27. Return to Quezon City

Hi Everyone,

Leaving Baguio, Heide and I took the seven-hour bus ride back to Manila. With the twists and turns on the mountain roads and the usual stop and start of Philippine driving, I threw up as usual. I had gotten used to carrying little plastic bags in my back pocket. I also carried a few pesos in my pocket. We stopped maybe twice on the long ride and I needed the money to get into the "comfort" room. Also, sometimes vendors would come onto the bus during these stops. I just loved little bags of roasted peanuts with garlic chunks. Usually bags of spicy roasted peanuts cost 20 pesos (around 40 cents).



When the bus finally arrived in Manila, I took this photo of a building-in-progress. After Manila, we took a short car ride to Quezon City. To me it's fascinating that everything is built of concrete.




Well, not everything... Here is a building built only of plastic. It's for kids of course. Outside the house is Nieva Subong, owner of the NS Montessori School in Quezon City. Heide is inside the plastic house playing like a kid. The plastic house is, in turn, within Nieva's Montessori school. This is a nice contrast to the "house that dwarfed the kid" that we saw back in Baguio. I think this "little house" is within our budget. It would be easy to change the light bulbs too.




Here's Nieva enjoying a class in session.





We happened to walk into a class where the students were acting out a story about a group of monkeys wearing caps. There are real monkeys in the Philippines and we saw some on our visit to Corregidor. That's our next chapter. None, as far as I could tell, wore caps. So much for "reality"!

Here's a video of the students acting out the monkey story.





Finally, we settle in Nieva and Roger's house. It's built out of concrete, of course. It's so big that the wifi couldn't reach our bedroom, which was air conditioned. Instead we had to hang out in these rooms with our laptops in 86 degree heat-- a drastic change from the chill of Baguio.

At this point we were exhausted from our travels and just wanting to hang out for a few days in this beautiful house and with these wonderful hosts before flying back to the United States. However, Nieva and Roger convinced us that we shouldn't leave without a visit to Corregidor.




Duane and Heide.

26. Float Parade of the Flower Festival

Hi Everyone,

Just a few more emails about our trip to the Philippines. This one covers the Float Parade of the Flower Festival. The next one will cover Corregidor and our experience of World War II's impact on the Philippines.

The float parade is a big thing. Lots of people show up to see it, so it helps to get there early. Heide, Marilyn and the kids suggested they take a taxi to city center at 1 AM, hang out at Chowking fast food eatery all night and see the parade from Chowking's window in the morning. I would have none of it. Here I was, on the other side of the earth, with a time difference of twelve hours, and I was going back to Rochester time by staying up all night to see a parade!!!! No way! They did this one without me.

So, I gave Heide our Samsung L210 digital camera and showed her how to take videos with it. By the way, all the photos and videos in this blog are taken with this little point-and-shoot camera. It was convenient to just carry about in my front pocket and inconspicuous enough to shoot interior shots in a crowded jeepney. And it only cost me $138 when I purchased it. (I notice it's $99 today.) I bought it because it was recommended by Consumers Reports.


Although the videos from this camera come out pretty good, they are recorded at 20 frames per second instead of 30. I still haven't got the knack of processing them so they don't come out jerky, but I'm working on it. The biggest limitation was that the battery ran out before the parade did, so Heide only recorded the first part of the parade. Nevertheless, she did manage to catch the "Dancing Policemen", the "Dancing Policewomen", the "Policemen with Loin Cloths", the "Sex Bomb Girls", the "Tiger Float", the "Twirling Butterfly Women", etc. Not only that, but she shot all these things through the glass window of Chowking. Pretty good, eh? One of the problems is the sound is mostly the sound of the people in the room and not of the parade.




Here's Marilyn, Bong Bong, Bren and Mutya on their all-night vigil. Of course, if Heide, Marilyn and the kids are sitting up all night at Chowking, you know they will consume a bunch of food. I know because I have all the receipts in front of me now. Everything they bought has its own receipt. They managed to consume "macapuno", "Salo Pancit" and lots of "Halo Halo"s. I'm glad I didn't go. I really don't like "Halo Halo" that much. According to Wikipedia, "The dessert exemplifies the "east-meets-west" culture in the Philippines, with the ingredients used coming from a wide variety of influences (to cite some examples: red mung beans which are from the Chinese, garbanzos from the Indians, leche flan from the Spaniards, and shaved ice itself, which was introduced to the islands by the Americans)." You can get it with ice cream on top. I just like the ice cream-- ice cream minus the mung beans, garbanzos and even the flan.





These next three pictures capture the flavor of the parade for those who, for whatever reason, can't view the videos on their computers.






All these pictures were extracted from the videos-- except the first one of Marilyn and the kids in Chowking, By the way, there are some Chowking restaurants in the US. The one in Sacramento is listed as $$$ ($20+). They were actually pretty cheap in the Philippines.






The Baguio version of the "Rose Parade".

Here's something you may call the "Twirling Butterfly Women". This dancing period piece shows a lot of Spanish influence. They're probably twirling to try to throw off some of that Spanish influence. They didn't like being invaded by the Spanish for 250 years.







When the kids came back from the parade, they talked about the Tiger Float. Bren thought it was pretty realistic.

Here's a video of the tiger float. Notice that the tiger float was sponsored by SM, our favorite shopping mall in Baguio City Center. The guys and girls on the end of the float have a "Tarzan and Jane" look-- like they captured this beast.

This is the first of "Dancing Police". There were several groups of funky police dancing and walking in the parade.

Here's one of the dancing policemen who wanted to show off how he could break-dance. It's amazing the American influences here. That rag dangling out of his pocket was probably so he could wipe his hands when he went to the "comfort room". They never have paper towels in the "comfort rooms" in the Philippines.

Then there's the sexy dancing policewomen. It starts out with the flower-headed musicians who never play their instruments-- that's why I didn't include much of them. It's funny that they have a picture of a "stop" sign on their float. You hardly ever see them in the Philippines. The ones you see are run right through. Maybe if one of these sexy policewomen was dancing next to one of them, people would stop-- at least the guys would. Then again I've never seen a woman drive in the Philippines with all their crazy rules.

Heide likes this "Moving Butterfly Float" because of the moving butterfly. I think it reminds her of the flapping butterfly hair clip she used to have. I think the policemen in loin cloths are interesting. Don't see many of them around the United States. I think if they showed up to work dressed like that, they'd be given a desk job real fast. Notice how slowly and carefully the loin cloth policemen walk. If they walked faster, they might cause a "flap". Just let the butterfly flap instead.

I like these dancers holding flowers doing the "wave". It's like what you see at baseball games or football games in the US-- without the flowers, of course.

Here's a float of the "Igorot Muscle Men" with loin cloths. Remember the Igorots from the opening parade? I wanted to show the Gay Men's Float, but it didn't turn out well. The batteries were dying at that point.

Here's the "Sex Bomb Girls" float. The "Sex Bomb Girls" are a popular singing and dancing group in the Philippines. You can see them on YouTube if you like. Personally, I think they're bombing here in this parade, but that may be what they're supposed to do.

After the parade, Heide, Marilyn and the kids came home exhausted and immediately crashed. I was actually feeling pretty good. I had a good night's sleep.




Duane and Heide.

25. House Hunting in Baguio

Hi Everyone,

Although we've returned home to Rochester, New York, on Sunday, March 7th, there are still a few more adventures to talk about. These include (1) House Hunting in Baguio, (2) The parade of floats at the end of the Flower Festival in Baguio and (3) Our visit to Corregidor Island (which was like stepping back into an old World War II movie). First, house hunting in Baguio ...





One day we found these guys digging a hole at the end of our driveway. We don't know who authorized this. We think it had something to do with an obstruction that wouldn't let the sewage flow properly under our driveway. Maybe they lost a basketball or something. The good thing is that it keeps the taxis from parking in our driveway. The bad thing is that WE can't use our driveway either. Anyway, it would be nice if we lived somewhere else where we have more control of our circumstances. This could be a catalyst for a little house-hunting. The whole idea is that if we had enough money to purchase a house, it could be a house where Denzil, Marilyn and the eight children could live, take care of the house and have it ready for us when we visit the Philippines. The problem with this idea is that we barely have enough money to take care of ourselves in the United States. Nevertheless, it is a nice dream that could be a financial reality if our monetary situation changed for the better.






We looked at three houses. This is the first. Here's Felix, the caretaker, greeting us as we enter this house. This house costs about 7 million pesos, or about $150,000.

Here's the owner of the house giving me her sales pitch. According to her, she's lonely, poor, has to go to the United States to be with her son, and thus has to sell her three houses. How can you be poor and own three houses like this?







Felix, the caretaker, tells us that this house is a bad deal and we would be "ripped off" if we bought it. The infrastructure, being old and wood, is bad. The termites love it. He has some ideas of other places we should look at. So, I'll hold back showing you more pictures of this house. Besides, it has so much "memorabilia" in it, that there's hardly room for people.






So off we go-- Heide, Marilyn, Bren, Beth and me on the "Strawberry Wine" jeepney to explore other houses. Felix takes us to "Shangri-La".

The previous picture shows all of us except Beth. Beth is a representative from a bank who is Marilyn's friend. She knows the details on these places.






So, here in the "Shangri-La" housing complex, we cross the Himalayas and enter Tibet.






Our second house is an all-concrete house which costs about 10 million pesos, or about $200,000. It's a really cool design-- three stories with lot of curves in it.






Here's a view of the living room from the second floor.





Nice light coming into the main bedroom. The nice thing about this house is that all the furniture and furnishings remain with the house. The owners actually own a furniture store.





Leaving the house, as you walk up the hill towards the main road, you see this graffiti-marked flat side of the house. Why did they ever build the house with this flat side? Were they intending that another house be built flush against this side of it? Weird!





Notice Heide and Felix walking up the hill away from the house. That is some steep hill!!!! That's why I'm lagging behind! No wonder when you reach the top they say you crossed the Himalayas! When we get older, how are Heide and I, in our wheelchairs, going to push each other up this hill? All the public transportation is at the top of this hill. That means that we have to have a car just to get to the top of this hill. As I said before, I'm not driving in Baguio with all the crazy drivers, so I'd have to park my car at the top of the hill and take public transportation from there.

By the way, the big yellow building at the top is an old shopping center that failed. It is now rented as a school to teach English to Koreans.






Ok. Back on the road again.





Now here's an interesting house. Again it is all concrete. The "wooden pillars" are really concrete painted to look like wood.






Like the last house, this house costs 10 million pesos or around $200,000. It has eight bedrooms and eight baths. The lower level and the basement are apartments that can be rented out. The lower level is currently rented out to Koreans for $300 a month. It also has servants' quarters.






Here's Beth along with occupants of the house heading towards the entrance. More fake wood pillars that are really concrete.






The main living space has a huge cathedral ceiling. Yes the wood inside is real wood, attached to the concrete. The kid watching TV is real too, but he doesn't come with the house. He and this two brothers are responsible for scratching up the wood parquet floor, which the owner promises to replace. So, when the new wood parquet floor comes in, he goes. Actually the kid looks like a character in Alice in Wonderland. He should eat some magic cake and grow big real fast. Right now he looks dwarfed by the size of the living space.

Every time I look at a house like this, I think "what a fortune to heat a place like this!" However, in Baguio, you don't heat houses. Still, I wonder "how will I ever change the light bulbs on the ceiling?" Maybe the kid bounced too much on the wood parquet floor trying to change the light bulbs. That's how it got so messed up. The owner phones every day to find out if the kids have destroyed her house yet. She even called when we were there.






The dining area gives a great view. The house and it's neighbor are at a "cul de sac" and you can see down into the richly forested valley.






Up on the second floor, there are bedrooms to the right. Walking up to the railing, you can look down into the living room.






Here's the view from the railing. Maybe if you stacked up some of those pillows and blankets right under me, I could jump on them from the railing and bounce high enough to change the light bulbs. Just a thought. I won't try it until the new wood parquet floor gets put in, of course.

This house is at the top of a hill, and as we leave it, public transportation in the form of jeepneys and taxis are right outside the door.

Well, that's enough house hunting for us. I found it exhausting. We don't have any money anyway. By the way, property tax is dirt cheap in the Philippines, as is car insurance-- which confuses me. With all the crazy driving, you would think it would be sky high. Also, I was surprised to see no sales tax either.




Duane and Heide.

24. Opening Parade of the Flower Festival

Hi Everyone,

During the month of February is a celebration called Panagbenga-- also known as the Flower Festival. "Panagbenga" comes from one of the native languages meaning "flowers in bloom". It is a big colorful festival in Baguio that is celebrated once a year supposedly attracting many tourists all over the Philippines.




Heide and her brother Denzil-- The three of us went into City Center to attend the opening parade, ceremonies and dance competition. They really haven't seen each other for twenty-five years.

Parade excerpt 1

Parade excerpt 2




Igorot Dance. Not sure these are really Igorots. Igorots are usually darker. Anyway, you know there are a lot of mothers experiencing a shortage of dish towels today.

Igorot Dance in the Parade. This is not the best way to dress for Baguio's weather.



I snapped some photos of these kids preparing for the dance competition. The girl on the left is a flower with a bee attached to her hand. The boy is a tree with huge leaves on his arms. He doesn't look very happy wearing his costume.




Ohhhh! My head hurts! Get this thing off of me!





Oh, this is embarrassing! My bee and I prefer hiding with all the other flowers, thank you.

(By the way, you can see our favorite tree in the background.)





These colorful Xylophone Girls dance and play the xylophones at the same time. As a group they provide music for the dancing flowers and trees.

Dance Competition. There were actually fourteen groups competing. This is the tail end of the first or second one. You can see the waiting yellow hatted xylophone girls in the background. Yes, this group has their own xylophone band.




Duane and Heide.

23. Cool Shots

Hi Everyone,

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Rather than bore you with five thousand words, I thought I'd show you what I think are five cool and unusual pictures that speak for themselves.





Jeepney with Spectacles (I guess the driver doesn't have to wear glasses.)






Gate in Anticipation of a fence and Door in Anticipation of a house. (It's nice they have the welcome mat out. The doorbell helps too.)





Tough Parking Job.






World Aflame Worship Center This Way. (says the sign) (I guess they're waiting for the fire trucks to arrive.)






Welcome Aboard my Elusive Dream (says the mud flap).


Duane and Heide.

22. Bombi's Photo Shoot

Hi Everyone,

I'm sitting home on pins and needles since Heide just called me from SM Shopping Mall to tell me that the ATM machine just ate our bank debit card. Heide, Denzil and Marilyn are now trying to get Metro Bank to open the machine so we can get our card back. So, instead of tearing my hair out (what little there is left), I thought I would just compose this blog entry.






Coming home from church this morning, not only was there one taxi blocking our driveway, but there were two. They were using our driveway to repaint their taxis. Here's one of the drivers removing the name from his taxi. The only conclusion I can draw is that my blog has more far-reaching exposure than I even imagined. They obviously read yesterday's blog and thought of a cooler name for their taxis in hopes that I would photo them and put them into a future blog entry.



By the way, yesterday I learned two new things. (1) concrete houses are better here than wood houses because termites eat the wood houses. That probably applies to utility poles as well. (Gee, in the Philippines, I thought the termites would have advanced on to concrete by now.) And (2) if a motor vehicle approaches a crowded crosswalk, the driver doesn't just wait for everyone to go through before entering it. After all, there are no traffic signals to tell the pedestrians when to walk and when not to walk. Instead he slowly but gently pushes into the crowd and they slowly but gently move out of the way till he gets through. It's a give-and-take situation. He takes and they give. After all, who wants on their tombstone "Run Over By A Jeepney Named 'The Terminator'".




Here are Denzil's four sons in increasing order of age: Bren, Bong Bong, Butch and Bombi. We're here at our favorite eatery at the SM Shopping Mall: Gerrie's Something or Other. We eat here for a couple of reasons: (1) the food's pretty good, (2) they take our credit cards and (3) Precious' boyfriend is a son of the owner. Why do these boys all go by their nicknames? (1) Nicknames are commonly used in the Philippines and (2) Their real names are all "Denzil". By the way, Butch rarely smiles in photos but does so a lot in real life.

Bren is a student of computer science. Bong Bong is finishing up his final testing to become a nurse and is also a rock musician. Butch is an engineering student who is a fourth-dan black belt in the Filipino martial art of Arnis. And Bombi is an electrical engineer and photographer who works in mainland China right now. He's only visiting home during the Chinese New Year since nobody works in China during this time.

All those pieces of paper mounted on the wall behind these four guys are there to show how well this restaurant is supposedly doing.





These are three photos of Bombi that I took during a previous photo shoot. Since two of the three photos came out crooked, I decided to salvage the three by combining them into this composite photo. Cheers to Photoshop! I believe it's more fun trying to do something creative with a bunch of bad candid photos than doing everything right in the first place. I don't think Bombi would agree with me. Anyway, I've decided to mooch off of his photo shoot on this day. He won't see this until he goes to China anyway. In fact, he won't see my blog at all in China since my blog is "banned in China". They won't allow him access to it. Too politically controversial, I suppose.





Here's Sweet posing for Bombi. When I aim my camera at her, she poses for me too. No, her real name is not "Denzil". It's Ava Marryl. Only the boys are named "Denzil". Sweet is a professional nurse getting her master's degree in nursing. She has another nickname of "Ping Ping". Some call her "Ping" for short. Her nickname has a nickname that also has a nickname. Actually Heide pointed out to me that "Ping Ping" is not a nickname, but is an "endearing term". Practically no one is addressed by their real name. You can hear for boys the words "Toto", "Nonoy", "Nono" used. And for girls, "Inday", "Nene" and "Neneng".

No, it's not raining. Girls in the Philippines often use umbrellas on sunny days. Hmmm ... somehow Rap-Rap always manages to get into the picture.





Here's Precious, Smile and Heide all posing for ME (not Bombi). Precious is a junior nursing student, Smile is Sweet's daughter and Heide is Heide. This is an impromptu pose since they were just sitting on the bench together while Bombi shot photos of someone else.






Here's Lovely with her sons Rap-Rap and RJ. Yes, Lovely also is a nurse. In fact, she just passed her final state board examination and is waiting to begin work.






Here's everyone just sitting around while Bombi shoots photos. I like this photo because there is activity and conversations in all different directions. Precious is talking to her boyfriend Alvin. Marilyn is talking to Butch and Bren. And Heide is fixing Mutya's hair. I don't know who the other two people are, but they help the composition, so I thank them. I know, you're wondering if Alvin is also a nurse. Well ... yes, he just passed the state board exam for nurses, but he will be also starting medical school soon. His parents, co-owners of Gerrie's Grill, are both medical doctors.





Heide was sitting on a bench in front of an Ifugao statue I was interested in. The Ifugao are one of the native tribes in Baguio.





Here's Denzil Senior waiting patiently for the photo shoot to finish so we all can go home. With eight children, he waits patiently for a lot of things.

By the way, since I've avoided putting anyone else's photos on this blog but ours, if you're interested in seeing the fine quality photos that Bombi does take, please go to his website http://denz18madj.multiply.com/



Duane and Heide.

21. Overloaded Jeepneys and Churches

Hi Everyone,




This is the goat that greets us in the morning right outside our window. One morning, while I ignored her and rolled over, Heide jumped up and took this picture. By the way, the goat is pregnant.






Here's a nice picture of Rap-Rap with the valley behind him.






On a Sunday morning, RJ is definitely interested in the ice cream man, who came around in front of our driveway. Rap-Rap is surprisingly distracted. You can see Heide waiting for the rest of the family so we can go to church at the Cathedral. In the background are Precious and Butch. Butch is walking back to the house to get everyone else.






Just to the left of the little grocery store selling bananas is this open-air pool hall. There are actually a lot of these open-air pool halls in the Philippines. Doesn't look like there's much interest here in joining us for church.






The other day this jeepney caught my eye as it went flying by. I've become fascinated with capturing riders hanging on the back of the jeepneys. This is supposedly ok here in the suburbs, but is illegal in the City Center. The "hangers-on" get off before a policeman catches them.





This morning was a big surprise. I saw several jeepneys with guys hanging on as they whizzed by. This was the most crowded of all. It's hard to tell, but this is actually the same jeepney as the one above. The mud flap says "The Lord is My Shepherd". Those who ride this way will definitely need the Lord as their shepherd.






"The Lord is My Shepherd" jeepney will take you to this Cathedral. This is a photo of the Cathedral at 6 pm on Sunday. The huge crowd is not unusual. They have masses every hour on Sunday and they're given in different languages-- English, Tagalog, Visayan, Ilocano. In order to get a seat, you have to enter halfway through one mass and stand by a pew. When the mass ends, you grab a seat vacated by one of the parishioners and prepare yourself for the next mass. There's Butch in the blue t-shirt.





Their religious fervor is reflected in prayers before events like the Arnis Tourament or a seminar that Heide gave at St. Louis University Nursing School. Here you can see it in the names on Jeepneys and Taxis.





Besides this "Gift of God" Jeepney, others are "The Lord is My Guardian" Taxi, "Great is Thy Faithfulness" Taxi, and "Prime Movers" Taxi.





Here in the Philippines, people often get water delivered to their house in tanker trucks. Last night Heide and I were riding home in a taxi and saw a water tanker truck fly by us with the name "Holy Water Delivery". We laughed!





In the secular realm, we have "Pure and Simple" Jeepney, "Home to You" Taxi (I would hope so), "Ever Prudent" Taxi (ensures his trust), "Tattooed" Taxi (What? It's just plain white!), "Snowy" Taxi (Filipinos have no concept of snow except for its color), "Kookoo's Nest" taxi (you wonder about his driving).





This is one of my favorites. If you use he services, you can be sure to get home in "one piece"! Then there's the "33 Aggregates" Taxi, the "Glenn Ford" taxi, the "Lone Ranger" Jeepney, "Tin Tricks" Taxi.





There's even some obscure ones like this "M3L3" Taxi, where both threes are superscripted, and the "XYRYX Czar" Jeepney.






The "Student Drop Out" Taxi! Looks like a warning to stay in school! Saw a guy yesterday with a T-shirt that said "This is not the life I ordered".


Duane and Heide