on their eyes. So I guess it's do whatever you can to look sexy, as long as you keep the black dress on top. Makes you wonder what's REALLY underneath... What share of Victoria Secret's business comes from these countries, anyone?

The weekend was over quickly, but we all really enjoyed it: short and sweet!! And probably the best way to say goodbye to Pete and Joelene!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Pump up the BASS

Today, I bought a bass guitar. Just like that! We happened to be in a guitar shop with Marieke to buy a guitar for Harry's (Marieke's dad) upcoming birthday and I saw a great looking bass guitar for only about 150 Euros. I've been wanting to get a bass guitar for a while, but I never got very serious about it - until now. I hesitated in the shop, I bought the thing in a few minutes without even trying (I wouldn't even know how to try out a bass or what to look for and the staff were not exactly helpful) and I felt weird about it. A bit guilty even I guess. But then Marieke pointed out that I spend that kind of money in a clothes shop back in Europe without thinking twice, which is absolutely true of course. Besides, a bass guitar like that would cost a hell of a lot more back home. So when I looked at it that way, I figured I may as well get it. So I did. Complete with bag and stand, for a total price that's unthinkable back home. I've been playing it for a little bit now. At first it was harder than I thought it would be - I play the guitar and the bass really is a simplified version of it, at least in my opinion (I'm sure plenty will disagree ) - but I'm getting the hang of the fat strings now and I'm enjoying it even more than I thought I would. It looks really cool too, a fat bass guitar around your neck. Yeah!!!

Click on the picture on the right to see a bigger picture of the bass guitar and its beautiful mother of pearl inlay. It's a pretty poor picture, but it's nearly midnight as I post this so I can't be bothered making it any better. Maybe later. (Probably not)

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Saguijo once more

I took Marieke to Saguijo to see what we have both been missing out on all this time. The plan was to go see Chilli Tees, a band I saw there last time and that I liked so much I bought their CD (Extra Rice - it's brilliant!), but we were too late. Or I'd like to think that they were too early, really. We did however see a whole bunch of other cool bands that we also bought CDs of right away. I like that, buying CDs straight off the artist (one was just a burned CD ), I like to think more ends up in their pockets that way. Since I'm in the middle of our move while I'm writing this, I don't have all CDs here with me, but for what it's worth: here's what I have in front of me:

Worth checking out if you'd like to own some authentic and cool OPM (Original Philippine Music)! And Saguijo is definitely worth checking out if you like quality live music in an informal setting - much, much better than all the other venues and bands I've seen in my three years in Manila!

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Guangzhou

I went to Guangzhou (in China, just north of Hong Kong) for a business trip. Nothing special, but every time I go there I am SO amazed at how little English people speak there! For example, we had dinner one evening in our (international) hotel with Paola, Lukasz and me. Of the staff, only the supervisor spoke a bit of English so she helped us. After Lukasz had finished his first Asahi beer, he wanted another, but this time the Chinese variant, called Tsing Tao (I'm sure I misspell it but that's beside the point). The supervisor was out of sight so he called over one of the other girls, and pointing at his glass he said something like:

[Lukasz] I want another beer please, but I want a Tsing Tao.
[Waitress] Tea?
[Lukasz] No, beer! Tsing Tao.
[Waitress] ...*silence, a puzzled look* Tea?
[Lukasz] No! Tsing Tao! Beer!
[Waitress] ...*more silence and puzzled looks* ... Tea?

At this time the supervisor comes over and the girl turns to her. After a brief exchange, the supervisor turns to Lukasz, shows the Great Grin of Understanding and says: "Ice tea?"

Fortunately she got it when Lukasz asked her, but it gives you a bit of an idea. People don't even know the word hello. They can't count in English. And they don't understand us when we try to pronounce Chinese words either. It makes communication really, really hard. Consider this other example, the same night. Paola had to go to the airport and Lukasz and I were up for another beer, so we exited the hotel in search for a bar. As we turned the corner we immediately got to small the small streets that I associate with China: dark, wet (it was raining a bit), dirty and alive. We didn't have to walk far to pass a bar-come-restaurant - imagine a room without a wall on the street side: like a garage without a door. People were sitting and eating, so we figured we could sit down and have a beer. The guy was standing outside, trying hard not to interact with us, probably fearing neither would understand the other. (How true that would soon turn out to be!) First we tried to just ask - you never know, right?

[Me] Can we have a beer?
[Bar guy] *confused look*
[Me] Beer? Tsing Tao? (We thought we might have more chance with the name of the beer)
[Bar guy] *confused look*
[Me] Beer! Tsing Tao!

At this time I proceed with a shining example of charades: I mimic popping open a bottle of peer *pssshhht*, pouring it into a glass *gluck gluck gluck* and drinking it *gulp gulp aaahhh*.

[Bar guy] *confused look*

How much more can you do??? Lukasz tried one last resort and actually pointed at a half liter bottle that stood on one of the tables inside the bar.

[Lukasz] Beer! Tsing Tao!
[Bar guy] *confused look*

We gave up, went to 7-eleven, got ourselves a nice cold one, walked to the park in front of the hotel and drank it there. If you live here, you have no choice but to learn the language. You won't survive with just sign language, pointing and charades. Makes me appreciate living in the Philippines so much more, where nearly everyone speaks English!!

Saturday, August 11, 2007

My 34th... (time flies when you're having fun!)

Last Wednesday was my 34th birthday and Marieke had surprised me with a pure relaxing weekend getaway to The Farm in San Benito, Batangas, an hour or two drive south of Manila. I'd been there once before (click here for the story) and absolutely loved it, so I was really looking forward to going again. Two friends of ours, Debbie and Dino, had done an overnight once before as well and they told us there was no possibility to have a late night glass of wine with something to nibble, so Marieke had stuffed a bag full of the goods: wine, olives, chips, chocolate, even champagne!

The stay at the farm was as good as ever. They still give the best massages I've ever had in my life! Seriously, it's worth going just for that. You lay down on a table in a small cottage in a private garden with glass walls on two sides, a shower that opens up to the outside, water flowing through besides the walls, with gold fish swimming around... it's so relaxing! Our cottage waas great too. A private garden surrounding it, it had a high ceiling, elegant lighting and a small veranda with a set of chairs and a table, where we enjoyed our wine and finger food in the evening. The only thing that we didn't quite care for was the food. The restaurant at The Farm is vegan and when we went before they had a German chef who served delicious dishes. Well, something has changed. Everything we ate, from lunch, dinner and breakfast, it was all bland and tasteless at best. Some things were outright nasty! The worst must have been the mock cheese and the mock milk for the organic coffee. Listen, if vegan's don't eat cheese, then don't try to use veganist products/ingredients to try and imitate it! It's like that restaurant in Thailand that served tofu that was supposed to taste like meat and fish. It doesn't work!!! Just stick to the strengths of your ingredients, like herbs, fruits, vegetables, and so on. Nothing beats a good home made pesto! Or a rich salad with fruits and nuts! Just stop trying to imitate other food; it does not work!

On Sunday morning we spent most of our time at the pool, reading a bit, swimming a bit, relaxing a bit. There were a whole lot of red dragonflies having a good old time and at one point, they decided our feet were a great vantage point from where to take in the surroundings! We went home at around lunch time, swapping the vegan restaurant for a nice Starbucks coffee and pastry on the way home. It was a short stay but it felt just right - just the right length to really enjoy it and go with a feeling that you'll come back here again, one day...

PS Indeed we forgot to bring our camera, so I could only take pictures with my Blackberry... Not ideal, but I'm happy we have at least something!!

Monday, July 30, 2007

A little rant (forgive me)

Living in the Philippines really has been one hell of an experience. All in all it has been great, but let me tell you, the way things work in a developing country can sometimes be mind boggling... and annoying! For example, see this letter I got in the mail recently. It's from my car insurance. Read the dates carefully.

So on July 12 they're telling me that my insurance is GOING TO expire July 1! Thanks guys, that means we've been driving around in Manila, uninsured for 12 days already by the time you sent this letter. It reached me July 26 and I immediately called them and arranged insurance, but seriously, would this ever happen back home? No! Not only are things like this better organized, but we have a neat little thing called direct debit. You just sign a piece of paper once and then they can automatically deduct the yearly (or whatever) amount from your account. Easy! But they don't like it here, everything has to be paid by checque, or if you're lucky you can do an online transfer. That's not automatic by the way, and you have to 'enroll' your merchant first, which means the merchant has to have a special account set up at your bank. That also means you cannot transfer money to a friend or relative (unless, again, you set it up specially with your bank). It's hard to understand why banks make moving money around so difficult. Sigh. Aaaaaanyway.

Another thing that bugs me is our supermarket. First of all, the layout, recently overhauled, makes NO SENSE at all. You will find the same items in different places, and you will find similar items placed well apart. For example. Isle 1: home cleaning products, isle 2: pet food, isle 3: laundry detergent. Last weekend I saw beer cans at the end of the cleaning product isle across from the dairy section. All beverages are on the other side of the supermarket. And everything is CONTINUOUSLY out of stock. We cycle trough two to three brands of orange juice simply because they won't have our preferred brand for MONTHS. When they redid the layout they actually moved the food AWAY from the entrance (the opposite of what you should do if you want people to buy more stuff) and the vegetables are now right next to the fish department. The smell is just horrible. And then paying... if you now give them your bank card, they have to swipe it, then MANUALLY type in your name!!! And when the receipt is printed, they have to type in a number from it and have it printed again. Terribly, horribly, inexplicably ineffecient. Especially the typing of the name... And of course they always have to look four times before they get my last name right!

It's the people, not the processes, that keep this country going. If it weren't for the patient, fun loving Filipinos, this place would be deserted. (That is so logical that it doesn't even make sense.)

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Dinner at Chez Daniel

We watched Everyday Italian the other day on TV and the host, Giada De Laurentiis, was making a Tuscan bread salad called Panzanella, and it immediately made me want to cook for people again. I don't know why but every now and then I just love doing that. It's weird. So we invited Pete and Joelene over for dinner, before we'd go down to club Embassy to celebrate James' birthday. It took me (and Marieke) a good 3 hours to get it all ready (I love cooking but I seem to not be terribly efficient at it), and all but one dish (grilled tuna with my newly invented white sauce) was a new experiment, but fortunately it all turned out really well. Never mind that halfway through the process I had to run down to the Santis deli store to get a new loaf of bread as I let the first one burn under the grill - and managed to almost burn the second one as well! D'oh!!

Anyway, here's last night's menu in Chez Daniel... I have linked to the online recipes except for the roasted bell pepper soup. If you're Dutch you can find it in a great book called De Soepbijbel. If you're not, well, your loss!

Roasted red bell pepper soup		Panzanella (Tuscan bread salad)		Grilled vegetables		Grilled tuna with my signature sauce		Grilled peaches with brandy and mascarpone

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Only in the Philippines

I got this video from Pete, a friend here in Manila. This is taken at a Manila prison. A PRISON, mind you. And it's real. Oh yes, it is. And you know what, I'm not at all surprised! This is typically the kind of thing Filipinos love to do! Song and dance is present everywhere, as I've experienced at work, out in the province, and in the karaoke bars of Manila. Enjoy!

Friday, July 20, 2007

Gollum vs. Barry White

Someone put a small video together to try and find the answser to a theory that has been bending the most sophisticated minds for decades:

Women find anyone singing Barry White attractive

Here it is, decide for yourself!

Friday, June 29, 2007

Peter Gabriel Revisited

Marieke and I had gone to Peter Gabriel's Growing Up tour back in 2003, and we absolutely loved it; one of the best - if not the best - I've ever seen. So when I saw that he was coming to Amsterdam to do a special concert (not tour related), I jumped on the occasion. We called Marieke's dad, my parents and Emiel and everybody was in! We picked up my mom and dad near Eltjo where they parked, and after a short stop at Emiel's place we all went down to cafe Gent aan de Schinkel (Theophile de Bockstraat 1, food may be a bit pricey but the atmosphere is great and our dishes were very tasty) where we ordered wine, cheese, salad, soup, bitterballen, the works! Harry and Bep joined us as well a little while later, and we managed to anchor ourselves well on the terrace, despite a few flooding attempts by the rain clouds above us. It helped we were the only ones (insane enough) to stay outside and there was a balcony, overgrown with grapevines, that covered just enough space for us to stay relatively dry.

Dad on the couch under the grapevine	Mom and Marieke, still dry and all smiles!

We left Eltjo and Bep at the cafe (neither in for concerts in general) and made our way to a superb location for concerts: the Westergasfabriek. It's an old gas factory that's kept in perfect state; the architecture is typically Amsterdam and it is simply stunning! (Funnily enough it wasn't easy to find a nice shot of the Westergasfabriek on internet, but I came across the photo on the right on this site. It's got a whole set of really beautiful pictures of our soon-to-be home town, Amsterdam - check it out!). The concert was outside on the field behind the factory and it was brilliant. As the concert went on, the sun started to set behind the stage which made for a truly magical view. At one point we also had the sharpest rainbow I've ever seen in my life behind us. As location, weather and surroundings go, this was ace!

Dramatic views at the stage	Me. Harry and the rainbow ;)

Oh by the way, these pictures were taken with my old camera. It's digital but the display
is broken and there is no 'looking glass'. So basically you have NO IDEA what kind of
picture you just took! Even more 'spontaneous' than the olden days!
(Also explains the weird shots )

Peter Gabriel's concert was nice, the parents enjoyed it a lot. It wasn't as spectacular as before as it was 'just' a concert and didn't have the grand show that blew us away before. The idea of the little tour was that they were doing songs that fans had requested through his web site. As a result, there were a few pretty obscure songs that I never heard before. In all honesty, about one third was actually pretty boring stuff in my humble opinion. But no man over board, the other two thirds easily made up for it - this man has made some brilliant music I tell you! And the fact that our parents, who had never been to something like this before (my parents never even to a concert, period!), loved it totally made it worth it!! There are a lot more pictures here in the photo album.

My heart going BOOM BOOM BOOM!

The next day we all went to Heerhugowaard, where my grandmother (Oma) came to our house for a barbecue in her honor; she had just turned 87 the week before! Normally we do a family dinner in a restaurant somewhere but this time our timing didn't fit with that of my uncle & cousin so we split and Oma preferred the home thing, so that was an easy deal. As always, it was very gezellig (cosy, hard to translate really), especially now that my parents are on a mission to make the garden their second living room. They have see-through hard plastic covers at the far end, a cast iron stove that burns just about everything, and even a fully equipped outdoor kitchen with stove, grill and BBQ! Nice work!

Dad at the BBQ	The birthday girl... for the 87th time, no less! :)

Oh and look at what we walked past in Amsterdam... Even a little kid's bike has to be chained to the wall or it will be stolen. Makes you wonder though how small the house is these people live in - that it can't even fit a three year old's bicycle!! They must be po'!

Lock it up, kiddo!

June 22-25 , 2007

Boracay. Once more. (Is it getting silly? ;) )

We're trying to get all the tropical-island-in-the-sun we can get now that we're slowly but surely on our way out. This time the 'excuse' was Megan and Shawn's last Boracay stint (and coincidentally two of Pete and Joelene's friends, or to be more precise, friends of Jo's brother: Mark and Jamie were visiting). Well there isn't all that much to tell about the weekend, it was pretty much... Boracay! But I do have to say we really hit it off with Mark and Jamie. At one point the three of us were just floating around in the Chinese Sea, talking for ages about our lives, what we do, what we did, and so on. Really nice. Oh and we invented a new sport: tossing the coconut! Lack of a ball or frisbee drove me to this; I saw one of these small, young, grenade shaped coconuts lying on the beach and thought it might be a good idea to use it to throw. It worked perfectly! Although it can f#*%ing hurt your hand!! All in the game.

Sica & me and a whoozy swirl around us ;)	Pete and Marieke whoozy yet cool!
Marc Jamie & Marieke: Hard as Blue Steel!	Jamie and me
Me and Joelene Steelin' Blue as well	The obligatory Boracay Fire Dancers...

Marieke and I also realized this weekend that we get along better with Brits than with any other nationality. Funny that. Definitely want to live in th UK at some point in the future. The not too distant future. Any job offers for a high flying IT/management career dude out there?

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Giving back to society :)

I think it was Jayan's idea to do a team building event at Gawad Kalinga. GK is an organization that helps the very poor by having them work together to build houses. But I'm going to be lazy this time... Tin already wrote a nice article about it, including her signature layout design skills, and I'm just going to leave it at that! Ha!!

The story by Tin	The C&CS crew!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

At the table with Shawn and Hasnaa

It had been ages since I had seen my old Frankfurt buddies Shawn and Claudio. Both poor souls have moved to Cincinnati by now - only god knows what got into them - and both are married - only god know what got into their girlfriends... So I was very pleased when we could arrange a get-together at Shawn & Hasnaa's place with Claudio bringing his lovely better half Angela with him. Shawn and Hasnaa have totally turned into land lords, they own a little 3 storey apartment block where they live downstairs and rent out the other five or so apartments. It's completely shanty town; as I readily pointed out to Shawn, there were more lots for sale than not in his very street! But jokes aside, the place isn't all that bad, they have a nice place, a basement that they can do all kinds of cool stuff with (my vote is for a club, but I'm not sure they're going for that), and what can you say, they are land lords - that's pretty cool in its own right, right?

While Shawn showed us around, Hasnaa cooked us a great dinner, I think every region of the planet was represented. We tried to repeat an old trick, opening a beer bottle with a spatula, but failed miserably - probably because the spatula was plastic. We bantered on most of the evening, until Shawn drove me back to the hotel. It was really nice to see the guys again, made me miss the good old times in Frankfurt. I hope we get a chance to be back together with the fantastic four (Angus was the only one missing)... Now that would be cooooool!

June 1-3 , 2007

Chicago - Or the first US city I truly like!

Two weeks. That's how long I had to be in Cincinnati for. That means spending a weekend there. Not exactly your dream weekend getaway destination thank you very much! Luckily though, I wasn't the only one. Paola, one of my team mates that I get along with really well, was in the same pickle and she had the brilliant idea to fly to Chicago for the weekend. The second she made the the suggestion I had my travel agent on the line, turned out it wouldn't even cost my anything extra to fly up and down from Cincinnati to Chicago for a weekend! Something to do with flying international business class in combination with short domestic economy flights... Nice one!

Well getting there wasn't so nice. I flew North West (a nightmare experience by the way) and they don't fly direct from Cincinnati so I had a stop over in Detroit - basically meant it took as long by plane as it would have by car but who cares? It's free! Anyway, I arrived a couple of hours before Paola, got into a taxi and showed the driver the address of the hotel that Paola had reserved for us. In half a minute I was out of the taxi again. Turns out the hotel wasn't in Chicago but in some suburb called Itasca, a 30 minute drive (at night on the highway) away from the city! To cut a long story short, we both spent hours trying to get another hotel, but the only available rooms we could find were over $350 a night, so in the end we had no choice but to stay in Itasca. They really shouldn't call it the Westin Chicago Northwest in my opinion. I arrived at the hotel around midnight ($60 for the f#*%ing cab ride), Paola even later as her plane had been delayed for hours on top.

But the worst was over now. We met at the breakfast table the next morning, we looked like such a couple, both out for a weekend on the town. We decided to take the train to downtown. We were told it wasn't much longer than taking a taxi and we were up for the experience. The hotel bus took us to a lovely station where we waited only a few minutes in the pleasant morning sun. The inside of the train was a mix between a tram and a train. It had two levels, the top level having seats only on the sides, so all are facing inwards, and in the center there is no bottom so you look straight down to the lower level. Of course we were on the top, and when we bought tickets from the train guy, he stuck them behind a little pin at our feet. So cool!

The first thing we did was go to a ball game. I know nothing about the sport, but Paola is a big fan. She's from Grosseto in Tuscany and they have a pretty good baseball team there, and her parents live very near the stadium. So she suggested to go see the Chicago Cubs in their famous Wrigley Field stadium. Needless to say I had never heard of either. We got tickets outside, the game had already started but the hawker was in no mood for bargaining, and neither were we (as he probably knew), so we paid full price anyway, some $40 a head. Hey what's 40 bucks for some wholesome, true American family entertainment, right? And boy did we do it the American way! We got ourselves a hotdog and a pint of beer in a plastic cup, and made our way to our pretty good seats. I knew nothing about the rules and it amused the old geezer next to Paola to no end that this Italian lady was explaining this American sounding guy the rules of baseball. We got some cotton candy and saw Cubs manager Lou Piniella being sent off the field for scoffing the referee. It was funny to see, Piniella is huge and he was shouting at the ref, kicking sand over his shoes, throwing his cap on the floor, kicking his cap to the ref, it was hilarious! Like a little spoilt kid that didn't get his new toy! Then something weird happened: all the Cubs fans threw their baseball caps onto the field!! Hundreds of them!! It all took a few minutes, then a little army of men in blue came out, collected the caps, and the game resumed. Later I heard that this is tradition at Wrigley Field and that the caps are returned after the game. No idea how that would work... Anyway, we sat it through to the end, saw the Cubs lose to the bears, bought a baseball as a souvenir and went on our way downtown to meet up with an ex-colleague of Paola (and in a sense of me as we work for the same company, only I didn't know the guy ).

What was really nice at the Cubs vs. Bears baseball game was that fans of both sides were entirely mixed. We saw two friends sitting side by side, one wearing a Cubs cap, the other a Bears cap. That's the way it should be of course, and it makes you wonder, really wonder, why football in Europe is so violence ridden. It baffles (and annoys) me to no end, and I really really really fail to see how this could have come about. Shame on all hooligans!!!

We met Francesco and his German colleague Matthias in the Millennium Park downtown. There's an incredibly cool sculpture there called the Cloud Gate, made by British artist Anish Kapoor. It basically looks like a huge chromium bean, and it reflects everything around it in a spectacularly twisted way. You can walk underneath it and there, as you look up, you see everything around you coming together in some sort of worm hole in the ceiling, seeing multiple copies of yourself moving around. It's by far the coolest scultpure I've ever seen - go there if you get to Chicago!

Look at the reflection of the sky and skyline	The Cloud Gate from the side
Don't go inside high on psychedelic drugs...	Even more enchanting by night!

Both Matthias and Francesco work at Kraft and we met up with a few more of their colleagues that were in town. The first thing we all did was take a boat tour through town. I love this kind of thing; you get to know so much about a city this way (I also recommend doing a boat tour in Amsterdam if you've never done that!). Apparently, Chicago is called the Second City as it was completely rebuilt after theGreat Chicago Fire of 1871. At one point, the Chicago River was so polluted that it caught on fire! That's when the citizens did something astonishing: they reversed the flow of the river by digging a canal deeper than the river itself that flowed into another river, carrying the water away... Pretty amazing!

After the tour we went for dinner at the famous Morton's steakhouse. I love steaks in the States - it's definitely one thing (one of the very few things) they know how to cook well. Dinner was great, but the next stop was even greater as we went for some drinks in the Signature Lounge at the 96th (!) floor of the Hancock building. It was already dark at that time and the view was simply spectacular! Unfortunately there was a line of about 30 people all waiting to be seated, but then it turned out we had a trump card. He was called Sanjeev, one of the colleagues of Francesco and Matthias, who knew pretty much everybody in Chicago one needs to know. He told us to go enjoy the view for a bit as he disappeared into the bar. Five minutes later he came back, we strolled leisurely past the line of waiting hopefuls and were shown our great round table with plenty of space for the six of us and then some! Ha! Despite some initial reservations from my side (that drink is simply too gay to be cool), we all ordered the signature Godiva Chocolate Martini. And I must admit, it was delicious, simply because it tasted just like spiked Baileys, or if you know the drink, just like a White Russian. The only add was a few streaks of chocolate syrup and a (gay) cherry. C'était pas mal, pas mal du tout mon ami!

Contemplating orangutan	Baby orangutan playing in the trees

By this time, Paola and I had already decided we would take a taxi home rather than the last train (after I promised to carry her home if she'd fall asleep), and we went on to a live music bar called Howl at the Moon. At first I was afraid I wouldn't get in as I had forgotten to bring ID (I always forget, I'm just not used to it you know!), but we managed to convince the bouncer I was indeed (well) over 21. I'm sure it helped that all the others were on the wrong side of 30 as well. The place rocked! They have a concept they call the "dueling piano sing - a- long format". Basicall, you have two (grand) pianos on stage, facing each other, and a band around it. They play all kinds of music, from R&B to metal with everything in between, and everyone just dances and sings along. They even did a play off between universities, where students paid the players to play their fight song and they changed tune every time one university got outbid by the other. Great fun! Here's a little You Tube video showing you kind of what's going on.

The next day we first went to do some shopping. I got a Calvin Klein two-piece suit for only $260 and a couple of Kenneth Cole shirts for only $25 a piece - ridiculously cheap! I still don't understand how clothes can be so cheap in the US compared to the rest of the world. Are we paying high prices in Europe (and even Asia) to compensate for US losses?? Whatever, we didn't spend much time at the shop as we still wanted to go to the Field Museum of National History, where they Sue, the largest, most complete, and best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil ever discovered. If you've seen A Night At The Museum, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about! It's really cool to see and it's really frightening to imagine ever being faced with such a creature... They have teeth the size of baby arms!

The musem was also the end of our trip as we made our way to the airport. I really enjoyed Chicago, there is a lot of life outside: there was live music in the Millennium Park, terraces on the streets, etc, something I haven't seen anywhere else in the US (yet). The people were young and friendly, the city big enough to entertain for a long time, small enough not to have to drive everywhere. And it's on Lake Michigan, which is the size of a small sea, which is really cool as well. Oh and it's full of (public) art! Chicago rules!!

May 18-20 , 2007

Boracay! Again?? Yes, again!!! :)

Was it the sixth time? Seventh time? More, less? Well I've reached that point where it really doesn't matter anymore. Much to the envy of my office mate, I've officially made Boracay my Filipino home away from home! Everytime we go, Marieke and kick ourselves for not going more often. Last time was last December, when the typhoon struck - half a year ago!!! To a tropical island less than an hour's flight away!!! Up and down for under 100 Euros, accomodation around 30 Euros a night for a great aircon room with balcony and sea view... why aren't we there every weekend!?! So we are making it a point to go more often now. The next trip is already planned somewhere in June!

This time the weather was gorgeous, as it should be. We did what is done best on Boracay: lazed on the beach in the afternoon, partied at night. Pete and Joelene were there with a couple of English friends, Daz and Gaz - very cool guys and total party animals - I think that first night I set another personal drinking record... well not quite, but it was full on for sure!

Amazingly, I felt fine every 'day after' - must have been the sun shine. One afternoon, Marieke and I went up to a small beach that's all the way up past station, behind some big rocks protruding from the island. It was very nice indeed - just the two of us and a Filipino family around. We just lay in the surf, in the sun, swam some, talked some, really relaxed. Just as we started walking back we also realized we got sun burnt - happened in like five minutes, I swear! But fortunately it was just enough not to hurt too much yet to leave you with a beautiful tan... HA! Who's your daddy!??

Monday came way too soon, but no worries! The next trip is just around the corner......

May 11-14, 2007

Singapore

I had been planning a trip to Singapore for the longest time already, mainly to meet face to face with Malong, a guy in my team. Normally this wouldn't have been worth much to talk about, were it not for the fact that Marieke had never been to Singapore yet and very much wanted to see the place. So be it! We booked an extra flight and arranged to stay in the hotel on points. I have to pause here to make a point about that. I stayed at the Sheraton Hotel, part of Starwood. They are reputed to have the best reward system of all hotels, and I can vouch for that at least concerning reservations: I was able to book the hotel online with points at 9 PM the night before we arrived. Awesome!!! I remember a long time ago I booked a Marriott hotel on points as well and it was a right hassle: after booking, they sent vouchers to my home that I then had to take down to the hotel. Not sure if that's still the case, but this Starwood experience was excellent!

We had about a day and half together in Singapore, Marieke had an extra day on Monday while I went to work. And to tell you the truth - it's kind of enough. Sure you can add an extra day and go to Sentosa, a little island off the coast turned resort / amusement park, but all in all, it's a small city and there's really only so much to see and do. And we pretty much did it all:

Now I have to spend a few more words on the Singapore Zoo and the Night Safari. I haven't been to many zoos in my life so it's not like I have a lot of benchmarking material, but this zoo blew me away! Marieke has a lot more experience with zoos and she completely agrees. It's amazing. There are practically no cages. All separation between men and animals is by natural boundaries, or sometimes even completely absent. The orangutans for example, are completely free ranging and climb high up in the trees that visitors walk beneath! Flamencos are separated from curious people only by a creek no more than ankle deep. For some reason, the animals don't need to come out of their area, and naturally we don't invade theirs. It was really amazing.

Contemplating orangutan	Baby orangutan playing in the trees

We didn't have a lot of time as we arrived late in the afternoon. And we arrived at exactly the right time. They were going to feed the polar bears. Now it was completly by chance that we were at the polar bears at the time of feeding because quite honestly, neither of us expected much from it. Ha! Nothing could have been further from the truth! Imagine a white bear, the largest bear species in the world, 5 to 6 meters long and 2 meters wide. Now imagine standing in front of a big window, 3 meters high and 20 meters wide. The upper half of the window shows you the bear, sitting on a rock, the lower half shows you the underwater world of the pool that belongs to the creature's den. Then some food is thrown into the water and the bear gets up slowly and then makes a majestic jump into the water, where it floats with so much ease, as if it's weightless. Then they threw in a live fish. It took the bear only a few moments, never moving very fast, to drive it into a corner and effortlessly took it between its jaws, showing his new treasure off to the crowd before eating it. Seeing that huge white animal move so elegantly in the water was truly amazing, almost magical... If you ever get the chance, you have got to see it for yourself.

Whitey bear effortlessly swimming...	...showing off to the crowd...
...resting on the rocks...	...and clapping for a cookie. :)
The pygmy hippo - the golden retriever under the hippos - very cute! :)	More beautiful than cute: the amazing white tiger thrashing in the water

By the way, this story reminded Marieke of a great book called the Life of Pi - it actually won the Man Booker Prize. It's one of the best novels I've ever read, and especially the beginning is very relevant as it describes the lives of animals at the zoo. After reading it, I felt a lot better about animals in zoos, especially the one in Singapore, where there aren't all that many cages.

If you'd consider buying it, using the link here to Amazon will actually sponsor my site. I probably won't make much off it, but hey, it's worth a shot, right? Oh and it's less than 10 US$! What a bargain!!!

March - April 2007

Traveling through South-East Asia... finally!!!

So far our holidays have mostly been spent going back home to the Netherlands. But it would be utter madness not to take advantage of the fact we're living in South- East Asia to take a round trip through the region! So we booked ourselves for two weeks to visit Bangkok, the temples of Ankor Wat and Hanoi. Below is a day by day recount based on the notes I made throughout the vacation plus photos with commentary. Some comments are more detailed than others, but you get what you get. If you want to see all the photos, look in the photo album.

Highlights of the holiday

In order of appearance:

Lowlights (to be avoided):

Places we stayed (in case you're planning to go too)

Bangkok
- Nice & quiet: There are a few places along Thanon Sri Ayutthaya, near the river (towards Wat Thawarad temple). They're all very much the same and some are even run by the same owners. It's a short taxi ride away from the Banglampu action. We stayed here two nights.

- Closer to the action: There is a bunch of hotels and hostels on Soi Ram Bhuttri, around the Wat Chana Songkram temple. It's quieter than the madness at Thanon Khao San, but has plenty of bars, restaurants and street life to keep you entertained. We stayed here the rest of the time.

Siem Reap
We stayed at the Golden Banana. It's a lovely place with high-ceiling bungalows and a beautiful swimming pool complete with water fall and flowers. It's run by a gay couple but 'family friendly', as long as you don't mind the overly gay staff staring at you. (see also below in the story). It's annoying, but the location was superb so we put up with it.

Hanoi
Thanks to all the scamming in Hanoi, it's not easy to find a good place here. Your best bet is probably to walk in a reasonably cheap place for the first night, then go out finding a proper place and move. You're a less 'easy sell' without your luggage. We ended up staying at a place called Central Stars Hotel in an alley so small it wasn't on our Lonely Planet map, between Dao Duy Tu and Pho Ta Hien, north and parallel to Hang Chinh. We paid $16 for a double with TV, fridge, A/C and free internet and breakfast. The staff was young and friendly and we really liked it. Hotesl all use nearly identical names, so make sure you get the right one! For example, I checked this place on tripadvisor.com and it gave me a different hotel.

Bangkok, Thailand

	A miniature temple in the middle of the chaos at Chatuchak

Sunday, March 25
We went to the world famous Chatuchak weekend market, a magnet for locals and tourists alike, selling everything from pets to clothes to beads to electric fans - everything. This is one hell of a market! It's great fun just to walk around, you can lose yourself for hours here and never get bored! The smell of food, the tingling of shell curtains, the glitter of gold of all that's on sale, a pleasant attack on all the senses at the same time. We didn't get anything apart from a few bags full of t-shirts, but we did see some excellent Thai china that we are planning to buy already for years (since we first saw it in a Thai restaurant in Frankfurt). But we decided to get that some other day and first to shop around some more in the city.

Monday, March 26
Our hotel was pretty close to the main attractions, so we decided to walk over, taking in some local neighborhood scenes along the way. We first passed a university which grounds were completely open to the public. No sooner had we passed in between the economics faculty and the canteen or we stumbled upon our first little temple (Wat Mahathat) and in we went. We were so lucky: the temple wasn't anything special but we happened to walk straight into some service. There were only ladies, all dressed in white. One invited us into the temple, where a single monk in orange was praying and all the ladies were sitting along the side of the temple, watching him, chatting a bit among themselves, really nice!

We went on to Bangkok's main attractions. We first skimmed Wat Pho, which is mostly famous for its enormous reclining Buddha. It was beautiful. And HUGE! There was also an interesting little open hall outside with a golden statue of a man, with lots of little pieces of gold leaf stuck to it.

Thailand's longest reclining Buddha	Gold leaf man ;)

The next stop was the most dazzling visit of our entire vacation: the temple of Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace where the royal family resides. Words can't describe the beauty of this place. All is glitter and gold here. There are tiny mirrors everywhere that catch the rays of the sun and beam them back and forth all over the complex. It's mesmerizing. We actually went back another day to see it all again. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but really, this should be on your list of things to do before you die. It's simply amazing. I shot a video of demons carrying a golden chedi (Buddhist structure) - you can see the sparkles as the sun catches the pieces of colorful glass. Truly spectacular!

Dazzling demons carrying a golden chedi in Wat Phra Kaew

Here they are in pictures (there's more in the photo album):

And just look at all the sparkles:

In the evening we went to Suan Lum, Bangkok's night bazaar. It was pretty nice, especially the one quarter where Marieke bought a designer shirt in a little boutique, run by just the fashion designer himself, for something like 5 euros. And a really nice shirt too!

Tuesday, March 27
Shopping in Bangkok.

Wednesday, March 28
We went to visit Dusit - the royal palace grounds. Wow, this place is really boring. It's like a badly planned park with little to see really. There was a throne hall which looked like a direct copy of the St. Peter Cathedral in the Vatican which was interesting to see. We went inside and an interesting detail is that although this building is clearly from Christian origins, there wasn't a single reference to Christianity inside. Only natural of course in Thailand, but it was a strange notion. One of the domes had a golden Buddha painted on it. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside.

We went on to Chinatown by river boat to do a walking tour in the Lonely Planet condensed guide, leading from Chinatown into little India. This is a superb area to visit! We walked over a real vegetable market, I've never seen so many chilies in one place! We bought some orange juice with salt in plastic bag off a street vendor. Neither of us liked it but I ended up drinking it anyway. Don't ask me why. Yuk! Sampeng lane was great, full of stalls selling cloth (in the little India area), food (in the Chinatown area), trinkets, beads, flowers, etc. A feast for the senses...

We had a late lunch in The Atlanta, an expensive looking yet strangely cheap 1950s hotel come coffee shop, still completely in 50s style. A very nice looking place, in the street down from the Marriott.

At the end of the day there was too much traffic and no taxi wanted to take us back to our hotel, so we took a moto - basically just jumped on the back of a motor cycle. :) In a few words: fast, cool, no helmets (at least not me), do like the locals do, eyes burning from exhaust gas, exhilarating. Definitely recommended as an experience!

Thursday, March 29
Had food poisoning last night. Didn't sleep, a bit delirious. Got up at around 1 PM. Marieke got medicine and paracetamol and I was doing OK again. Think it was either the orange juice with salt from the vegetables market, or the prawns in the tom yum soup at The Atlanta as those where the only two things I had and Marieke didn't, or only very little. Went to Wat Phra Kaew again today. Still as beautiful as ever. One of the most impressive sites we've ever seen. Here are some more images, check out the photo album for more.

The lush structures of Wat Phra Kaew	Demon guardians - right ugly buggers...
Girls love glittering glamourous gold!!!	Strolling monks in their own habitat
Me and one of the many intricate patterns	So much glitter! Sunglasses required! B)

Some general observations about, and funny moments in, Bangkok

Some examples of Thai obsession with the King

Thai are obsessed with their king. Yellow, the royal color, is everywhere. People dress in yellow, there are yellow flags everywhere, the majority wears one of these no-longer-trendy rubber armbands in yellow, etc. The words "Long Live The King" are written everywhere. We read a story of a drunk foreign resident of Bangkok who ran out into the street cursing the king to death or hell or something similarly unsavoury and was subsequently arrested and charged with ... THIRTY-FIVE YEARS in prison!!! Needless to say, we kept our peace. Although I did scare someone unintentionally. We struck up a casual conversation with a lawyer at Wat Phra Kaew and I asked a question about succession of the crown (when the king dies, and the king is like god in Thailand). He got all weird and scared, having the two concepts of king and dying in one phrase, but after I explained what I meant - and that I was not wishing death upon their king, it was all OK again.

Thai are so far the friendliest people I've ever met. So far. Turks are a close second.

		Thai food simply RULES! It deserves every bit of its reputation. It's a bit of a shame we didn't get to venture out into the country side to sample all of the different dishes and styles, but even just nin Bangkok it is wonderful. You can wake me up at any time of night for a proper Tom Yum soup or an authentic Thai green curry!
		Left: Obviously the Thai have a sense of humor. Just look at these icons depicting toilets in one of Bangkok's malls. Right: English anyone? The Starbuck cup advertises "make it your drink". I ordered a tall cappuccino. But somehow, "my drink" had become some caramel flavored foam coffee! Apparently 'cappuccino' became 'caramel'... Ah well, I've had worse drinks in my life. (Sambuca anyone?)
		These packets were in the display window of a tiny little drug store near Chinatown. Watch out, this is not your average soup ingredients, but rather just the right mix to cure you from influenza, fever, or whatever it may be. 100% natural baby!
		Very close to our hotel there was a little park on the waterfront, where every night a group of locals (and the odd tourist) come together to work out. There's a teacher in front of the crowd who leads the moves, dancing on a distorted beat blasting from a small portable radio. Some of them have already internalized all the moves and don't even have to watch the teacher anymore!!!
		Beautifully stacked, shiny dried fish on one of Bangkok's little back-alley markets.

Ankor, Cambodia

Friday, March 30
Moved our flight to Siem Reap to 18:20 to go to Chatuchak to buy Benjarong. Bought nice sets, cups and dinnerware.

In the afternoon we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia; the town closest to the famous temples of Ankor. The road from the airport to the city of Siem Reap looks like a Las Vegas strip of brand new luxury hotels, shocking really. We checked in at the Golden Banana, a really nice place with its own little high-ceiling bungalows and a lovely swimming pool complete with water fall and flowers. As you can guess by the name, it's run by a gay couple but according to the book it was family friendly. Well. While it's true that all the other guests we met were families and straight couples, the staff never stopped staring at me and all the time they were all over each other like bees on honey. I don't really like it when I get back to my room in the afternoon only to see four members of staff stroking each other's hair or back on a picknick table right alongside my window - gay or straight. But having said that, the location was superb so we put up with it...

Saturday, March 31
We got up early, though not early enough for sunrise, exited to see the famous temples of Ankor Wat. We hired a remorque (a little moped with a cart behind it) with driver, although I have to admit that our driver wasn't exactly the greatest guide in the world. But that hardly mattered when we arrived at the main temple site at around 9 AM. The complex of Ankor is beautiful, and much, much more than just the (largest) temple of Ankor Wat itself. Here are the highlights, in order of leaving a lasting impression:

The carvings were still in a very beautiful state: the bas reliefs but also the typical round breasted khmer women that were everywhere. We wanted to buy a replica but it was ridiculously overpriced. They haven't understood the economy of tourism very well yet in Cambodia.

Me in front of the famous Ankor Wat	Praying to a dressed up Buddha statue
Beautifully preserved bas reliefs	Khmer women carvings
The jungle taking over man-made structures	The mysterious faces of Bayon

The whole site was more in ruins than I expected, but that's usually the case. If it were up to me, we'd just restore all ancient ruins to their former glory; Ankor, the Maya ruins, the Colosseum, and so on. And why not? What's the use of just building something only to then let it wither? We don't do that with anything else, like our homes, or even houses built in the 16th century; they get constantly repaired and maintained to keep them in a good state. Why let a few centuries of neglect destroy a beautiful thing forever?

We went to Phnom Bakheng which is known for its spectacular sunsets with a view of Ankor Wat itself. Bah! What a load of drivel! First of all, from up there, Ankor looks tiny! It's more than a kilometer away from the site and half obscured by trees (cut them down people, please! They are not part of the site anyway!) But even worse, the sun didn't set over Ankor at all. It set on the EXACT OPPOSITE side over some stupid lake!!! And believe me, it was nothing special. Just a red ball sinking in a lake, no spectacular colors in the skies, nothing. I've seen many a better sun set in in Holland or on Boracay. A waste of time really. Fortunately we were smart enough to bring some beer and crisps with us, so at least we could relax properly while waiting for something to happen!

A regular sunset over a lake...	...and Ankor on the other side: far, far away
Luckily we had the wits to bring beer...	...unlike these monks! ;)

Sunday, April 1
So the next morning we got up extra early (at 4:45 AM !!) to compensate last night's disappointment with our solar system's center point with a second take: viewing sunrise at Ankor Wat itself. The whole thing wasn't off to a very promising start. We stood there for almost two hour, just seeing the sky get lighter, but no overwhelming color changes, and no sun to be seen anywhere. It just 'got light'. Then finally the sun came up behind Ankor. Granted, it was a really cool sight, but we could have just as slept two more hours and see the exact same thing, only more awake. And with a coffee and a baguette in our grumbling stomachs. All in all it was nice, but if you don’t like getting up early, I wouldn't say you miss much by skipping it. Having said that, the hours right after the sunrise, walking through Ankor in the magical morning light with almost no one else around was definitely worth doing!

Strolling around in the magical morning light with no one else around

Funny isn't it how it always seems so spectacularly fast when the sun is just rising or setting. It seems to move really fast when it's just about to (dis)appear... Why is that?

We saw three or more temples and then went back to the hotel. We slept for a few hours, then went out for coffee and baguettes. Finally!!!

A gracious religion

Monday, April 2
Today we rented two bikes and went biking to Ankor. It was pretty hot, but nonetheless a nice experience that I'd recommend to anyone who has some time to spare in Ankor. In the afternoon we checked out some of the art shops. Stuff here is ridiculously expensive and looked mass produced, so you don't even get something unique in return for you entire wallet's contents (and then some). We went back to the hotel to swim some more in the pool. There we met up with an English couple called Sasha and Ollie who were traveling around Asia as break from setting up a beach resort in Kenya. We had dinner with them in Khmer Kitchen, a great restaurant. In the evening we drank some more wine at their apartment before calling it a night.

Biking around the grounds of Ankor...	...with its immense gates
The pool by day...	...and by night. Romantic eh!? :)

Some general observations about, and funny moments in, Cambodia

Overall, Cambodians have chiseled faces, quite beautfil people really!

		The smallness of men Right: Believe it or not, but this wall Marieke is taking a step off was the ancient elephant mounting place! The kings and priests and other generally important people that could afford these pets would have them manoeuvre outside by the side of the temple where they would step onto them. And I can tell you, this wall is HIGH! Left: Tiny doors in the temples show how little these people must have been - especially compared to a tall Dutch goddess!
		Street life Left: Ducks for dinner don't get a whole lot of consideration during their transport. Almost as uncomfortable as a Japanese metro at peak hour! Right: Loads of kids ride a bike to school in Siem Reap. And all of them have their hair plastered with white powder. My bet is that it's to kill fleas and lice. Either that or a really weird fashion phenomenon. (But no less weird than leggings or platform shoes, so who knows...)
		Such a shame. Beheaded Buddha images. After the Khmer were driven away from the temples, looters cut off these heads to sell them on the (black) market. Apparently there is still looting going on and everyone is strongly discouraged from buying any potentially real artifacts in an attempt to stop the damage. But I'm afraid tourists will be tourists and the poorly guarded treasures of Ankor will keep vanishing bit by bit. If only they would set up a proper souvenir industry! As for now the only sustainable souvenir trade is run by the ridiculously expensive and completely unoriginal Artisans d'Ankor. Time for a turn around!
		Tourism in diapers. Almost no temples had any explanation whatsoever, often there wasn't even a single sign with the name - even for big temples! For trees however, this was a whole different stories: plenty of name plates there! Seems like there is more investment for tourists of the trees than temples...
		The jungle doesn't limit its conquering aspirations to temples only. People aren't safe either. This jack fruit, really a small coconut with spikes, slammed hard into the ground only a few meters away from Marieke. Land mines and jack fruits - men's true enemy in Cambodia...

Hanoi, Vietnam

Tuesday, April 3
We flew on to Hanoi. I've never seen a country with so many hustlers. If you can't stand my rants anymore, just skip ahead. If you plan to visit Vietnam, read it and be forewarned!

It started on the airport, arranging a taxi. After waiting in vain in a minibus for its departure, we got into a government regulated taxi. We told him the street, showed the map, and we weren't out of the airport or his mobile phone rang. For us. Some guy apologizing for his driver not speaking English and where we were going. Basically trying to get us to a commissioned hotel. We didn't fall for it, stuck to our driver dropping us on a major street from where we would find our own way. He tried to hustle us for more money than the rate at the airport stated, which of course we didn't pay. The hotel we checked in to was suddenly twice the price as advertised in the Lonely Planet, as it was "no longer a new hotel" and those were "promotional prices". Etc. I'm just going to stop here but it went on and on and on and on all the time we were in Vietnam - everyone tries to hustle everyone and you have to constantly be on your guard.

The old town of Hanoi where we stayed is a great looking little city. It's a maze of little streets and alleys, full of people hustlin' and bustlin'. There are more mopeds than people (well almost) and lots of ladies wearing these triangular woven hats that I thought only still existed in movies and caricatures. And what's more, these ladies are carrying two baskets, each tied to the end of a stick that's flung over their shoulders, selling everything from toilet paper to pineapples. Simply brilliant! And very Asian. Yet the cool thing about Hanoi is that at the same time it is soooo incredibly French-European: baguettes are the staple breakfast and people cycle down the streets lined with French sycamore trees!

Selling flowers	Selling vegetables

Wednesday, April 4
Vietnam is famous in Asia for their high quality artists, so today we browsed the art galleries, to see if we could find something we'd like. This may sound more casual than it was: we explicitly planned to buy some nice art in Vietnam - it was one of our holiday's goals you might say. It was a lot more expensive than we had anticipated, but we did see two paintings, each from a different artist, we really liked. However, it soon turned out that one of the two artists had completely devalued his work by relentlessly copying himself hundreds of times, I'm not exaggerating. So much for a 'unique' work of art!

We decided to think it over a bit and went back into town. Hanoi has great cafes with a trendy yet laid back atmosphere. There's a big lake with a boulevard in the center that gives it a really European look and feel, yet has a 100% Asian temple in the middle. Marieke bought a nice little summer dress but overall the clothing here was less cool than we expected.

Lunch in the back alleys	Takin' a walk in the park

Thursday, April 5
We bought the painting today, the unique one. We got up late and the whole thing, including looking, deciding, negotiating and closing the deal took almost the whole day! But we were so pleased with it! And as I write this story, more than 2 months after the fact, I can confidently say we both love it more than ever. Once the deal was done, we went to a little tapas place called La Salsa run by a Frenchman, where we spent a long time relaxing, enjoying the fact that we now officially belong to art collectors (we now have two paintings, the other one a very small one by a local Filipino artists called Jhoanna Resari), eating lots tapas accompanied by a few carafes of sangria.

At the end of the evening we went to see a something unique to Vietnam. a water puppet theater. Really quite amazing, there are puppet masters standing behind a curtain, in a basin of water. They manipulate puppets with sticks under water in a very masterful way. There's a band of about four musicians and singers who sing in a typical asian high pitched voice about what's going on. Not that we had a clue of course. All in all it was pretty nice!

Celebrating art with wine! ;)	The water puppet show

Friday, April 6
We went to the Women's Museum today. It's awful! OK, it's under renovation, but if the 'open' expositions are any indication, this museum stinks!!!

We went to Vietnam Airlines to rebook our flights to tomorrow as really we've seen it here. There's not enough time to go to Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon), and by the looks of it in the guidebook and by the accounts of the people we met that had been there, it didn't look like a place we really wanted to go either. So before boredom got the best of us, we rebooked and spent the weekend in Manila, not telling anyone we're home, just relaxing at the pool as if it were a hotel...

Some general observations about, and funny moments in, Hanoi

		Not only are they only ladies that sell, it's also only ladies that clean up the garbage. In fact, women seem to be doing a lot of the heavy work in Hanoi. Meanwhile I'm still ironing my own shirts...
		How much merchandise can you fit onto one bike?
		Also Vietnam has their fare share of excellent food. Here's a little local pho. Very tasty, second only to Thailand's tom yum!

All in all...

All in all it was a great vacation and we saw many beautiful things. However, next time, we won't do three countries in two weeks deal again. I much prefer to spend quality time in one country, going out of the big cities into the country and really absorbing daily life and culture.

You can see all the pictures in the photo album.

Friday, March 23, 2007

And then there were two... (musketeers)

Honestly, I don't remember all that much anymore from this evening... OK give me a break - it's May now and a lot has happened in between so I am forgiven, at least by myself!

OK we gathered at Julian's house, him, me, Marieke, Sean and Megan. We had bought him farewell gifts of course, placemats from Smokey Mountain where Marieke works, and a miniature jeepney. As we handed him the box, he said something like "oooh it's not a jeepney right?"... OK that's one surprise straight out the window thank you very much.

We ordered some pizza, drank some vodka-tonics of course, played some wicked iPod tunes (I remember Basement Jaxx) and as usual Julian played one of his so called intellectual Spanish film noirs in the background again, which basically means seeing half naked men and women in the corner of your eyes pretty much the whole night... Weirrrrrrd!!!

After Julian's, it was pretty much standard fare: M-cafe for martinis, Embassy for tunes. Sean quit us early on in the game, Megan towards the end of the night. The three of us went back home to drop by 7-eleven for some late night red bull (we had vodka but nothing to mix it with)... As soon as Julian saw the Batista sign with "next counter!" written below it he just had to have it. Here's a transcript of the approximate dialogue that followed:

[Julian] Yo dude, is this sign for sale?
[Clerk] No sirrrrrr, not for sale
[Julian] Ohhhh c'mon man, you'll sell this to me right?
[Clerk] No sirrrrrr, not for sale
[Julian] OK I give you 100 pesos for it, all right?
[Clerk] Errr... sir? Not for sale sir...
[Julian] Oh c'mon, 100 pesos is a lot of money for a stupid picture out of a magazine on a piece of cardboard
[Clerk] ... *looks uncertain of what to say next*
[Julian] OK here is 100 pesos, you can make ten new ones for this, OK
[Clerk] ... *laughs nervously, faced with a Mexican madman that wants to have his way*
[Julian] *puts 100 pesos on the counter, takes the sign; we pay and leave*

Then we went back to ours, had one more drink or so, and then crashed. Now I'll be honest with you. Marieke and I completely forgot about this matter until we woke up the next day and saw this "next counter!" sign proudly posing on top of our TV! But we didn't have much time to think about it... we slept about 3 hours and we had a plane to catch, on our way to a long awaited round trip through South-East Asia!

[Update 1] When we got back from holiday, Violeta, our cleaning lady, smilingly told Marieke she knew where the sign came from. Apparently she drinks her morning coffee at the 7-eleven every time she comes over and the staff had told her about the incident. Didn't take her long to realize it had been us! Good thing that they all thought it was really funny... well at least we brought them a conversation topic I guess... but I'm not setting foot in that store anymore unless I ab-so-lu-te-ly have to!

[Update 2] It's the first week of May now and we still haven't had any word from Julian... He's changed his email address (changed companies) and disappeared into thin air. Surely we weren't that bad an influence on him??? Gringo, if you're out there, get back in touch. Or else.

Monday, April 30 , 2007

Queen's Day 2007 !!!

A meeting in Rome and an adjacent week of business trippin' through Rotterdam, Brussels and Paris suddenly left me in Holland on Queen's Day - the single biggest event in the Netherlands with the center of all things cool in Amsterdam. As soon as I knew about this, we frantically tried to get Marieke a ticket (on frequent flyer miles) as well, but our valiant efforts stranded in a sea of OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers) and rich Filipinos doing Europe round trips that had already booked pretty much all flights out of Manila. We did find one remote possibility, but it was a paid flight to Korea, staying the night there, cost 500 dollars for the Korea leg, 150% of airmiles for Korea-Amsterdam-Manila, and that for only 5 days back home - we figured it wasn't worth it. So I had to go it alone.

Well, not entirely alone of course. I landed in Holland on Friday evening and spent the evening and most of Saturday with my parents, taking the train in the late afternoon to Losser to say hi to Marieke's parents. On Sunday, we spent close to three hours on Skype with Marieke - all of us around the breakfast table with coffee, Marieke on the couch in Manila with red wine. It was around 3 PM that Emiel dropped by to pick me up and we were on our way to Amsterdam...

We dropped my stuff at Emiel's new house (with a roof terrace overlooking the Vondelpark not 20 meters away... WHAT a location!!! ) and drove straight through to Eltjo's place where we met up with Gerda, Tanno and Thessa.

On a side note, we parked right outside the pay zone. It's really a very normal looking neighborhood... but that's just appearance. Emiel had parked his car there a few weeks ago next to a car with a sun roof and some drunk morons had been aiming to throw Grolsch half liter beer bottles through it. A few bottles hit Emiel's roof top and he now has three huge dents in it. The car with the sun roof apparently wasn't that lucky. Emiel had filed a report with the police online but never heard back from them. Dutch police (and drunk morons): !!!

All right where were we. Right, we met up with the gang and went down to the Stopera where Loveland had its party. Unfortunately, to keep the same location this year, they were forced to mix up the DJs with real live bands which really isn't a great mix. So we went on to the Weteringscircuit where there was proper dance music and we hung out there till the early morning.

The next day was the real thing. Exhausted from work and the night before, I was the last one to wake up at Emiel's place. Everyone had gone to Emiel's back yard already (the Vondelpark) and I found the gang lying on a big sheet with a bottle of rose and a few glasses... Ahhhh sweet rose, the breakfast of champions! Eltjo took me down to the deli in Emiel's street for a chicken sandwich and, naturally, more bottles of rose. By the time we arrived at the Amstelveld, where Chemistry had their gig, we had conquered four bottles already with the fifth in our tote bag. We spent most of the day right there, in the blazing sun, dancing away and meeting random people around us. Eltjo's new flame, Eva, and her friends joined us as well and at the end of the day we moved on again. We didn't go anywhere particularly interesting, and by the time we left the extremely gay club we somehow had ended up in, it was only around 1 AM but well time to go back home.

A rockin' chemistry stage	Sad faces 'cause Marieke wasn't there :(
Eltjo and me playin' it cool	Emiel and me well stocked! ;)
Eva, Marie-Claire and Eltjo	Eltjo with Nadia and her nameless friend

Some more relaxation the next day in the Vondelpark and on Emiel's balcony in the sun. The weather had been truly extremely good for this time of year! A final terrace hour (or two) with a couple of fresh, cold wheat beers with a slice of lemon finised off a great few days with great friends at a great time in a great city...

March 9-11 , 2007

The most luxurious resort ever...

It had been ages since Marieke and I had spent any time alone away from home. Our weekends out of Manila we always spend with friends here, while our vacations mostly are all about going back home to the Netherlands to visit friends and family. So it was high time to book a weekend get-away for just the two of us. Debbie and Dino had enough surplus Philippine Airlines frequent flyer miles that they would never use to present us with two return tickets to Cebu (the flight out even in business class ) so all we had to do is book the hotel. Now you should know that when it comes to Cebu and a romantic weekend get-away for two, there is really only one place to go... the Cebu Shangri-La Mactan resort. It's a haven of pure luxury and indulgence, complete with several huge pools, a private beach, a private golf course, a spa village, fitness room, the works. The cheaper rooms were all booked, so we went for an upscale room in an already upscale re sort... We were on the 7th floor (with only one floor above us), in a big 5 star like hotel room, nicely furnished with a wide view of the pool grounds, the beach and the sea, a bar on our floor where we could get free breakfast, drinks and evening cocktails, it was perfect!

Helicopter view of the complete resort (from their website)... wow!!! :)
View from our balcony at night...	...and during the day

We arrived in the evening so all we did the first day was have dinner. Strangely enough that turned out to be quite a challenge at around 22:00! We ended up in the one restaurant (yes, there are several) that still served. It wasn't the most atmospheric of all, a bit too American-style with a large open space in a sea of bright light, so we moved to a little table outside, asked for a candle (another challenge!) and made our own atmosphere. Worked out pretty well, except that we had to light the candle a million times and eventually gave up on it...

	Breakfast at Acqua

The next two days we just relaxed, relaxed and relaxed some more. We spent time at the pools, at the beach, at the spa. We ate mostly at one of the pool side restaurants called Acqua, an Italian place with unbelievably great food. One evening we just ordered a cheese platter with all kinds of different cheeses and olives and so on, accompanied by a fine glass of white wine... heaven! There was also a restaurant-cum-bar at the sea side called the Cowrie Cove where we had a late night drink on Saturday. We planned to go out into the town but instead we ended up just having a very long and good conversation, something we really needed.

It was over before we knew it and now (it's mid April as I write this up) we feel like we want to go again. I never thought we'd like it that much, we really aren't very focused on luxury, but it was a really beautiful place... a REAL break from Manila!

Luxury abounds on the private beach...	...at the infinity pool...
...at the spa village...	...and with vodka-tonics at the Cowrie Cove!

Oh and I just want to share this with you. South East Asia for Koreans is what France is for Northern Europeans or Mexico for North Americans. They are everywhere. And sorry to offend any Koreans which is not my intention, but they look absolutely ridiculous. The women wear weird oversized sun caps, while look at these pictures I took of two of the men - they are wearing a white plastic mask which I think is protecting them from the sun?? Leave a note in the guestbook if you know more about this weeeeeeiiird phenomenon!

Update: I also saw a Korean (I assume) put one of these masks on in business class Amsterdam - Manila on May 5!!! I mean, what the hell??? You look like a damn serial killer with that thing on!! Next thing you know their women put in their curling pins as well!!! BIZARRE!!!

Thursday, March 22 , 2007

An Manila afternoon like any other...

After a long call with Australia, Bel and I walked out of the office to get our lunch. We crossed the street to the Petron gas station, heading for a Chinese fast food place as we noticed a big man hole with the lid removed that spewed a cloud of steam. It all looked a bit dodgy so we decided to turn around and continue down the street to a Japanese place instead, joking about the 'gas leak that nearly killed us'.

Then I red this on a Filipino news site -

Authorities in Makati City placed a gasoline station on Buendia Avenue "under observation" after receiving reports of a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank leak there Thursday afternoon. Radio DZRH reported that firefighters, city rescue workers and Petron officials remained at the site as of 4 p.m. to guard against any possible explosion caused by the supposed leak.

A telephone operator of the Makati public safety office (Mapsa) called firefighters and rescue workers to the site after receiving a report of a "chemical leak" at the gas station, according to the radio station. "As of now the area is OK [but] under observation," the operator, who identified herself only as Ivory, told the radio station. She added that while there were initial reports of people "panicking," the situation has returned to normal and that traffic near the area was "light to moderate."

Authorities also asked motorists and people near the area to switch off their mobile phones as a safety precaution. - GMANews.TV

Nice one!!! It was a gas leak!!! And we were just wandering around there, and with us many others!!! No need for a terrorist attack to risk your life here on the streets...

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

First of all, this entry contains spoilers for the movie. Don't read it if you don't know the story and don't want to know it either!

Man, I've been waiting for six months for this. Finally, 300 is out! And for some reason, the Philippines is the first country in the world where it premiers! The movie is based on a true story of how 300 Spartans fought a Persian army of over a million soldiers during Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. There was no illusion of hope that they could ever win. But they did hold their ground for three gruelling days, holding the Persians off just long enough to win time for their fellow Greeks to prepare for a crucial naval battle with the Persians that would eventually determine the war's outcome. This is without a doubt one of the most inspiring stories about honor, duty and glory of all times.

The movie 300 is directly based upon the comic book by Frank Miller, the same guy that wrote Sin City, another great cartoon-like movie. Director Zack Snyder has truly been able to capture the atmosphere of the comics, including the bronze-gold coloring, the short, snappy and overly manly dialogue, the bloodiness (although I wouldn't classify this movie as gory at all, it's way too artful for that), everything. He also employed a technique that I have never seen before, not in this way, and that I think will set a new standard in cinematography, in the same way as Terminator 2 did with morphing and The Matrix with high speed slow motion: he alternates high speed slowmotion with fast forwarding, and the camera keeps moving without the frames ever stopping. It is simply spectacular!

I also really enjoyed the fact that the story, although of course romanticized, stays very close the the actual true story of the Battle of Thermopylae. For example:

	If male babies born in Sparta were too small, weak or sick, they were abandoned on the slopes of Mt. Taygetos to die. This way the Spartans kept up the high physical standards in their population.
	Spartans began military training at the age of 7. After initial training, some were sent into the countryside with nothing and forced to survive on their skills and cunning. This was called the Krypteia.
	Spartan women enjoyed a status, power and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. They controlled property, received as much education as men, rarely got married before the age of 20, wore short dresses and went where they pleased. Even divorce laws were the same for both men and women. (Certainly more equal than a lot of current day societies!)
	Xerxes sent messengers to Sparta asking for "earth and water" as a token of their submission, upon which the Spartans threw them into a well, saying "Dig it out for yourselves".
	Xerxes told Leonidas to surrender their arms to which he gave his noted answer: "Come and get them". This quote has been taken by the Greek First Army Corps as their emblem.
	A Spartan soldier was informed that Persian arrows would be so numerous as "to blot out the sun", upon which he remarked "So much the better, we shall fight in the shade". The Greek 20th Armored Division has this as their motto.
	So many Persians were killed in the first battle that Xerxes is said to have jumped off the seat from which he was watching the battle three times.
	A Greek traitor named Ephialtes informed Xerxes of a path around Thermopylae. Because of this, Ephialtes now means "nightmare" and is synonymous with "traitor" in Greek.
	Once they surrounded the Spartans, the Persians rained down arrows until the last Greek was dead. Modern archaeologists have found evidence of the final arrow shower.

I also read an interesting fact in Wikipedia about Spartan women that does not fit with the movie's sub-plot of queen Goro and her supposed adultery:

Women, being more independent than in other Greek societies, were able to negotiate with their husbands to bring their lovers into their homes. (...) Men both allowed and encouraged their wives to bear the children of other men. (...) The concept of "adultery" was alien to the Spartans. (...) Bisexual relations were commonplace among Spartan women, and it was considered acceptable for married women to have affairs with unmarried girls in their prime.

Interesting people, these Spartans!

The fact that the movie stayed close to reality only adds to it brilliance. But even without that, this is easily the most overpowering, awe-inspiring action movie I have ever seen. My top 5 of best films ever, and that means a lot for an action movie!! I will watch it again on the big screen, very soon and I strongly advise you do the same!

You can download some awesome trailers right here. And below are a couple more cool movie stills.

Let's give them something to drink!	Let me guess. You must be... Xerxes...
Immortals. We'll put their names to the test!	This is where we fight! This is where they die!
Earth and water	The oracle
Have the gods no mercy?	Even elephants are no match for Spartans

Thursday, March 1 , 2007

To my credit...

Two and a half years. That's how long it took the Bank of the Philippine Islands to honor my credit card application. On the account that I get my monthly salary on. Which for Filipino standards is quite a substantial amount. Two and a half years!!! I mean, COME ON!!! And that's not all, nooo. When they texted me two weeks ago, they said my credit card would be sent within a week to my branch. So two weeks later I went to my branch, located in my previous office building. And of course they didn't have the credit card.

- So where is it?
- We don't know sir...
[I have learned by now that asking questions like what do you mean, why not, etc will only give you blank stares so I've learned to be more efficient than that]
- OK, who does know?
- You have to call BPI hotline sir
- You are BPI, can't you call?
- No sir, you have to call
[Efficiency: I get my mobile out of my pocket and call the bank from within the bank]
- Hi, this is Daniel, do you know what happened to my credit card?
- Let me see, please hold... ... ... Sir, is it not at your branch?
- No. I'm standing here, they say they don't have it
- OK sir, kindly hold... ... ... Sir, did you recently move offices?
- Well, we moved about a year and a half ago. Why?
- Oh well probably sir the courier wasn't sure which branch to bring the card to
- So what did he do with the card?
- Sir, it's still with the courier

My unsigned credit card! With $5000 credit limit!! With a courier for two weeks!!! And no one cares to give anyone a call!!!! What would have happened if I had never called? The card would probably be with the courier for decades to come. He probably has a whole room tiled with obsolete credit cards.

- What is the courier going to do with it?
- I don't know sir
[Why am I no longer surprised?]
- Can he send it to this branch?
- OK sir, I'll ask
- Wait a minute, can he send it to my home?
- Yes sir. You still live in Amorsolo?

Unbelievable. But I did get it delivered to my house. Just in the mail, didn't have to sign for receipt or anything. Unbelievable. But then get this. Now I want to settle my monthly bill, right. So I sent them an email on how to do this as the card came with zero information. Basically the options I have are:

• Go to the bank and pay over the counter
• Go to the bank and enroll my card in online payment (I already have online banking but I cannot just pay my credit card, I have to enroll it first and I have to visit the bank to do so!)
• Go to the bank and enroll in auto debit

In other words, I have to go to the goddamn bank again to pay for it. Can't do it online! But they can leave a blank credit card with some courier for weeks. Welcome to the Philippines...

Saturday, February 24 , 2007

A farewell to friends

As most faithful readers of my blog will know, we have two particularly close friends here in Manila. Debbie and Dino arrived at about the same time we did and we've known them for most of the time we've been here. We did lots together, went on many trips in the Philippines and even celebrated New Year's with them last year in San Francisco, followed by a skiing trip in Lake Tahoe (which you can read all about here). So when, though expected, quite suddenly, Debbie was told she had to start her new role in London on March 1, you'll understand our hears didn't jump for joy . On th bright side though, now we have a permanent address in London to go to when we're back ourselves (in not too long a time)! Like famous footballer Johan Cruijff prophetically stated: Elk nadeel heb z'n voordeel!"

So of course there would be a farewell party. No friend of ours leaves Manila without ample vodka-tonics and perhaps a glass or two of champagne. We congregated at their place, us being about an hour late as we made them a very special farewell gift: a copy of our 'beady cristal curtain' hanging behind our couch (see picture on the right). And I can tell you, it takes hours, especially as we had to make it movable! Good thing too that Marieke likes all the beady stuff and did the stringing of the goods, while I 'only' had to buy & hammer together the frame! But I had anohter reason to be excused, and that is the fact that I had spent hours in the preceding weeks preparing The Ultimate Manila Mix. A brilliant mix, even if I say so myself, of what we have begun to call Manila Cheese. Club music that fits a specific genre, of the "if you have to ask you'll never know" kind, and that for some reason blasts out of speakers all over the Philippines. You can check out the tracks, all brilliantly mixed together by your DJ Daniel, in the picture of the CD inlay above.

I've put it up here for download, but if it generates too much unwanted traffic I'll take it down again - so get it while you can!

DJ Daniel - The Ultimate Manila Mix

Debbie and Dino planned to book a jeepney for the night to drive us around but there was none around so they settled for a school bus instead, which turned out equally well. We brought a couple of bottles and some plastic glasses on board and set off with about ten people to Malate, a place where we haven't gone to too often but still is a Manila staple. Our plan was to head for Bedrock to see some live music in a Flintstone setting, but for some reason a bouncer convinced us to drop into another place. Convince = offer free entrance. I don't know which place it was, but it was golden. We had the upstairs dance room pretty much to ourselves, and we filled it up just nicely, and the moment we had our drinks, they started to blast some proper Manila music. Ahhh that stuff hits the spot every time!

Around midnight we rolled out of the place to cross the street to Bedrock, but the bus driver had a curfew at 1 AM so instead we got back into the bus and goofed our way back to The Fort, on to Embassy. Rick, an American friend of ours and colleague of D&D arranged for free entrance for all of us and it was in Embassy, in style, that we finished off the night. We'll miss you Debbie and Dino!!! See you in Europe!!!

Missing the good old pictures? That's because I don't have them. :( Dino gave me an empty CD so you'll have to wait.....

Friday, February 23, 2007

Myths and truths about the twin massage...

This I've been planning to do for ages. This is the promise, off the website of The Spa:

Twin Massage

Two therapists working in synchronized movements to achieve mental and spiritual bliss. Enjoy twice the experience in tension releasing, deeply relaxing & rebalancing massage. A must try!

OK so Marieke and I got our own room. I looked beautiful (see picture, although in reality a bit less blue, thank god!) but believe me that it feels quite crowded when you're inside with six people! Ah who cares, a twin massage is on its way... Well... See... I expected a nice soothing massage where one girl would 'mirror' the other; one working on my left side, the other, in perfect harmony and synchrony, on my right. But alas, no such thing. While one was working the upper body, the other was massaging the legs and honestly, it was all a bit too much! So much that both Marieke and I (as I found out later) chuckled into our pillows. I don't know, it was just... funny! The good thing is when you get your head and lower back massaged simultaneously, or your hands and feet. But when you're ticklish in your legs, as I am, and one of them is working on them almost non stop, then all you feel is the tickling and you're not really enjoying the other stuff going on... Fortunately there was a nice sauna, steam bath and hot tub to wind down in afterwards (my first time in a sauna with a window overlooking palm trees... weird!) All in all it was an interesting experience but next time I'm going for a good old regular, single person massage, probably a Hawaiian Lomi Lomi massage at Neo, still my all time favorite!

Feb 16 - 18, 2007

Wreck diving in Coron

	Our dive instructor Pong

We got our advanced deep diving certificate a few weeks ago and this was the opportunity to put it to use. Pong, our diving instructor, had organized a weekend in Coron, the north of Palawan (one of the larger islands in the south and a popular tourist destination - we had been there once before as you can read here). This area is famous for its World War II wrecks - the Japanese thought they were clever by disguising their war ships as islands, but the Americans were a little bit smarter by realizing that islands shouldn't move around. D'oh! So they bombed the living daylights out of the 'island fleet' resulting in a magnificent underwater graveyard of massive ships.

Our partners in crime were, who else, Debbie and Dino. Unlike Pong and his two friends, we decided we didn't want to take the 12 hour boat ride to Palawan but instead booked a flight. On the way back we anyway would have to take the boat (you can't fly for 24 hours after a dive) and we figured one way would be enough of a novelty - no need to waste more time than strictly necessary. We might have decided otherwise had we seen the miniature plane before... Just kidding of course, it was the exact same plane I was on for my work offsite just a month ago!

The resort was nice. It was in Coron, a place on the coast of Busuanga, the island where the plane lands, next to the public market (and within eyesight of the resort I was in with my work mates). It had even a nice roof terrace with rattan hammocks! But the boat really made the day - big, with cooks and stove on board, with a large cooler full of ice cold soft drinks and beer and, best of all, a roof terrace as well!!! So after each dive the four of us sprinted upstairs to soak up the sun with a cool one in hand! Just the four of us - all others stayed on the lower deck in the shade; unlike us Europeans, Filipino's generally don't like to get dark skin...

Chillin' in the hammock	Goofin' around
Hot girls with cool beers, lower deck	Burritos in the sun, upper deck

The diving was really cool. The very first plunge was into a volcanic lake. There wasn't much to see in terms of animal life, but other features easily made up for it. First, there was the Indiana Jones mountain path we had to climb over in full gear - well, the ladies had their stuff carried by the dive masters, but me and Dino went hardcore. We took photos, but with D&D's camera and I haven't got the pictures yet, but when I do I'll post them here as hard proof. Underwater was pretty amazing too. There were pockets of water so warm that you couldn't see through them; like floating blurry balls of about 30 cm across, bloody warm - we had to unzip our already thin (3mm) wet suits! Really cool. And at one point, the bottom soil was so soft that as you stuck your hand in, your whole arm would disappear! Or, if you did like I did, your head could disappear as well!!!

The first evening we went to a natural (volcanic) hot spring. The boat guys dropped us off in the dark and we made our way there over a little wooden walk way. We got a few beers, naturally, and sat ourselves down on a quiet side of the largest pool. It was nice, but a bit too warm to stay in for long (don't forget we're still near the equator) and there wasn't anything at all in the surroundings to make it attractive; there was hardly any lighting even! That's a theme that has struck me consistently in the Philippines - there is very little individual entrepreneurship. You get some in Manila although it mostly seems to be the rich families, but outside there is so much opportunity left unseized... Such as shame...

But the thing we had come for really was of course the wreck diving. We saw three wrecks in total, and it was awesome. All are at about 20-30 meters deep so you wouldn't see them as you first dive in, but as you slowly descend along a rope the dark shape of a vessel slowly appears. It's spooky, exciting and magical all at the same time. And you really get to go into the ships too. Most of them have big holes in them, either where they were shot down or a result of underwater thieves using explosives to get to their loot, and we swam through storage rooms, engine chambers, control rooms, etc. One ship was still upright and we would swim over the balustrade, floating above the deck where people used to walk, two huge masts reaching for the surface and the sun, as far as the (underwater) eye could see. Magical. Cool, really cool.

There is also lots of interesting marine life. At one point we saw a sea horse. Now these are properly stupid animals. It kinda hid in a big piece of orange coral that really didn't hide the thing at all. Then one of our guides moved its hand towards it. I thought it'd quickly try to swim away, but no, this animal apparently thinks it's a far better idea to pretend it doesn't exist. So it didn't move a muscle. Our guide gently pushed it forward so Dino could take a proper picture. The sea horse responded by - you guessed it - not moving a muscle. Up to a point where it started to topple over! Underwater!! The guy had to actually turn it back upright, then remove his hands really quickly, so that Dino could take a picture... Such a stupid animal... it's a miracle they ever survived evolution...

At the end of Sunday it was time to take the boat back to Manila. That was another adventure. First we had to line up outside where dogs sniffed our bags and men with big automatic rifles marched up and down the line. Inside, we went to our dorm style floor where our bed was taken by a sleeping gentleman. But anyway Pong didn't like the floor and went to work his charm on the executive floor. And sure enough, after half an hour of negotiation and something like 150 pesos each we got the best rooms on the boat, complete with TV, aircon and balcony!!! The seven of us gathered in our room, opened a bottle of wine we had brought along, put some crisps on the table and played some cool choons off the iPod... PAR-TAY!!!

Oh and I would also like to share with you an interesting little story I read in the Seair in flight magazine on the flight there...

Hmmmmmmmmmm...........

January 11-12, 2007

Tropical team building

Every year, I make sure to plan an off site team building event with my team at work. Of course, being in the Philippines has the added advantage of being right in the middle of more than 7,000 tropical islands so we always end up somewhere (very) nice. In the past we've been to Cebu, Bohol and Boracay, this year it was time to visit Palawan. As per tradition, the new additions to the team were charged with organizing (I love that tradition especially because I never was in that position ) and they managed to find a flight and accomodation within the budget. Which really pleased me as this would be my last offsite with my Manila team and I wanted it to be no less than any of the other offsites! The only challenge was convincing our Indian friend Sandeep to overcome his fear of propellor planes - which we eventually managed.

My flight was about 7:00 in the morning - way too early for me of course but then again any time before noon is too early for me so I've long ago given up complaining about that... Tiny and rusty. Those were my first impressions when I saw our airplane. I had a hunch it wasn't going to be big when they weighed us at check in "to assign seats to spread the weight evenly throughout the plane". Inside, there was one row of single seats and one row of double seats. The cockpit wasn't closed off - all there was was a narrow board that allowed us to watch over the shoulder of each pilot. They had the window open while they started the engine (show offs!) and inside the plating had come half undone near one of them. All in all not an extremely comforting sight and I wondered if Sandeep, who would be in a later flight, would ever make it through the gate (which apparently he did). The landing wasn't much more reassuring, as we flew over a plane wreck (!!!) and rode off the landing strip onto a rocky sand path...

Yep, a tiny plane indeed!	Me and Lukasz feigning being relaxed ;)
With one arm out the window...	The rocky and sandy landing strip
The fire brigade. For real!! :D	Tin & JB and the baggage handlers...

The resort we went to was called Dive Link - a nice place looking out over the water, complete with cottages, a pool, an open air restaurant and a function room. It wasn't as fancy as some of the other places we had been to but the location made up for that.

One of the things I did was give a presentation on Asian leadership. I had seen the presentation in November when I was in China, where it was given by a successful Filipino. I felt a bit funny about it as the premise of the session was basically to brainstorm and discuss about how Asians behave in business and in life and how that affects their careers. There I am, the only non Asian (together with Lukasz) in a group of 20, 'telling' everybody about Asian style and behavior! But fortunately it seemed that everyone really liked it - Jayan suggesting that this should be part of standard new hire on-boarding... In the end I was really happy I did it...

The team building events were cool as always with memorable moments like Malong trying to canoo from one side of the shore to the other, but instead ending up going in circles as he just couldn't handle the paddles. And when Zandro jumped in the water to relieve him from his ordeal he couldn't take Malong's place as he didn't know how to swim - in the end one of the resort guys took another canoo and pulled him ashore. We lost (not in the last place because I, in my blind rush to beat the blue team, canooed to the other shore alone while the idea was to row over your team mates one by one - I only found out when I already arrived at the other side ) but it was so much fun that we just didn't care. We swam and rafted in a stunningly beautiful lakes, AJ showed off his diving skills, I threw over a boat with Tin who couldn't swim - a fact I forgot for an instant, Malong took a picture of Kats and Kawase-san that could go straight into a glossy magazine, Bel was being his gorgeous self as you can see in the pictures below.

Bel the Gorgeous in his element	AJ letting Kats do all the work ;)
Tin posing on the beach...	...and Malong doing much the same
The whole C&CS crew!	Drinks and music at the resort

More photos are posted in the photo album!

To read on in the archive, click here