Leaving Angeles City

After a restful stay in Angeles City it's time to leave. I'm not ready to leave though since Molly and I are enjoying our beach house stay at John McCully's. I'm most sad to leave the two helpers of the house, Ging and her husband Vic. They are so incredibly nice to us...doing our laundry, always picking us up in the middle of the night wherever we may be, and giving us chocolate! They are so sweet I will miss them!

Yesterday was cool too because we got to be on Ron's radio show. (Ron was the guy who was a jazz professor in Louisiana but decided to retire in the Philippines.) I got to talk about the traditional Filapino music I've been seeing...I said my favorite was the song and dance of the bamboo sticks. I'll show you all later how to dance it. My sister Jaime, new national award radio show person, should be proud!

Later in the morning Ron was also cool enough to give me a free improvisation lesson! I learned a few new tricks!

Bahay Hay school is Rotary's project of that district and we got to visit that as well. It is a school for street children. So basically they rescue these children off the street, get them clean of drugs and give them a free education. It was really cool. The most impressive thing was that all the kids' cubby spaces were incredibly tiddy. Apparently it's always like that even if people aren't coming over!

So, off to another new city....we here it's actually Paradise there.

See you soon.

Recipee for Filapino driving

traffic jams
people pounding on your car
going 90 miles an hour and then immediately slam on the breaks
tricyles and jeep-neys
curvy thin roads
exhaust
stick shift
no suspension

Now Mix everything up. Try sitting in the vehicle for four hours like that. Can you say Dramamine?

Clark....the city, not the county in Wisconsin

So now we're in Clark which is a city also built by Americans; you can actually tell too because they have wider roads and use stop signs and stop lights...but it's rare if you ever see someone stop for a stop sign.

Molly and I are staying with John who is retired and from California. His daughter Allison is here visiting from California right now with her two adopted children from India.

In Clark our main purpose is to attend the huge Rotary convention and give a presentation and performance...that's tonight. Tomorrow there are more talks and things.

This morning though we had free so we went to our host mom's exercise class where we sweated out probably 48 pounds, and then we went to the dirty stinky market. It makes me quite concerned for food poisening!!

We then went to an orphanage...humbling experience. All the kids were so dirty and ragged. I felt to spoiled and greedy. At the market earlier we had gotten some cheap toys to hand out to the children and all the kids were so thankful and didn't ask for a different color or something else...just very thankful. Also the kids kept asking us for blessings....like as if we were some saint to them. Actually Allison brought two huge boxes from the states full of pencils and paper, chalk, clothes, and other goodies.

It was cool.

Bagio like Pan Bagio bread....except not at all Italian

So, Bagio was interesting. It felt like Wisconsin in the summer because it's up in the mountains and cooler...like only 90 degrees. My host family though was very intense...always giving me so much stuff! After a while I just said no, even though you feel bad.

So Bagio was actually built by Americans as a get away city from the heat. Now it's a get away city for tourists and other Philipino people including the president.

Here are some highlights of Bagio:

yummy organic restaurant
Philippine Treasures where we buy cool jewlry and workers make things for Macy's
Texas Instruments tour....we had to wear booties
MOOG...makes airplane parts
running track
traditional dancing...also Belly dancing
seeing people weave fabric by hand!

My favorite was Tam-Awan village where we got to see where the natives lived. They had cute dirty huts built on stilts with awesome paths and free swinging bridges.

Easter was filled with egg hunting for the host family's grand children.....

also we ate some pretty good food...pizza, halo-halo, mangos, and my favorite....RICE!!!

Laoag...I still can't pronounce it

So on Sunday night we were picked up and taken two hours north to visit the city of Laoag and their Rotary club meeting. The people are really funny there, and get really drunk, and sing way too much kareoke. In fact this whole country is addicted to bad kareoke....and Beyonce! What is up with that? Why? There's also a funny guy from Vigan who drives us around in his vintage volkswagon Beatle van but he'll only play the Beetles in the car.

Anyway, today the Laoag people took us to the very tip of the province on the coast to Pagudpud. This is definitely the most beautiful beach I've ever been too. The sand was so white and smooth and the water was so blue and cool! I got a good tan and decided to take a nap. Yup, rough day....lots of torture.

Now we're back in Vigan preparing to leave for tomorrow morning. SAD! I like this city!

Hope you're all doing great!

Vigan is different then Vegen

Vigan here has been awesome, definitely my favorite place so far! My host family is great too...eating nice food like salad and mangos and brownies!

While here we got to go on a carriage tour around the city and see some history. Way way WAY back in the 1600s the Spanish had claimed the land so there's many old Spanish buildings which add a lot of charcter to the place. There's even a law that every place downtown has to be kept old looking, you cannot add anything new.

The nightlife here is great here too...more my cup of tea literally. It's quieter and people tend to go out for a piece of cake and a beer, wine, coffee or tea....kind of European. The only bad thing is that when you walk through the downtown at night cockroches come out of the sewers and crawl everywhere....you gotta watch where you step!

Food and good don't rhyme even though they look like they should

I'm learning a lot about food here....OBVIOUSLY.

.....I cannot spell out all the foods but I can describe some:

YUMMY:
milkfish..Philipino delicacy
sweet rice in banana leaves
halo halo....ubo ice cream with gelatin squares and tapioca pearls, mix it up
choco drink....pure cocoa made into a drink
coconut dessert


Non Yummy:
rice...too bland
bitter melon....too damn bitter
any meat!!!

Adding to it later as I'm off to a Rotarian meeting!

Aliminos...rhymes with Paliminos

Mom the title is for you...refering to horses.

So after our long day tour of the islands on the boat we got ready to go to another Rotary Meeting. Our presentation went okay, but the UK group had an awesome power point presentation that made me want to go back there!

Did I mention that I'm sick of rice?

This morning we hopped in the car for a VERY monotonous journey to Vigan which is up North from Aliminos. This time I was ready with my Dramamine. It was a tasty dessert to my rice for breakfast. Scrumptious!

For lunch we stopped at a yummy restaurant where I got some veggies over rice....there wasn't anything else vegetarian on the menu besides candy.

We finally got to Vigan a short while ago to meet our host families. Dawn from the UK and I are staying in a house together because we are both vegetarians. YEA!!! Our guy, Ron, is awesome. He's Filapino but lived in California for a long time so I can even understand his English! Oh....and for breakfast tomorrow we're not having rice! YYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

His wife Michelle is very hospitable too. She gave us cold water and a brownie! YYYEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So here we are typing on the internet in our posh house. YYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

100 islands do not have anything to do with dressing PART 2

Did I mention that Crystal was also a great artist? She painted a straw bag for each Molly and I. Mine is cool...you'll see it later.

Our car ride to Aliminos was very long and nautious feeling like. Picture yourself being in a packed going really fast and then slamming on the brakes. I was definitely not feeling well by the time we got to the resort to eat. The resort was beautiful but we were fed rice again. I keep saying at every meal: "I'm never going to eat rice again!" But never the less I get fed rice anyway...and I eat it. We get it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, dessert, and every side dish. I need some oats and wheat. and even corn! I never thought I'd be asking for corn. Knowing me I'll probably want rice when I get back to the states.

Okay so after that fun lunch we headed to Bagos for the afternoon and evening. We went to their Mayor's house. He was such a noble guy, very respected in his town. Philippines have a lot of corruption in the government, but not this guy! There was a festival that evening for the town, but we got rained out so we had to go back to Aliminos to find our hotel.

When i say hotel I say that loosly. It was very dirty like Brittany Spears, but we made do. Actually we girls did great and hey ...It's not cool to look out your window and see poverty all over and little kids picking through garbage, people begging for money, and elderly people almost getting run over by triclycles and other vehicles. So by seeing that it puts my spoiled life into perpective.

On Thursday it was my favorite day so far. We took a day tour of 100 islands here. We got to go hiking up a huge hill and see a gorgeous view of all the islands and then we went to another island where we had a picnic and then went swimming and hung out on the beach. I got to try snorkling too but unfortunetely a lot of us had falting snorkles and got a mouth full of sea water. My goodness it is salty....by the way we were in the China Sea. The last island we visited was where we saw a cave. It had a few fossils and some stalagmites and stalagtites. But not like tights you where to Sunday School.

Continue on...........part three.........

100 islands do not have anything to do with dressing

So as I found out, internet has been difficult to find around here. We've been using Molly's Blackberry phone to check messeges.

Molly, Miranda, Letrice and I are the four girls from the US on this exchange. We've been getting along great! The people from the UK who are joining us for the journey are really nice a well....Dawn, Corin, Clara, and Laura.

My first host family in Dagupan, which is just two hours from Manila, were very great. The mom's name was Cris, and her kids' names were Crystal, Patricia, Joel, and, Andre. Molly and I stayed with them in there cute, messy house. They were the party crowd as the rest of the Rotarians from the area called them. The first day with them we were on the go! We got a one hour massage at an Asian Spa, and that very night we went to the Mayor's house which has been seen on Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations"....one of my favs! The Mayor was really cool and gave us gifts and tons of food. Let me just add that the reason we got to do all these fun things was because Cris' best friend was a politician and weaseled things for us. How nice. That same night we had a Rotarian meeting where we performed our tunes....no comment on the quality of that. After that which was after midnight we ended up going out to this huge club with a live band....I thought I was going to die of sleep deprivataion but I made it through 'till 4am.

The next day we got to go to the Gulf of Lagoyan and swim in the ocean and nap in adorable huts! I wish I could figure out how to get pictures on this....although internet is too slow to do so anyway. Next to the beach is the capital of Pangasinan, the province we were staying in. We took a tour of the building...they were quite lax there considering they let us take a dog in there and eat snacks...hmm... In the evening our whole group got invited to go to the Rotarian president's house....very fun and met someone there from California who kind of helped us a bit...explaining more later...

That same evening we had to go to another bar to sing kareoke...the two girls Crystal and Patricia are amazing singers and they wanted to share it with us. I was just about pop songed out when we finally went home! I'm so tired at this point!

I loved this family but it was really hard to eat food ALL the time, party every night 'till 4am and then wake up at 7am with no exercising. Apparently a lot of people are like that...but not us Americans. My six hours a night is unheard of apparently!

The next day we were off to a new place and had to leave our host families...they were sad and they cried, but I was just happy to not have to stay up until the weee hours anymore. I'll mostly miss the kids! They were cool and very kid like....I miss my gymnasts!

Keep reading....continued with more.

Manila is not a folder in this case

Hello from the Philippines!
Let me tell you that the trip here is a long one....like a day and half of flying. From Madison we went to Detroit, which went to Japan, and then finally got to Manila. The traveling is exciting but at the same time it's boring like an Amish fashion show. The planes didn't have Tvs so I couldn't catch up on my movie watching....damn because I had some picked out. I did manage to entertain myself by writing poems, making lists, and doodling. I made a lovely list of words to describe a slice of pizza....when I come up with words like T-Rex like and zig zaggy, I know it's time to catch a nap.....
So by the time we got to the Manila airport we were tuckered out. This is indeed the scariest airport I will ever be in. After you leave the main building there's mobs of people and you can't see where you're going....yes even with the short Filapino people I still cannot see. After we managed to cut through the sweaty, sticky crowd we had to cross the street of hectic and noisy traffic. Yes, we did almost get hit. After crossing the street we had to some how locate the people who were going to take us to our villa...yea, that took two hours.
We finally met up with our chaperones...nicest, most smily people ever! Another two hours we got to our villa which was an old American airforce base. Our villa is just how you'd imagine it...lots of palm trees, crazy flying bugs, lost of plants, and English people next door. (Yea, there's also another Rotarian group here from England; I love the English..good to hear that accent again!)
So today was a relaxation day for us. Molly and I both went for a run this morning around the golf course near us....so hot I thought I was going to throw up. I normally like running in hot sunny weather but I think it was just the shock of leaving winter and entering summer so fast! Molly and I then had lunch. My lunch was the best ever. I was told that the food was amazing and the desserts are even better....believe me I agree! Oh, I love mango juice here...it's so thick and yummy 100% pure. We had a music rehearsal today too. After everyone left I stayed to practice some piano and sit in the sunlight. A nice Filapino guy came over to chat with me and that was my first encounter having an in depth conversation about random things.!! (Molly and I are scouting out attractive Filapinos....oh and there's a group of Marines here hehe. We both broke up with our boyfriends this week so it was great to be able to connect with her!)
Anyway, this evening which is 13 hours ahead of Wisconsin by the way, we went to a restaurant owned by one of the Rotarians...again the food was fabulous! I got blackened catfish which was zig zaggy tasting....yummy..and then a smooth glass of white wine...too easy to drink almost!
Right now I'm at another Rotarian's house....he used to be a jazz professor in Louisiana but now lives here. He also was the founder of the Bill Evans foundation and scholarship stuff, so tonight I get to hear about his adventures with Bill Evans!! This guy is a trombone player and he'll probably help us at some point with his talents!
So, please sign up to be a follower on the blog page because then I can spy on you too! See ya later! Off to more adventures in my hot climate...getting a tan already, YEA! ~JB

Before meeting Philip

Philip and I are preparing to meet.
I am so spoiled I know it's a treat.

Packing galore...all over my floor!
There is so much, can't even open my door.

Driving to the Madison into the airport,
realizing this journey sure won't be short.

Plenty of hours to study Tagalog,
hmm...there is no good word that rhymes with Tagalog...

For one whole month Philip and I hang out
But he's so far away you can't hear me shout.

Philip is fourteen hours ahead
But that's okay warmer weather instead!

So, bon voyage I say
I'll plan to see you in just a few days.