Happy belated birthday to me. I'm now 25, and have been so for a month and a day. You could argue that its rather pretentious to title a blog "A Quarter of a Century of Excellence" for your own 25th birthday. And to those people I would say, yes, I suppose it is. But it was my birthday a month and a day ago. And on your birthday you can be pretentious. Alternatively you can also have traveler's diarreah on your birthday. And that's exactly what happened to me one month and one day ago today.
I was in the Philippines with Koichi, completely exhausted, first from an acute case of culture shock and then from an acute case of... well, you know by now. We had planned to take a ferry on my birthday to a beach about five hours away from where we were staying in Manila. The day before, two typhoons swept into the area... one off the coast of Manila, the other inside my large intestine. Needless to say, the hour and a half "ferry" ride (really it was a dingy) the next day was a true delight. I think the only reason I didn't puke was because I hadn't eaten anything on account of already being sick. But we made it to dry land, and once we regained our sea legs (and stomachs), we had a rather pleasant day and night at the beach. It was truely a nice break from the craziness of Manila. Only one thing loomed in our minds as my birthday came to an end that night (and it sure came early... I feel asleep at 9 p.m.!) ... we still had to survive another boat ride back to Manila in the morning.
The next morning, Koichi and I woke up to stare in horror at the sea. Giant waves crashed violently onto the shore and collided with the break walls, water gushing onto the street... the only tiny, crumbling street that connected our hotel to the marina. We watched in horror as the locals timed their crossing with the thrashing waves, running frantically to safety before the next wave came crashing down. Koichi made it across. I was not so lucky. In hindsite, I was fortunate I only got soaked. The wave could have knocked me down, or worse yet, dragged me into the sea. But at the time, I was sick and about to be tortured for an hour and a half, so my dripping pants and soggy sneakers made me feel anything but fortunate.
But something fortunate was about to happen... fortunately. Althought the waves continued to rattle the boats and our nerves, our trip would prove to be a bit smoother than the last. Our boat arrived and this time it much closer to deserving it's title of "ferry". In fact, for the sake of this blog I will call it a ferry, without quotation marks. So the boat was bigger, Koichi and I got better seats, the crew was nicer, and quite honestly, after the experience we had the day before, this boat felt like a cruise ship. A cruise ship where everyone had drunk too much the night before. At one point, a Korean tourist who had had his head between his knees since before the boat even left the bay got soaked by a wave that splashed into the boat. He had held it in for nearly an hour, but that was it. From that point on, if you needed him, he was hanging over the edge of the boat. I thought they were going to have to carry the poor guy off once we arrived at the marina!
When we finally did make it to the marina, I was actually feeling much better, and even a little triumphant. I never want to get into any vessel that calls itself a ferry every again (and that's a good thing to remember since I am going to be in northern Morocco), but I made it, and with a stomach bug to boot. I should add, however, that while neither Koichi nor I are in a huge hurry to go back, the nice coulpe who sat next to us on the ferry back to Manila did say that in all their year living in the area, they had never ever had such a terrible boat ride. So please, don't let my experience prevent you from hopping into a "ferry" in the Philippines during a typhoon... should the opportunity ever arise.
So, that's typhoon number one. Typhoon number two took place in Japan while leaving to return to the US. While much less eventful than the first typhoon ( I think everyone says their first typhoon is the most memorable, and they just stop taking pictures after that), there is one oddity I would like to point out. So while my flight was not canceled, my train was. To be honest, I don't know what was more surprising - that a little rain could cause a train to be canceled, or that a train was canceled -for any reason- in Japan. Luckily I had the help of some friends who did know such things were possible, and so I made it to the airport on time and in one slighlty frazzled piece.
And that leaves me with a natural disaster (earthquake) and an unnatural disaster (customs), which I will save for another day. I'm in Pittsburgh now, getting ready to go to Morocco, and I have a ton of things to do. After all, I am 25 years, one month and one day old today, and I'm not getting any younger.
I was in the Philippines with Koichi, completely exhausted, first from an acute case of culture shock and then from an acute case of... well, you know by now. We had planned to take a ferry on my birthday to a beach about five hours away from where we were staying in Manila. The day before, two typhoons swept into the area... one off the coast of Manila, the other inside my large intestine. Needless to say, the hour and a half "ferry" ride (really it was a dingy) the next day was a true delight. I think the only reason I didn't puke was because I hadn't eaten anything on account of already being sick. But we made it to dry land, and once we regained our sea legs (and stomachs), we had a rather pleasant day and night at the beach. It was truely a nice break from the craziness of Manila. Only one thing loomed in our minds as my birthday came to an end that night (and it sure came early... I feel asleep at 9 p.m.!) ... we still had to survive another boat ride back to Manila in the morning.
The next morning, Koichi and I woke up to stare in horror at the sea. Giant waves crashed violently onto the shore and collided with the break walls, water gushing onto the street... the only tiny, crumbling street that connected our hotel to the marina. We watched in horror as the locals timed their crossing with the thrashing waves, running frantically to safety before the next wave came crashing down. Koichi made it across. I was not so lucky. In hindsite, I was fortunate I only got soaked. The wave could have knocked me down, or worse yet, dragged me into the sea. But at the time, I was sick and about to be tortured for an hour and a half, so my dripping pants and soggy sneakers made me feel anything but fortunate.
But something fortunate was about to happen... fortunately. Althought the waves continued to rattle the boats and our nerves, our trip would prove to be a bit smoother than the last. Our boat arrived and this time it much closer to deserving it's title of "ferry". In fact, for the sake of this blog I will call it a ferry, without quotation marks. So the boat was bigger, Koichi and I got better seats, the crew was nicer, and quite honestly, after the experience we had the day before, this boat felt like a cruise ship. A cruise ship where everyone had drunk too much the night before. At one point, a Korean tourist who had had his head between his knees since before the boat even left the bay got soaked by a wave that splashed into the boat. He had held it in for nearly an hour, but that was it. From that point on, if you needed him, he was hanging over the edge of the boat. I thought they were going to have to carry the poor guy off once we arrived at the marina!
When we finally did make it to the marina, I was actually feeling much better, and even a little triumphant. I never want to get into any vessel that calls itself a ferry every again (and that's a good thing to remember since I am going to be in northern Morocco), but I made it, and with a stomach bug to boot. I should add, however, that while neither Koichi nor I are in a huge hurry to go back, the nice coulpe who sat next to us on the ferry back to Manila did say that in all their year living in the area, they had never ever had such a terrible boat ride. So please, don't let my experience prevent you from hopping into a "ferry" in the Philippines during a typhoon... should the opportunity ever arise.
So, that's typhoon number one. Typhoon number two took place in Japan while leaving to return to the US. While much less eventful than the first typhoon ( I think everyone says their first typhoon is the most memorable, and they just stop taking pictures after that), there is one oddity I would like to point out. So while my flight was not canceled, my train was. To be honest, I don't know what was more surprising - that a little rain could cause a train to be canceled, or that a train was canceled -for any reason- in Japan. Luckily I had the help of some friends who did know such things were possible, and so I made it to the airport on time and in one slighlty frazzled piece.
And that leaves me with a natural disaster (earthquake) and an unnatural disaster (customs), which I will save for another day. I'm in Pittsburgh now, getting ready to go to Morocco, and I have a ton of things to do. After all, I am 25 years, one month and one day old today, and I'm not getting any younger.
Koichi at Puerto Galera. I don't think the boat in background was our boat, but it was very similar. Note that the weather was actually nice most of the time, despite the typhoon. Tropical weather is a mystery to me.
Our hotel, The Oriental (MOM!!). It was really beautiful.
Me "eating" my birthday dinner. I got asparagus soup, but Koichi ate most of it since I still wasn't feeling great. The people at the restaurant were really nice. When they found out it was my birthday, they put on the "Birthday CD", which played the birthday song in a couple different genres. Koichi and I also spilt some yummy fried bananas for desert!
A picture taken from our boat as we headed back to Manila. Note the giant wave crashing onto the shore.
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