Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog
A serious and sometimes not so serious personal blog
I was sitting on that same second floor window where I saw the girl with the bag that said “Use Me” when I saw something else interesting. Does this count as child exploitation? Isn’t there a law against it? Maybe there isn’t. It seems like labor regulation is pretty loose in the Philippines, which can apparently have both its ups and downs.
This reminds me of something else I saw, where children were encouraged to buy tokens for the toy machines in a grocery store at the tobacco counter.
Somehow, these just don’t seem very appetizing to me. I prefer ‘normal’ flavors, like plain, salt & vinegar. I found these on the shelf at a Mercury Drugs store, which is a combination pharmacy and convenience type store.
One of the things I like about the Philippines is how unrestrained people seem to be, though this is sort of a special case. There’s a stereo equipment store on a particular street in Antipolo that we walk down regularly and there’s almost always a guy standing in front of the store, in the street, dancing to the music that they play. This guy isn’t all there upstairs from the way it looks, but he’s having a good time doing what he’s doing, and that’s cool. At least he’s doing something that makes him happy, and it’s definitely entertaining to watch.
Today, my wife suggested I record him dancing. She said he’d probably like it, and she was right. When the guy realized he had not only an audience, but a camera on him, he really went all out. He seemed incredibly happy to be acknowledged.
Here’s the video:
A fellow spectator.
So, you’re strolling through the market and you stop to check what’s for sale at the butcher’s stall next to you and then you see this:
Somehow, the poor bastard looks like he’s smiling. I imagine they’re waiting for someone to buy this head, probably to make pork sisig or grilled ears. We went tame this time and just bought some pork chops.
I’m sure we’ll have a smile on our faces too when we’re eating them!
This is actually a screen capture from a Japanese movie called The Machine Girl. The superstition isn’t anything quite as cool as having your face splashed by the blood of fallen enemies though. In fact, it’s not cool at all. It’s just disgusting.
When girls are going through that special time, when they have their first menstrual cycle, the things we hear about most often are tales of confusion and fear, especially in cases when they weren’t properly educated by their parents. In the Philippines, perhaps not so much anymore, but not so long ago, there was a superstition that if you took the blood from your first menstrual cycle and washed your face with it, you would be spared the pain of acne during puberty.
How’s that for gross? I wonder if any guys ever asked a girl if she could spare some ‘virgin’ menstrual blood so he could chase away the acne as well?
The Sake Inn isn’t actually an inn, though it would be a good name for one with a free sake gimmick. The Sake Inn is a store in Singapore that sells mostly sake, but it’s also where I picked up the canned drinks I showed in a previous post. I’ve never actually tried sake before, though I’m interested. My wife and I bought a bottle of sake from a Spring Kyushu Fair in another mall in Singapore, but never had the opportunity to drink it. We got busy with packing and wound up giving it away as a gift. Maybe next time.
I was impressed with the amount of Japanese goods that were available in Singapore. Besides sake stores there were Japanese themed bakeries, restaurants and clothing stores, like Uniqlo. I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t as much available here in the Philippines, but maybe I’m just not looking in the right places yet. If you’re wondering where in Singapore this sake store is, it’s in the basement of Tampines 1, located right next to the MRT station.
The last time I was in the wet market in Antipolo I didn’t take a lot of photos because I was worried about offending the stall owners. Well, that and thieves. The place was really crowded at the time. On our last trip I realized I had my camera with me and the place was relatively quiet, so I started snapping photos. The reactions were different from what I expected. A lot of the girls behind the counters smiled and laughed. Then the guys started laughing at them for getting so excited over a picture being taken. It was fun!
We don’t normally get our rice inside the market. We go to a stall just outside it. I haven’t checked to see if the prices are any different, but my wife’s family all buy rice from the same guy, so it just seems natural to go there as well. Besides, the stall owner is always smiling and seems really pleasant.
I can’t remember if I posted the photo or not, so I’ll post it again here!
Pig feet anyone? No? How about those intestines? Nothing goes to waste in the Philippines and every part of the animal gets put on sale. Someone must be buying it…
A Filipino type of sausage called longganisa. We bought the redder looking kind on the left and had it for breakfast. It was a little sweet for my tastes but it was good anyway.
Fish, crab, shrimp… You can get almost every imaginable seafood here. I think I even saw some sturgeon for sale. I noticed that there were a lot of very large bangus (milk fish) for sale. Some of them were as long as my arm. My wife said that after typhoons the milkfish swim closer to the shore so it’s easier for fishermen to catch them. The prices were low too at 40 PHP (about 0.95 USD) per kilogram.
A row of stalls selling vegetables and random cooking items like oil, spices and sauces.
Going to the wet market is always interesting because there’s so much activity and so many people wandering around.
There was a car that was always parked near our place in Singapore that had a really cool paint job on it, consisting of the Japanese rising sun symbol and a samurai. It’s possible that the owner of the car is Japanese. I never met him. It’s probably more likely that the person is just interested in Japanese culture and history.
The paint job was very well done and I liked the style, so I went ahead and took a photo of it.
When we moved to the Philippines, one of our cat carriers was damaged during the flight. After quite a bit of e-mailing back and forth I convinced Philippine Airlines to cover the cost of the carrier. The catch was that I had to go all the way to the PNB Financial Center which is near the Mall of Asia in Manila. It takes about two and a half to three hours to get there from where I’m staying in Antipolo. It might be a quicker trip if I had a personal vehicle, but I was and still am relying on public transportation, for now.
The building was a lot more impressive than I thought it would be. I expected to walk into a standard office building with a lobby and some elevators and then go up to some musty offices. The building had musty offices alright, but the architecture was really amazing. The eery part is that the place was mostly deserted. It’s not surprising, considering how it’s in such an out of the way place, but at one point it must have been a bustling center of activity. Maybe before the advent of ATMs?
There is a huge room with a semi-circle of counters that at one time must have served as teller stations for people making over-the-counter transactions at the bank. The mezzanine has rows of offices, which is where the PAL cashiers are.
The balcony and courtyard areas of the building were closed off, but I could look through the windows and see statues and benches. It would have been nice if I’d been able to look around out there.
On the way out of the building, I noticed the relief carvings mounted on the walls of the lobby. They each had a different scene. If I remember right they depicted different periods of Philippines history. I should have taken photos of the other ones, but I was worried the guard would stop me and then make me delete the photos I’d already taken. I have no idea if photos are allowed in there.
The building has the quiet, empty feeling of a tomb, but has potential. I think it’d make a great building for a museum, art gallery, or exhibition hall for small events.
My wife mentioned that at one point that area had all been part of a bay and had been modified for use through land reclamation. It’s no wonder Manila floods. Part of it is below sea level and the other part is barely above it, as reclaimed land. Land reclamation is still an impressive thing, though.
Have you ever had one of those moments where you’re about 99.9% sure something very unfortunate and painful is about to happen to you and your mouth is flushed with a weird metallic taste?
On our way home from Manila a few days ago, we happened to take a taxi from Makati to Galleria where we were planning on getting an FX to Antipolo. Well, Galleria was supposed to be our destination, but we didn’t quite make it there.
Makati is one of those weird places in Manila where it’s hard to get a ride. I don’t mind using a Jeepney or an FX for transportation. It can be dangerous, but sometimes it’s fun and it’s definitely an affordable alternative until I can pick up a personal vehicle. However, none were available, at least not going the way we wanted them to. It has to do with the work shifts in Makati. FXs and Jeepney’s heading to residential areas don’t leave until certain times. Outside of those hours you’re mostly out of luck. The only option is to take a taxi or a bus and my wife isn’t too fond of the buses. The buses in the Philippines aren’t city owned and operated like in most places. Every bus is a private operator, or perhaps part of a small group of private operators. It can be really dangerous to get on those because it’s packed full of people, every one of which could potentially have a gun and bad intentions. At least on the smaller vehicles you can see everyone to size them up and you’ll notice it if they’re acting weird.
So, we flagged down a taxi and got in. We were immediately assaulted by an odor of stale sweat, mold and that weird smell that your car can get if you smoke in it while it’s raining. It was enough to dry my throat and make me want to sniff my armpit for relief. Then I noticed that the guy was texting while driving. That’s not the brightest idea in any situation, but doing it in Manila traffic is like playing Russian roulette. He also didn’t seem to care for what he was receiving in reply to his messages. He started to get irate, and his driving became worse than it already was.
Typical Manila traffic is ugly. People edge in and see if the car next to them will yield the lane. People ride the lines dividing lanes until they figure out which lane is moving faster. People will use the shoulder or the sidewalk. Sometimes there are people in the highway. Don’t know why. There just are. That can all lead to some seriously bad traffic and an upsetting experience, but our driver seemed to have a death wish.
What person in their right mind tries to take on a bus with a taxi? He didn’t do it once, or even twice, but probably 5 times. The last time, a bus was riding the line to our right and another bus was riding the line to the left. The bus on the left began to merge into the lane we were in, ahead of us, but the taxi driver decided he didn’t like that and gunned the engine and wedged the taxi in between the two buses. At the last moment the bus pulled back and started honking its horn.
That’s when I saw my own potential death and got that weird metallic taste in my mouth. We told the driver to take us to Megamall instead, since it was a lot closer and we didn’t want to be in the cab anymore. He started arguing that he couldn’t drop us off at Megamall, that it wasn’t allowed. I don’t know what he was thinking, that we were stupid or something probably, but after that, we just got out of the cab at the next red light, threw a few pesos at him and left him there yelling after us like an idiot. The driver was playing with our lives and then acted offended and tried to trick us into staying in the cab to get more money from us. Something I find quite often is that people in the Philippines will try to lie to you when money is involved, even if all they can come up with is a lie that a 10 year old could see through.
Riding a taxi can sometimes be the only way to get around in the Philippines, but unlike most countries, there seem to be no standards enforced in terms of safe driving. Or common sense in this case. We could and probably will call the number on the side of the cab, but I doubt anything will actually happen to the guy because of it. He’ll likely continue driving until he has either killed himself, or his passengers, or both. I’ve heard some bad stories about taxi drivers in New York City, but I don’t remember hearing any where the driver was trying to muscle buses out of their lanes or about drivers almost hitting barricades while trying to take an off ramp at the last moment.
Keep that in mind if you plan on taking a taxi in Manila. The only good ones I’ve found are the airport taxis, and even they try to rip you off if you’re from overseas, regardless of what the sign at the airport taxi queue says.
If you’re going to be in Manila for any length of time, it’s probably best to get your own vehicle. Used ones can be purchased at reasonable prices and then resold when (or if) you decide to leave.
Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog 