May 2010 – Page 2 – Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

A Night Out In Manila!

May 16, 2010 Bradley Farless3 Comments

So, we’ve been here since the 6th and tonight was the first time we’d left the Antipolo area to go out and have some fun. I guess you have to prioritize. It wouldn’t do to go out and have a good time and then come home to crappy living conditions. Not everything is done, and it probably won’t be for quite a while, but we felt we deserved some time out to relax and we took advantage of it.

So, off to Megamall we went! We met up with my brother-in-law and his wife there and had a late lunch at Sushi-ya. The food there is really good and the prices are reasonable. After that my brother-in-law and I wandered around while our wives got pedicures and then we all met up again to watch Iron Man 2. By the time that was done, it was 9:30 PM and it was time to make the long commute back to Antipolo.

The time seemed to go by so quick! There were so many other places we wanted to see while there. I think we may have to take some more relaxation days and hang out in the city, preferably in a nice air conditioned mall again.

As for the house, things seem to be progressing ok. The door is in the wall now and it’s functional, but the cement still needs to be replaced. The guy is working on the plumbing in the kitchen right now and then he’s going to do the cement all at one time. That’s fine, as long as it gets done sometime in the next few days.

We’re planning on holding off on doing the painting because we want to get the electrical installed properly first early next month. A fresh coat of paint would do wonders for this place but we have plenty of time, so I’m not all that worried about it right now.

I also found out today that not all Filipinos are ruthless criminals. Yesterday I dropped my ring in front of a store in the neighborhood and when I went back to find it, it was gone. I mentioned it to the girl that was working the counter, who lives in the neighborhood as well, and she asked around and actually found my ring. She went to the person’s house to get it back from one of their kids. So, a disaster was narrowly averted through her efforts. It also showed me just how true the ‘everyone knows everyone’ and ‘there are no secrets in a Filipino neighborhood’ sayings are.

We have another long day ahead of us tomorrow, but even though the days are full of work, they’ve also been full of action and activity, which has kept things fresh and exciting.

Unusual Names in the Philippines

May 13, 2010 Bradley Farless2 Comments

Naming conventions differ the world over, but for the most part have remained rather traditional in the US. That’s slowly changing, but for now you’ll still find plenty of people named John, David, Heather, and Lesley.

In the Philippines, names are a lot more creative. I’ve seen a girl named Cherry Pie, another named Happy, and my brother-in-laws and my wife are all named after Catholic saints. Seriously. Most of my brother-in-laws have 3 ‘first’ names. My wife has 2.

At first I was a little turned off by the idea, because I had a rather conservative upbringing and lived in a repressive American subculture called the US Army. Now, though, I think it’s interesting how people here break traditional boundaries and express their creativity through naming.

Here’s one sample I saw at the Jollibee in Antipolo, Rizal Province, inside the Shopwise store.

Finally Making Some Progress Fixing Up My In-Law’s Place

May 13, 2010 Bradley Farless6 Comments

So, in the last post I was talking about finally making some progress and that progress was seeing the first load of refuse being hauled away. Both my mother-in-law and father-in-law have been collecting things, mostly junk for lack of a better word, for quite a few decades. I’m talking rusty, broken knives, bits of wiring, broken figurines, worn out brooms, and other things that no longer work that they didn’t want to get rid of because some day they might figure out a use for it again. The result is that the house was so packed with crap that there wasn’t even enough room to actually live in it.

My wife and I are making our best effort to solve that problem. I wound up getting a lot of exercise, a lot irritated and I also got in a lot of yelling before the garbage went on its merry way.

Thank God.

Anyhow, with that stuff gone I can start putting things that are worth keeping in the attic, or clean them up and leave them on display, rearrange the furniture, get the electrical wiring installed correctly, fix the plumbing and the roof and then do some repainting. The place is in a state of disrepair that’s ridiculous, and I can’t see letting them continue on living this way, even though we’ll only be living here temporarily. In a few months we’ll be moving again to Manila proper for work and school and we’ll be renting an apartment. I want to improve their standard of living before that happens and then maintain it by visiting weekly.

Besides the accumulated junk, the problems I see in this house really blow my mind because they’re things that I took for granted in the US (and to some extent in Singapore) without even realizing it. Among other things, there’s a water shortage. We have to get up at 5 AM to fill drums of water to use throughout the day because by 6 AM the taps run dry. It’s an interesting experience, and I suppose it’s not very depressing for me because it’s just temporary, but I can’t imagine facing the realization that life would be that way every day, forever.

As for our own sleeping arrangements, we walked into a bare bedroom. It didn’t even have a bulb in the light fixture and for the first 7 days we couldn’t find one to fit it. We were using a lamp but our cats knocked it over and broke the bulb so we spent the last few nights with an LED flashlight hanging from the fixture. We finally found a hardware store with the bulb today while shopping for concrete and when we plugged it in, I was excited, because it was like crawling back out of the stone age into modernity again.

We also had to get a dresser for all of our things. We found one we liked and had it delivered. I was afraid of the amount of time I’d have to put into assembling it but the delivery guy set it up himself. He did it in about an hour… without a manual. That’s impressive to me. See the pictures below to get an idea of how many parts the thing has.

The latest thing going on for us is having a real door set up to partition my wife’s bedroom, hallway, and bathroom off from the rest of the house. There are various reasons for this, but mostly it boils down to privacy and security. You can see in the photos of the dresser that we got one with locks on it. The windows also have bars on them. In these small villages crime is rare because everyone knows each other, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and it’s more prevalent if you make your house inviting to potential robbers.

Anyway, the guy is about halfway done with the door installation. He was redoing the concrete around the door frame right before he quit for the night. This should finally get done tomorrow and then we’ll stop renovations until June, when we want to redo the electrical and repaint.

Other than that we’ve been trying to get familiar with the layout of the town again. We’ve been spending time finding cleaning supplies, buying some pots and pans and other necessary items for daily living. We’ve also been meeting up with family and eating out in Antipolo to try to relax a bit. Like enjoying this big halo-halo at Chow King for instance:

I have a feeling that the next few weeks are going to be filled with quite a bit of work, but in the end I’m sure it’ll all be worth it when the house is clean, orderly, and comfortable for living in again.

They say not to drink the water but…

May 13, 2010 Bradley Farless6 Comments

… I must have messed up, because I had some serious problems over the last two days.

We’ve had a lot of work going on around the house, including work we’ve been doing ourselves. I’ve been pretty exhausted and getting sick on top of it really wore me out.

All of these things combined to create a disaster that ruined a bag full of noodles. If you’re eating, you should save this for later.

So, it was early morning and there I was, sitting on the toilet having a problem. After I was done, I had another problem. The pipes are kinda screwy here so the toilet clogged. There’s no running water right now because of a drought so dumping water into the bowl is the only option. I couldn’t get it right so I just left it that way and passed out again. That evening, I was in there trying to wash up and mess with the toilet at the same time when I felt an urge.

A serious urge.

With no toilet available (due to the damn thing still being clogged) I made a mad dash through the house, naked and covered with soap mind you, and grabbed the first plastic shopping bag I saw, which I assumed was hanging on a doorknob for placing garbage in.

I then ran back to the toilet and handled business. It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve done. I’ve utilized empty boxes in the middle of the desert in Iraq before, so why not? Better than the other alternative.

So anyway, the next day my wife came and asked me if I’d seen the noodles she bought at the grocery store. I said I hadn’t so we looked around quite a bit. I’m pretty sure no one stole the noodles, though she does have hungry brothers that roam the house occasionally.

Then it dawned on me.

After I finished laughing like a hyena I felt bad because I had really wanted to try some of those noodles. Not to mention my wife was pissed. But you know… shit happens.

Can I Have My Personal Space?

May 10, 2010 Bradley Farless8 Comments

I was just thinking about the serious lack of personal space available in Singapore. It’s become even more apparent now that I’m outside the country, in the Philippines.

The Philippines can be very crowded in places but I noticed something on the third day of being here: no one had bumped into me, pushed me out of the way, tried to shove past me, or tried to walk straight at me, expecting me to move for them.

I used to think that Singaporeans walk like bumper cars because it’s just so crowded there, but I realized that the reason must be something else entirely. Is it a lack of situational awareness? Are people so pacified there that they don’t pay attention to where they’re going? Are they selfish to the point that they think everyone else will always make way for them?

A few weeks ago I was in Takashimaya and a woman walked out of a side passage, staring at something in the distance in the opposite direction from where I was approaching. She just kept walking, straight across the walkway, without a care in the world, until the side of her face was twisted around by my shoulder slamming into it. I kept going, without bothering to offer any sort of condolences for what would surely be sore chin, because it’s not my fault that she was too stupid to look where she was going.

On the other hand, here in the Philippines, people seem to naturally swerve and veer around each other without much of any problem. There are exceptions, but it really is the exception, where in Singapore it seems to be the rule.

On top of that, people in Singapore tend to want to jostle past you in stores, or step in front of you when you’re looking at something on the shelf or rack, or they try to ram you out of the way instead of letting you get off the train before they attempt to board. It’s not everyone of course. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions, rather than the rule.

So, Singapore, I implore you to sort your problem out. Pay attention to where you’re walking at least, because not everyone is going to jump out of your way and not everything will repel you gently when you walk into it because you can’t be bothered to pay attention to where you’re walking.

Cleaning, Cleaning, and more Cleaning

May 10, 2010 Bradley Farless10 Comments

After arriving here on Wednesday we’ve spent the last 5 days cleaning for about 5 hours a day and the end is nowhere in sight. I’m something of a clean freak to start with, but just getting things to a level of basic sanitation and orderliness is my current goal.

For the first few months of my stay in the Philippines I’ll be living out of my in-law’s house, which is a bit north of Manila in a surrounding town. The house has been mostly derelict for about six months, with only an occasional visit to make sure it’s still standing. My in-laws were both living out of other houses in other provinces until just recently. So, the place is a disaster area. Besides the accumulation of junk from decades of things being left here as a store-and-forget drop off spot, there’s dust, cobwebs and the buildup of grime to deal with. So, there’s quite a bit of work to be done to get this place into a condition that’s suitable for living in.

I wish I could just throw money at the problem and make it go away, and for some parts I can, but most of it is just going to require hard work. I have to haul stuff out of the house to the curb and do quite a bit of scrubbing, wiping, dusting, and brushing.

I didn’t realize just how much work it would be. We spent 7 hours on just one room today. It was the worst room, though. It had been unoccupied the longest, so it was full of bags of junk, sometimes literally.

I suppose when you have more than one house, you can’t quite keep up with what all you’ve left where, so arranging it, sorting out what needs to be saved and what can go, and then doing basic cleaning can be a long, long process.

The goal that I keep in mind is that once it’s all done, I’ll be able to relax and enjoy life here. Hopefully with another week of work we’ll have everything wrapped up and ready to go.

Voting Day in the Philippines for 2010 Elections

May 10, 2010 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

Today was voting day for the 2010 elections. We got here just in time to witness the madness. In the US, campaigning can get pretty wild and out of hand, especially when the target audience is a bunch of radicals or ultra-rightwing conservatives, but in the Philippines they step it up a notch.

First off, the campaigning is in-your-face. You really can’t miss the fact that there are elections going on because almost every available inch of wall, post, and overhang is used to display posters of the candidates. Some campaigning parties will even run strings across roadways (as seen in the image above) and have hundreds of the same poster hung up. It gives the whole thing a sort of festive feel. I also saw a lot of private vehicles and transportation vehicles (like taxis and tricycles) covered in campaign posters (pictured below). Every last one has a profile photo of the candidate, presumably at their best.

The other interesting thing about campaigning in the Philippines is that trucks will drive around, or position themselves, with music blaring to draw attention to a particular candidate. They’ll use the music (minus the vocals) of a popular song and overlay it with a slogan or a song about the candidate. For example, we heard one playing the music from Lady GaGa’s Poker Face.

Today was the actual day for voting. We hadn’t intended to leave the house, for safety reasons, but wound up going to a restaurant called Max’s with my father-in-law, brother-in-law and brother-in-law’s wife. It was a delicious meal! The only sign we saw of the voting process was a long line of tricycles and a crowd of people gathered at one point along the road, outside an elementary school where the voting was being done. Other than that it was traffic and business as usual. I suppose the real drama might come when the results are announced, if they haven’t been already.

I believe this year was the first year that the Philippines used an electronic voting system, rather than manually counted ballots. The idea is that it’s supposed to inspire confidence in the citizens and allay fears of corruption and cheating. It may work in some areas. Some parts of the Philippines are so poor that a shiny computer screen is almost like magic, but most educated voters will probably realize that computer results can easily be manipulated, the same way that manual votes can easily be forged or disposed of.

If you’re not familiar with the government in the Philippines, it’s so consumed with corruption that it’s surprising it hasn’t fallen apart yet. The current president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is recognized as one of the most corrupt leaders to ever hold office anywhere.

I doubt that the election will be any more fair this year than it’s ever been, but hopefully whoever gains office will be more fair than the outgoing president.

Singapore Airlines vs Philippine Airlines

May 8, 2010April 9, 2023 Bradley Farless11 Comments

In 2008 I had the opportunity to fly on Singapore Airlines and earlier this week I flew on Philippine Airlines. I spent two years living in Singapore and am moving on to the Philippines, so I figured it’d be in keeping with this blog to do a comparison of the services offered by both airlines. I’ll also be reposting this on my Philippines blog, Everything But Balot.

Singapore Airlines:

When I first flew to Singapore in June of 2008, I had some choices to make. One was which airline I was going to take. I made that decision the simplest way. I took the one that was cheapest. When you’re flying from the US to Singapore, the cost of the ticket can be pretty steep, especially if you’re flying during the summer, so the price point was my major choosing point.

Somehow, Singapore Airlines wound up being the best priced fare at roughly 1400 USD for a one way ticket from New York City, with one layover in Frankfurt, Germany. I have no idea how this happened, but I’m glad it did.

To put it simply, Singapore Airlines is the best flight experience I’ve EVER had. I think it completely enhanced the experience that I got onboard with absolutely no expectations or any knowledge of the airline. With it being the cheapest ticket, I’d assumed it was some sort of low class airline that would get me where I wanted to go, but not necessarily in style.

I was wrong. Singapore Airlines is all about comfort and relaxation while in flight, even if you’re in the economy section. I had a good seat too. I’d booked early and chosen my seat, so I wound up on the aisle. Someone begged me to switch with them, so they could sit next to their spouse, but I declined. Their seat was dead center of the plain, with two seats on either side. I have long legs, so I need the extra space, especially on a 22 hour flight.

Shortly after getting on the plane I was handed a package by a stewardess. I don’t remember if it was prior to take-off or just after the plane leveled out, but it doesn’t really matter. I got it right away and it was a fantastic goodie bag! It had slippers, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and I think some soap in it. Right about then I knew I’d lucked up and gotten a good deal, but it only got better.

A little while later, a stewardess came down the aisle and asked me if I’d like to have a glass of champagne. Of course I accepted her offer and then got lost in the menus on the touch-screen TV on the back of the chair in front of me. Oh, and I’d put on my comfy slippers by then too. The TV on the back of the chair was loaded with on-demand movies, TV shows, music and even a few basic games. It kept me thoroughly entertained for the duration of the flight.

The meals I was served were top notch. It was better than some of the things I’d eaten in restaurants. The one meal that still stands out in my mind is the steak dinner I was served. The meat was tender and it was real, rather than being some chopped and reformed meat patty. The vegetables were still crisp.

Between meals there was a steady flow of drinks and snacks, and most importantly, the stewardesses were very prompt and kept their eyes on the passengers to make sure everyone was as comfortable as possible. I could really tell that I was a valued customer, even if I wasn’t in first class.

If I ever make a long-haul flight from Asia to Europe, or back to the US, it will definitely be with Singapore Airlines.

Philippine Airlines

My trip on Philippine Airlines left a lot to be desired. I flew from Singapore to Manila, in the Philippines. It’s a pretty short flight, but even so I expected there to be a level of service offered in exchange for the premium price we paid to fly with their airline over Jetstar, or an even lower priced budget airline. That wasn’t the case, at all. I won’t go into the disaster with my cats here, but do take the time to read it, as that may have affected my opinion. I’ll try to stick to specific examples here.

When we first approached the boarding area, I was expecting to see a large, shiny plane waiting for us. Instead, the plane looked a bit small and old. I kept my hopes up for the interior, but was let down on boarding. The seats were a bit cramped, there was no TV in the back of the chairs, and everything looked really old and worn down. If it weren’t for the uniforms the stewardesses were wearing, it could’ve been a Tiger Airways plane. Not that I have anything against Tiger Airways. I’m just saying that you get what you pay for, and I paid for more than that.

I want to talk specifically about the entertainment services offered. The TVs weren’t in the backs of the chairs, with each person having their own individual screen to suit their taste, but there were drop-down TVs. Each one was set to serve about 3 rows. The screens were small, but they were ok. The movie selection wasn’t bad either. They picked The Tooth Fairy, which I really enjoyed watching the first time around. I got excited and plugged in the complimentary headphones provided by a stewardess. I then found out that I couldn’t change the channel or the value through my armrest. Also, each headphone was playing something from a different channel. I had crappy music in one ear and even crappier music in the other ear. So, I took off the headphones and just looked at the screen for a while.

When the movie started, the stewardesses were distributing meals from their cart. The food was actually pretty good. I had a chicken dish that actually hit the spot, especially since it was accompanied by a Red Ribbon brownie. Red Ribbon is a baking chain in the Philippines that really does it right. I love getting cakes and other goodies from them.

Unfortunately, that’s as far as I can go with the compliments.

After the meal, I think we sat there for about 40 minutes with our empty trays, waiting for a stewardess to come by to collect them. My wife had to use the restroom and couldn’t wait any longer, so we wound up stacking everything together into one tray that I could hold so she could climb out. In the process, we spilled ice water in her lap and on her chair. About 10 minutes later a stewardess finally came by to take the trays, and instead of offering me service, she told me I needed to put everything back on the individual trays before she would take it. Then she moved on and I had to yell at her to get her to come back and take the damn trays I’d put back in order. She should’ve taken the trays and done the work herself. If she’d been more timely in her job it wouldn’t have been necessary to put them like that in the first place.

Also, during the entire flight the cabin felt stuffy and warm. I’m not sure if the air conditioning wasn’t working right, or if they just weren’t running it as often to save on fuel, but it was disappointing. You know how you always think you’ll need a blanket on an airplane because it’s nice and cold? I was wearing flip-flops, shorts and a t-shirt and I was still warm.

I spent the rest of the flight furiously updating and arranging my e-book library on my laptop, looking forward to getting off the plane. Instead of being a great experience like Singapore Airlines was, Philippine Airlines made the trip feel like a chore. I don’t understand why I paid more for their tickets. I get better service on Jetstar and the rates are a lot cheaper.

To top it off, when the plane landed it almost veered off the runway. Not sure what that was about, but it seemed a fitting end to an uncomfortable flight.

Conclusion:

I suppose I already said it above, but from now on it’ll be Singapore Airlines only for long-haul flights, if my budget permits of course! Other than that, I’d rather take Jetstar than Philippine Airlines again.

Giant Billboards

May 8, 2010 Bradley Farless1 Comment

One of the first things you’ll notice as you leave NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport), besides the hellish traffic, are the gigantic billboards. Ya, giant really isn’t even enough to describe these things.

Billboards aren’t anything new to me. They’re all over the place in the US, especially along highways, but Manila takes it to a whole new level. These things are about four times the size of the average billboard in the US. They’re so big, in fact, that they pose a safety hazard during bad weather. My wife was telling me that a few years ago there was a hurricane that caused a lot of the billboards to fall over. They fell onto the highways, which had cars on them, and killed a few people.

I think they’re pretty interesting to look at, but only because of how big they are!

Cat Export – Complete! But… Minor Disaster At The Airport!

May 8, 2010 Bradley Farless11 Comments

So, the great saga of exporting cats from Singapore is now complete, but it ended in near disaster.

Everything was going great. We got up on time. We got to the airport on time. The Philippine Airlines attendants saw us in the line and pulled us into the business class line to have the cats taken care of. We wound up paying 330 SGD for the cats to get on the plane. The rate was about 20.50 SGD per kilogram.

Then, they were tagged and wheeled away in their carriers. We were assured that they would be taken good care of. I’m not sure where things went wrong, but I think it must have been with the ground crew that loads the planes.

We were already on board and seated when we looked out the window and saw one of those baggage trucks with the cat carriers pulled up alongside the plane. I even took a photo, thinking it was neat that we had such good seats for watching them get put on the plane.

That’s when disaster struck. We saw a guy holding up a broken carrier. The carrier was broken in the middle. I don’t know how they managed to do it, other than to think that maybe they put something too heavy on top of the carrier and it caused it to fall apart. Why would they be putting something heavy on top of a cat carrier that has a live animal in it in the first place?

A guy bolted out of view, presumably chasing Marble.

I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I put all that effort into securing my pet’s passage to the Philippines and she almost ran off into the airport somewhere, to meet who knows what kind of fate. I ran back out of the plane and into the boarding area to ask the women there just what was going on. I told them what the situation was, and that I saw the empty carrier and pressured them to get everything taken care of.

My wife called me on my mobile from her seat in the plane and said that she saw them bringing the carrier back with Marble inside of it. The attendant then talked to someone on her walkie-talkie and confirmed what my wife had said. So, relieved, I went back down the boarding ramp and back to my seat.

That wasn’t the end of the drama though.

There was some banging around under the plane and I started to wonder just what the hell they were doing to my cats. Then, about 5 minutes later they began to unload all of the cargo from the plane. They had broken the carrier again and Marble was running amok under the plane.

I offered to go under the plane myself and secure the carrier because I figured I’d have an easier time of it than they would, but they said that for security reasons they couldn’t let me do that. So, we sat there. Eventually the pilot made an announcement about why we were still sitting there 30 minutes after the plane was supposed to have taken off, and everyone got a good laugh out of it, but I didn’t think it was all that amusing. I was worried about my cat.

At about 11:30 AM, 45 minutes after the plane was supposed to take off, they finally had Marble secured in her carrier, the cargo reloaded and they were closing the plane doors.

I spent the entire flight worrying about how my cats were. After a fiasco like that, I didn’t have much confidence in the airline’s ability to handle my pets properly.

Thankfully, things went incredibly smoothly in Manila. We rushed off the plane to the baggage area, but our cats still beat us to the baggage claim area. It seems like NAIA knows what ‘Priority’ tags mean. It means take care with these animals, and move them along quickly, rather than put heavy stuff on the carrier and crack it open.

By the way, this is what the carrier looked like after the ‘fix’ at Changi Airport:

Anyway, the paperwork was done in a matter of minutes. We didn’t even have to take the cats anywhere. The workers came to us and helped us get through the paperwork while I was pulling our luggage off the carousel. That’s some good service!

The cats were a little terrified, but when we got into the taxi the quiet and the air conditioning put them right to sleep, all the way to Antipolo.

Stay tuned for more updates on how the cats are adjusting to their new home!