news from the philippines / when it rains it pours
jesus christ. it's fun here.
i'm going to manila in a few days, but i'll recap some of the highlights and musings thus far.
at ewr i bought a black and white cookie to serve as my last taste of america.
in japan i thought it would be clever to buy some duty free seven stars. i forgot that japan has the highest fucking cost of living in the entire world, so i bought a pack of seven stars and a pack of mild sevens for like fifteen dollars and smoked the both and got pretty sick in my remaining three hours in nagoya. i've not had a cigarette since.
as i slipped in and out of consciousness in flight from nagoya to manila, i thought sleepily that japanese rape porn could probably pass as regular porn in korea, given that all pornstars are absolutely terrible actors and that the girl would be screaming "iie, iie (yeh, yeh)" insistently. what a waste my brain is.
the weather is absolutely gorgeous here.
i'm talking 80s-90s all the time.
and the beaches are pristine.
in fact, while lying in the sand i realized that a good amount of beauty products on the market today are just sorry attempts at beach emulation.
exfoliating body wash in place of sand, instant tan replacing sun, salt scrub trying to be lovely ocean water, hair highlighting stuff = sun (again), the list goes on and on.
which leads me to the belief that all humans were meant to live on the beach.
forever.
(if you disagree with me you're obviously a nazi or retarded.)
tv here is fun, though i don't spend a lot of time watching it.
even in the province there's pride, ufc, and k1 reruns most of the time, domestic dramas (including one with a korean leading lady, oddly enough), j-dramas (including the one with song hye-gyo), completely ridiculous gameshows, and mtv asia, which will forever be > than our own, or even mtv2. for one the vjs are actually attractive, and for two, mtv(a) plays stuff they won't even play on the radio stateside. there's also like four music channels, so there's really always something worth listening too.
i've also watched a bit of the world pool tournament in taiwan and i've absolutely fallen for the cute australian? referee girl at the featured table. sure she's probably like thirty and sure she could probably beat the crap out of me, but that's hot.
furthermore, it seems that the red/brown hair with high pigtails and big earrings a la eugene (s.e.s.) and boa a few years ago has caught on in taiwan, and i have to say i'm in favor of the look's popularity.
christ, cute girls have too much power over me.
oh man, we went to this river with a waterfall to go swimming and there was a karaoke machine there (as there are everywhere here. seriously.) and my family battled a family of japanese-pinoys in an intense singing battle. needless to say we mopped the floor with them, but many of them had a pretty cool habit of chain smoking even while singing, so it was not for them a dishonorable defeat.
i've taken to wearing a bandana to avoid a black forehead and i have to say that it's pretty fun pretending to be a pirate, particularly in front of those with a limited command of english.
i've really come to adore filipinos during my stay here. though often their spending habits are more than a bit illogical, logic isn't what drives them. as len says it's an oft-overpowering love for life, which can often get them in trouble, at least financially, but i can sympathize. i mean what good is a life lived half-assedly?
i've spent the last week or so predominantly with my kuya, and it's rather interesting to discuss the differences and similarities between life as a young pinoy in new jersey and that as a young pinoy in manila. furthermore, our stint in bicol has been a much needed break of pace for both of us, and between swimming and barbecues and just laying around i can't recall a time i've felt more relaxed. additionally he's got a pretty fun cd collection, and i don't imagine i'll be returning home without quite a few excellent albums. he also has the fifty first dates soundtrack, and there are actually three cure covers on it (amazing). as a pre-y2k disintegration owner, i guess i'm entitled to an opinion. but instead there is only a sense of wonderment in realizing how ubiquitous the cure's influence was to shape not only emulators of their sound, but even those whose music would probably not be compared to theirs by any stretch of the imagination. and god damn mother fuck i just realized that i haven't ordered curiosa tickets yet. fuck.
i took like thirty goofy webcam pictures, but they were all deleted because this shitty cybercafé computer ignores save requests from the webcam program. so here are a few i salvaged minus any of the hilarious fun.
(i got a new haircut.)
(i also got a pair of ray-bans for under ten dollars.)
(and yes, that's a brand-new glass eye.)
i wish i had a digicam. i took a few pictures with my mom's autofocus-only minolta, but taking pictures is no fun with af.
oh well. my dorky fun mood has been temporarily ruined by the pains it took to deliver these pictures, but expect more fun once i get to manila.
i had so much more to say but i temporarily forgot most of it given my extreme webcam frustration and from all sorts of other distractions. oh well. i'll tell you more about it later. also look forward to a few words on the pinay situation here (dear christ they're gorgeous). for now, peace and love kids.
i'm going to manila in a few days, but i'll recap some of the highlights and musings thus far.
at ewr i bought a black and white cookie to serve as my last taste of america.
in japan i thought it would be clever to buy some duty free seven stars. i forgot that japan has the highest fucking cost of living in the entire world, so i bought a pack of seven stars and a pack of mild sevens for like fifteen dollars and smoked the both and got pretty sick in my remaining three hours in nagoya. i've not had a cigarette since.
as i slipped in and out of consciousness in flight from nagoya to manila, i thought sleepily that japanese rape porn could probably pass as regular porn in korea, given that all pornstars are absolutely terrible actors and that the girl would be screaming "iie, iie (yeh, yeh)" insistently. what a waste my brain is.
the weather is absolutely gorgeous here.
i'm talking 80s-90s all the time.
and the beaches are pristine.
in fact, while lying in the sand i realized that a good amount of beauty products on the market today are just sorry attempts at beach emulation.
exfoliating body wash in place of sand, instant tan replacing sun, salt scrub trying to be lovely ocean water, hair highlighting stuff = sun (again), the list goes on and on.
which leads me to the belief that all humans were meant to live on the beach.
forever.
(if you disagree with me you're obviously a nazi or retarded.)
tv here is fun, though i don't spend a lot of time watching it.
even in the province there's pride, ufc, and k1 reruns most of the time, domestic dramas (including one with a korean leading lady, oddly enough), j-dramas (including the one with song hye-gyo), completely ridiculous gameshows, and mtv asia, which will forever be > than our own, or even mtv2. for one the vjs are actually attractive, and for two, mtv(a) plays stuff they won't even play on the radio stateside. there's also like four music channels, so there's really always something worth listening too.
i've also watched a bit of the world pool tournament in taiwan and i've absolutely fallen for the cute australian? referee girl at the featured table. sure she's probably like thirty and sure she could probably beat the crap out of me, but that's hot.
furthermore, it seems that the red/brown hair with high pigtails and big earrings a la eugene (s.e.s.) and boa a few years ago has caught on in taiwan, and i have to say i'm in favor of the look's popularity.
christ, cute girls have too much power over me.
oh man, we went to this river with a waterfall to go swimming and there was a karaoke machine there (as there are everywhere here. seriously.) and my family battled a family of japanese-pinoys in an intense singing battle. needless to say we mopped the floor with them, but many of them had a pretty cool habit of chain smoking even while singing, so it was not for them a dishonorable defeat.
i've taken to wearing a bandana to avoid a black forehead and i have to say that it's pretty fun pretending to be a pirate, particularly in front of those with a limited command of english.
i've really come to adore filipinos during my stay here. though often their spending habits are more than a bit illogical, logic isn't what drives them. as len says it's an oft-overpowering love for life, which can often get them in trouble, at least financially, but i can sympathize. i mean what good is a life lived half-assedly?
i've spent the last week or so predominantly with my kuya, and it's rather interesting to discuss the differences and similarities between life as a young pinoy in new jersey and that as a young pinoy in manila. furthermore, our stint in bicol has been a much needed break of pace for both of us, and between swimming and barbecues and just laying around i can't recall a time i've felt more relaxed. additionally he's got a pretty fun cd collection, and i don't imagine i'll be returning home without quite a few excellent albums. he also has the fifty first dates soundtrack, and there are actually three cure covers on it (amazing). as a pre-y2k disintegration owner, i guess i'm entitled to an opinion. but instead there is only a sense of wonderment in realizing how ubiquitous the cure's influence was to shape not only emulators of their sound, but even those whose music would probably not be compared to theirs by any stretch of the imagination. and god damn mother fuck i just realized that i haven't ordered curiosa tickets yet. fuck.
i took like thirty goofy webcam pictures, but they were all deleted because this shitty cybercafé computer ignores save requests from the webcam program. so here are a few i salvaged minus any of the hilarious fun.
(i got a new haircut.)
(i also got a pair of ray-bans for under ten dollars.)
(and yes, that's a brand-new glass eye.)
i wish i had a digicam. i took a few pictures with my mom's autofocus-only minolta, but taking pictures is no fun with af.
oh well. my dorky fun mood has been temporarily ruined by the pains it took to deliver these pictures, but expect more fun once i get to manila.
i had so much more to say but i temporarily forgot most of it given my extreme webcam frustration and from all sorts of other distractions. oh well. i'll tell you more about it later. also look forward to a few words on the pinay situation here (dear christ they're gorgeous). for now, peace and love kids.